Employment Rights Bill

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Committee (8th Day) (Continued)

20:55

Clause 60: Deduction of trade union subscriptions from wages in public sector

Debate on whether Clause 60 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to express my deep concern about the inclusion of the clause repealing Section 116B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and to urge that it be removed in its entirety from the Bill. The clause does not merely tidy up legislation or modernise outdated provisions, it seeks to dismantle a vital safeguard that upholds the principle that taxpayer funds should not be used to subsidise the activities of private organisations, no matter how long-standing or worthy those organisations may be.

Section 116B was introduced to ensure that where public sector employers agree to deduct trade union subscriptions directly from employees’ pay, a service commonly known as check-off, the administrative cost of doing so is reimbursed by the union. This is a reasonable and proportionate expectation. After all, unions are private membership organisations. It is not the role of the taxpayer to underwrite the cost of maintaining their finances, especially when alternative methods of payment, such as direct debit, are readily available and commonly used by the unions themselves. Repealing this provision would, in effect, shift the cost burden for this private financial arrangement on to public sector employers and, by extension, the taxpayer. These are costs that would be no longer recoverable, whether they involve payroll staff time, IT systems or administrative oversight.

Although each individual deduction might seem minor, across large public bodies—for example, the NHS, schools, local authorities or Whitehall departments —these costs accumulate. The public purse, as noble Lords opposite do not need reminding, is already under immense pressure and it should not be expected to shoulder this additional financial responsibility. There is a very real risk that this repeal, however well-intentioned, would result in taxpayers unknowingly subsidising trade union operations.

Moreover, Section 116B introduced a measure of transparency and accountability into the system. It ensured that unions have to make active choices about how they collect their subscriptions and whether to invest in alternative systems, such as direct debit. It also gave employees greater awareness of and control over how they supported union activity. Removing this provision without putting any comparable mechanisms in place risks eroding that transparency. It suggests a return to a one-size-fits-all approach in which the employer bears the cost and the worker has little visibility over the arrangements.

There is also the issue of equity. Public sector employers are distinct in that they are funded by the state and their accountability is to the taxpayer. In the private sector where check-off arrangements still exist, employers and unions are free to negotiate the terms of such systems, including where the cost should be reimbursed. Why should public employers uniquely be placed in a position where they must provide these services at their own expense without any form of compensation? It is a contradiction that undermines the rationale for removing Section 116B.

The proposed repeal would also remove the flexibility that currently exists in the system. Under Section 116B, the Secretary of State has the power to make regulations specifying exceptions, such as for devolved Administrations or specific categories of public bodies. That allows the provision to be adapted in a way that respects local autonomy; for example, in Wales, where different arrangements have been supported by the devolved Government. By removing the entire provision, this clause strips away that flexibility and imposes a blunt uniformity that does not reflect the complexities of public sector governance across the United Kingdom.

Finally, we must consider the broader message that this repeal sends. It risks creating the impression, fair or not, that trade unions are being afforded preferential treatment and being allowed to impose their operating costs on to the taxpayer without scrutiny. At a time when public trust in institutions is fragile and when every pound of public spending is rightly under the microscope, this is a deeply unhelpful signal to send.

21:00

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for posing arguments against Clause 60 standing part of the Bill.

This clause seeks to repeal Section 15 of the Trade Union Act 2016 by amending the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to remove Section 116B. Section 15 required trade unions to pay public sector employers where they administer payroll deductions for trade union subscriptions, known as check-off. It further required that this service be made available only where workers have the option to pay their union subscriptions by other means.

The Trade Union (Deduction of Union Subscriptions from Wages in the Public Sector) Regulations 2024 were introduced as a cost-saving measure, with estimated annual savings of £1.6 million, totalling £12 million over the following 10 years. However, as the impact assessment acknowledged, the regulations would bring a cumulative cost of £17 million to public sector employers and trade unions over that period. This is far higher than the estimated cost savings.

The current system places bureaucratic processes on both trade unions and public sector employers that can be clearly simplified to support productive trade union relations. There should be no costs to employers associated with withdrawing the check-off regulations. Employers will have the choice to continue with or amend any agreed arrangements regarding the deduction of union subscriptions from their employees’ wages, in discussion with their recognised trade unions.

We feel that there is a need to simplify this process, which is what our proposals intend to do. While I thank the noble Lord for this very short debate, I urge him to support this clause, for the reasons I have set out.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation, although I am not particularly persuaded.

Clause 60 agreed.

Clause 61: Facilities provided to trade union officials and learning representatives

Amendment 224

Moved by

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough]

224: Clause 61, page 89, line 33, after “take” insert “reasonable”

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled a number of probing amendments to Clause 61. As I alluded to earlier, I take the view that the amendments are not unhelpful but should be seen through the prism of fairness, balance, proportionality and reasonableness. There is the possibility that, as drafted, it could plausibly be argued that the Bill’s balance is very much in favour of not just employees and union members but unions themselves as corporate bodies and organisations, rather than employers.

We are on our eighth day in Committee, and we have discussed on a number of occasions the less than benign economic circumstances faced by many businesses, including small businesses. The situation is deteriorating. Pretty much every week, there is worse economic data than one would hope for, particularly for the jobs market and the levels of employment and potential unemployment.

Therefore, anything that the Government do—and certainly this Bill represents a very far-reaching change to the employment relations regime—to make things more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises, and businesses generally, to employ people should be a cause for concern for Members of your Lordships’ House.

I will briefly go through the amendments. Amendment 224 would qualify the right to time off for union officials with a reasonableness test. I can see that most relationships between employers and union representatives are positive, based on mutual respect and it was ever thus. Therefore, this will not be a problem for the vast bulk of employers. However, when I was a local councillor, I had to rely on the Employment Rights Act 1996 to enforce my right to attend a number of meetings held during the day—in my case, at Ealing Borough Council, although I was an alternate member of the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, which met across the road at County Hall. As a young working man, it was sometimes very difficult to get time off, and I understand that we went in the right direction in guaranteeing the right to time off. Equally, reasonableness is key, and this amendment speaks to that.

Amendment 225 would qualify the right to the provision of facilities for union officials with an appropriateness test. Again, this reflects a real-world experience of the discrete circumstances affecting a business at the time that the request is made. It might not be appropriate for a business to provide a room, audio-visual facilities or materials. This would be easier for a big company, which has a bespoke budget for HR training et cetera, than for a much smaller commercial entity, which might struggle to provide a similar level of facilities for trade union officials.

Amendments 226, 227 and 228 would reverse the burden of proof in disputes over the reasonableness of requested time off for union activities, and therefore there would be more of a balance for making the case for facilities being provided. I do not want to delay the Committee at this relatively late juncture; the amendments stand on their own merits.

Amendment 229 would qualify the right to time off for union learning representatives, again with a reasonableness test. In past debates, I mentioned my admiration for the Workers’ Educational Association and the great work it did in empowering working people to improve their life and their life chances, which is very important. However, a reasonableness test makes sure that it can be accommodated in a way which will not undermine the commercial viability of a business, while at the same time assisting individual workers and their representatives to deliver education and training outcomes.

Amendment 230 would qualify the right to the provision of facilities for union learning representatives, again with an appropriateness test.

Amendments 231, 232 and 233 would reverse the burden of proof in disputes over the reasonableness of requested time off for union learning representatives. It would be for the union representatives to explain why their request for facilities and learning resources was reasonable rather than the other way round.

These are probing amendments. I know I have said it before, but it bears repetition that these are not wrecking amendments. They do not alter substantially the kernel of the Bill, which is—and I take Ministers on their word—to improve the working lives of people, as in the report, Make Work Pay. I accept that premise and that Ministers sincerely want to do that, but these amendments are an attempt to rebalance between the workforce, their representatives and employers in a fair and equitable way. On that basis, I beg to move Amendment 224.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I oppose the question that Clause 62 should stand part of the Bill, with the intention of removing provisions which compel employers to allow time off for trade union equality reps. To note, I am not opposed to trade union facilities time per se, and I am actually not objecting to Clause 61 in relation to learning reps.

My concern is specifically on the nature of equality as has been interpreted by the trade unions in recent years, the divisive nature of their adherence to identity politics, for example, and the ideologically contentious implementation of prescriptive policies, often setting one group of workers against another. Trade union priorities under the auspices of fighting for equality have been skewed, to say the least.

The wording in this unfeasibly long clause states at subsection (12)(b)(i) that:

“‘equality’, in relation to a workplace, means … the elimination of discrimination, harassment and victimisation … in accordance with the Equality Act 2010”.


You would think I would have nothing to disagree with there, yet, time after time in the last few years, what we have actually seen is the discrimination and victimisation of women workers that has been at best ignored and too often actively abetted by trade unions’ own version of inclusive equality. They have in fact ignored the Equality Act.

Let me use as an example an incident that happened in May 2024 at Epsom and St Helier University Hospital. A black female nurse, Jennifer Melle, indirectly called a six-foot transgender patient “Mister” while on the phone to a consultant. The patient, whom I will call Mr X, was having treatment on the ward, having been transferred from a male prison. He was chained to two guards. Mr X is serving a sentence for luring young boys into sex acts on the internet while pretending to be a woman. For Ms Melle’s alleged misgendering, Mr X, the convict, violently lunged at her, screaming, “Do not call me Mister, I’m an effing woman”, and then called her the N-word, screaming it at her. He of course used the full words in those instances, and he screamed that word at her three times.

After her shift, Jennifer went home shaken but resilient about the reality of unpleasant abuse at work. She was then contacted by her hospital trust. You might think it was a welfare check—but no. There was no mention of support after the racist attack. Instead, she was issued with a written warning, and the trust reported her to the Nursing and Midwifery Council to investigate her fitness to practise, because she posed a risk to the public, it was said, and the reputation of the NHS for not using the patient’s preferred gender identity. Only when Jennifer went public and the story hit the media did the trust say it would investigate the racist abuse. But by then, it had suspended Jennifer for telling her story. Then, they moved her to another hospital, demoted her to a lower grade, and she lost pay et cetera.

Now, I would have assumed that this shocking story would be a huge equality-at-work story for the trade union movement to take up: an ethnic minority female, a front-line health worker, a victim of explicit racist harassment and male violence, all over the papers, and then gross discriminatory employer behaviour. But no, not a dicky bird: a deafening silence in the nursing unions and the TUC. Maybe Nurse Jennifer was, as an open evangelical Christian, rather than a trade unionist, the wrong kind of victim.

Recently, we heard that another nurse, Sandie Peggie, a Royal College of Nursing member for 30 years, has been forced to sue her union for its failure to support her or provide legal assistance when she was suspended by NHS Fife. Her crime was that she challenged the presence of Dr Beth Upton, a biological man, in the women-only changing rooms at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy. That Nurse Peggie’s legal action is necessary should shame the trade union movement. As Mrs Peggie’s solicitor, Margaret Gribbon, explained, her client expected the union to

“exercise its industrial muscle to challenge the decision which was adversely impacting her and other female union members”.

She alleged that she

“spoke to the union about the issue of single-sex spaces in February last year”.

In relation to this amendment, how can we mandate employers to provide generous facility time for trade union equalities work with such a risible attitude to the real-life attacks on equality at work, as evidenced? When Nurse Peggie is forced to take legal action to get justice from her own union, I am not sure I want any more union equality officers. Susan Smith, of the For Women Scotland organisation that brought the successful Supreme Court action, notes:

“We imagine this is likely to be first of many such cases. Sadly, it seems that only financial penalties will persuade the unions to step up, do their job, and represent women in the workplace”.

21:15

There have been a lot of fine words in this Chamber on this Bill about fighting for women’s equality at work. Yet, in a profession which is 90% female— nursing—basic rights have been thrown under the bus, often with the acquiescence, and even support, of workplace trade union reps. Nurses, of all people, need to get changed into uniforms when they arrive to work at the hospital and throughout the day, if their clothing becomes soiled or contaminated. It is part of the job of minimising the risk of infection. In a stressful front-line job, the last thing nurses need is to be self-conscious or anxious when getting ready to work long hours on the wards. That is why single-sex changing rooms are important, and indeed mandated by the health and safety regulations fought for by earlier generations of trade unionists—but no longer.

The trade unions should highlight these recent attacks on hard-won women’s rights at work, but they are not. Instead, they often stand with employers to betray their own members. The fight has been left to a ground war by courageous female workers. It is so bad, officially, that a group of nurses from County Durham have had to set up their own Darlington Nursing Union, and I am glad to see the Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, supporting them.

New subsection (2)(a), to be inserted by Clause 62, mandates that time off is to be given

“for the purpose of promoting the value of equality in the workplace”,

and, under new subsection (2)(c), for

“providing information, advice or support to qualifying members of the trade union in relation to … equality in the workplace”.

