Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Pannick

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 14A, to which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, spoke. I very much welcome Amendment 15D, tabled by the Minister, which goes a very long way to addressing the concerns that were expressed around the House in Committee and have been expressed again here today. It puts on the face of the Bill that these new Prevent duties for universities are to be read and understood alongside their duties to protect freedom of speech—and, indeed, that particular regard must be given to free speech.

Some noble Lords have expressed concern today about a lack of clarity, but free speech is not absolute, even in universities. It has to be balanced against other considerations; the balance must depend on the particular circumstances, and the guidance will be of particular importance in this regard. All the more welcome, therefore, is the amendment that we will discuss in a later group that ensures that the guidance must be approved by a positive resolution of both Houses.

I most respectfully do not agree with my former tutor, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that Amendment 15D will make no difference to the law of the land. I would expect the courts to say, reading the new clause as part of the Bill, that the Part 5 duties must not unreasonably or unnecessarily restrict or impede the performance of the universities’ core function, which is and remains to promote academic inquiry.

I have two questions for the Minister concerning his Amendment 15D. The first arises out of the fact that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, and me refers both to freedom of expression and academic freedom. The Minister’s amendment does not mention academic freedom. Can the Minister confirm—I hope he can give a positive response to this—that it is unnecessary expressly to mention academic freedom in his amendment, because in the context of a university, academic freedom is implicit in the very notion of securing freedom of expression? That would be my understanding, but I would very much welcome his reassurance on that.

Secondly, there are limits to the scope of the Minister’s Amendment 15D, because it incorporates the duty of freedom of expression in relation to three aspects of Part 5 of the Bill. New subsection (2) applies freedom of expression to the duty of universities under Clause 25(1). New subsection (3) applies this freedom of expression duty to the role of the Secretary of the State in issuing guidance under Clause 28 and the role of the Secretary of State when considering whether to issue directions under Clause 29.

However, there are two important aspects of the Part 5 scheme to which this new clause on freedom of expression does not appear to apply. One is the duty of universities under Clause 28(2) to “have regard” to the guidance, and the other concerns the duties of monitoring authorities under Clause 30. The freedom of expression duty applies to neither of those important matters, and I am concerned about that. So this is my second question. Will the Minister tell us—he might be unable or unwilling to answer today, but I would very much welcome an answer before Third Reading on Monday—whether there is a reason why his new freedom of expression clause, which I welcome, does not apply to Clause 28(2), the duty of universities to have regard to the guidance, or Clause 30, the duty of monitoring authorities? Would he please look at the matter before Third Reading to consider whether it might be better to include those matters also within this new provision?

[Baroness Brinton]

I have attached my name to Amendment 14C, and rather than repeat the points made by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford, I will say just that I endorse them. I will make a comment and then ask my noble friend the Minister a question on his Amendment 15D—which, as many other noble Lords have said this evening, takes us some way forward. I am grateful to the Minister and his civil servants for coming back with a proposal that means that we can actually discuss some of the boundaries—and therein lies my question. This relates to guidance: in particular, we discussed in Committee the revisions of the guidance to some of the very specific duties about checking presentations and making sure that people had been trained in specified authorities.

I have a more fundamental question about paragraph 50 in the current guidance, which I do not believe was proposed to be amended. It says that,

“universities must take seriously their responsibility to exclude those promoting extremist views that support or are conducive to terrorism”.

It is the phrase, “their responsibility to exclude”, that I want to focus on.

I am not sure that the qualifying statement,

“that support or are conducive to terrorism”,

is sufficiently clear as to provide reassurance. It is already illegal to directly or indirectly encourage others to commit terrorist acts, and universities are obliged to exclude those who do so. Beyond this, it is not clear which views should be understood to be conducive to terrorism. Non-violent extremism is not generally unlawful, and the Prevent strategy defines extremism as,

“vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values”.

These values and concepts include those that are rightly the subject of debate and consideration in universities. It is not appropriate for universities to be required to exclude those who lawfully oppose them.

