WHEN the Chancellor delivers her spending review tomorrow, GMB members will be looking for investment — above all in health and social care and in manufacturing.

General secretary Gary Smith shares common concerns about the cuts mantra Rachel Reeves has become identified with — he is “very frustrated about the way winter fuel was dealt with, the Waspi women.

“It was badly handled and wrong — and I’m very concerned about where we’re going with benefit cuts, the idea we’re going to penalise people with disabilities who are trying to get to work.”

However, he rejects criticism from the left, including the Morning Star, of Labour’s wider economic policy. “One pound in ten of taxpayer money is now spent servicing debt. Capital markets and the right would like nothing better than to see a Labour government plunged into financial crisis.

“You can argue about things like property taxes, and those are legitimate debates, but Labour are walking a difficult line.”

What are his priorities? “We are underinvesting and have been for many years in the NHS. Inextricably linked is the issue of social care, and I’m worried we’ve kicked the can down the road again on that. Until you fix social care you’re not going to get a proper resolution in the NHS.

“We have councils that provide 15-minute care packages for the elderly. You get more time at a Formula 1 pit stop. It’s outrageous.

“And unless we fix social care we’ll be in permanent crisis on the NHS.”

On that he’ll meet little disagreement on the left. But he makes no attempt to hide his rejection of most left thinking on addressing climate change and on military spending.

“Unless we’re prepared to address the ongoing hollowing-out of our manufacturing and industrial base we’re going to be in a pit. We will have permanent problems with productivity and economic growth.

“There is dishonesty on the left about energy policy, about how it’s making us insecure, failing to deliver jobs and driving up energy bills — crippling British industry.”

He points to workers at Moorcroft potteries, who addressed GMB congress on the day we met and who have lost their job following their factory’s closure — attributed to high energy costs.

“We end up with ceramics being dumped here because they can produce them a lot cheaper in China — in part that is about energy and environmental policy. We’ve seen the closure of Grangemouth and the Port Talbot blast furnaces. People need to sober up and realise energy prices are costing jobs and unfortunately the government’s plan for energy” (he refers to the ban on new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea) “is going to force up energy prices. It’s easier to see the way to a million job losses than to the 650,000 new jobs they talk about.” Companies celebrated for their promotion of renewable energy, like Octopus, are anti-union into the bargain, he adds.

Isn’t the problem the failure to take public ownership of energy and plan a transition in the public interest? Doesn’t China, the world leader in renewable energy technology, demonstrate that you can shift to clean energy and preserve jobs if you have the political will?

“Well, the Scottish government was going to set up its own energy company but backed away from it because the margins from selling energy are tiny. There is a powerful case that the state should be taking a stake in what’s left of the offshore oil and gas industries.

“How could we pay for energy transition? If we had a stake in what was left, if we were maximising extraction of oil and gas that would give us money to invest in transition, to reskill workers and build up manufacturing and supply chains in the UK. It’s what Norway is doing.

“We’re not. We are closing down rigs prematurely with no alternative employment.”

China, too, has been able to lead on renewables, he argues, because it built up new industries while keeping energy prices low by burning coal.

“They’ve invested and done some really smart stuff, but they have loads of cheap energy. I celebrate the progress they’re making, that they’ve planned, the engineering, but coal usage globally still hasn’t peaked and it’s China driving that.”

By contrast, Britain “will end up with more jobs lost, more abandoned communities and more support for the far right because people are angry and alienated.” He notes that Nigel Farage has popped up in Port Talbot, saying he’ll reopen the blast furnaces (which can’t be done once they’ve shut down).

“Go to Port Talbot and say to the community, we should nationalise this, we should nationalise that. The debate is 10 years too late. Large tracts of the left and environmental movement wouldn’t listen to us, have been talking about a just transition for 15 years — but where is it?”

That’s hardly fair, I protest, given the left haven’t been in power to implement the just transition policies we have called for.

“Why haven’t the left been in power? That’s the issue. Why don’t these arguments resonate with working people?

“Go to an oil rig and speak to oil workers, go to a glass factory or talk to gas workers, electricity workers. Go to Ayrshire where they’re trying to get a cable factory to benefit from all this investment that’s going on electricity — none of it is happening. And after 10, 15 years, hearing the same stuff, seeing the wind farms go up that have been built in Indonesia, China, the Middle East — anywhere but here — while in the UK bills go through the roof.

“I’m sorry but those arguments have fallen on deaf ears. The left are losing and losing for a reason.”

Skilled jobs, and the role revived manufacturing plays in rebuilding communities, also feature in his defence of rising military spending.

“Go to Barrow-in-Furness. They’ve turned the Debenhams into a training centre for apprentices. They’re putting a mock submarine in there... thousands of young people will be employed every year now in that yard, and they’re going to double the size of the submarine yard, which is the biggest construction project since the Olympics.

“The only growth area in Barrow under Cameron and Osborne was heroin. Defence spending is bringing real jobs.”

Doesn’t it bring the risk of war closer? “This country is heavily dependent on food imports and energy imports to keep going. We’re one cable strike or one pipeline away from having a major problem with energy supply and we’ve got no navy to speak of. I’m sorry but there are a lot of bad actors in this world.”

My suggestion that Britain’s warlike record might qualify it as one of those “bad actors” meets a shout of laughter and some acerbic remarks about one of our recent editorials. But doesn’t he worry that military spending is coming at the expense of other areas that need investment?

“I think we have to do both. I’d like to see the government talk about a more compelling story, giving people hope and painting a picture of what we’re trying to do: bringing back jobs, rebuilding manufacturing.” This is how Labour should take on Reform UK: he says Labour’s recent language on immigration, widely seen as imitating Reform’s, has been wrong.

“We have to meet them head on on the racist stuff. And counterpose an agenda that’s about rebuilding communities hollowed out by neoliberalism.

“The by-election in Scotland last week” (in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, which Labour won) “shows that a racist and sectarian campaign can be beaten. People reacted badly.” Reform UK were accused of racist advertising in the campaign, claiming Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar would prioritise the interests of Pakistani-origin Scots.

The story of hope is one he sees in the Employment Rights Bill, despite its weaknesses. “This is the most radical employment legislation in 50 years and we should celebrate that.

“Our job is to keep fighting the employers who want to water it down. There is going to be a fight over this.

“One of the key battles is going to be over equal pay and an equal pay enforcement body, which GMB fought for.” The union is running equal pay campaigns at councils right across Britain.

Councils like Birmingham are accused of using equal pay victories as an excuse to level wages down rather than up: hence their attempt to cut bin workers’ pay, which has led to a prolonged strike in the city.

But equal pay campaigns can unite all workers. In Glasgow, one cleaner at each refuse depot picketing brought out a thousand waste workers. It was effectively secondary action.

Councils’ financial predicament should not be an excuse for “robbing women” through refusing equal pay, he insists. It’s a political problem the government should sort out — “but it’s not our problem. Our problem is to get pay justice.

“They threaten us with outsourcing services if we campaign on equal pay — well, they outsource services anyway. They threaten cuts if we raise wages — they cut services anyway.

“We’ve got to build up compelling arguments about equality and working-class women being paid properly and getting proper pensions. Speak to women in Birmingham about what their compensation will mean for them — you hear ‘for the first time in my life, I can take my kids on holiday,’ transformative stories.

“This is about rebuilding the public realm, and we should be talking much more about it.”