I have to ask: exactly which ideas of equality will be promoted? What information or advice will be given? What aspects of equality will be ascribed value? After all, all the evidence shows that, on the key contemporary fight for women’s equality, there has been a one-sided ideological conformity in national unions’ policies, certainly at a leadership level. It is shocking that so many unions have declared that they will defy the Supreme Court’s clarification of equality law, which rather begs the question: which version of equality will equality reps promote in the workplace? Will such legal misinformation be part of the learning and training in working hours that Clause 62 requires?

More broadly, it should concern us that equality training is now routinely dominated by a particular EDI worldview. Indeed, equality, diversity and inclusion norms have corrupted any traditional understanding of equality by their insistence on presenting social, economic and employment issues through the prism of identity politics and critical social theory. Often, trade union bureaucrats work hand in glove with senior management and HR to embed EDI in workplaces, such as the unions’ collaboration with ACAS on developing the EDI policy template.

What does such EDI-inspired trade union equality training look like? I will give some examples. There are racial literacy modules, including inclusive language codes, with charts listing problematic words. Another promises training to help spot and correct unconscious bias, microaggressions and Islamophobia. This feels like treating fellow workers as problems who need to be re-educated. Another course offers “resources to help reps recognise how white workers may unknowingly benefit from inequitable biases”. That is less the positive trade union aspiration of “black and white, unite and fight” and more the student union campaigns against white privilege. Surely that is regressive and divisive. The former chair of the EHRC, Trevor Phillips, wrote in a comment piece in the Times recently:

“DEI … programmes increasingly appear not to be aimed at making the workplace a better, more productive environment but a modern-day inquisition dedicated to damning white men merely for their existence”.

In such a politically toxic atmosphere, when the trade unions seem as much of a hindrance as a help in relation to equality at work, I am simply probing why the Government would use this legislation to push facility time, and place a lot of detail on facility time, specifically for equality reps. I say that that would lead to disastrous outcomes.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, which have been tabled in good faith and with good intent, aim to clarify employees’ rights for reasonable time off and to maintain a balance of obligation between employers and employees. However, this tempting repeated emphasis on balance and responsibilities risks adding unnecessary complexities to what should be a straightforward provision. The focus on sustainable assessments closely tied to individual circumstances, while well-intentioned, may create complicated decision-making for both the employer and employees, rather than finding the guidance we are looking for.

I am not a clairvoyant; I am summing up from the notes I have in front of me. The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, talk about linking facility time for equality representatives with statutory performance targets in the public sector—that is what the time off is for—to introduce additional conditions aimed at ensuring accountability. The proposal for a sectoral cost assessment before these changes take effect offers a measured way of evaluating their impact. It will be important to monitor how these conditions interact with the support available to employees’ representatives to maintain an efficient and effective balance.

I look forward to the Minister’s response to these amendments. I will not comment on the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, tonight. I will leave that for the Minister to deal with.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for their amendments and contributions to today’s debate.

I speak to the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom, where we seek to make the provision of facility time for equality representatives conditional on public sector employers meeting their statutory performance standards. I believe such amendments are not merely sensible but essential if we are to ensure that public resources are allocated responsibly and with accountability.

It is no secret—we hear it constantly—that politicians and civil servants routinely claim that they want to protect taxpayers’ money, yet too often the rhetoric is hollow and budgets expand unchecked. One glaring example is the unchecked proliferation of equality, diversity and inclusion, or EDI, roles in the public sector. For those unfamiliar, EDI is a branch of human resources. There are now some 10,000 EDI officers employed across public sector organisations. There has been a veritable explosion of spending that has occurred with minimal scrutiny or measurable outcomes.

Against this backdrop, it is right and proper to demand that facility time—a significant use of public resources—should be granted only to employers who are delivering on their statutory performance targets. Our amendments would introduce a performance condition that requires the Secretary of State to be satisfied that a public sector organisation is meeting relevant standards before facility time can be allocated.

I believe this to be a vital safeguard that Clause 62 as currently drafted just fails to provide. Clause 62 in its current form risks allowing facility time to be given indiscriminately, without regard for whether the employer is fulfilling its primary obligations to service users and taxpayers. That is a pretty laissez-faire approach, which I believe is unacceptable in an era of tightening budgets and growing demand for public services—no doubt we will hear much more of this from the Chancellor of the Exchequer tomorrow morning. Without this condition, facility time risks becoming yet another unchecked entitlement, further diverting scarce resources away from front-line delivery.

We must be clear, however, that supporting and moving these amendments does not mean opposing equality representatives themselves or the very important functions they perform. Rather, it just means insisting that public funds should be spent prudently, and that facility time should be tied to organisational performance. If a public sector body is failing to meet statutory targets, I believe it is irresponsible to allow additional resource commitments without first addressing those failures. Moreover, our proposed new clause would require a sector-by-sector cost assessment of facility time, introducing much-needed transparency and evidence-based policy-making. Before expanding facility time or making it more widely available, Parliament must understand its real financial impact and weigh it carefully against the public benefits.

We urge all noble Lords to refuse to accept Clause 62 in its current form but to embrace these amendments, and then we will have a crucial performance condition. In that way, we will ensure that facility time is provided responsibly, with accountability, and only when public sector employers are meeting their statutory obligations.

However, I commend my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough on introducing what I felt were very reasonable amendments. Of course, he is drawing on extensive experience serving on council business and the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, on which he served with such distinction, so I hope the Minister will accept those amendments.

I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, that I was appalled by the stories she gave, showing the experience of Nurse Jennifer and Nurse Peggie. They are shocking stories, and how right she was to bring them to the attention of the Committee. There is a great worry that somewhere, deeply embedded in the system, is systemic sexism. I suppose I am looking back—it is far too long ago—to when I was, and I think I probably still am, the only man to have been appointed Minister for Women in the Cabinet. I have to say that the experience I had in that position warned me of the impending problems about which the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, spoke so passionately and so clearly.

We really have to get something right. In many ways, I know that the Bill has been put together with great haste, but Clause 62 in particular at least requires amendment, or perhaps another clause more carefully thought through should be presented to the House on Report. That is why we look forward to hearing from the Minister. We are talking about not just good governance but a necessary step to protect both taxpayers and front-line public services.

21:30

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for their amendments relating to the provision of facilities to trade union officials and representatives, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, for speaking to them. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for initiating debate on Clause 62, to which I will also speak.

In Amendments 224 to 233, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, he seeks to amend Clause 61 to maintain, as he argues, a reasonable balance of obligations and responsibilities between employers and employees. Like the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, I take the amendments at face value: they are probing and not wrecking, and the noble Lord is trying to understand the appropriate balance. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, that the clause already seeks a reasonable balance of obligations and responsibilities between employers and employee representatives. The paid time off that trade union representatives receive is often insufficient to fulfil all their trade union duties. Many union representatives use significant amounts of their own time to support workplace relations. Indeed, in some sectors, in some companies, in some firms, their trade union activity is carried out very much on a voluntary basis rather than it being about people having full-time release and doing nothing towards the organisation apart from conducting trade union duties.

The Government want to rebalance obligations and responsibilities by ensuring that union workplace representatives are able to take sufficient paid facility time and have sufficient access to facilities to enable them to fulfil their union representative duties. While the clause grants trade union representatives the right to facility time and accommodation and other facilities from their employers, it does so by having regard to a relevant code of practice issued by ACAS. The ACAS guidance will help employers to implement these measures and will be updated in partnership and through consultation with both employers and trade unions. It will therefore help to ensure that a balance of obligations and responsibilities is secured, and ACAS is a very appropriate and worthy organisation to undertake that role.

Greater facility time will lead to improved work representation and better industrial relations by giving trade unions and workplace representatives the freedom to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of their workers. This will result in more mature industrial relations and increased co-operation between employers and unionised workers, leading to beneficial outcomes for businesses and the economy. This is a framework to promote more co-operation and understanding at work, not more scope for conflict.

Amendments 234 to 236 concerning Clause 62, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, require that a performance condition must be met before facility time for equality representatives is provided by public sector employers. This would make the provision of facility time contingent on the employer already meeting certain performance standards, although the amendment is not specific about what those standards are.

We fully recognise the importance of strong public sector performance and accountability. However, linking facility time for equality representatives to performance conditions is both disproportionate and counterproductive, as it would create a barrier to improvement and creating stronger industrial relations. These amendments would require the Secretary of State to certify that a public sector employer is meeting relevant statutory performance standards before facility time can be granted. Together, they would pose heavy administrative burdens on both employers, who would need to apply and provide evidence, and central government, which would have to assess compliance for every employer.

I hesitate in suggesting this, but in speaking to other amendments on the Bill in Committee, those on the Benches opposite have been very quick to point out the administrative burdens that they assume are being placed on employers across all sectors by various measures in the Bill. The kind of burdens that this amendment would place on the public sector would not be tolerated by them on the private sector. More fundamentally, they would risk delaying facility time precisely for those organisations most in need of support and undermine the very purpose of equality representatives. Furthermore, a Secretary of State-led certification process would create legal uncertainty and potential disputes. It could also harm industrial relations in the public sector.

Finally, I turn to the opposition of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, to Clause 62. This clause inserts new Section 168B into the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and requires that an employer must permit an employee who is

“a member of an independent trade union recognised by the employer, and an equality representative of the trade union, to take time off during the employee’s working hours”

for specified purposes. However, this applies only if

“the trade union has given the employer notice in writing that the employee is an equality representative of the union”,

or will be undergoing or has completed training to become an equality representative. Sufficient training is that which is sufficient for fulfilling the purposes of an equality representative role, having regard to a relevant code of practice issued by ACAS or the Secretary of State.

Clause 62 also requires that the employer must permit the employee to take paid time off during working hours to undergo training relevant to their role as an equality representative and, where requested, provide the employee with accommodation and other facilities to enable them to fulfil their role, having regard to the relevant code of practice issued by ACAS. Should an employer fail to permit the employee to take time off or to provide the employee with facilities as required, the employee may present a complaint to an employment tribunal, at which it will be for the employer to show that the amount of time off that the employee proposed was not reasonable. So far on those grounds, it is as for any other recognised rep status.

Trade unions have long fought for equality: from Grunwick to the Bristol bus boycott, to campaigning on Section 28, to recently standing up for retail workers—mostly female—who have to cope with violence in the workplace, particularly from customers. It is important to recognise, as, it is fair to say, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, did in her remarks, that equality reps have a key role in raising awareness and promoting equal rights for members, as well as in developing collective policies and practices that enable organisations to realise all the benefits of being an equal opportunities employer.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, gave some specific examples. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, in saying that the cases the noble Baroness recounted, of Nurses Jennifer and Peggie, were horrific experiences you would not want to see anyone encounter. However, I am unsure that using that single brush to tar the feathers of the whole equality reps proposal is proportionate. There may be some correlation, but I am not sure that there is causation.

Clause 62 recognises a trade union equality representative as a person appointed or elected in accordance with the trade union rules, in a manner consistent with the Equality Act 2010. I contend that equality reps have a key role to play in raising awareness and promoting equal rights for all members, as well as in developing collective policies and practices that will enable organisations to realise all the benefits of being an equal opportunities employer. It is pure speculation but, had equality reps been in place in local authorities in earlier decades, and had there been more awareness of inequality in women’s pay, those local authorities facing significant equal pay claims today might not be facing them. Who can say?

I am not sure how rhetorical the questions were from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on the sort of equality. For the purpose of the clause, it is defined in the Equality Act 2010.

Turning to Amendment 237—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as the Minister asked a direct question, I might as well answer it now. I gave individual examples. I am sorry if the personalised examples made it sound as though they are one-off cases. I was simply trying to bring alive trends, not say, “Nurse Peggie”. There are loads of them, but I only had 10 minutes. They are trends, but I have brought them alive, I hope.

I ask the Minister to reflect on two things. As the Equality Act 2010 defines equality, I used the example that many trade unions are saying that they will refuse to acknowledge the Supreme Court clarification of what equality means under that very Act. They are going to defy it in the name of equality—trans inclusion and so on. How do you square that circle?

Secondly, the Minister read out the points about training. In part, I was challenging whether the Government care what the content of that training is. My argument was that the training being used in the name of equality is divisive and may not be helpful in the workplace, and is in fact likely to turn worker against worker, rather than the reverse. Do the Government consider any of that, or do they just hand it over to the reps?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I will try to address those points now. Of course we care whether reps, when undertaking any role—whether it is health and safety, learning, or workplace negotiation—comply with the law and are trained in a suitable manner. That does not mean we should necessarily be scrutinising every single thing they do, because one would not expect that in the normal way of things.

I certainly did not mean to belittle the examples the noble Baroness gave, and I am sure they are not the only ones. But at the same time, one cannot make the generalisation that this is endemic across all workplaces where there is union representation. I will also speculate —as we are sort of speculating here—that the engagement and involvement of equality reps might prevent the kind of activity the noble Baroness outlined in the case of Nurses Sandie Peggie and Jennifer. That is counterfactual speculation; one cannot say either way, but it is worth positing if we are serious about discussing this.

