Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Sir Alan, I will just point out that Opposition Members have used up pretty much half the sitting so far, before there has been any question from Government Members.
The Chair
We have sittings such as this one to try to get the message across. I have got a little bit of leeway to gain back time; I am aware of that. But I would like to move on, because the next questioner is Edward Argar.
The Chair
Order. We now come to our final session for today, in which we will hear oral evidence from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office. This session will last until about 5 o’clock. I know that you both know the drill very well because you have done Bills before. Minister, you have been here throughout, which is not usual for some Ministers. We are going to try to get through this as best we can, and the best way to do that is to be as succinct as possible. We recognise that you want to put on record various stuff that you have got from the Department, but please leave us enough time, because the whole purpose of this is to try to get evidence from you and ask you questions. Without further ado, Mr Boles, would you like to start?
Nick Boles
Thank you, Sir Alan. It is a pleasure to be in the hot seat now, rather than in the stands. I am going to give a brief opening statement, if that is okay—I will try to be very brief—on the main measures in the Bill, and then my colleague and friend Mr Hancock will address the facility time and check-off proposals.
We had what I thought was an absolutely gripping evidence session earlier with the four giants of the trade union movement, and we heard some pretty lurid language. The Bill was described as an ideological Eton mess, and as something straight out of the Norman Tebbit playbook. I think we are all aware of, and quite enjoying, the Labour party’s embrace of 1980s retro, which seems to have gripped them since the election. I would love to be able to live up to the caricature that has been painted, and I would love to have my name put, if only in very small type, at the bottom of a Bill that people were talking about in 100 years’ time as one of the most radical and dramatic Bills to change the laws of our country, but I am afraid that I have bad news for the Committee. The bloodcurdling rhetoric, although enjoyable and entertaining, is entirely out of place. The boring reality is that the proposals are modest. They are marginal adjustments to the rules governing strikes and members’ financial contributions. In two years’ time, I fear, this Bill and my role in it will be almost entirely forgotten, except in the privacy of my own bedroom.
I will quickly go through the main measures in the Bill, and then I am happy to take questions. I understand that the strike threshold proposal causes a lot of upset and argument, but the fundamental truth is that most strikes over the past few years would have met the threshold. Members of the Committee made reference to the fact that we did not get an absolutely glowing review from the Regulatory Policy Committee for the impact assessments on the first consultation. I regret that they were done in haste, but it is entirely my responsibility. The main mistake that we made, as the committee pointed out to us, was to make a crude assumption about the effect of the thresholds on the number of future strikes, because in that assessment, rather stupidly, we said that we thought that any strike that would not have passed the threshold in the past clearly would not pass it in future. Well, of course that is not going to happen. What will happen is that unions, as you have heard, will make great efforts to ensure that the thresholds are met. In most cases, they are already met. I predict to the Committee that the thresholds will produce a small decrease in the number of strikes. Critically, however, there will be a large increase in the perceived legitimacy and validity of strikes among the public affected by them, which is entirely desirable.
We had a discussion on notice periods, and members of the Committee made a good argument for why it is surely not unreasonable to give people two weeks’ notice, rather than a week, of something that could cause them to have to take a day off work or make alternative childcare arrangements.
There has not been much discussion on time limits for ballots, but it is an important measure. Currently, and in the recent past, strikes have taken place in the public sector on ballots that were passed two or three years previously. Frankly, many of the people who voted may no longer be working in the institutions where the strikes are taking place and the issues are surely not at the front of people’s minds. The four-month time limit is therefore reasonable.
There has been much discussion on agency workers, so I simply point out to the Committee that withdrawing, as we propose, the prohibition on the use of agency workers in a strike does not require any agency worker to take up an offer of employment and does not require any employer to seek agency workers in the first place. We heard good arguments about levels of training and tensions with permanent staff. We also heard good arguments as to why, both for individual workers and for employers, it was unlikely to be something that would solve any problems. We simply believe that the option should exist.
Finally, on the much-debated rules regarding the political fund, we take a simple position, which is that if someone wants to support a political party, it is not too much to ask them to tick a box every five years that says, “Yes, I want to support political activity and a political party.” If the political party believes in its arguments as passionately as members of this Committee do, I have absolutely no doubt that it will be able to persuade everyone currently contributing to political funds to carry on doing so.
