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I attended UNISON’s National Delegates Conference (NDC) in The Preliminary Agenda for the NDC was then issued, and all Branches – and the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) were then able to submit Amendments. The NEC had actually sought to strengthen Motion 100 (“TAX CREDIT OVERPAYMENT – UNFAIR CLAWBACK OF PAYMENTS”) with their own amendment, 100.01, which updated the Motion with the recent changes to COP26, as well as strengthening what was being asked of the union in terms of future support…for the Tax Credit Casualties! So, armed with my copy of the Conference Documents containing our Branch’s original Motion, with the NEC indicating their policy was to “SUPPORT”, and with a positively worded Amendment having been added by the NEC itself, I came to Conference with great optimism. I attended Conference with high hopes of moving this Motion at the Conference itself, and perhaps rather naively thought that all 117 Motions contained in that pre-Conference booklet, together with all the ‘Composite’ Motions (where the NEC has received so many Motions that they have been amalgamated), and the Emergency Motions approved by the SOC would be moved, discussed and put to Conference for support. Not so. It was evident from the first day that this was just not going to happen, even in a four day Conference, because there was so much else going on. Presidential addresses, keynote speeches, the moving of rule changes, presentations from the union, a closing tribute and presentation to the President – all these things took a massive amount of time. The union had prioritised Motions so that some were likely to get heard, others not. Passionate about getting the current, abusive Tax Credit ‘system’ changed, I was dismayed to find that in all likelihood the Motion would not be heard over the four days of Conference. And, despite the efforts of my Branch and Region (South East), it was not. After much lobbying of delegates I had met at Conference, pleading with the Standing Orders Committee (who actually never re-prioritise a Motion, it seems – although it doesn’t stop delegates and Branches begging), doing the rounds of the Regional Newsheets Teams (my great thanks go to the South East, South West and Cymru who did their bit to help), and presenting a case for re-prioritisation to the whole South East Region at our re-prioritisation meeting on Wednesday evening, we managed to get Motion 100 as our Region’s second priority (helped by the fact that the mover of the NEC amendment, a lovely woman called Emma, was also from our Region and spoke in favour of re-prioritisation). In our region it was beaten only by Motion 63, ‘NEW LABOUR – WHAT DO WE GET FOR OUR MONEY’, which was asking UNISON to review the political fund which currently contributes to the Labour Party, in the light of the fact that ‘UNISON members are increasingly angry at the continued onslaught on public services, workers jobs, wages and conditions by the New Labour government and its policies’. A worthy winner! Although Motion 100 was voted 13th in the whole Conference’s order of reprioritisation, I believe we only reached the second or third priority item, so apart from raising ‘Points of Order’ (where a delegate asks that ‘the question be put’ if the debate is running on, points are being reiterated and the mood of the Conference is fairly clear as to how voting will go, so that winding up seems the best thing to do in the interests of a wider agenda), I didn’t get to speak. However, the SOC and NEC assured me that Motions which were not moved will be individually considered by the NEC after Conference and still become UNISON policy, so fingers crossed. This was my first time as a Conference delegate, and I am not a Committee person, so I was picking this all up as I went along, with the consequent faux pas and a few raps on the knuckle when something I had been told was okay to do by one person was considered not quite the ‘done thing’ by another. It was a strange situation to be in, as I was here on ‘Branch business’ yet unable to forget the thousands of overpaid victims I felt I was representing, which had a tendency to make me single-minded in terms of seeing Motion 100 reach the agenda and be properly debated. It got me into a few little scrapes, but all unintentional, any kind of political activity carrying this kind of risk, it seems: ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ being quite a minefield for the uninitiated. I am sorry for the consternation I caused when I lost all track of time popping out for the toilet but ending up in (invaluable, it turned out) discussion with a Labour Link Parliamentary Candidate about the hopelessness of the current Tax Credit system. I didn’t even hear the bell which was apparently ringing for the Card Vote (a voting slip used when decisions are really split), and unwittingly left my Branch’s Assistant Secretary worrying what had happened to me, and wishing she had a pack of Guides to look after on camp rather than such a wayward delegate. Nerves were running high whilst I waited patiently in a queue of about thirty delegates in hopes of speaking in support of Motion 63, the best debate of the whole Conference, but it was fairly obvious that the debate couldn’t continue indefinitely, and the Conference was already running late because of the strength of feeling on this issue. As soon as Motion 63 was announced, there was a stampede to the front, and had I have had the chance to speak, I would have told Conference why all my UNISON subs go to the General Political Fund and not New Labour. Not one word in support of New Labour policies was heard at Conference all week; the best that was ever said was that they were not Thatcher’s Conservatives nor the BNP! The Motion was narrowly lost to the NEC’s Amendment which completely neutralised the original Motion, the argument being that we could only change the Labour Party by keeping some links to it! I left Conference with my hands clapped raw from every comment about our delightful Mr Brown. I do hope that New Labour will take away a strong message from this Conference, even without any debate of their lousy Tax Credit ‘system’: that their policies are wounding the lowest income families they claim to support, and the days of tolerance are over. We have had 11 years of this, and we are not going to shut up and put up any more. They must change or be voted out, probably to be many years in the political wilderness, as they were after the last ‘Winter of Discontent’. I am cautiously optimistic that Motion 100 will be supported ‘behind the scenes’ by the NEC and become UNISON policy. I enjoyed Conference – in a masochistic way – and was able to network with two Labour Link people in particular who expressed a desire to look more closely at the Tax Credit overpayment recovery issue and put pressure on Brown to properly sort this out. One tentatively suggested to me that I opt back in to paying New Labour, as then I had voting rights over policy and she could procure a meeting with Gordon Brown! I insisted I wouldn’t support my oppressor, just as I would never reward someone who had previously mugged me with gifts, but we reached a compromise, with my offering to re-join the Affiliated Political Fund on a backdated basis after we had had our audience with Brown, Darling or Kennedy. My reward for sitting through the presentation ceremony to the President (also a Labour MP I had managed to corner one evening with everything wrong about the Tax Credit system, who had assured me she stood for Labour and not this government), was to discover that Dave Anderson, the Tax Credit Casualties’ most sympathetic Labour MP (for Blaydon), was sitting in the audience! One ‘Voices of the Victims’ pack later, and he promised to give us support through his constituent Alan. We just need to let him know exactly what we want him to do. I also found, from UNISON Welfare, that Tax Credits (unsurprisingly) are a major source of calls for their support and for financial assistance, so I passed on some information, and would recommend that any Tax Credit Casualties who are also UNISON members take advantage of the UNISON Welfare scheme. Conference was quite an experience, and I would encourage any union activists reading this – especially from other unions – to consider raising awareness themselves by submitting Motions for their own National Delegates Conferences. Perhaps next time there will be a full debate! Alison Myers-Ward, 23rd June 2008.
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Tax Credit Casualties (TCC) is a voluntary, unfunded, not for profit
organisation run by members for members. We cannot take any responsibility for
decisions made by HMRC, The Parliamentary Ombudsman, The Adjudicator, or any
other organisation, regarding claimants cases. We offer free advice on how to
dispute unfair overpayments based on our own experiences, the experiences of
other claimants and HMRC guidelines.
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