I should add, without wanting to stray too far from my brief and, indeed, land myself in some kind of legal hot water, that the Government’s expectation is that all organisations will comply with equalities law in every manner while carrying out their duties. Whatever equality law clearly specifies, we expect all organisations, employers and trade unions to follow that.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

May I just ask the Minister a very small question? In business, we already comply with the Equality Act. Most businesses do it because it is mandated, but we would do it anyway because it is a good thing to do. Reflecting on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, my only concern is the cultural sensitivities that may arise from equality reps taking into account, or not taking into account, some communities’ internal machinations regarding how they see certain equality roles.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

For what it is worth, my experience of working in businesses is that most employers, large or small, understand the importance to the nuts and bolts of economic growth and productivity of having harmonious workforces and being respectful employers who listen to the needs of their workforces, however they manifest themselves.

Again—a hypothesis. I think I understand what the noble Baroness is getting at. In a workforce that largely comes from a particular BME community, but that has a management not of that community, the presence of an equality rep from the majority community in the workforce who can make representations concerning sensitivities around religious observance, modes of dress, and modes of communication, could be to the good for that workplace in creating a greater understanding between the management and the workforce. One is only speculating here.

Before the noble Baroness stands up again, as I sense she might, I will say that equality reps are a new idea. They already exist in voluntary organisations, but the Government think that it would be good for workplaces to have more of them in place and that they would promote more harmonious and productive workforces. I observe that having health and safety reps has led to better adherence to health and safety laws and regulations, with fewer issues with health and safety misdemeanours, accidents and the like in workplaces. Similarly, union learning reps have been a fantastic innovation in promoting learning and skills in different workplaces. The notion of promoting equality and cultural sensitivities in different workplaces, as the noble Baroness put it, is a noble aim.

21:45

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

I thank the Minister, but I think he is going to tie himself in knots on this one, because there are challenges that will not be rightly represented. To indulge the Minister, maybe I could have an offline conversation with him to explain where I am coming from.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am very happy with that and I apologise if I have misunderstood the point that the noble Baroness was trying to make. This has been a fascinating debate but, in the interests of time, I want us to make progress and finish.

Amendment 237 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. The Government resist this amendment, which unnecessarily asks the Government to conduct a sectoral cost assessment of trade union facility time. We strongly dispute the notion that facility time represents a significant cost to employers. We have already conducted an impact assessment that covers the measures in the Bill. This assessment noted that the cost of facility time is not likely to be significant for particular employers. Instead, it could benefit business performance in the form of increased worker training and support greater worker retention through a reduction in dismissals and voluntary exits.

It is worth noting that the estimated percentage of public sector pay bills spent on facility time in the first year of reporting regulations that were enforced in 2017-18 was 0.07%, and that, for the 2023-24 reporting year, the figure was 0.06%. That suggests a minimal impact of facility time in the public sector. Before I turn to Amendment 333, it is worth saying that we expect further savings from the Exchequer resulting from more positive industrial relations, which come about through greater facility time. For instance, we expect enhanced facility time to result in a reduction in the number of disputes going to an employment tribunal. This again makes the point that more harmonious workforces are more productive workforces.

Amendment 333 was also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. Again, the Government strongly dispute the notion that facility time represents a significant cost to employers and we have already conducted an impact assessment covering the measures in the Bill. The amendment is therefore not necessary and would simply delay the implementation of this clause and the benefits that equality representatives would bring.

I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, to withdraw Amendment 224 and I hope that noble Lords agree that Clause 62 has a rightful place in the Bill.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 224 withdrawn.

Amendments 225 to 233 not moved.

Clause 61 agreed.

Clause 62: Facilities for equality representatives

Amendments 234 to 236 not moved.

Clause 62 agreed.

Clause 63 agreed.

Amendment 237 not moved.

Clause 64 agreed.

Amendment 238

Moved by

[Lord Hendy]

238: After Clause 64, insert the following new Clause—
“Right to take industrial action(1) The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 is amended as follows.(2) After section 219, insert—“219A Right to strikeEvery worker shall have the right to take industrial action, whether or not in breach of any contract, subject to the provisions of this Part.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would establish a clear positive right to strike (and take action short of a strike).

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a bit daunting, at 9.50 pm, to speak to a series of amendments relating to the right to strike. I thank my noble friend the Minister for taking time out of her very busy schedule to discuss these amendments, and amendments on collective bargaining, with me last week. The meeting was very amicable and very constructive, but Members opposite will no doubt be pleased to learn that she yielded not an inch on these amendments. None the less, I think it worth while to advance them.

Amendment 238 is intended to confer a positive right to strike. Striking and other forms of industrial action constituted a criminal offence until 1875 and were subject to civil liability until the Trade Disputes Act 1906. Since then, the law has undergone various evolutions, until the Conservative Governments passed a series of Acts in the 1980s, consolidated in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which severely restricted industrial action.

Subject to those restrictions, the Court of Appeal in Metrobus v Unite in 2009 held:

“In this country, the right to strike has never been much more than a slogan or a legal metaphor. Such a right has not been bestowed by statute. What has happened is that, since the Trade Disputes Act 1906, legislation has provided limited immunities from liability in tort. At times the immunities have been widened, at other times they have been narrowed. Outside the scope of the immunities, the rigour of the common law applies in the form of breach of contract on the part of the strikers and the economic torts as regards the organisers and their union”.


As the Court of Appeal put it in RMT v Serco Ltd in 2011:

“The legislation therefore secures a freedom rather than conferring a right as such”.


Both judgments noted that the European convention and other international laws ratified by the UK protected the right to strike, but that was held to be insufficient to establish such a right in UK law. So there is no positive right to strike in the UK, merely a freedom to take industrial action, protection from what would otherwise be unlawful. My amendment proposes that we should have such a right. In making that case, I do not suggest that such a right should be free of limitations. If this amendment were adopted, the current statutory restrictions on its exercise would remain.

The international treaty obligations by which the UK has elected to be bound support the case for my amendment. The UK ratified ILO Convention 87 on freedom of association and protection of the right to organise on 27 June 1949. The ILO, of course, is a tripartite body representing Governments, employers and workers of virtually every country in the world. Though Convention 87 does not expressly mention the right to strike, since the 1950s the relevant supervisory committees of the ILO have held repeatedly that it does so implicitly. For decades, member states have acknowledged that jurisprudence. For example, the UK Government have argued in the ILO:

“The right to strike, which, although not expressly laid down in Convention No. 87, was implied by the provision there for the right freely to organise activities”.


Independently of Convention 87, the ILO recognises the right to strike. A joint statement issued by the employers’ group, workers’ group and governmental groups in 2015 affirmed that:

“The right to take industrial action by workers and employers in support of their legitimate industrial interests is recognised by the constituents of the International Labour Organisation”.


I turn to other international treaties ratified by the United Kingdom. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protect freedom of association and the right to be a union member. In 2017, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of association stated:

“The right to strike is also an intrinsic corollary of the fundamental right of freedom of association. It is crucial for millions of women and men around the world to assert collectively their rights in the workplace, including the right to just and favourable conditions of work, and to work in dignity and without fear of intimidation and persecution”.


Article 8.1(d) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights explicitly requires

“States Parties … to ensure … The right to strike”.


In 2019, the supervisory bodies responsible for the two covenants I have just mentioned—respectively the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee—issued a joint statement on the basic principles of freedom of association common to both covenants, stating,

“the right to strike is the corollary to the effective exercise of the freedom to form and join trade unions”.

In 1997, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights addressed in relation to the United Kingdom the very issue raised by this amendment, holding that:

“The Committee considers that failure to incorporate the right to strike into domestic law constitutes a breach of article 8 of the Covenant. The Committee considers that the common law approach recognising only the freedom to strike, and the concept that strike action constitutes a fundamental breach of contract justifying dismissal, is not consistent with protection of the right to strike”.


This led the committee to recommend that the right to strike be established in UK legislation because

“the current notion of freedom to strike, which simply recognises the illegality of being submitted to an involuntary servitude, is insufficient to satisfy the requirements of article 8 of the Covenant”.

In 2002, the committee reiterated its concern that

“failure to incorporate the right to strike in domestic law constitutes a breach of article 8 of the Covenant”,

and repeated its recommendation that the right to strike be incorporated in UK legislation. It cannot be acceptable that the UK will not comply with these obligations.

At European level, the European Court of Human Rights has recognised in a succession of cases that the right to strike is implicit in the right to form and join trade unions, protected by Article 11.1 of the convention. The other instrument of the Council of Europe, the European Social Charter 1961, is more specific and provides in Article 6.4 that the contracting parties recognise

“the right of workers and employers to collective action in cases of conflicts, including the right to strike”.

Not only is the right to strike incidental to freedom of association but it is a necessary corollary of the right to bargain collectively. Without power to withdraw their labour collectively, workers have no leverage against the much greater power of employers to set the wages, hours, and terms and conditions under which they labour.

The point was elegantly stated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour case in 2015:

“The conclusion that the right to strike is an essential part of a meaningful collective bargaining process in our system of labour relations is supported by history, by jurisprudence, and by Canada’s international obligations … The right to strike is not merely derivative of collective bargaining, it is an indispensable component of that right. It seems to me to be the time to give this conclusion constitutional benediction”.


Finally, in this survey, it is to be noted that the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement 2022 provides in Article 399 that:

“Each Party commits to implementing all the ILO Conventions that the United Kingdom and the Member States have respectively ratified and the different provisions of the European Social Charter that, as members of the Council of Europe, the Member States and the United Kingdom have respectively accepted”.

22:00

Unsurprisingly, it is widely accepted that the right to strike has achieved the status of customary international law, supported by widespread state practice, with more than 90 countries recognising the right to strike in their constitutions. No doubt the Government will say that a positive right to strike is unnecessary and a matter of legal form over substance, since it will not, of itself, alter the statutory restrictions and conditions for strike action, whatever they may be, after the Bill becomes law. I respectfully disagree. In the first place, form is important—British workers should have at least the same nominal rights as workers all over Europe. If a positive right makes no difference, then there is no reason not to grant it. In fact, a positive right to strike in the UK would be highly relevant to the continuing evolution of the common law torts from which the legislation, starting in 1906, confers protection.

The Supreme Court of Ireland, which has a similar history of legislation, last year expressed the view that

“it is quite wrong to approach the entire question of the lawfulness (or otherwise) of industrial action principally through the prism of the common law economic torts, which were deployed by Victorian judges in response to the emergence of the trade union movements in the second half of the 19th century”.

A positive right to strike might be relevant to the vexed question of dismissal or detriment imposed for taking industrial action, currently founded on the underlying assumption that industrial action involves repudiatory breach of contract on the worker’s part, justifying termination of the contract. A positive right to strike would surely be relevant in reassessing that equation in the future. Without much hope, I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to speak on this even though it is completely pointless, as I feel quite strongly about it.

[A noble Lord]

That has never troubled you before.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am getting snarky comments from the Tory Front Bench. I object strongly to that.

I am speaking in support of Amendment 238, even though the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, needs no support at all. This would establish

“a clear positive right to strike (and take action short of a strike)”.

As the noble Lord pointed out at the start of his introduction, from the early 1980s onwards, we have had one set of anti-union laws after another, and there are now decades of them. Conservative Governments have introduced anti-union laws, and Labour Governments have mostly kept them. The result has been declining union membership and that the power of working people has been taken away. The UK has gone from being a country where income inequality was not that bad, and was even falling in the 1970s, to one where inequality has been rising sharply ever since. That means more billionaires and more money for the top 1% of earners, while more people exist on low incomes and live their entire lives owning nothing but debt.

Our economy has stopped working in the interests of the majority of people. Working people have less power but businesses and capital have more. That is one reason why in this country millions of pounds now disappear to offshore tax havens. The right of working people to withdraw their labour is a fundamental right, but it has been eroded. This amendment on the right to strike is another little step towards restoring the balance of power in the workplace. Without these little steps, which enable working people to stand up for themselves, this country will continue to get worse for the majority of people who do the real work.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want briefly to commend the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, for putting this amendment forward. I have a lot of sympathy with it. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has explained some of my reasons for supporting it.

I just wanted to note that it is very tempting when rights are being taken away to want to consolidate them via the law and constitutionally. I felt it myself in relation to civil liberties, which I think are under attack: the right to protest and in particular free speech. I keep wishing there was a First Amendment, because then it would be there and they would not be able to attack it.

However—this a good faith question—when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, justify it in relation to international treaties, ECHR, the Council of Europe and so on, I started to worry that maybe this would become one of those treaties where it would be, “You can’t touch this” and you would end up treating it technocratically, as it were. Rather than it being fighting for the right to strike, it would be fighting for the principle of the right to strike with ordinary workers, rather than simply referring to defending it in the law. So can the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, even though he does not stand a chance of getting it through, reassure me that this is not just an attempt at ring-fencing a right, but then neglecting to fight for it in real life? I commend him and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for raising this, because I really do feel that rights need to be protected under this Government as much as any other, I have to say.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Woodley, are I think as people have outlined. I have been on the wrong end of that legislation on a number of events—official strikes, unofficial strikes and secondary picketing. As a shop steward you are responsible for taking those actions for a company; there are consequences and I have suffered consequences from that.

