ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Let’s talk more on those plans to take on the unions. The Prime Minister has ordered an inquiry into alleged bullying tactics by unions in the wake of the Grangemouth industrial dispute. The Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude joins me from West Sussex, a very good morning to you Mr Maude. Do you feel that industrial relations are bad at the moment in this country?

FRANCIS MAUDE: No, for the most part they are very good and that’s very much to be welcomed and we have done some difficult things in the public sector dealing with the massive budget deficit that the coalition government inherited, which have involved some difficult discussions with the TUC and that’s been embarked upon for the most part in a rational way. There have been some industrial relations issues but by and large we negotiate our way round it. What this is about is some evidence being presented of specific concerns about inappropriate and intimidatory activity and there has been allegation and counter-allegation and I think because certainly at Grangemouth, we were talking about the energy supplies to much of Scotland and this is part of Britain’s critical national infrastructure, so we can’t be relaxed about that. So the first thing a responsible government would want to do is to establish the facts so we have appointed a senior QC independent to examine the facts, to make findings of facts and then to look at whether the law as it stands at the moment is adequate to protect the public against this kind of activity.

DM: You know what your opponents are saying about you, that you are doing this for political reasons, that you are trying to whip up images of the 1970s. I just looked up the statistics here, in 1979 when you were just getting into politics wasn’t it, 29 million days lost to industrial action. 2012 – 243,000. We don’t really need an inquiry into relations with the unions do we?

FRANCIS MAUDE: Well it isn’t an inquiry into everything to do with the unions, that’s not what this is about. It is a balanced, as my colleagues in the government have made clear, it is a balanced and impartial inquiry looking into what goes on in industrial disputes to see whether the law is adequate. Now of course we don’t have an industrial relations landscape like we had in the 1970s thanks to the law changes brought through by the Conservative government in the 1980s and 90s, we’re in a very different landscape. Frankly, for the most part, there is a different generation of union leaders now who do want to work much more in partnership with employers so this is not saying everything is wrong, it is saying that there has been some evidence provided, some allegations made, of practises, so-called leverage practices which involved in some cases quite unpleasant examples of intimidation against fellow workers and against management and that’s not acceptable so we first of all need to establish the facts and then to see whether the law needs changing, and no one is making any assumption that it does, to protect the public against this kind of activity.

DM: That is the interesting point isn’t it, you said it again, that the law may not be adequate and therefore the implication is that what may follow is new laws. Now you’ve had one specific recommendation from the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, he is very concerned about the balloting that takes place. Is that something you would look at, when under 50% of a union membership votes in a ballot for strike action the outcome may be that 75% of those that voted vote for strike action, but nevertheless it is a tiny minority of the total membership. Is that something you could look at?

FRANCIS MAUDE: Well that wouldn’t be part of this, this is about the kind of leverage type activities, tactics, that have been apparently used and were used around the Grangemouth dispute and what Boris is talking about is the absolutely clear phenomenon that often you have a strike ballot which has a majority in favour of strike action but based on a tiny and unrepresentative turnout and that’s a different issue which we’ve looked at. We’ve decided that while we keep it under review, that that’s not a priority for action but this is a different and much more limited issue but one which has raised a lot of public concern and for the government, with our responsibility for ensuring that our critical national infrastructure is protected in the interest of the public and in the interest of fellow works, that we need to look at this properly.

DM: But could you see a law being framed, and you mentioned leveraging or leveraging I suppose in English, could you see that finding a way of outlawing that?

FRANCIS MAUDE: Outlawing what?

DM: Leveraging, protesting outside relatives houses and things like that.

FRANCIS MAUDE: Yes, to the extent that some of that will probably be outside the law as it is, some of it may not be and there may need to be changes to the law. It is for exactly that reason that we have asked this very distinguished QC to conduct this inquiry. He will be assisted by two assessors, one an industrial relations expert from the industry, from the employers side and one from the trade union side, so this will look in a very objective way at this. We’re not leaping for the statute book, we’re not a government who thinks the answer to every problem is legislation but we do need first to establish the facts and second to see whether the law as it stands at the moment is sufficient to protect the public and to protect fellow employees from the activities of particular union leaders.

DM: I just wanted to ask you about another thing, there is a lot going on I know in the Cabinet Office and the beady eye you keep on government costs and government contracts and things like that. We see that Serco and G4S have been hauled in before the Public Accounts Committee later this week, now these are companies that have been investigated for allegations of fraud and all kinds of things and huge amounts of public money go to them. No doubt you’ll be keeping a very close eye on what they say at the Public Accounts Committee.

FRANCIS MAUDE: Yes indeed and it isn’t just those companies that are going in front of the PAC, it is also some other outsourcing companies. Governments over many years now have been taking the view that the old approach that all public services have to be delivered by the public sector, that’s an old fashioned and outdated view and there are many better ways of doing things. Now one of them is straightforward outsourcing, the view we as a coalition have taken is that the old yes/no choice between in house and full blooded outsourcing, that’s a bit out of date as well. So we’re going for a much broader and more sophisticated approach where we are looking at joint ventures, we announced one the other day where the interests of the tax payer and the public and the outsourced supplier, the new entity that we create as a joint venture, are properly ed and we can see continuing to drive down costs. So we are looking at much better ways of doing it but the issues that we have been with contracts all flow so far [inaudible] by the last government.

DM: The specific issue is the appropriateness of these companies who have been accused, one of them has been accused of attempting to defraud – and it is an accusation – defraud the Ministry of Justice for instance. If those allegations are proven and the Serious Fraud Office is looking into it, is it appropriate that companies like that continue to get public money?

FRANCIS MAUDE: Well those allegations obviously are being properly investigated as you’d expect and we await the outcome of those investigations. Obviously we need to be sure that companies to whom we entrust the discharge of important public services can be relied upon so companies that have been accused of malpractice need to show that the have dealt with the issues in a robust way and a sustainable way so that they can win back the trust of the government, win back the trust of the public and the taxpayer can be confident that taxpayers money is well spent. So far we have saved a lot of taxpayers money by doing things much better in a much more kind of grown-up and business like way than had traditionally been the case. Last year alone through the activities that I lead in the Cabinet Office the government saved over £10 billion of taxpayers money and we intend to go further down this path, but we need to be confident that the companies to whom we entrust important public services have got themselves sorted out so that we can rely on them.

DM: And lastly, Mr Maude, just a thought on is it worthwhile having a look at this proposal on the front of the Sunday Times today, is it worthwhile having a look at lowering the age of consent in the UK?

FRANCIS MAUDE: Well I saw the story, I saw the interview by this academic and I am afraid I profoundly disagree. The law, the age of consent as it is, is there to protect young people and I see nothing remotely resembling a case which suggests that this should be reopened.

DM: Mr Maude, thank you very much indeed, Francis Maude there.