Patrick Roach: “The country did not vote for a rebrand of austerity economics”

The NASUWT general secretary spoke to Left Foot Forward about his hopes from the new Labour government.

Patrick Roach is the general secretary of one of the UK’s largest trade unions – the NASUWT. His union has recently secured a major pay settlement for teachers from the new Labour government, after years of intransigence under the Tories.

At this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton, Left Foot Forward spoke to Roach about his verdict on the early days of the that government and whether he was optimistic about it reversing the damage caused to the education sector after 14 years of austerity under the Tories.

Roach begins by saying: “We want the government to deliver what the country voted for – and that is change,” before going on to make clear what it is his union wants change from, giving a damning verdict on the Tories’ time in office.

He told Left Foot Forward: “We’ve had 14 years in which we’ve seen austerity, austerity, austerity; a lack of investment in our public infrastructure; a lack of investment in education; teachers leaving the profession in droves; the worst recruitment and retention crisis since the Second World War; record numbers of kids absent from schools; a behaviour crisis in our schools; we’re seeing rising levels of child poverty; rising inequality.”

What does NASUWT want Labour to deliver in order to tackle these issues? Roach said that a “national plan” is needed to deliver a “new deal for teachers and for children’s education”.

He went on to tell Left Foot Forward that the “omens, so far, are good” from the government, pointing to the government accepting the recommendations of the schoolteachers pay review body as evidence of how Labour are making steps to address the issues in the education sector.

Roach also praised the government for “committing to work with us in partnership”. He told Left Foot Forward: “The only way we’re going to fix this is not by doing what the Tories did for 14 years – keeping us outside of the room, making poor decisions, making deliberate decisions in order to incite our trade unions and to create, if you will, a fight with trade unions – not making decisions to outlaw trade unions’ ability to organise and to represent their members, but bringing unions as the representative voice of teachers and working people into the room.”

“So, for us, it’s a really big priority – securing that education partnership to understand the extent and the scale of the crisis that we’re facing – but also co-designing the solution, developing a national workforce plan, a national plan to fix the state of our broken schools.”

Despite this optimism about the relationship between the new government and teaching unions, Roach is realistic about what is coming down the track. He said he is not “dewy-eyed” about the new government and what it will deliver, and that it is a “cause for concern” that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are talking about difficulties facing the public finances.

Speaking on the prospects of further austerity from the Labour government, Roach told Left Foot Forward: “The country did not vote for a rebrand of austerity economics – that’s not what they voted for, they voted for change. People want hope and they want to see a difference. They want more money in their pockets, they want to be able to see their kids being able to thrive, and they want security in their lives.”

He continued: “We’re continuing to press, and with the TUC we are pressing the government to think about its approach to fixing the foundations. Because it’s pretty clear that after 14 years in which the Tories deliberately took an axe to our public infrastructure, that’s going to take time to repair, that’s going to take time to rebuild.

“But what we can’t afford to do is to put more pressure onto ordinary working people and families to clean up the mess that was left by the Tories. So when you talk about austerity, what I want to be talking about with this government is – yes they’re having to make difficult decisions – but they need to be making those decisions in a way that’s progressive: progressively ensuring that those who’ve got the broadest shoulders, those who can afford to pay are paying their fair share, which we did not see in the last 14 years under the Conservatives where the rich were getting richer and the rest of the country merely got by.”

Alongside speaking to Roach about his assessment of the new government, Left Foot Forward also discussed his work internally within the trade union movement. Roach has been leading the TUC’s anti-racism taskforce for four years. That taskforce was established to “tackle the structural racism within the labour market and wider society”. Roach told Left Foot Forward that this work is “even more important now” than when the taskforce was set up and that the “threat” and “danger” of racism and the far-right are “ever present”.

Roach said: “Here we are in the grip of the resurgence of the racists and the far-right, and it’s telling us that there’s even more work to do. Racism, it feels, is alive and kicking in our country.”

He continued by saying: “We really really do need to redouble our efforts to organise in our workplaces, to speak about why anti-racism is important to our members, to equip our activists to have the confidence to take this conversation out there – stop demonising migrants. It’s not migrants that are causing the cost of living crisis, it’s people who are making decisions to line their own pockets at the expense of the poorest in our society.”

Roach concluded by calling for the trade union movement to become more inclusive. He said: “We need a trade union movement that is inclusive, that is representative. I want to see more people who look like me – for example – across our movement, leading our movement. We’re doing some great work on that front – more training for black activists across our movement, more opportunities to progress black members into leadership of our unions.

“But what’s really important here is that we connect – we connect black and white working class people together.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward