CABINET Office Minister Matthew Hancock claims that the sole reason for abolishing the right of public-sector workers to pay union dues through check-off is because it is an “outdated” burden on taxpayers.

He should could come clean and admit that the government’s intention is to disrupt and weaken the unions.

Hancock has form in the honesty stakes, claiming two years ago to have been excluded from a 6.40am TV debate on apprenticeships for being “just 30 seconds late.”

In fact, he should have been in the studio half an hour earlier to prepare for the programme.

Victims of the government’s benefit-cuts programme know the harsh sanctions for being late for appointments, but the only consequence for Hancock was public ridicule for his inability to get his backside out of bed.

Hancock also denied in a TV interview that fracking was unpopular, only to be flummoxed when asked to name a single village that supported it.

The minister knows that abolition of check-off facilities for PCS members in the Home Office and Ministry of Defence caused initial problems for the union.

However, the trade union movement has always been resilient and progress has been made in getting members to pay their dues by bank direct debits.

Unions will overcome the inconvenience and short-term financial damage caused by abolition of check-off, but they also understand why Tories are pushing ahead with this vindictive and spiteful policy.

It is not about modernising outdated methods. It is simply an expression of their ingrained hostility to workers’ self-organisation.

This is given full expression by the Trade Union Bill, which also includes curbs to facility time release for workplace union reps.

Many private companies have agreements with unions that provide for check-off, facility time and union accommodation.

This doesn’t signify incorporation of trade unionism or mean conflict-free relations, but employers who live in the present day understand that unions can play a major role in identifying problems and resolving disputes and that coexistence can benefit both sides.

So few of David Cameron’s ministers have a background in the productive sector that could assist their comprehension of this industrial reality.

The Tory leadership is constantly urged by its backwoods reactionaries to clamp down on the unions, believing whatever they read in the gutter press about unions holding the country to ransom.

While Tory governments respond to such pleas, Labour makes a virtue of retaining the bulk of anti-union legislation passed by its opponents.

Blairite former minister Alan Johnson claimed, in his efforts to discredit CWU general secretary Dave Ward for backing Jeremy Corbyn, that New Labour in office did a huge amount for trade unions.

But his case was somewhat eroded by Tony Blair’s boast that his governments had left Britain with the most restrictive anti-union legislation in the Western world.

The three New Labour pretenders for the Labour Party leadership have all pledged to repeal the current Tory government’s plan to rig strike ballots so that abstentions or failure to vote are effectively treated as opposition to industrial action.

That’s a positive development, but doubts persist about how high up their list of priorities trade union rights would be if a leadership election wasn’t taking place.

Only one of the four candidates, Corbyn, defended union rights during the Thatcher-Major Tory governments but also when Blair was boasting of disregarding their demands to repeal anti-union laws.

He is clearly the candidate who merits trade unionists’ support most.