§ 1. Mr. TrickettTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on trade union rights at GCHQ. [1158]
§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook)I announced on 15 May that we were fulfilling our long-standing commitment to restore to staff at GCHQ the freedom to join the independent trade union of their choice. Management and unions will shortly commence negotiations on a collective agreement to provide safeguards against disruption. GCHQ staff make a valuable contribution to protecting the liberties and freedoms of our country. They are now able to share fully in one of the important liberties that they defend.
§ Mr. TrickettWill the Foreign Secretary accept that millions of people, both here and abroad, will welcome his statement this afternoon? Does he agree with the sacked GCHQ workers that this was a wrong that was righted at long last? Does he accept that the ban on trade unions at GCHQ has done us profound damage abroad and that, while the ban continued, it was impossible for this country to lecture others on respect for human rights?
§ Mr. CookI am glad of the warm welcome that has been given to our announcement by many of the 14 members of staff who were dismissed because of their refusal to give up trade union activity. The Labour party has never accepted the vile slur on which the ban was based: that people cannot be patriotic and also loyal to a trade union. That was a slur not just on the GCHQ staff, but on millions of patriotic trade union members and I am glad that we have put that right.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyDoes the right hon. Gentleman agree that it was a mistake for the national unions to call GCHQ workers out on strike? Will he name another country in the western world where people involved in signals intelligence were able either to join a union or to go on strike? Would he care to say whether he would like his staff overseas to be able to go on declaring around the world that this country is now virtually national-strike-free?
§ Mr. CookI can assure the hon. Gentleman that this country will continue to do its duty and will see that duty done by its staff abroad. We have seen an excellent example of the way in which Foreign Office staff work without regard to any consideration of rights and conditions in the way that our staff at Sierra Leone managed the magnificent evacuation of 2,000 people, which was done by only five people working around the clock. Therefore, the slur that the hon. Gentleman makes on Foreign Office staff is unacceptable.
930 We are considering the provision, by collective agreement, against disruption by GCHQ staff, but the hon. Gentleman is very wide of the mark. Far from being the odd one out now because we have restored the rights to join a trade union at GCHQ, it was during the period of the hon. Gentleman's Government that Britain was out of step with the rest of the world and was nearly required to leave the International Labour Organisation because we could not meet its conditions.
§ Mr. Nigel JonesI congratulate the Foreign Secretary on removing the ban on trade union rights for GCHQ staff.
Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the possibility of compensating those 14 workers who were sacked because of continuing to stick to their principles? Most of them are my constituents. Mike Grindley, Clive Lloyd—all those brave people stuck to their principles through thick and thin and deserve some recognition for that.
§ Mr. CookI am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's congratulations.
I understand that compensation is being discussed between management and the 14 people concerned. Compensation was paid to the limit at the time of their dismissal. We would have to think carefully before we undertook any commitment to compensate people who lost employment during the 18 years of the previous Government, or the bill could be very large indeed.