Conference notes with dismay the decisions taken at the 2007 Labour Party conference to abolish the ability of affiliated trade unions to set or change Labour Party policy. Unions and CLPs are now barred from putting political motions to Labour Party conference.

We also note with concern suggestions - including some from within the Labour Party itself - that the unions' ability to fund political campaigns or donate to political parties should be further restricted.

This means that the unions effectively lose the political voice that they had for a century, though to a diminishing extent recently, through the Labour Party. It is a betrayal of what was best in the Labour Party, and of the elements in its structure which made it able to introduce the NHS and other reforms.

We therefore congratulate the UNISON delegation to the 2007 Labour Party conference for voting against the new proposals.

We instruct the NEC to approach the UNISON Affiliated Political Fund and seek their support to submit to the Labour Party a rule change which will:

- Restore the right of all unions and CLPs to submit motions to Labour Party conference;

- Base the conference on those motions submitted by unions and CLPs;

- Establish that, where there is a clash, specific resolutions passed by conference override National Policy Forum reports;

- Enable unions and CLPs to amend National Policy Forum reports;

- Reaffirm that Labour Party conference is the supreme policy-making body of the Labour Party, and that the Party leadership should abide by conference decisions.