It is not that I agree with the rights being taken away, but I think times have changed and unions have moved on now. The right of anybody to remove their labour, if they are pushed to it, should be a universal right, but it should be used very sparingly and in very special circumstances. It is all very well rushing to legislation and quoting the European Court, but we live in the real world and when things happen to people at work and people are treated badly, sometimes we have not got time to go and contact the KC and get case law. We just do the things that we used to do and take that action straight away. Sometimes that resolves the matter fairly quickly, because a reasonable employer will see the action you have taken as a direct result of another manager doing something that was not in agreement. So I get the thrust of this.

I have had notes typed and I have been writing my own notes, but I think the top and bottom for me is the amendment is seeking to restore a trade union’s flexibility in choosing which members to ballot and removing some procedural requirements and obligations to notify employees in advance of ballots. I think that time has gone as well.

Reinstating rights for prison officers, the group currently subject to significant legal limitations, is one I would like to slightly explore. The intent behind these amendments is to strengthen trade union rights and promote collective bargaining. The concern is potentially around impact, industrial relations and public safety, especially with the actions of prison officers. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and to the Government that the way to protect prison officers is not to enshrine the right to strike but to remove the reasons why they would want to strike. That really is about improving the Victorian conditions that we have in 2025 prison systems, where people go into prison and come out worse criminals or nine out of 10 as drug addicts or whatever.

Governments, instead of trying to give extra law for prison officers, should be looking at the root cause. I know there is a prison plan being built and we are trying to get more education into prisons—if you want to speak to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, he can give you chapter and verse on that, as I have listened to him doing. I hear why it is being done, I understand why it is being done and I know that it is not got a hope in somewhere else of getting through. But I thank the noble Lord for bringing it forward, because sometimes it is good to realise that things that we used to do are perhaps today not even politically correct to do. Human rights and the rights of people who go every day to work, to earn a living and support their family, need airing and need protecting. I know this is a probing amendment, but I thank the noble Lord for bringing it because it is interesting. Now and again it is good to be reminded of how it used to be and how it can be now.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I join the general thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. I thought it was a most interesting introduction and I learned a great deal. I particularly liked the phrase “constitutional benediction”, which I am planning to nick—although not in this context, because I rise to join the Minister and express my clear and firm opposition to the proposed new clause after Clause 64. It seeks to enshrine in statute a so-called positive right to strike even in breach of contract, as opposed—if I follow the noble Lord’s arguments correctly—to the freedom to strike. It strikes me as somewhat semantic in terms of the practical outcome, which I suspect is an argument we will hear again.

Let us be absolutely frank about what the amendment would entail. It would insert into the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 a wholly unprecedented and therefore dangerously broad provision that every worker shall have the right to take industrial action, whether or not it is in breach of any contract. It would not be subject to employer agreement or tethered to lawful procedures but would be an absolute statutory right to break contract terms and withdraw labour.

Industrial action, particularly strike action, is obviously a serious matter, and I think everybody would agree on that. It affects not only the employer but the public, the economy and, critically, the most vulnerable in society, who rely on public services. That is why we believe our existing legal framework strikes a careful balance. It protects the right to strike but does so within clear procedures and obligations: balloting requirements, notice periods and protections against unlawful disruption. This amendment would ride roughshod over all that.

What does it mean to have a right to breach your contract, regardless of process or proportionality? Surely, that is not a right; that is just carte blanche. This provision would displace the carefully constructed framework that governs how industrial action can be taken lawfully and responsibly. It would empower disruption without accountability. The purpose of employment law is not to tilt the playing field in one direction or another but to ensure that fairness, order and mutual obligations between employers and workers are respected. The right to withdraw labour must remain conditional on lawful procedures and not granted in the abstract, regardless of impact or legality.

Moreover, the proposed amendment would likely bring the UK into direct conflict with established contract law and create endless legal uncertainty. If workers are told that they have a statutory right to strike, even in breach of a contract, what does that mean for essential services, public safety, or the ability of schools, hospitals and transport systems to function with any consistency?

I do not think we should be mistaken. This amendment is not some minor clarification; it is a fundamental rewrite of the basis of workplace relations. It would undermine the principle that contracts entered into freely carry obligations and it would sweep away the balance between rights and responsibilities. I also have to ask: once a principle of contract breaking is established, how long before that is used as precedent in other contractual disputes?

Nobody denies that workers must be able to organise, speak up, bargain collectively and act where necessary. That is already protected in the legal framework. This amendment would take a sledgehammer to that balance. It would replace legal clarity, we believe, with legal radicalism, and accountability with absolutism. For those reasons, I urge the Government to reject the amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hendy for tabling Amendment 238, which would establish a broad statutory right to strike. I thank him also for our constructive and amicable meeting a few days ago and for his impressive tour of international conventions this evening. I have to say to him that anything I subsequently say does not mean that I do not take our international obligations seriously. In fact, in this increasingly uncertain world, we have more of an obligation to work collaboratively across countries. I think there is a lot to be gained from countries if we do that, not only on these sorts of issues but obviously on other issues of social justice as well.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Jones, for adding to this short debate and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard. He raised some of the issues around prisons. I will be addressing those in the next group of amendments, but the point is well made that we certainly have to look after and defend our prison officers and recognise the service that they do for us.

The Government recognise the intention to reinforce protections for industrial action but it is important to emphasise that the right to strike is already protected under UK law, as set out in Sections 219 and 244 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, provided clear conditions are met. Introducing a specific codified right to strike would cut across the uncodified nature of the UK constitution and lead to a far-reaching and undefined statutory right that risks legal uncertainty and conflict with long-established frameworks that carefully balance the rights of unions and employers.

22:15

Furthermore, international conventions, including ILO Convention 87, to which the noble Lord referred, Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights do not require and have not yet ever required an absolute right to strike to be codified in domestic legislation. We agree that multiple international conventions protect the right to strike, but they also permit states to impose limitations on the right to strike and do not provide that this right is absolute and unqualified. For the avoidance of doubt, the Government are clear that the UK is in compliance with our international law obligations. Our legislation ensures a fair and proportionate approach to industrial action and a clear, protected right to strike for UK workers within the context of a trade dispute. We therefore see no need to change the law to provide for an express right to strike.

I also say to the noble Lord that, as I have said, the Government believe that the UK is compliant with all its international obligations, and we are very proud of the real difference that the Bill will make to working people’s lives and the vital role that trade unions will play. I hope that the noble Lord will note the very substantial progress being made in the Bill on a range of issues, particularly those that have been raised by the ILO. These include: procedural requirements before industrial action; industrial action ballot thresholds; the ballot mandate; the supervision of pickets; protection against detriment and dismissal for taking industrial action; provision of information about industrial action to the certification officer; enforcement and levy powers of the certification officer; the repeal of minimum strike levels; and rights of access to the workplace for unions.

So we are making progress, we continue to take our obligations seriously, and I hope that I have now persuaded the noble Lord—although I am sure I have not—that we therefore do not need to adopt this amendment, because these issues are already covered in UK law. Nevertheless, I thank him for the short debate.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her support and her economic analysis of the consequences of the absence of the effective right to strike. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. I am not sure I quite understood her question, but I am not trying to ring-fence an artificial, theoretical right. This amendment has purpose. I recognise the realities of the political situation in which we are arguing, but this right, were it to come about, would have practical, real consequences and continue what she described as the fight in real life.

The purpose of these international laws, of course, is to lay down minimum fundamental standards for the entire globe. Although some of them are quite ancient, dating to just after the Second World War, and while I accept that capitalism and the world of work have evolved, the fundamental nature of the entitlement to freedom of association, the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike remains, and it is very important that we keep an eye on these international standards and the modern interpretation of them by the bodies which are charged constitutionally to interpret them.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for what I discerned was his support, in a way, at least for the principle. This is my fault entirely, but I was moving Amendment 238 only. I am afraid that he has the further ordeal of listening to me again for the range of further right to strike amendments, including that in relation to prison officers.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his thorough response to my arguments. He can use the phrase “constitutional benediction”, but it is better coming from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. I will not take up time dealing with all his arguments; the differences between us are self-evident. I just point out that a positive right to strike exists in virtually every country in Europe, and they do not have a difficulty with issues of breach of contract. Of course, the restrictions on the exercise of the right to strike differ from one country to another, but the positive right exists almost everywhere.

Finally, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her very full response. She says that a positive right to strike would cut across our constitutional arrangements. I just remind her that Section 220 of the 1992 Act provides a positive right to picket; if we can have a positive right to picket, I do not see why we cannot have a positive right to strike. For the avoidance of doubt, I was not suggesting for a moment an absolute and unqualified right to strike. Everywhere in the world that there is a right to strike, it is always subject to limitations, which differ from country to country. The question that these international bodies wrestle with day in, day out is whether the particular limitation is in conformity with whatever the international treaty is.

My noble friend asserts that we are in compliance with international law on this. We have to agree to disagree on that point. I do not believe that to be the case. Of course, I agree with her that this Bill is a great improvement on the law as it is at the moment, but she knows that my view is that it is not quite enough. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 238 withdrawn.

Amendment 239

Moved by

[Lord Hendy]

239: After Clause 64, insert the following new Clause—
“Right to take industrial action (No. 2)(1) The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 is amended as follows.(2) Omit section 223 (action taken because of dismissal for taking unofficial action).”Member’s explanatory statement
These amendments would remove section 223 of the 1992 Act which renders industrial action unlawful if one of the reasons for the industrial action is that the employer has dismissed one or more workers for taking unofficial industrial action.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is now 10.22 pm, so I apologise for assaulting your Lordships’ ears with a series of amendments which also deal with the right to strike. Since time is precious, I have decided to focus on one amendment in particular and let the rest speak for themselves. I had hoped that my noble friend Lord Woodley would speak to his amendment on prison officers, but he is unavoidably not in his place. I will deal with that amendment when I get to it.

I will focus on Amendment 240, which introduces six specific measures aimed at the restoration of statutory protection for secondary action. Again, I do not entertain a great deal of hope for this amendment—I am a realist—but I express my gratitude for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who has added her name to it; for a briefing from the British Medical Association; and for the support of unions, including ASLEF, the BMA, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, the Fire Brigades Union, the RMT and the University and College Union.

Solidarity action is an inherent aspect of freedom of association and the right of workers to act for and on behalf of fellow workers, particularly fellow trade unionists. From 1906 to 1982, there was no legal distinction between solidarity action and other industrial action. The Conservative Government then introduced restrictions on certain kinds of secondary action, and in 1990 all statutory protection was withdrawn. The Labour Party strongly objected. In the parliamentary debates on the 1990 Bill, Tony Blair, then shadow Employment Minister, said in the other place:

“The abolition of sympathy action is unreasonable, unjustified and way out of line with anything that happens anywhere else”.


In relation to the proposal that all forms of sympathy and secondary action were to be forbidden, he said:

“That proposition is so manifestly unfair and unreasonable … that it is fatal to any pretence of even-handedness in the Bill”.


Compliance with international law is a duty incumbent on the state. Lord Bingham’s eighth principle of the rule of law is the obligation of the state and Ministers to comply with their international treaty obligations. In this House, last November, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General said of compliance with international law that:

“We should all be immensely proud of it, and this Government will seek at every turn to comply with our obligations”.—[Official Report, 26/11/24; col. 680.]


He developed the theme in a lecture to the Royal United Service Institute on 29 May this year in which he rejected “cherry picking” among international obligations. He continued,

“The argument … that the UK can breach its international obligations when it is in the national interest to do so, is a radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition, which has long been that ministers are under a duty to comply with international law … states can leave the treaties they have signed and agreed on. But the integrity and force of the system requires that once a party, to an agreement, they abide by its rules — they don’t pick and mix”.


It will be recalled that the Labour Party in 2021 adopted a Green Paper, Labour’s New Deal for Working People. It was integrated into Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People. It was explicitly referred to in the election manifesto and in the King’s Speech. The paper said:

“The laws regulating industrial action should ensure that UK law complies in every respect with the international obligations ratified by the UK, including those of the International Labour Organization and the European Social Charter, as reiterated in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union”.