In a letter to the Times on Monday, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills stated that the Bill,

“addresses terrorism and not extremism”,

which he described as, “a highly subjective concept”. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that the Secretary of State’s comments will be fully reflected in future versions of the guidance; and that universities will not be required to exclude from campuses those who, while acting within the law, advocate views that are classed as extreme.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Pannick

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

Your Lordships now come to whether Clause 27 should stand part of the Bill. As noble Lords have heard, the clause allows for an agreement by which an employee can receive shares worth £2,000 or more at the date of issue and then lose his or her rights to claim unfair dismissal, statutory redundancy pay and other employment rights.

Clause 27 was very heavily criticised in the debates in Committee. There was—I put it as moderately as I can—very little enthusiasm indeed for it on the government Benches or on other sides of the House, with the conspicuous exception of the noble Lord, Lord Flight, whose main argument in defence of the clause, if I understand him correctly, is that the deal will not be very attractive and therefore not many people will take it up.

There are four main objections to Clause 27 that the Government failed adequately to answer in Committee. One could identify many more objections but I will confine myself to four. The first is that the clause is objectionable because the employment rights were created—and have been protected by all Governments, Conservative and Labour—precisely because of the inequality of bargaining power between the employer and the employee. To allow these basic employment rights to become a commodity that can be traded by agreement frustrates the very purpose of these entitlements as essential protections for the employee, who lacks effective bargaining power.

The second objection concerns the jobseeker. Under the clause, an employer will be able to refuse to offer employment to applicants who decline to enter into a Clause 27 agreement. The irony, of course, is that the worse the job market for employment, the more willing the applicant will be to give up his or her employment rights in order to take the job, and the worse the job market, the greater the employee’s need for these basic protections against unfair dismissal and redundancy.

The application of Clause 27 to the jobseeker is particularly indefensible because the Government have now issued guidance, which was promised at Committee stage but which we did not have, that makes it very clear that a person will lose their jobseeker’s allowance if he or she refuses to take a job offer on Clause 27 terms; that is, they will lose basic employment rights. The guidance says that the terms and conditions under which the job is offered are not a good reason for refusing to apply for the job. There is a very limited exception which refers to the financial implications of receiving the shares, to which I will come in a few moments.

The absence of protection for the job applicant means that Clause 27 does not simply allow for an agreement to give up employment rights. In practice, it imposes on the jobseeker considerable pressure to take employment on Clause 27 terms. Clause 27, read with the guidance, will mean that the jobseeker is being made an offer which he or she cannot refuse—an offer that they must give up their employment rights. That is the second objection.

The third objection to Clause 27 was explained in Committee by a number of Peers from the government Benches—I stress, the government Benches—who have business experience. They said that the provision would be positively damaging to industrial harmony and would not be used by any sensible employer. Since this is Report stage, perhaps I may briefly report to the House what noble Lords from the government Benches said. The noble Lord, Lord Vinson, stated that,

“the whole point of wider industrial shareholding”—

with which we all, I apprehend, agree,

“is to try to create a sense of common purpose”—[Official Report, 6/2/13; col. 269.]

in the workplace. Clause 27 will do precisely the opposite. To deny industrial rights to employees will negate trust rather than enhance it. The noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, made a similar point at col. 272.

Perhaps I may quote the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who has considerable experience in small businesses. His words are so important and I could not possibly improve on them. He said:

“I cannot imagine any circumstances whatever in which this would be of any use to any business that I have ever come across in my entire life”.—[Official Report, 6/2/13; col. 293.]

I hope that it is appropriate for me to say that I have spoken to a number of noble Lords on the government Benches since Committee. Many of them share the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben—some of them in language even stronger than his, and even stronger than the helpful language that we have heard this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean.

As the Minister well knows, there is not simply a lack of enthusiasm for Clause 27 but a degree of opposition to it on the Minister’s own Benches that makes the Government’s commitment to it incomprehensible. To use the word of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in Committee at col. 294, the Government’s approach is “mystifying”. In Committee, at cols. 298-300, the Minister told the House that the Government calculated that 6,000 companies would be interested in Clause 27. The noble Lord promised the Committee that he would provide the evidence that supported that statement, but I have received no such evidence and I do not believe that any other noble Lord has seen it. Therefore, I ask the Minister: does the evidence exist? If so, why has it not been provided? If it does not exist, will he please withdraw the statement that 6,000 companies are interested in acting under Clause 27?

