Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Monks

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Lea. The amendment concerns the information and consultation arrangements with which I have long been associated, first at the TUC and then at the European TUC. Its origins lie in some unexpected and sudden plant closures in the early 1990s, in particular a Renault plant over in Brussels. As a result, the European TUC pressed the European authorities to introduce a directive requiring advance information to be provided about imminent changes to representatives of the workforce, and then for consultation to take place with a view to reaching agreement. A directive was drafted to that effect.

It was a battle to persuade the then Labour Government to agree to this directive, but they did so in 2001 and the directive was enacted at European level. It is fair to say that they remained unenthusiastic about it. The TUC and the CBI were asked to come up with an agreement, and from the start it was clear that both the Government and the CBI wanted to qualify the universal right to information and consultation by introducing this minimum threshold of support. I acknowledge that it was also clear that some union leaders were apprehensive that the directive might be used to undermine the collective bargaining process, either by groups of workers using the consultation channel competitively with the negotiated channel, or by employers wishing to withdraw or to marginalise trade union recognition. This influenced the TUC to accede to the 10% threshold which is now UK law in these regulations. In view of the subsequent history, this agreement was a mistake. The law has had little effect—my noble friend referred to the recent book by Professors Purcell and Hall of Warwick Business School.

Since the law was introduced, we have had the crash of 2007-08, and of course the economy remains very fragile. Not only have the banks experienced corporate governance failures on a very large scale, but there have been more general failures too. The most spectacular has been the way that executive pay and bonuses have continued to surge upwards at double-digit rates every year. All this has been occurring at a time when recession has been very marked for nearly everybody else; real pay levels generally have been in decline; and British performance levels on nearly all measures have been poor.

I acknowledge that Ministers in the Government have struggled to find a way to stop top executives helping themselves, and to break this culture of conspicuous excess. They have not succeeded. The Business Secretary has said that the regulations could be used to influence executive pay and bonuses. However, here lies the reason behind this amendment. Most of the companies in the UK, large and small, do not have any arrangements comparable to a German works council or a French comité d’entreprise: bodies which can hold top executives to account. Many UK companies have hidden behind the 10% threshold which, as has been explained, is a number very hard to achieve for worker representatives. It is true that unions, too, with conspicuous exceptions, have not been very active in this area, finding the 10% threshold just too arduous to jump over.

It is therefore time to revisit these provisions. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, has made a persuasive case to this House for the UK economy to become more like Germany’s. A hallmark of the German model is the system of works councils and collective bargaining, widely used to keep managements and workforces in close step, and to keep companies on the path of long-term, sustainable success, not simply focusing on short-term shareholder value and lavish, self-rewarding systems. The amendment aims to help the UK on to a better path than is currently the case. It is time to make this law work, to align ourselves with the most successful European economies and to change our law—and for all concerned to make that change effective.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I rise briefly to say that the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, has exposed a problem with the practical arrangements that have come up through the 10% trigger. I, too, studied the Warwick Business School research, which makes a valuable point—which perhaps the CBI missed—about the combination of having documentation available and also having pre-meetings so that employees can get together to discuss issues and to be well informed. This is a particular problem for very large companies on split sites. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain the response that there might be in order to overcome this problem. Even if it is not helpful to enact it in legislation, perhaps the Government might encourage the members of the CBI to relax the trigger or make the facility such that it is not such a barrier, because clearly this is an issue.