The cost of trade union facility time is up 25% in the Home Office under Labour, according to quietly released government figures. That’s paid time off granted to trade union representatives in the department to carry out their union duties. Just as 898 small boat migrants crossed the Channel yesterday…
In the year 2023-24, 331 full-time equivalent Home Office civil servants were given time off to do union work, costing the taxpayer £1,134,980. In 2024-25, that number surged to 387 pen-pushers, costing the taxpayer £1,424,127. Enough to hire 47 new police officers…
A total of 301 union reps spent 1-50% of their working hours on their union duties. Shadow Minister for Crime, Policing, and Fire Matt Vickers told Guido:
“While frontline policing is stretched to breaking point, Labour are handing even more taxpayer cash to union reps to clock in and plot their next strike. Union facility time is up 25% in the Home Office – that’s money that could have paid for nearly 50 more coppers. They could even spend it on border officers or deporting foreign criminals, but Labour would rather choose the clipboard brigade over public safety.”
Is it any wonder Channel crossings are by more than 50% on last year?
Green Deputy Leader Rachel Millward said:
“The reality is that it’s Zack Polanski who brought the nation, Andy Burnham. And if we hadn’t had the success of the Green Party in this last year since Zack’s been leading, which has been unprecedented, phenomenal success and a growth from about 60,000 members to 230,000, if we hadn’t had that much pressure on Labour, then we’d probably still be in the Starmer regime, which was pretty much ushering in a Reform government with its lurch to the right. So actually, what we’re seeing now is that we’ve set the political agenda and the government is picking that up.”