The UK has ratified ILO Convention 87, which protects the right to strike. Since 1989, the ILO committee of expert jurists has reviewed the UK’s legislative restrictions on secondary action and held them in violation of ILO Convention 87. The committee held that secondary action should be permitted in three situations. First, where it relates directly to the social and economic interests of the workers involved in either or both of the original dispute and the secondary action, and where the original dispute and the secondary action are not unlawful in themselves. Secondly, in any event, a general prohibition of sympathy strikes could lead to abuse, and workers should be able to take such action, provided the initial strike they are supporting is itself lawful. And thirdly, furthermore, the restriction to disputes only between workers and their own employer

“could make it impossible for unions to take effective action in situations where the ‘real’ employer with whom they were in dispute was able to take refuge behind one or more subsidiary companies who were technically the ‘employer’ of the workers concerned, but who lacked the capacity to take decisions which are capable of satisfactorily resolving the dispute”.

That condemnation in 1989 has been repeated many times in the Committee of Experts’ observations on the United Kingdom, including in 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013.

The other ILO committee, the tripartite Committee on Freedom of Association, has also condemned the UK in this regard, holding that:

“a ban on strike action not linked to a collective dispute to which the employee or union is a party is contrary to the principles of freedom of association, the Committee once again requests the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that sympathy strikes, as well as social and economic protest action, are protected under the law”.

In November 2023, that committee reviewed the P&O Ferries scandal, and among other things, held that:

“At the outset, the Committee recalls that a general prohibition of sympathy strikes could lead to abuse and workers should be able to take such action provided the initial strike they are supporting is itself lawful … The Committee recalls that it had previously requested the UK Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that sympathy strikes were protected under the law … The Committee requests the Government to engage with the social partners to overcome challenges regarding the legislative prohibition on sympathy strikes, in conformity with freedom of association”.


The request was ignored.

22:30

I interject that, in 2014, the European Court of Human Rights concluded in RMT v the UK that, though the absence of protection of sympathy action was in breach of the right to strike under the European convention Article 11(1), it permissibly fell within the UK’s margin of appreciation under Article 11(2). However, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, pointed out, states cannot cherry-pick the treaty obligations with which they will conform from among those they have ratified. Put another way, violation of ILO Convention 87 is not excused by non-violation of the European convention. In 2024, the ILO Committee of Experts considered that judgment of the European court, holding that the ILO was not bound by a decision made under a different legal instrument. Accordingly, it repeated the position on the UK taken for 35 years, adding:

“The committee therefore once again requests the Government to engage with the social partners to overcome challenges regarding the legislative prohibition on sympathy strikes in conformity with freedom of association”.

In February of this year, the committee’s observations yet again repeated that request.

The Council of Europe member states which, like the United Kingdom, have ratified Article 6(4) of the European Social Charter, must guarantee the right to strike. That involves, as the European Committee on Social Rights has held, that

“lawful collective action may not be limited to disputes between workers and their employer, thus preventing a union from taking action against a de facto employer”,

which is,

“not the immediate employer”.

Article 6(4) also guarantees the right to participate in secondary action.

In 1991, the European Committee on Social Rights held that the ILO’s findings of breaches of ILO Convention 87 by the UK were also violations of Article 6(4) of the charter. That negative conclusion was repeated in 1993 and resulted in a formal recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to the United Kingdom. The negative conclusions were repeated in 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2019 and 2023.

This Bill is the opportunity to restore the United Kingdom to the nation states which abide by the treaty obligations by which they have agreed to be bound. Either that, or this Labour Government will be forced to admit that they will not conform to and will instead denounce ILO Convention 87 and the European Social Charter Article 6(4)—an outcome which I believe to be inconceivable.

I see the time, but I will shortly deal with the other amendments. Amendment 239 would repeal Section 223 of the 1992 Act, which prevents industrial action taken with a view to reinstating strikers dismissed when taking unofficial industrial action. This is a matter of industrial justice, as the TUC has pointed out, because it applies regardless of the cause of the unofficial action. It has also been the subject of criticism by the ILO Committee of Experts.

Amendment 241 is intended to restore the right to take industrial action to gain recognition of a union by an employer for the purposes of collective bargaining. That should be an entirely legitimate object.

Amendment 242 seeks to remove the requirement to give notice to the employer that the union intends to hold a ballot on industrial action. Inevitably, a union will publicise that, but the objection is to it being a mandatory requirement and a condition to secure protection for the right subsequently to take industrial action. The ILO has condemned the requirement to give notice of an industrial action ballot.

Amendment 243 seeks to remove the hideous complexity of the distinction between separate and aggregated ballots. That is an extreme example of the complexity of the current legislation, which has been condemned by the ILO since 1989.

Amendment 249 intends to relieve the obligation on unions to give notice to the employer of the full results of the ballot. Instead, a sensible arrangement that is suitable for the 21st century is proposed: requiring unions to put the full results in an easily accessible place on their websites.

Amendment 253 has the same effect as my noble friend Lord Woodley’s Amendment 261, which seeks to restore to prison officers the right to take industrial action. It was taken from them—50 years after its founding —by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The ILO permits restrictions on strikes on inessential services but requires one of several preconditions: the restriction must

“be accompanied by adequate, impartial and speedy conciliation and arbitration proceedings in which the parties concerned can take part at every stage and in which the awards, once made, are fully and promptly implemented”.

The Prison Service Pay Review Body was imposed on the Prison Service. Governments did not regard themselves as bound by that until the present Government, who have promised that “every last penny” of the PSPRB recommendations will be fulfilled. The problem is that that does not resolve the issue of the right to strike.

My amendment seeks to remove the ban, but if the Government do not accept lifting the ban on prison officers taking industrial action, to comply with the rule of law and the requirements of the ILO they must institute an arbitral machinery. The members of the arbitral body must be

“appointed on the basis of specific guidance or criteria and have the confidence of all parties”.

They must provide

“adequate, impartial and speedy conciliation and arbitration … in which the parties concerned can take part at every stage and in which the awards, once made, are fully and promptly implemented”.

It also means that if the PSPRB is to undertake that function, it must be given a remit outside simply pay. That body currently does not enjoy the confidence of the POA. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is getting late—it is more than an hour and a half past my preferred bedtime—so I am going to show incredible restraint: although I have signed five amendments, I will speak to only three. I see that the Chief Whip is scowling at me even before I have started, so obviously I am going to milk it for all it is worth.

As a Green, I see that, with every decade of globalisation, this country has had less industry and more of our public services sold off to foreign owners. I do not understand why that has happened; it does not seem to be good business. The next step, of course, will be freeports, where basic rules and protections just disappear. That is where this country is heading. We need the return of strong trade unions to help turn the tide. Each of these amendments aims to give back the power that organised labour once had.

Amendment 239 would enable workers to act collectively if the employer has dismissed someone for downing tools. That person might have refused to work for all sorts of reasons: they might have been asked to do something dangerous, been asked in an abusive way or been asked to do something beyond their job description.

The Chief Whip is making me laugh now.

There are a lot of good reasons why somebody might walk out, and their colleagues can judge whether they are sensible.

The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, said he only really wanted to talk about Amendment 240. I agree that it is quite important because modern industry and services are broken up into small, interconnected companies and subcontractors, and it is essential that workers are able to bring their grievances to the attention of other workers in closely related workplaces. Employers do not like it because it is working people acting in solidarity with each other. It is one set of workers asking another set of employees to make their own decisions about which side they are on.

The idea of democracy does not stop at the ballot box, not that we would know much about that; it should be in the workplace as well. Last week, I met a trade unionist from Italy. He and his coworkers took over the GKN factory in Florence. They are trying to move as a co-operative working force from making parts for very expensive cars to making eco-bikes and solar panels. It is a fantastic opportunity, and I really hope they are successful.

Amendment 241 is the most crucial of these amendments as it restores the right of workers to take industrial action to be recognised as trade unionists. This is the most basic of rights, and it is shameful that a Labour Government have not put this into the Bill. What is Labour for if it is not about working people? Everything else, apparently.

The decline in trade unions has led to the growth of the gig economy and spurious self-employment. The age of secure employment and regular hours has become a fading dream for far too many. This amendment is another small step towards giving people some power in their workplace. Collective bargaining should be automatic in workplaces if a large enough group of employees want it. With so many employers unwilling to take that step, it is crucial that those employees have the right to strike and demand that recognition from an employer.

I would like a just and fair society. The richest 50 families in the UK hold more wealth than the bottom 33.5 million people. How is that okay? I argue that it is not. Nothing in this country works properly any more because the gap between the richest and the poorest is increasing every single day. Those on a low income are being left behind and those on middle incomes are being fleeced by privatised services. Strong trade unions are one way of helping people find a bit of power and control in their lives—these amendments enable that.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, for bringing this into our debate but, candidly, his Amendment 240 is truly extraordinary. The only success Flying Pickets had was a number one in 1983 with the single “Only You”—and, by the way, that was a copy from the great band Yazoo. The idea that we would go back to flying pickets is just extraordinary.

Some 45 years on, no sensible Labour Peer has put this forward until tonight. I genuinely find it astonishing that we are here still debating the idea that it is democracy for a strike to be called somewhere else all of a sudden and for you to go off somewhere else for a dispute you are not part of.

While I appreciate the erudite speech we have heard tonight, going back to the real substance and principle of this, this is an important Bill. I do not agree with a lot of it, but I find it extraordinary that we are going back in time when this country actually needs to move forward in modern industrial relations. I regret the amendments that have been tabled today.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak against this amendment very briefly. I agree wholly with my noble friend Lady Coffey. I also agree that the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, was very persuasive, compelling, detailed and comprehensive, but completely wrong. It would be a disaster for our country if we were to go back to the era of Saltley coke works, Grunwick, the disaster inflicted on the automotive industry, flying pickets and the closed shop.

22:45

However, that aside, what really got my goat, so to speak, is this cultural cringe—this genuflection to the concept of international law. We have to state it once more: there is no such thing in this country as international law. We have a dualist regime where we decide which obligations we accept in this sovereign Parliament in our country. The idea that, because a foreign legal entity has decided something, it affects every one of our citizens is nonsense. It is for this Parliament, elected by the people, at the other end of this building, and us, to make those decisions. So I cannot agree with the noble Lord. He prayed in aid international law throughout his very comprehensive and well-argued remarks, but I fundamentally disagree with him.

My final point is that there are plenty of examples where we have cherry-picked international obligations. With the Hirst No. 2 case of 2005, on prisoner votes, the then Conservative Government, I think probably agreed with by the Labour Opposition, completely disregarded the idea of giving a full franchise to prisoners serving a custodial sentence. My noble friend on the Front Bench is nodding her head: as a very accomplished Home Office Minister, she will no doubt concur with that. So there are occasions where we have disregarded our obligations for political reasons, and we can do it again. If the choice is bringing back secondary picketing and all that goes with it, or disregarding some obligations that have been established by a foreign legal entity, I know which decision I would make for the long-term future of employment, business and commerce in this country.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It seems to me that the key purpose behind this group of amendments is seeking to shift the balance of power a little bit more towards working people. I think you would find that many people in the country agree that that balance of power has swung too far against ordinary working people for too long.

I just want to very, very briefly say a word on Amendment 253 and underline the very grave sense of injustice that prison officers feel about the removal of what is a fundamental human right, the right to withdraw your labour, back in 1994. There is a sense that that did not in any way improve the Prison Service; I think many of us would agree that the Prison Service has subsequently faced huge challenges. We know of the huge problems that prison officers face very often, day to day, in their workplace: violence, poor conditions and vermin. I stress the appeal made by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. Given the grave sense of injustice that is felt by people who not only stand up for fellow workers as members of the POA but stand up for a service that we could become proud of as a country, a prison service that also, I hope, does the job of rehabilitating people, we must look to engage with the POA to find a remedy to the real sense of injustice that they feel.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I will quickly follow and agree with my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Jackson of Peterborough in their speaking against the amendments in this group. We feel that these amendments collectively represent a dangerous and retrograde step that would just take us back to the industrial chaos of the 1970s.

Such amendments would fundamentally undermine the carefully balanced framework of industrial relations that has served this country well for, now, over 30 years. I suppose the conventions of the House require me to address each amendment in turn, starting with Amendment 239. As the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, described, this would remove Section 223 of the 1992 Act, which currently renders unlawful any industrial action taken in response to dismissals for unofficial action.

When workers engage in unofficial action—that is, action not sanctioned by their trade union and without proper balloting procedures—they are essentially taking the law into their own hands, so employers must retain the right to dismiss workers who breach their contracts in this manner. To permit official industrial action in response to such lawful dismissals would create a vicious circle where lawlessness begets more lawlessness. It would effectively immunise unofficial action from any meaningful consequences, and encourage workers to bypass the proper, democratic procedures that unions themselves have surely fought hard to establish.

Amendment 240 is perhaps the most pernicious of all these proposals. It would restore secondary action, the ability of workers not just to strike against their employer over their conditions, but to support disputes elsewhere. We banned secondary action for compelling reasons. It allows disputes to spread like wildfire across the economy, dragging innocent third parties into conflicts that have nothing to do with their industrial relationships. A dispute between workers and one employer could paralyse entire supply chains, disrupting businesses that have committed no wrong and harming workers who have no stake in the original dispute.

