LABOUR deputy leadership hopeful and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson invoked her working-class roots in an address to TUC Congress today, as she insisted the government will deliver the Employment Rights Bill in full — “no ifs, no buts.”

“My roots run deep in our working-class communities, in the working people of this country — the joiners, the steelworkers, the cleaners, the ship-builders, the carers — all of our public servants,” she said.

“I grew up on a street of council houses in Washington in the north-east, just me and my mam, and back when I was young, a man turned up at the front door with a baseball bat.

“A few weeks earlier we had been burgled, and my mam had reported it to the police.

“Now the man had come back to scare her into silence.

“He clearly didn’t know my mam very well, because even at nine years old I could tell him he was wasting his time. She stood her ground; he went to prison.

“From my mam I learnt about strength — not the kind that preys on the weak; the kind that stands up to adversity.”

She told of her neighbours’ and Irish immigrant grandparents’ kindness and said: “When people ask me where my values come from, I point to my mam, to my grandparents, to my neighbours, to my community.”

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “It was welcome to hear Bridget Phillipson strongly reaffirm the government’s commitment to delivering the Employment Rights Bill in full. 

“That’s what unions expect — and most importantly, it’s what the public wants too.”