PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS REGULATIONS AND COMPULSORY COMPETITIVE TENDERING (26 March 1993)

That this House notes, in connection with the TUC's Acquired Rights Day on 2nd April, the Government's repeated attempts over the last 14 years to avoid implementing the Acquired Rights Directive 1977; further notes the Secretary of State for the Environment's claims that it does not apply to compulsory competitive tendering and his threats to take action against any local or health authority that seeks to protect taxpayers by warning tenderers of the possibility that it may apply; is concened that not even his fellow Cabinet Ministers believe his line; believes that his desperate attempts to avoid applying this Directive to compulsory competitive tendering reveals his secret agenda aimed at using compulsory competitive tendering to exploit people by depriving them of their contractual rights and cutting the pay and hours of workers, many of whom are already amongst the lowest paid in Britain; following the recent acknowledgement by Goodmayes Hospital in Essex that the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations apply to contracting out domestic services at the hospital; calls on the Secretary of State to end his obstructiveness and start assisting local and health authorities to apply the Directive correctly; and recognises this as another in a long line of attempts by this Government to deny British citizens the individual rights enjoyed by every other EC citizen.

Sponsored by:
Keith Vaz (Labour)