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Mr. Rathbone: A couple of questions arise from the Minister's reply--which I much appreciated. He has certainly reassured me about what he would like to see happen, but it does not reassure me about the behaviour of the authorities. There have been long-drawn-out conversations between the East Sussex, Brighton and Hove authority and the West Sussex authority, which have reached a complete impasse. Based on my correspondence with the authorities, they have shown no sign in the past year of overcoming that impasse. Any additional guidelines that the Minister can provide would help. Any assistance that he can give to hospices, so that they can be on a more equal footing in their contractual arrangements, would also be appreciated.
The Minister mentioned the need to close the funding gap for the two authorities to bring them up to the national norm. Therefore--I did not anticipate that the debate
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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris):
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that interventions should be used to intervene in the debate and not to make a second speech.
Mr. Rathbone:
I agree absolutely, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I stand admonished by your ruling. I was seeking clarification from the Minister on two extremely important points. I hope that he has taken them on board. He still has a moment in which to apply his mind to them.
Mr. Horam:
First, I realise that the problem has been a matter of debate between the two authorities. As a result of the points made by my hon. Friend in this debate, and particularly because of the immediacy of the financial problems faced by the hospice, I shall ask the authorities to re-examine the matter, in conjunction with the hospice, to discover the exact financial problems.
Secondly, I can reassure my hon. Friend that we realise the funding problems faced by the authorities. We hope that there will be further progress in narrowing the gap between the authorities' current position and the norm in the announcement about health authority funding for the next financial year. That will mean increased real resources for the two health authorities to tackle the problem and will allow them to give the problem the priority that they would wish to accord it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. As the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) and the Minister are in the Chamber, we can begin the next debate early.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am pleased that we have an extra three minutes for the debate, because it is about a matter of great importance. I should say that I have corresponded with the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby) on the matter, and I am glad that he is in the Chamber today. In accordance with previous rulings from Madam Speaker, I sent him a note last night to confirm that I would be speaking in the debate.
I should also say that I am a member of Unison, which is the union involved in the dispute. I am a former official of Unison, and was supported by it in the most recent general election. I am very proud to be a member of Unison and to be involved with it.
The dispute has been going on for just over a year. A group of women and one man, who are cleaners at the Hillingdon hospital, have been trying to get back their jobs. They have stood outside the hospital in foul, wet weather and in fine, dry weather, suffering harassment, abuse and abominable behaviour by passers-by. They have also suffered at the hands of the obdurate management of a very large, wealthy and powerful company, known as Pall Mall Services.
The background to the dispute is that, in October 1994, Pall Mall, Healthcare Support Services won a contract to provide cleaning services at the Hillingdon hospital. It sent all staff a letter, on 3 October 1994, which stated:
One year later, a number of staff received a letter saying:
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Accordingly, Pall Mall took the opportunity to dismiss the cleaners. I have a list of some comparisons between the former terms and conditions and the new ones which shows, for example, that London weighting is no longer applicable, holidays are reduced, sick pay is likely to be reduced and basic wages are lowered. Indeed, the whole gamut of working conditions has been made considerably worse for the women employed at the hospital.
We must ask what is the Pall Mall group and why is it behaving in such a way. It is a very large organisation; it employs more than 10,000 people. Its turnover is more than £70 million a year. Its profits are more than £2 million a year. In 1994, it recorded a profit of £2.2 million, yet the giant organisation is built on sweat, low wages, poor working conditions and aggressive management techniques. The average pay of those in Pall Mall employment is not much more than £5,000 a year. Six Pall Mall directors pay themselves more than £300,000 a year. In other words, they consider themselves more valuable than 63 cleaners. That is the sort of organisation with which we are dealing.
Although the company was forced in 1994 to accept the TUPE regulations, it has not tried to adhere to them. Indeed, it has constantly harassed and lobbied the Government in its efforts to amend or renegotiate its way out of them because, when it wins a contract to take over cleaning in a hospital or any other place, it does not like to have to honour existing terms and conditions or take on the existing staff. It is not a model employer by any means. It has been found against in disputes on a number of occasions--most prominently and recently in a case of persistent sexual harassment against one woman employee, for which it had to pay out £10,000.
12.57 pm
"Re: Transfer Of Contract--Initial Healthcare Services to Pall Mall Healthcare--Hillingdon Hospital, 17.10.94.
Those were high hopes indeed.
We are delighted to have won the contract to provide support services at Hillingdon Hospital and are pleased to confirm, following our presentation and individual meeting, your transfer from Initial Healthcare Services to Pall Mall Healthcare on 17th October 1994.
We will shortly be completing a contract of employment for you, but as you are transferring under the Transfer of Undertaking Regulations, your terms and conditions will remain the same.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you in advance for your help in making the transfer as smooth as possible and look forward to a successful working partnership as part of the Pall Mall team."
"We wrote to you on 30th June 1995 giving you notice that your contract of employment would terminate on 30th September 1995 and confirming that a new contract of employment was on offer from 1st October. We wrote to you again on 29th August once again to offer you the opportunity to accept the new contract of employment.
There is an entire story between those two letters. Pall Mall took over the cleaning of Hillingdon hospital and, in accordance with the law, maintained the staff under the conditions set out in the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employees) Regulations 1981, and confirmed in writing that they would continue to be paid properly. Yet a very short time into the contract, Pall Mall
We are sorry that you have chosen not to accept our offers of a new contract and confirm that accordingly your contract of employment terminated with effect from Saturday 30th September 1995.
If you wish to accept our offer it remains available for acceptance at the moment but will expire without further notice when we have no further vacancies."
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