Question: You've described Tony Blair's proposals over private sector involvement in the public services as a cocktail of confusion. A few weeks later are you any clearer about his plans?

Bill Morris: Well let me say I haven't described Tony Blair's proposals because I don't know what the proposals are. What I do know is that we have experienced a constant shift of policies in respect of certain sectors within the public services- for example in health we've judged success or failure on the waiting times, the number of beds, on the number of operations- a whole raft of different measurements. In education we've got education actions on literacy, numeracy, and what I am saying is the current generation of managers in the public services and civil service under the previous government, the Conservative government, was brought up in a culture of cuts and cuts and cuts again. Two years ago - because for the first two years Labour government kept to Conservative's spending limits, also in the last two years it's been spend, spend, and spend some more. You can't turn the QE2 in five minutes, and what we've not had is consistency of policy and not even Solomon could in fact manage successfully if the policies keep changing because some policies contradict each other. So it wasn't a personal comment in that sense, it was drawing attention to the fact that we've not had consistency of policies and we've got politicians asking for quick wins and quick fixes every Monday morning.

Question: So would you accept any private sector management practices within public services?

Bill Morris: Well no private sector could manage by changing the strategies and changing the policy and having new direction with the degree of frequency that the current public sector managers have to cope with. If I am a manager - I am a chief executive in my organisation, my board lays down the policy I determine the strategy and the tactics and get on with it, and that's why I'm a successful manger of the Transport and General Workers' Union. Because I have consistency of policy and I have support. Nobody denigrates me, nobody demoralises me, everybody supports me. And that's what is needed. And there are no criteria for public service managers, there's no level of managerial competency. But I've not just criticised, I've made constructive suggestions that we should determine a code of managerial competency for the public service managers, we should assess our existing managers against that code and seek to help them to attain the required levels, and when they can't obviously we have to re deploy and, as a third point, we should establish an academy of excellence for our public service managers and recapture the public services' ethos. That's where our markets are, it's not just a critical analysis of the situation, it's also a constructive contribution towards the solutions.

Question: Where could public sector managers be more efficient?

Bill Morris: Oh I'm sure that every manager could be more efficient, providing you give them proper objectives and providing you give them proper resources and proper support. If you have all those three key ingredients for successful managements then I think everybody's performance could be improved.

Question: What affect has the public-private debate had on the morale of public service workers?

Bill Morris: Well I think it has sapped their morale and it's left them in an element of confusion and unknown. It's left them in, if you like, in unknown territory here as to exactly where the debate is going because they're getting some mixed messages. Sometimes they're told that they will still be employed in the National Health Service and there are a couple of experiments here, although the capital funding and indeed some managers will be from the private sector, but as employees their status will not change. In other instances, the reverse is the situation. So there's no consistency of policy and that's what we believe is one of the important ingredients that has to be injected into the debate - some consistency of policy

Question: Lord Hattersley argues that Tony Blair is captivated by private enterprise, and that some of his more gun-ho ministers have shown contempt for unions. Would you go along with that analysis?

Bill Morris: Well I have seen no evidence of captivation, neither have I seen any evidence of contempt - nobody has shown me any contempt. I meet a number of ministers from time to time and they've always treated me with courtesy and I treat them with courtesy. I reserve the right to give support to the government when I think the government's policies are right and can be in the best interest of my members. But I also reserve the right to be critical when the government's policies mitigate against my members' interests. So I have a very constructive and independent relationship with government and ministers.

Question: Tony Blair argued that he is simply trying to be pragmatic and bring in new solutions to the public sectors, and private sector involvement could be one of those solutions, and people like you are blocking it. What's your response to that?

Bill Morris: Well let me make it absolutely clear that I'm not blocking anybody. I come to the debate by what I call a triple stake holding route. By that I mean that my members' along with myself personally' we are tax payers' we pay our taxes which funds public services' we deliver the service at the sharp end - Transport and General members - and we're consumers of it - I use the National Health Service' - I've got an interest in the education service with my family, and therefore I have a legitimate right to make an intervention in the debate from those three perspectives. It's not a private conversation in the Cabinet, it's a public debate and as a taxpayer, a consumer and indeed as a provider I have a legitimate contribution in this debate and I defer to no one in exercising that right.

Question: Do you think he's being influenced by businesses too much here?