The amendment would also remove the sensible restrictions on picketing, allowing pickets to target any workplace, rather than just their own. This opens the door to flying pickets and the mass intimidation tactics that we witnessed in the darkest days of industrial conflict. When pickets can descend on workplaces with which they have no employment relationship, the result is not legitimate industrial pressure but mob rule. Furthermore, by changing the definition of trade disputes from those “wholly or mainly” relating to employment matters to those merely “connected with” such matters, this amendment would politicise industrial action. Strikes could be called on the flimsiest of pretexts, with only the most tenuous connection to genuine workplace issues. This is a recipe for politically motivated disruption that serves no legitimate industrial relations purpose.

Amendment 241 would restore the right to strike for union recognition. We have established statutory procedures for union recognition that are fair, democratic and effective. These procedures protect workers’ rights to choose whether they wish to be represented by a union, without the coercion that inevitably accompanies strike action. When recognition can be achieved through industrial action, the process becomes tainted by intimidation, rather than informed by genuine worker preference. No worker should ever face the choice between supporting their family and supporting union recognition demands.

Amendment 242 would remove the requirement for unions to provide employers with notice of strike ballots. This seemingly technical change would also have profound practical consequences. Employers need advance notice to make contingency arrangements, to protect vulnerable service users and to engage in meaningful dialogue that might resolve disputes before they escalate. In essential services—our hospitals, schools and transport networks—such notice is crucial for public safety. To remove this requirement would be to abandon the vital principle that industrial action should and must be a last resort rather than a first response.

Amendment 243 would eliminate the requirement for separate workplace ballots, allowing unions to aggregate completely different workplaces and employment relationships into single ballots. This strikes at the heart of democratic participation. Workers in one workplace may face entirely different conditions and concerns from those in another. They should not be bound by the votes of workers with whom they share nothing but a common union membership. Workplace-specific ballots ensure that industrial action has genuine support from those who will participate in it, rather than being imposed by a union hierarchy pursuing its own agenda.

Taken together, these amendments would create a perfect storm of industrial instability. They would restore the legal framework that gave us the winter of discontent, when rubbish piled up in our streets, bodies went unburied and hospital patients were turned away by striking workers. They would empower union leaders to spread disputes across entire industries, to bypass democratic procedures and to hold essential services hostage to political demands. We must not forget the lessons of history. The industrial relations reforms of the 1980s and 1990s did not destroy trade unionism; they civilised it. They required unions to be accountable to their members and responsive to legitimate concerns while preventing the abuse of industrial power.

The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, would have us believe that they simply want to restore workers’ rights. But rights without responsibilities are merely privileges, and privileges being exercised without regard for their impact on others quickly becomes tyranny. The right to strike is not an absolute right; it is a powerful tool that must be used judiciously and with proper safeguards.

Moreover, these amendments would do nothing to address the real challenges that face working people today. They would not raise a single wage, improve a single workplace or create a single job. Instead, as my noble friends pointed out, they would create uncertainty, discourage investment and ultimately harm the very workers that they purport to be helping. Businesses need stability and predictability to grow and prosper. Industrial relations law that encourages conflict and chaos will drive investment elsewhere, taking jobs and opportunities with it.

I urge this Committee to reject these amendments. They represent not progress but regression, not liberation but license, and not workers’ rights but workers’ wrongs. We must maintain the balanced approach that has served our economy and our society so well. Let us resist the siren call of those who would drag us back to an era of industrial warfare that all of us hoped that we would never see again. The choice before us is clear. We can preserve a system that protects workers’ legitimate rights while maintaining economic stability and social peace, or we can return to those bad old days of secondary picketing, political strikes and industrial anarchy. I think and I hope that I know which path this Committee would choose.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Hendy for his amendments on the right to strike and for raising the issue of prisoner officers’ right to strike, which was strongly debated in the other place.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has taken such a strident approach to the issues which my noble friends have raised. Although we do not necessarily agree with everything that my noble friend has put forward, I would say equally that we distance ourselves from the tone and attitude that has been presented by the other side this evening.

23:00

I turn to Amendment 239, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hendy. Section 223 of the 1992 Act excludes from protection any industrial action act that is taken in protest at a dismissal following previous unofficial action. The removal of Section 223 would therefore mean that, if an individual breached their employment contract by taking unofficial unprotected action and had been dismissed for this breach of contract, their colleagues would be able to take protected action based on their opposition to this dismissal—providing, of course, that they have met the other conditions for protected action as set out in the 1992 Act. We do not believe it is right to allow industrial action to be called based on the dismissal of those who undertake prohibited unofficial industrial action. In the same way as there are clear protections for those taking protected industrial action, there must be clear protections for employers and the public from those taking unofficial industrial action.

I turn to Amendment 240, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hendy. Secondary action is currently unlawful in the UK. Allowing it would enable parties with no direct stake in the dispute to take co-ordinated action, potentially escalating the industrial action. Widening the scope for picketing beyond an individual’s own place of work could increase the risk of disruption to employers and the public, and allow industrial disputes to escalate beyond their original context and across different employers. It would undermine the carefully balanced framework that protects both the rights of workers and the wider public interest. This could have a disproportionate impact on essential services and the wider economy, with significant consequences for all. I say to my noble friend that the ILO protects trade union activity. It does not grant an unrestricted right to secondary action. International law allows Governments to impose restrictions, where necessary, to protect the economy and maintain public order. I am very sorry to say that we cannot support his amendment.

On Amendment 241, again tabled by my noble friend Lord Hendy, Section 225 excludes from protection from tort liability any industrial action that is conducted to achieve the recognition of a union by an employer other than the employer of the union taking industrial action. We do not consider that this type of industrial action is proportionate or suitable. Indeed, we believe that industrial action should take place only where there is a dispute between a group of workers and their direct employer, as secondary action can be very disruptive to the economy. The explanatory statement from my noble friend suggests the amendment is intended to allow industrial action to secure recognition for collective bargaining. For clarity, this is already permitted under existing legislation. However, protection does not extend to action taken against an employer not directly involved in the dispute, as this constitutes secondary action, which remains prohibited.

Amendment 243, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hendy, would give trade unions more freedom to choose which constituencies they will ballot. Section 228 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 lays down a general principle that if voters have different workplaces then there should be separate ballots for each workplace. The purpose is to ensure that workers at one workplace where the majority of union members did not favour industrial action cannot be called out on strike purely because there was a majority in favour of action at some other large workplace. There are existing well-established exceptions, which allow aggregate ballots in certain circumstances. These are set out in Section 228A. The amendment would remove Sections 228 and 228A, thus enabling a union to conduct a ballot across separate workplaces as a matter of course. The Government do not support this approach, as it risks allowing for manipulation of constituencies to provide for the maximum chance of ballot success.

Amendment 242, again in the name of my noble friend Lord Hendy, would remove the obligation on a trade union to give notice of a proposed industrial action ballot and a copy of the ballot paper to the relevant employer. To ensure that employers can adequately prepare for potential industrial action, we feel that it is only fair and appropriate that they be notified of upcoming ballots. The Government therefore do not support removing the requirement for unions to provide notice of an industrial action ballot to the relevant employer.

I turn finally to Amendment 253, in respect of which my noble friends Lord Hendy and Lady O’Grady made very impassioned contributions. I start by acknowledging that prison officers are some of the finest public servants, and I make it absolutely clear that attacks on our prison staff are completely unacceptable. The Government will do whatever it takes to protect prison officers, and my thoughts are with the brave officers who were recently attacked at HMPs Frankland, Belmarsh and Long Lartin.

Though their work is largely out of view of the public, prison officers play a vital role in keeping both the public and those in our care safe. As a result, they are prevented from taking industrial action under the current legislation. As compensation for that restriction, their pay is governed by the independent Prison Service Pay Review Body process. The Government have committed to accept the recommendations from that review process, except in “exceptional circumstances”.

This year, the Government have accepted all 13 of the independent recommendations put forward by the pay review body. This year’s award represents an increase of at least 4% for all operational prison staff, delivering another real-terms pay rise on top of the one provided last summer. This will increase the starting salary for an entry-level officer, on the national rate of 39 hours, from £34,494 to £35,875. The award was announced two months earlier than last year, recognising our commitment to accelerating the pay review body timetable to deliver a timely pay award to staff.

Industrial action, even if only partial, would create unsustainable and significant risks to safety and security in prisons. The Prison Service has limited contingencies available to deal with industrial action, relying on a narrow group of operational managers, with some potential for very limited support from the police and Army in some circumstances during such incidents.

The Prison Service and the POA have developed a strong working relationship in recent years, and it is the Government’s hope that this position continues going forward. I can tell my noble friend Lady O’Grady that we continue to work with both sides, and we hope to find a more substantial way forward on these issues. With this in mind, I ask my noble friend Lord Hendy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her support, her attention to Amendments 239 and 241, and her economic analysis of inequality in the role of trade unions. I thank my noble friend Lady O’Grady for developing that by explaining that the purpose of these amendments is to restore the balance of power somewhat.

I also thank her for dealing with Amendment 253 on prison officers. I feel somewhat guilty that I did not give due time to that subject in my speech. However, I note the additional point that prison officers in Scotland have the right to strike. It seems inexplicable to me that those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are deprived of it while those in Scotland enjoy it.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for her contribution. She did not deal with the requirements of international law; instead, she put forward a case that we have heard before, which in essence is that of special pleading that the circumstances of the United Kingdom justify non-compliance with international law. I do not think that that argument is capable of success.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, rather misunderstands the position of international law and the theory of dualist and monist regimes. The United Kingdom is a dualist regime. That means that the obligation of international law falls not on the citizens, corporations, trade unions or other bodies in the United Kingdom but on the state itself. The obligation to comply with international law is that of the state, not of the citizens within it.

The noble Lord mentioned the European Convention. That is somewhat different, because Parliament has made most of the European Convention part of UK law itself. That is a different thing altogether. I am not arguing that the provisions in international law that I have explained apply directly in the United Kingdom or in UK courts or tribunals. The obligations are on the state to conform to those obligations which it has ratified.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, regards these measures as a dangerous and retrograde step and regards the current regime over the last 40 years or so as being very successful. On the contrary, I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, in regarding the legislation of 1980s as having led to powerlessness, poverty, inequality, insecurity of work and insecurity of earnings. I disagree with his analysis, in which he describes the consequences of some mythical fantasy world of his own imagination. I say just this about the 1970s, as we do not have time to go into it: for all its faults, it was the most equal decade in British history for wealth and income. The consequence of the 1980s legislation has been to reduce collective bargaining coverage from over 80% to something like a quarter today, which is the essential cause of inequality and poverty.

Finally, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her attentive and detailed response. Again, we must agree to differ in our conclusions, but I add that we cannot go on being damned year after year by these international supervisory bodies. There has to be some way of resolving Britain’s non-compliance. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 239 withdrawn.

Amendments 240 to 243 not moved.

Clause 65: Industrial action ballots: turnout threshold

Amendment 244

Moved by

[Lord Goddard of Stockport]

244: Clause 65, page 95, line 12, leave out subsection (2)
Member's explanatory statement
This probing amendment would reinstate the 50% threshold requirement for industrial action to be voted on by a trade union and seeks to understand whether the Government perceives a risk to the democratic integrity of trade union ballots for industrial action as a result of the provisions to remove the 50% requirement.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, an interesting night has been had by all. More ammunition has been thrown into the laps of these Benches than on any other night of the entire debate. Of course, that is called an unintended consequence—never mind. I rise to speak to the important group of amendments that address the key aspects of the industrial ballot process. I wish to highlight my own probing Amendments 244 and 246, which focus on maintaining a robust democratic mandate for industrial action and ensuring clarity around the ballot’s effective period. I thank the Ministers for making time to meet me last week to understand the rationale behind these probing amendments, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for signing my amendments—she is my new best friend for at least the next 45 minutes.

Amendment 244 is a probing amendment that aims to reinstate the 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots, questioning whether removing this requirement could weaken their democratic legitimacy. In the process, that could have significant consequences for workers, employers and the public. It is clear that the ballots genuinely reflect the clear will of the membership. That would seem obvious to me. We have spoken tonight about courts from all over Europe and the world, but there is another court: the court of public opinion. When you hear of people having strike ballots with percentage turnouts in the low 20s or 30s, you really must question the legitimacy of the argument for the ballot if you cannot at least get 50% of the workforce to take part.

23:15

Amendment 246 complements this by proposing a reduction in the current 12-month ballot mandate to six months. This aims to ensure that the results of ballots reflect members’ current views and circumstances, avoiding situations where an outdated mandate could be used to justify industrial action. Together, these amendments seek to balance the need for efficient union representation with accountability and relevance and to ensure that industrial action remains the last resort, supported by a clear and timely mandate.