Matthew Hancock: I am not sure that I can match my colleague for rhetoric, but I want briefly to set out the principles behind the two changes that are the Cabinet Office’s responsibility for policy purposes and therefore mine. First, on facility time, clause 12 simply makes the change that public sector employers need to publish information on the amount of facility time, which is similar to a change that we made in the civil service that saved £52 million in the last Parliament. The first step before making any savings, however, was to publish the information, because we currently do not know how much taxpayer money is spent on facility time. Clause 13 contains a reserved power to be able to limit the facility time taken by union representatives to a percentage of working time, which is similar to the reasonable changes made in the civil service. A legal entitlement to facility time exists at the moment and we do not propose to change that in this Bill.
Secondly, check-off is a name for the relationship in which a trade union member, instead of paying their dues direct to the trade union, pays their dues through the employer taking the payment from the pay cheque before paying it to the trade union. I think it is reasonable that the trade union relationship, which is valuable in many cases, is one that is between an individual and their trade union. Often, one of the primary purposes of trade unions is to mediate on behalf of their members. It is old-fashioned to think that the payment from one to the other needs to be intermediated by the very employer with whom the trade union is often the interlocutor, on behalf of the member.
These are reasonable changes. We have made them in the civil service, and the Bill simply proposes to broaden the principles and apply them to the public sector as a whole.
The Chair
Thanks very much. It is true that when every Member of Parliament is elected, then takes the oath and signs the book, they become seasoned politicians. I ask Members on both sides of the Committee to direct their questions to the appropriate Minister, rather than the collective, otherwise we will get very few answers done.
Stephen Doughty
Q 412 On balloting, the Minister and other witnesses have referred extensively to the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy in advancing an argument against the use of e-balloting that I think most members of the public would find absolutely nonsensical, given that if we want to increase participation, we should increase the methods by which people can participate. The evidence to the commission from the Open Rights Group, which I think influenced what the Minister has been saying, made it clear that it was based on a comparison between general election voting in polling stations and online voting. The evidence did not consider the current union context of postal ballots under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, so it is not relevant to the discussion of the Bill. Why does the Minister keep citing the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy as evidence to stand in the way of e-balloting?
Nick Boles
I do not know why voting in a strike ballot is essentially different from voting in other elections. We have been very clear about our position and the Prime Minister has replied to Mr McCluskey’s letter to make it clear that, as I have said several times—I certainly said it in the wind-up on Second Reading—we do not have an in-principle objection to the exploration of alternative methods of voting, including e-balloting, but we have some practical concerns that were set out very well in the evidence from the Open Rights Group and also in other discussions about various forms of voter identity protection, voter fraud and the like. If those practical objections can be overcome, this question might well be revisited in future, but we are not currently satisfied that voting can be done safely online in these elections. That may well change.
Stephen Doughty
Q 413 Have you taken advice from the Electoral Reform Society? It advises that, in 2014 and 2015, the Nationwide building society, Yorkshire building society, the Co-operative Group, the British Medical Association, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales—the list goes on and on—have all used these methods. Most members of the public listening to this debate will struggle to understand why the Government are not willing to come forward, have a sensible discussion about e-balloting and secure workplace balloting, to which I can see no objections whatever, and get to a solution.
Nick Boles
The hon. Gentleman has started that debate, Sir Alan, and I am sure that this is not the end of it. We will debate the different forms of voting and the practical objections, or otherwise, to them. All we are saying are that our concerns, which we have not just made up—they are shared by others, independent of Government, and were elaborated upon in the Speaker’s commission, which met only last year—have to be overcome. Frankly, internal elections in organisations to choose office-holders have to meet a much lower test than elections that involve the withdrawal of labour, the closure of services and great disruption to the public, so we are right to attach a higher level of demand—
Stephen Doughty
But it is fine for the annual general meetings of major financial organisations.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Q 414 It is clear from the evidence we have heard that a charge is being made that your proposals go against the International Labour Organisation. Would you like to deal with that now?
Nick Boles
There is no question but that representations have been made to the ILO, and within ILO discussions, that some of the restrictions that we propose could conflict with ILO provisions. What is clear is that the governing body of the ILO has never accepted those arguments. Having looked at all the governing body’s comments and decisions, we are entirely satisfied that nothing that we propose would conflict with them. Reference has been made to the European Economic and Social Committee; the truth is that we do not entirely accept its actions and status. It often says things that we and the governing body of the ILO do not agree with.