POA ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2016 VERBATIM REPORT Tuesday 10th May 2016 The Worshipful Mayor of Sefton 1 Report of Standing Orders 3 Minute Silence 8 National Chairman Opening Address 8 Finance Officers Report 12 Motions 1-5 15 - 20 Motions 84 - 86 22 Motion 6 - 45 24 - 71 Wednesday 11th May 2016 Presentation to Finlay Spratt 78 Annual General Meeting of the National Secure Hospitals Consultative Committee 78 Josie Irwin, Head of Employment Relations RCN 81 Motion 76 86 Motion 46 - 50 86 - 97 Gabriel Keaveny - Assistant General Secretary, POA Ireland 977 Cronin Clasp awards 99 Angela Cairns, Shannon Trust 103 Presentation of Toe by Toe Cup 105 Presentation of Mabel Hempton 106 Carl Dalton, Bradford Council 107 Jan Willem Goudriaan General Secretary EPSU 109 Jo Stevens MP Cardiff Central 115 - 119 Motions 51 - 52 120 - 122 Ronnie Draper General Secretary Bakers, Food & Allied Workers 123 - 127 Motion 52A 127 Doug Christie, Thompsons Solicitors 130 Motions 53 - 57 131 - 135 Thursday 12th May 2016 Chris Swindon, Fundraising Officer, Francis House Foundation 138 Motions 58 - 83 140 - 178 Closing speech PJ McParlin National Chairman 178 Mike Rolfe National Chair elect 179 Closing Speech Steve Gillan General Secretary 181 2 Annual Conference Verbatim 2016 POA ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2016 Tuesday 10th May Morning Session PJ MCPARLIN – NATIONAL CHAIRMAN: Good morning Conference, I haven’t upset the Mayor, honestly, he’s just gone for a comfort break due to the excitement of addressing and opening our Conference. Good morning and welcome to everyone. I’m being told that there might be a problem with seating. Obviously Standing Orders will refer to that. We normally expect that everyone will have enough seating in the main body of the hall here on the floor. Is there anyone at the moment who hasn’t been able to find seating on the tables in front of me? OK. We will try and address that as we go forward and I would just remind you that it’s only delegates on the tables on the floor not observers, observers at the back, please. So that’s a brief update. As soon as the Mayor Kermode comes back we will begin. Good morning again Conference, you will notice that I’m joined up here by Mayor Stephen Kermode, he will address you in a few moment’s time, but first of all he gets to hear the lowdown according to the POA researchers on Mayor Kermode. The Mayor was born in Liverpool and moved to Maghull in the early 1960s. The Mayor tells me he lives not too far from Moss Side Hospital and has friends on the working side within Moss Side Hospital. He attended Northway Primary School and then moved onto Days Lane High School. Upon leaving school he trained as an apprentice joiner for Tysons of Liverpool, taking a three-year apprenticeship with the company while attending Hugh Baird College to further his education. After working for Tysons as a joiner for six years Mayor Kermode setup his own business in 1984 and he has since gone on to win six building awards; four for the training of apprentices and one for building a bespoke house in 2010. Mayor Kermode is married to Gwen Kermode and they have two grown-up daughters, Victoria and Alex. As regards to the Mayor’s public life, during his daughters’ education he became a school governor taking on the role of Acting Chairman for two years. He’s been previously a councillor on Maghull and was Mayor of the Town Council in 2013/2014. He has also been the Deputy Chair of Maghull Town Council. He’s been a Sefton Councillor since 2012 and in that time he’s been on licensing and regulatory committees and overview and scrutiny committees (performance and corporate services) and also represented Sefton for three years on the Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority. Through his personal work he is also involved with the Federation of Master Builders and has held positions as both Chairman and President of the local branch. In his spare time Mayor Kermode likes to read, watch his football – he’s not identifying who he supports at the moment. He enjoys music of all genres, theatre and musicals. He enjoys walking his dogs, researching history and viewing historical buildings. Mayor Kermode also enjoys socialising and meeting new people. Mayor Kermode, you’re very welcome and we’d ask you to open our Conference for us, thank you very much. The Worshipful The Mayor of Sefton Councillor Stephen Kermode addresses Conference MAYOR KERMODE OF SEFTON: Good morning everybody. Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, may I welcome you here to Southport in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton on this, your Conference. Southport composes of Victorian style with modern developments and has many attractions, the shops and the boulevard in Lord Street, Park Promenade and the pier is the longest pier in the UK. Annual Conference Verbatim 2016 3 We have wonderful restaurants and bars and I hope you’ll be able to visit some of them today and over your stay. And on behalf of my wife and Sefton Metropolitan Borough, thank you for coming here and enjoying the facilities. Some of the attractions. Sefton as a borough was formed in 1974 and is named after a small village near Maghull called Sefton, which was the seat of the Molyneux family. We also twinned with Gdansk in Poland and Mons in Belgium. And the attractions of Sefton are the Grand National, which I’m sure perhaps some of you might have been; the golf links at Royal Birkdale which is often the championship venues for golf, and we have 22 miles of rolling coastline. We have a squirrel reserve and some natural flowers that might interest some people down at Thornby. This is my last Conference that I’ll be doing and I’ve done many Conference openings here and some of the interesting things I’ve done as the Mayor. Well can I tell you that as a young child living in Maghull we were often invited on an open day to Moss Side Hospital and now it’s called Ashworth, and Kennet Prison, which I don’t know if any of you are employed by, but we used to have the daunting experience of meeting Jimmy Savile. I was in the sea cadets and he used to come round and was presented to us as a guest of the Guard of Honour, which I’m not really, shall I say, proud of now I know all about him, but nevertheless that was the sort of activity that took place. But on this one occasion Jimmy Savile’s car was left and the story is that he went back to the car and found that his tyre had been stolen and he didn’t have a tyre to go on the car. So this gentleman that was standing there and he sees Jimmy Savile standing there and he said, ‘What’s the matter?’ and he said, ‘Oh my tyre’s missing.’ ‘Oh why don’t you take the spare tyre and put it on?’ Anyway, this fella helps him to put the tyre on and he said, ‘Well, there’s not enough nuts to go round.’ So he said, ‘Don’t worry, take a nut off each of them and screw them on.’ So he said, ‘OK, I’ll do that.’ So he says to him, ‘What’s your name?’ he says, ‘Johnny Smith.’ He says, ‘How long have you been in here?’ He says, ‘Oh, I’ve been in here since I was a young lad.’ So he said, ‘OK.’ He said, ‘Well, this is a mentalist establishment, isn’t it?’ And he says, ‘Yes, it is.’ So he said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He says, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘OK, look, I’ll ask the officials and see about your history.’ So he said, ‘OK’. So as Jimmy Savile was finishing putting the nut on, a brick hit him on the back of the head and this fella says, ‘You won’t forget now, will you?’ <Laughs> Some people say I’m not like normal mayors and I would agree with them, but some of the interesting things we’ve done, I went to one conference and they said to me, ‘Can you just speak for one minute?’ on the list that I got and when I arrived they said to me, ‘Can you make it eight minutes?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, OK, I’ll adlib for a bit.’ So I’m working out what I’ve got to say and when I finally get to say what I’ve got to say they said to me, ‘Can you make it five?’ because there had been that much changes and people had overrun, so I said, ‘OK, I’ll make it five.’ So I could see the clock ticking down and it got to four-and-a-half and I thought, right, that’s it, I’ll say thank you very much and walk off the stage and the fella said, ‘That’s spot on, thanks very much.’ So it’s come to that time now, so I’ll just say thank you very much for choosing Southport to have as you Conference and I hope to see you all again sometime. Thank you very much. Applause PJ MCPARLIN – NATIONAL CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mayor Kermode, and I didn’t think it was possible to get away with a joke about Jimmy Savile but you’ve achieved that. And you’ve taken us tiptoed through the delights of Southport and I think that’s the first time we’ve heard about the squirrel sanctuary, so I’m sure there will a few squirrel fanciers out there who will be making their way towards that destination.