It is equally important to consider other amendments that simplify the notification process, such as the proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, to make ballot results more accessible online and adjustments to notice periods in sectors where disruption carries serious consequences, such as rail—to my cost—and aviation. I am sceptical of the proposal from His Majesty’s Opposition to remove the clause from the Bill. This could risk causing unnecessary confusion for industry and employers, who need clarity to prepare for the legal challenges and changes the Bill would introduce. Removing provisions at this stage could undermine certainty and complicate planning, making it harder for all parties to understand their rights and obligations under a new framework.

While these changes are intended to improve clarity and fairness in industrial action procedures, the Government must carefully consider the wider implications of lowering turnout thresholds or extending validity periods. They go too far. We must protect both workers’ rights and collective action and the need for transparency and confidence in the process. I look forward to the Minister’s response on these points and potential refinement of these positions in further meetings. I beg to move.

[Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 251A stands in my name. I draw the Committee’s attention to the interests I have disclosed in the register. I chair the operating company that runs London Luton Airport.

Much in the Bill is to be welcomed. It will deal with some of the manifest gaps in our framework of employment law and will strike a better balance of rights in the workplace. I strongly congratulate my noble friends on bringing this Bill forward. My amendment addresses the question of balance. Ministers have repeatedly emphasised the importance of balancing the need for better protections for workers and a simplified, less complex framework for industrial relations law with the legitimate and reasonable concerns of employers about flexibility and the regulatory costs of additional legislation. Being both pro business and pro worker is a laudable aim, but it will depend on this balance being properly struck.

I believe that Clause 71 as drafted does not strike the correct balance as it affects UK airlines because this clause directly, but probably inadvertently, brings into play in any future industrial action involving UK airlines the regulations concerning airline passenger compensation set out in what is known in the industry as UK261, which would impose potentially significant costs on airline operators in any future industrial dispute. This regulation gives passengers a right to compensation if a flight is cancelled fewer than 14 days before departure, unless there are, according to the regulations, extraordinary circumstances. Compensation can be anywhere between £110 and £520 per person, depending on the length of the flight, not the value of the ticket. Unions are required under the current law to give 14 days’ strike notice to any UK airline operator, allowing flights to be cancelled without incurring potentially enormous claims for compensation from passengers.

The regulations and the primary legislation are, in this context, extremely and entirely harmonious. Clause 71 would change the current careful balance and expose airlines to significant claims for compensation as in future if the Bill becomes law only 10 days’ notice of strike action would be required. An important ruling of the European Court of Justice in 2019 made it clear that strikes by an airline’s own staff are not to be considered extraordinary circumstances under UK261, so we have an obvious problem. I cannot believe that Ministers intended this outcome because, put simply, there is no balance here. Uniquely in this sector, the law would discriminate against airline operators.

My amendment proposes a solution to this. UK airline employees should continue to be required to provide 14 days’ notice of strike action. I do not believe that my amendment raises any fundamental issues of principle. Trade unions should, and must, have the freedom to take industrial action, but employers also have the reasonable expectation that the law will remain neutral and will not favour one side over the other. I am afraid that Clause 71 does precisely that as far as the airline sector is concerned. If my solution is not considered acceptable to my noble friend on the Front Bench, I hope that she will be able to tell me how she plans to deal with this situation.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

My Lords, I am embarrassed to keep your Lordships even a few minutes more, but I stand to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and my noble friend Lord Jackson in his opposition to Clause 69 standing part, and to introduce my own opposition to Clause 66 standing part. Thus, I go further than the noble Lord Goddard, even though I very much support his words.

Why is Clause 65, in combination with Clause 66, so damaging? The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, was quite right to focus on the democratic legitimacy of the provisions of Clause 65, but there is a further, even more key, set of problems with these clauses. With noble Lords’ permission at this very late hour, for which I apologise, I will give a very brief review of the history.

Let us first look at days lost to strikes in the 1970s. In 1970, 10 million days were lost; in 1972, 24 million days were lost; and in 1979, 30 million days were lost during the winter of discontent. We consequently had the Thatcher reforms, which outlawed secondary action, banned strikes conducted for political reasons, regulated picketing, required secret ballots for strike action, and made trade unions legally accountable for actions taken in their name. This enabled unions to restore control and reduce the number of unofficial strikes, which had been a major source of the growth in strike activity in the 1960s and 1970s. The result, post-Thatcher through to the 2020s, was that, on average, less than half a million days a year were lost to strikes. Industrial peace was a direct consequence of those reforms. There were no more winters of discontent. This was enormously valuable, for example, for the Blair and Brown Governments of the noughties.

Let us note that the Government’s Bill seeks to eliminate very few of those specific Thatcher reforms. The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, which we have just discussed, made an attempt at that; I am glad to hear the Government sensibly decline his invitation. However, even though the Government apparently see the sense of leaving most of the Thatcher reforms in place, they seem, in Clauses 65 and 66 in particular, to be looking to find other ways to unionise the private sector landscape.

If the Government succeed in that, there will be inevitable consequences for the UK’s economy. Last week, it was observed that unions are currently mostly confined to the public sector in the UK, but nobody asked why that was so. It is obviously because public sector workers have a monopoly of employment, so can enforce their will, and timid Governments seek to placate them so as to be able to appear, at least, to be in charge. What is the impact of this? They are multiple public sector strikes and excessive wage settlements in the public sector, the costs of which are now directly leading the Chancellor to her current dilemma of a runaway deficit, plus underserved public services such as social care and child welfare, and an impending debt crisis.

What will Clauses 65 and 66 collectively do to the union landscape in the UK? Clause 65 removes Section 226(2)(a)(iia) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, meaning that for the ballot to be valid, you no longer have any floor for the percentage of employees voting. Clause 66 alters subsection (2)(a)(iii) so that only a majority of those voting would be required for a strike to go forward. One businessman whom I spoke to just today was utterly startled by this news. He runs an SME employing 36 workers. If, say, one-third of them—12 people—vote, and only six of those 36 employees vote to strike, then you have a strike. It is not hard to find six out of 36 employees to vote for a strike.

However, is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, pointed out, democratic? Will the electorate’s heart warm to this quantitative gerrymandering? As I described just now, we all see the impact of unionisation in the public sector. What will happen in the private sector if this Bill, in the undemocratic manner that the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, has so rightly decried, passes?

I described last week in this Chamber some of the past, when unionisation destroyed industries such as the London docks, and the present, when the public is tormented by public sector strikes ranging from dustbins to doctors and from teachers to train drivers. This present-day public sector malaise, if it spreads to the private sector, will, as my noble friend Lord Hunt made clear, take us straight back to the 1970s and the winter of discontent.

If the Government are, sensibly, really not proposing to change much of the Margaret Thatcher reforms, which have brought industrial peace to the private sector at least, why is there any need to bring in these new anti-democratic changes? Do the Government really think that allowing strikes to go forward, with feasibly only 10% or even less of employees voting for the strike, will be seen by the public and indeed by the other 90% of the employees of that company as anything but outrageous and leading to even more strikes, even more outrageous wage settlements, even more yawning deficits, even, dare I say, a very large and this time real economic black hole?

If the Government proceed with these changes, the inevitable consequent industrial strife will be laid at their door. The Labour Party saw what happened to it in the 1979 election as a result of the winter of discontent. Why is it now seeking a similar fate in 2029? I urge the Government to withdraw Clause 66 and indeed Clause 65.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendments that I have signed. I do not actually wish to add anything on Amendments 244 and 246 as what the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, said was straight to the point. I agree with him absolutely on those matters.

I just want to briefly turn to the Clause 71 stand part notice and Amendment 251A from the noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness, explained it very eloquently. Why, when we are getting into this level of legislation, does it really matter about going from 14 days to 10 days? Actually, it does. There are wider consequences of some of these legal changes which need to be recognised in terms of the practicality of some of this legislation. It would be very helpful to hear from the Minister why that particular move is being made.

The other reason I oppose entirely Clause 71 standing part—to be more accurate, it is probably about subsection (1)(b)—is the categories and the NHS and trying to prepare for strikes. You never know exactly how many people will go on strike when you are running a hospital or other parts of the NHS. Having a clear sense of what capability you are still going to be able to run is critical for patient safety and for patients getting better.

I hope that the Government consider the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, when it comes to the airline industry. I hope Ministers will also carefully consider the NHS in their deliberations, because that genuinely can mean the difference between life and death or, to be less dramatic, whether a whole series of operations will need to be cancelled for many patients across the country. I genuinely believe, recognising that health unions are currently issuing ballot papers, that Ministers should be carefully considering what impact this new clause would have.

23:30

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Moynihan, and the noble Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Hutton. I will come back to their amendments shortly.

I will speak to Amendments 245, 251B and the question of whether Clause 68 should stand part, which is tabled in my name. On the clause stand part, this clause represents a dangerous step backwards. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, objected to it in the sense that he thought it might introduce a lack of clarity. But the fact is that the clause itself is a step backwards in transparency and democratic accountability that this Committee must not allow to pass unchallenged.

The provisions that Clause 68 seeks to remove, notably subsections (2B) to (2D) of Section 229, are not bureaucratic obstacles but fundamental pillars of informed democratic participation. They require that voting papers should include a summary of the dispute, specify the types of industrial action proposed and indicate when such action is expected to take place. These are not unreasonable burdens. They are the basic information any voter needs to make an informed decision.

Democracy thrives on transparency, not opacity. When we ask working people to vote on whether to take industrial action—a decision that may affect their employment, their families’ livelihoods and their future prospects—surely they are owed the courtesy of clear, comprehensive information about what they might be voting for.

Consider the absurdity of what this clause actually proposes. It is a ballot paper that asks, “Are you prepared to take part in industrial action short of a strike?” without specifying whether this means a work-to-rule, an overtime ban, a refusal to cover additional duties or any combination of actions. How can any reasonable person make an informed choice without knowing what they are agreeing to participate in?

The Government may well argue that these requirements impose administrative burdens on the trade unions, which is an argument we have heard on a couple of groups tonight. But since when did we consider informing voters to be an administrative burden rather than a democratic duty? We would not accept a general election ballot that failed to specify what office candidates were seeking or what their party stood for, so why should we accept industrial action ballots with less information?

Furthermore, these information requirements serve to protect union members themselves. Clear information helps ensure that workers understand not just what they are voting for but the potential consequences of their actions. This protects both their interests and those of their unions by reducing the likelihood of disputes over the course, scope or nature of mandated action.

Turning to Amendment 245, I agree with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard. I will speak to this amendment, although I must emphasise that my primary concern is not with the amendment itself but the Government’s fundamentally flawed approach to this critical issue. To be absolutely clear, the 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots should be maintained. This threshold exists for the very good reason that it ensures that strikes and other industrial actions have genuine democratic legitimacy, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, pointed out, and that they represent the will of a substantial portion of union membership and not merely an activist minority.

If the Government are determined to weaken these democratic protections, and regrettably it appears that they are, they must not compound this error by hiding behind secondary legislation. Businesses across this nation deserve better. They need to know the regulatory framework within which they will operate—a theme to which we have returned a number of times through the Bill. They cannot plan for investment, assess risk or make employment decisions when fundamental aspects of industrial relations law are left hanging in regulatory limbo. The Government’s approach creates precisely the uncertainty that undermines economic confidence and job creation.

I urge the Government to reconsider entirely and maintain the 50% threshold to provide the certainty that businesses need and the democratic legitimacy that industrial action requires. If the Government insist that they are going to lower the threshold, which we think will be disastrous, it should be in the Bill, so that we can scrutinise it fully, which is what my amendment would ensure. As my noble friend Lord Moynihan pointed out, a 20% threshold could lead to only 10% of a workforce supporting strike action. The House deserves the opportunity to examine and debate such fundamental changes properly and not have them smuggled through in statutory instruments with minimal parliamentary oversight.

I will speak very briefly to Amendment 251A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton. I could not agree with him more. It would be a very regrettable error if the Bill were to inadvertently introduce an unintended consequence of potentially swingeing fines for airlines, for reasons that are not really any fault of their own. It is to be supported, and I hope he will return to the theme.

My Amendment 251B proposes a modest but vital extension, from 10 to 14 days, of the notice period required before industrial action can commence in the railway sector, for slightly different reasons. This is not an attempt to restrict workers’ rights but rather a recognition of the unique role that our railway system plays in the economic and social fabric of the nation. The railway network is not just another industry. As my noble friend Lady Coffey pointed out, it is the circulatory system of the economy and it moves millions of passengers and vast quantities of freight every single day. When railway services are disrupted, the effects cascade through every sector of society, from healthcare workers unable to reach hospitals to students missing examinations and businesses losing millions in productivity. The current 10-day notice period that is proposed is simply insufficient for the complexity of railway operations. I could go on, but I think I have said enough on the subject.