Bill Morris: I have no knowledge as to what drives the Prime Minister and what are the influences which is being brought to bear. I judge each issue on the basis of the practical proposition as it's expressed and as I've already said, our judgement is that it it's conducive to all our members' interests then we support it, if not then we oppose it. It's a very pragmatic view that we take in the debate.

Question: The GMB has slashed its donations to the Labour Party in protest over this and UNISON is debating whether to withhold funding. Is this something the Transport and General Workers Union is considering?

Bill Morris: No I can tell you the Transport and General Workers' Union will not be stopping any funds to the Labour Party. We've already considered the issue at my conference two weeks' ago and the conference voted unanimously to give support to the Labour Party. I have made public statements that there will be no divorce or no separation in our relationship and I am on record as saying that the Labour Party is the only show, the only game, in town. So as far as that's concerned, it's not on the agenda in no shape and no form.

Question: The government promised to bring in family friendly work policy. Do you think they've delivered any?

Bill Morris: I think their intentions are good in the context of the recognition that we've got a flexible labour market and a lot of people are working flexibly, and there needs to be a response in order to balance work, home and family responsibility for male and female. So the principles are well founded and we are satisfied that they recognise the arguments and the case. Nevertheless in some areas we have concerns about the practical position. One example is the debate about the right to work part time as a result of family requirements. What we have is a right which quite frankly is limited to the right to ask. Well we say that you need to have a position to ensure that management justify saying no. And you can only test that if you are able to take your case to a tribunal. And I think that for workers in the 21st century to be limited only to the right to ask in Britain today says more about the government than it does about the workers.

Question: Businesses argue though that this would cripple businesses if workers had the legal right to work part time. So if it isn't economically viable, isn't it business's right to oppose workers having the right to decide when they work?

Bill Morris: No, I hear the arguments and we have never said that in every single circumstance, the answer must be yes. But what we do say is that where the answer is no, then the worker should have the right to go to a tribunal so that the no can be justified, and the no can be tested against reality. And this is the problem - everything that business asks for, the government gives in to and they're denying workers the right to have their rights tested. Some of these cases will inevitably finish up in the European Court of Justice because some of it is against the human rights act of 1998 in our judgement. And we won't hesitate to test it in a court of law. We've seen, for example, the proposition in the United Kingdom which says that if you're on a fixed term contract, you have to have a qualifying period to get holidays. That's just been blown out of the water, yet another bad piece of drafting in terms of the legislation pandering to the CBI who has consistently opposed every piece of social reform that aims to enhance the status of working people.

Question: In a recent ePolitix.com interview Digby Jones of the CBI calls on the Government to reform employment tribunals which he cites as an example of an increasingly litigious 'blame culture' - how do you respond to that view?

Bill Morris: Well, a lot of cases can only be determined by a tribunal where people hear all sides of the evidence. The fact of the matter is that a lot of cases which are lost are then won on appeal. I look at the current set of proposals with some alarm. I believe the government's plans to charge employees who seek to take cases to employment tribunals are yet another punitive attack on workers seeking justice. They are contrary to the principles of the Human Rights Act and the principle of free, fair and open access to justice. Once again we see the workplace victims being attacked whilst the perpetrators of injustice are being encouraged. People don't sack themselves; it is employers which take the decision to dismiss. I have eighty-seven people in North Wales at Friction Dynamics who have been dismissed, for example. They've been dismissed purely because they are seeking to resist a whole series of unreasonable demands from an employer. Over eight weeks have gone by now and here we have people being dismissed for a legal strike. Are we saying to the Friction Dynamics workers that in future they should pay to get justice? I don't think so.

Question: Are we seeing a time here when Labour can no longer be the party of business, and the party of unions - in a sense it's got to start fitting itself into one area or another?

Bill Morris: Labour has never been the party of unions and I suspect that they would say they've never been the party of business either.

Question: They like to at general elections. They even published a business manifesto?

Bill Morris: Well I speak here only in the context of my union. I've never heard any Labour Party advocate or spokesman who says we are the party of unions, because the trade union relationship with Labour isn't one of convenience, it's not one where is predicated on the basis of some notional popularity or driven by money. It's a set of shared convictions, a set of beliefs, and values to which we neutrally subscribe. And on that basis the financial or economic value does not come into it. What comes into it, as I said, is the conviction and the values.