Four additional days may seem modest, but, in the context of the operations of the railway and airlines, it represents the difference between chaos and managed disruption. It allows time for proper contingency planning, for negotiations to continue and for the travelling public to make alternative arrangements. With that, I shall wind up, but I hope the Government are paying attention and will at least listen to these carefully considered amendments.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Goddard of Stockport, and my noble friends Lord Hutton of Furness and Lord Hendy for tabling amendments on the subject of industrial action ballot mandates, thresholds and notice. Despite the late hour, I recognise that there is significant interest here. I will try to do justice to all those amendments and to the opposition to certain clauses standing part of the Bill.

Before I go into the detail, I want to make it clear that a lot of what we are discussing relates to the repeal of the great majority of the Trade Union Act 2016, which was a clear manifesto commitment for this Government. I think it is worth framing why that is the context. This does, in a way, speak to a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned. Far from supporting the economy, the strike legislation in the 2016 Act that we inherited from the then Opposition did not actually prevent strikes. In 2022, we lost more days to strikes than France. In 2023 and 2024, NHS strikes alone cost the taxpayer £1.7 billion.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

The noble Lord and others keep referring to the 2016 Act, but the amendments that we have been addressing in this section are all amendments to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

With respect, there are definitely elements in the group of amendments we are talking about that relate to the 2016 Act. I was simply setting out the context for my remarks. Perhaps the noble Lord will let me make some progress, and, if he is still not satisfied towards the end of the speech, we can spend a bit more time on this.

As I was saying, 2.7 million working days were lost to strike action in 2023, up from 2.5 million in 2022, and these were the highest annual number of working days lost to strikes since 1989. Put frankly, the 2016 Act did not achieve its objective of reducing strikes—in fact, it made things worse.

Amendment 244, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and Amendment 245, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, both seek, in different ways, to remove the repeal of the 50% industrial action ballot turnout threshold. The Bill as drafted repeals this threshold in its entirety, returning us to the situation pre 2016, where only a simple majority of members voting in favour of strike action was required for industrial action to be deemed lawful.

We want to create a positive and modern framework for trade union legislation that delivers productive, constructive engagement, respects the democratic mandate of unions and reduces bureaucratic hurdles. The date for repeal of the 50% threshold will be set out in regulations at a future date, with the intention that it is aligned with the establishment of e-balloting as an option for trade unions. In combination with the delivery of modern, secure workplace balloting, we hope that this will ensure that industrial action mandates will have demonstrably broad support.

I turn to the opposition to Clause 66 standing part. In answer to the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, this clause does indeed seek to amend Section 226 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act to reverse the change made by Section 3 of the Trade Union Act 2016. Section 226 is amended to omit subsections (2A) to (2F), thereby removing the requirement for industrial action ballots in six defined public services—health; fire services; education for those aged under 17; transport; decommissioning of nuclear installations, management of radioactive waste and spent fuel; and border security—to have the support of at least 40% of those entitled to vote for the industrial action in order to be valid.

Alongside Clause 65, which removes the turnout threshold, a trade union will need only a simple majority of those voting in the ballot to vote in favour of industrial action for the industrial action to be deemed lawful. This was the case prior to the Trade Union Act 2016. This clause is a key part of the Government’s agenda. Again, I want to be clear that this is part of our commitment to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016.

I turn to Amendment 246, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, and will speak to the opposition to Clause 69 standing part of the Bill. The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to retain the current six-month mandate period for industrial action following a successful ballot. The Government want to strike the right balance between ensuring that industrial action is based on a recent vote and reducing the need for re-ballots. Strike action is always a last resort; it is costly to workers as well as employers. For this reason, we consulted on the appropriate length of time before a trade union should re-ballot its members.

In that consultation, trade unions were very keen to have no need to re-ballot for a mandate at all. However, following the consultation, the Government have set the mandate period at 12 months, because the majority of industrial action concludes within that time. This will ensure the appropriate balance between reducing the costs of re-balloting and allowing mandates to continue for longer where they are likely to have continued members’ support, without prolonging disputes or permitting action to be called based on a more than year-old mandate. Retaining the six-month mandate period would prevent the Government delivering on their commitment substantively to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016.

I turn to the opposition to Clause 68 standing part from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. The purpose of this clause is to reduce the information that unions are required to include on a voting paper for industrial action, through repealing Section 5 of the Trade Union Act 2016, which introduced additional requirements into Section 229 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Section 5 of the 2016 Act required trade unions to include on the ballot paper a summary of the issues that are in dispute between the employer and the trade union; the type of industrial action that amounts to action short of a strike; and an indication of the time period during which it is expected that those specific types of action are to take place.

Repealing Section 5 will not remove all the information requirements. Under Section 229, the ballot paper will still require unions to ask their members on the ballot paper whether they support industrial action and which type of action they want to take part in, expressed in terms of whether it is strike action or action short of a strike. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, made an analogy with ballot papers not containing details such as the names of candidates or the nature of the election. I respectfully point out that there is a danger in that analogy; I do not think it is fair. After all, noble Lords opposite would not expect democratic elections for elected office to carry the kind of mandate threshold that they are insisting trade union ballots should have. Whether they want to make the analogy that democratic elections are like union ballots or not, there is a bit of a pick and mix going on—

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That is fair enough; I accept the noble Lord’s point when it comes to general elections but, in effect, this is a referendum, which is usually much more clear-cut.

23:45

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The point remains that there was not a threshold mandate for the few referendums that we have had. I maintain my point that ballots and elections are not really analogous, and there is danger for everyone in trying to compare the two.

The removal of the initial requirements imposed by the 2016 Act will reduce the red tape on trade union activity that works against their core role of negotiation and dispute resolution.

On the opposition to Clause 69, the purpose of the clause is to amend Section 234 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to change the mandate period for industrial action following a successful ballot from six months to 12 months without the possibility of extension, which we have already discussed in Amendment 246. Among other things, the clause brings the appeals process back in line with the position before the Trade Union Act 2016 and many other enforcement bodies of employment law. For example, appeals against the decision of employment tribunals are considered only on points of law, not points of fact.

Amendment 249, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hendy, would require unions to publish results of industrial action ballots on a publicly accessible website, removing the current obligation to notify individual members and employers directly. The Government recognise that the current arrangements can impose a communications burden on trade unions, especially where first-class post is used to provide the notification to members and employers. However, removing the requirement to send direct notification risks reducing the accessibility and certainty of this information to those entitled to receive it. In our view, it undermines transparency and thus confidence in trade unions and the balloting process. Relying solely on a website assumes that members and employers will proactively seek out information, which could lead to disputes over whether that proper notification has occurred. Direct notification ensures clarity and transparency.

To address concerns about the administrative burden associated with these communication standards, the Government intend to update the Code of Practice: Industrial Action Ballots and Notice to Employers to encourage the use of email in place of posts where practicable. This approach preserves the principle of direct communication while reflecting modern methods of engagement and reducing administrative costs. For these reasons, I am afraid the Government do not support this amendment.

Amendment 251, again tabled by my noble friend Lord Hendy, seeks to simplify requirements on trade unions when issuing notices. While the Government understand the desire to streamline procedures, these notice provisions serve a vital purpose in ensuring that employers have the necessary information to plan for and respond to industrial action. The Government are already reducing the minimum notice period for industrial action from 14 days to 10 days, and removing the specific requirements that unions must provide in notice for industrial action, such as to disclose the number of employees in each category. This amendment risks removing too much detail, potentially leaving employers unclear on the nature, scale and timing of the action being proposed. Again, I am afraid, this is why the Government do not support my noble friend’s amendment.

The last amendments in this group are Amendments 251A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hutton of Furness, and Amendment 251B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. The Government do not support either of these amendments because our general position is not to make sectoral carve-outs from the limitations and conditions which apply to industrial action. This is consistent with our repeal of the 40% support threshold for industrial action and ballots in the repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act that set further conditions on industrial action in some public services. The same statutory notice period for industrial action across all sectors ensures a simple rule that is clear for all parties involved and that applies in all circumstances. It is then for employers in each sector to manage their industrial relations and their businesses accordingly. However, my noble friend Lord Hutton has some specific concerns around the airline industry and we are happy to meet to understand these concerns further.

The issue of the Clause 71 standing part of the Bill was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. Alongside our manifesto commitment to repeal the 2016 Act, the Government are committed to bringing in a new era of partnership that fosters meaningful engagement between government, employers and unions, and this is grounded in co-operation and negotiation. We recognise the importance of striking a balance between allowing for effective strike action while also ensuring that employers are able to reasonably prepare for industrial action when, sadly, it has to occur—I should say when workers have voted for it to occur.

Clause 71 makes targeted changes to Section 234A of the 1992 Act to simplify the process by which trade unions provide that notification. Specifically, we are removing one element from the current requirements: the need to specify the number of affected employees in each job category. Employers will continue to receive essential information, including the overall number of employees affected, the categories they belong to, and the workplaces concerned. This strikes a sensible balance between reducing bureaucracy and enabling employers to plan to mitigate the impacts of industrial action.

Clause 71 also reduces the notice period for industrial action from 14 days to 10 and, consequently, Section 8 of the 2016 Act will be repealed. Moving from a 14-day notice period to a 10-day notice period provides a more flexible, workable approach that reflects modern industrial relations practice.

We acknowledge that some groups argued for a return to the previous seven-day notice period, and that others have called for the current 14-day period to be retained. In our view, 10 days represents a balanced compromise. It is the appropriate balance in allowing employers the ability to plan to mitigate the impact of and reduce the disruption and knock-on impacts of strikes, while respecting the right to strike. It reflects consultation feedback, and allows employers time to prepare, while reducing the burden and uncertainty faced by trade unions. Taken together, these reforms simplify the industrial action framework and reduce unnecessary burdens and legal risk for trade unions.

Finally, Clause 72—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, I particularly focused on the NHS. I was not trying to see it as a sector—I was thinking of the categories and the number by category. I appreciate it is late, so if the Minister wants to write to me, I would be happy to receive that.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

For the sake of brevity and time and all of us staying awake, I will undertake to write to the noble Baroness.

Finally, Clause 72 seeks to reverse the effect of Section 10 of the 2016 Act, removing the requirement under Section 220A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 for trade unions to appoint a picket supervisor and to meet other administrative burdens in relation to this supervisor, such as taking reasonable steps to provide their name to the police.

As the period of disruption that I have already referred to between 2022 and 2024 has shown, administrative requirements and bureaucratic hurdles only make it more difficult for trade unions to engage in good-faith negotiations with employers. These changes will bring trade union law into the 21st century and fix the foundations for industrial relations that have not delivered for workers, employers or unions.

However, the Government recognise that regulations regarding picket lines are important. To be clear, the Bill is repealing only those measures introduced by the 2016 Act in relation to the role of a picket supervisor. Other legislation and an amended code of practice on picketing will remain in place. Picketing must take place at a lawful location and must be peaceful, and those on picket lines must not intimidate or harass workers who choose to attend work. We are returning the law on picketing to what it was prior to 2016, when it was working well and was understood by all parties.

In summing up, I hope my justification for these clauses and how they meet the Government’s intentions has been clear to noble Lords, and I ask the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, to withdraw Amendment 244.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply and thank other speakers who have spoken in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness, talked about balance, in airlines and other industries. Balance runs through the conversation on this group of amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, is always good value. He throws all these numbers at us and gets very agitated, but he wants the balance to be right between the trade unions and not to swing the wrong way to the other side, and he gave us the history of what happens when that happens. I understand what he is saying and I thank him for his contribution.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, almost used me as a Trojan horse, but I accept that, because her intervention was exactly on pitch. She speaks about clarity, honesty and the NHS. Again, there are many instances in this group that touch all parts of the country, from aviation to the NHS and back again.

The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, made his position very clear. He wants transparency and responsibility, and he really wants to know where the reasonableness is in the Government’s reluctance to accept these amendments.

Today could be a watershed, because the debates we have been having as Report looms could be where some of these battle lines will be drawn. These are fundamentals. It is fundamentally not right that 50% to call for a ballot is unreasonable. All I am asking is for the Government to take back the comments we have made tonight and, when we return on Report, show some cognisance and understanding that these are not just anti-union amendments. We support the unions, but they have to be seen to be democratic and accountable to the wider public. I hope that they take my comments and criticism in the way they are offered: to help to make a better Bill that is more acceptable to everybody.

I will read the Minister’s comments in Hansard, because he went through at a canter. I was a bit concerned when he talked about balloting being a positive modern experience. I have always found it to be the opposite: it is soul destroying to vote for industrial action.

With the benefit of the doubt, this party will listen and hope that the Minister has taken on board some of our positive criticism tonight before we come back with this set of amendments. These amendments, among all the others, could be the contentious ones, and the Minister has the opportunity to lance that boil early. Getting tonight’s amendments right will go a long way to making this Bill work fundamentally better for employees and employers. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 244 withdrawn.

Amendment 245 not moved.

Clause 65 agreed.

Clauses 66 to 68 agreed.

Clause 69: Period after which industrial action ballot ceases to be effective

Amendment 246 not moved.

Clause 69 agreed.

Clause 70 agreed.

House resumed.