My fourth and final objection to Clause 27 is that the employee and the prospective employee will not be given the minimum necessary protection to understand what they are being asked to give up. The Government have refused to accept that statutory rights should be lost only if the agreement is in writing and if the individual has received legal advice on the consequences of the agreement from an independent adviser. Parliament has specified such conditions in Section 288 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 in the context of a compromise agreement to settle particular employment disputes and tribunals. However, no such protection will apply here.

I recognise that the Government have published general advice to employees, but that is really a poor substitute for specific advice to employees from an independent adviser in their particular circumstances. The need for advice is particularly important when the value of the shares when issued may well be higher than their value later on and when there are tax implications for the employee of receiving the shares if they are worth more than £2,000. As I understand it, the employee or prospective employee who enters into an agreement to give up his employment rights for shares with, say, a nominal value of £3,000, will get a nasty surprise when he or she receives their next month’s pay packet. In the real world, the jobseeker and the employee need to know the implications.

The noble Lord, Lord Flight, said that Clause 27 may not be appropriate for all types of employee. The problem of course is that Clause 27 applies to all types of employee, with all the detriments I have mentioned. For all those reasons, I ask the House to reject Clause 27 and I very much look forward to the debate on this issue. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for so eloquently outlining the case against the proposals in Clause 27 and I was happy to add my name to the amendment, which your Lordships' House has discussed at considerable length at earlier stages of the Bill’s passage.

I remain bemused with the basic philosophy behind the clause. We are told that the scheme is aimed at small businesses that want to grow fast and motivate their workforces. We have heard that employees will take a significant reduction in their employment rights and face tax and NI demands on the free shares that they have been given over £2,000 as they receive them.

I assume that the minimum of £2,000 is for ordinary shares, but given the interchange on the previous amendment I am not convinced that they would necessarily be ordinary shares. In a number of years, possibly with a following wind, they might increase in value, although the House should note that the majority of micro and small companies do not make large returns for their shareholders in the early years. That rarely takes less than eight years or a decade. Worse than that, while the employee currently in a firm can choose not to take part, the applicant on jobseeker's allowance would have no such luxury—a point clarified in the letter from the Minister on 13 March. Either a scheme is voluntary or it is not. It is clearly not for those on jobseeker's allowance. This provision is supposed to encourage growth. We need to go back a step to the coalition agreement’s commitment to growth. With such a key strategy in mind to help SMEs, we should do all that is within our power to assist them. Clause 27 would do the opposite. If an employee has the choice between a company that offers the usual employee benefits and another that exchanges these rights for shares in the company, the evidence suggests that employees would rather maintain their benefits, especially in the current recessionary climate. That was corroborated by my own experience speaking with employees working for high-tech SMEs, who are bemused that they would want to demotivate their staff during the very difficult early days of a company when it is developing products and just beginning to enter the marketplace and unlikely to be making a profit, let alone anything that they could distribute to shareholders.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Pannick

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, these two amendments are trying to achieve the same objective. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on the wording of Amendment 82. My Amendment 90 echoes those sentiments. We have already discussed, in the previous group, the complex decision required of an individual being asked to become an employee-shareholder, who must take account of current employment rights versus the slim chance of future capital gains. However, there is a further and even more worrying aspect for one particular group of individuals: those who are currently unemployed and in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance.

What will happen to those offered a position in a company on the condition that they become an employee-shareholder and give up some of their rights? I am aware of people who find themselves being made redundant, through no fault of their own, not once but twice, or even more frequently. I am reminded of a friend in Luton who, following the closure of Vauxhall, moved from one company to another in the supply chain and was made redundant four times in the short space of a year. For people with that sort of history, the idea of giving up the right to future redundancy pay will be horrifying and would make the job extremely unattractive. This is not a run-of-the-mill job offer and I would be extremely concerned if an individual turned down a job and share ownership opportunity, and then discovered that his or her JSA was to be cut.

The Minister in another place said:

“The Government believe that jobseeker’s allowance claimants must actively seek and be available for work … and it is right that employee-shareholder jobs should be as much a part of that consideration as any other. If a claimant applies for an employee-shareholder job and is offered a position, they should normally accept the offer”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/12./12; col. 649.]

It is this quote from the Minister that underlies the concern that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has laid out in some detail. I echo that because we have to see the guidance and information to make it exactly clear where the boundaries lie. I will not go back through the timescale of this, but it is essential that all sides of the House—all sides of the House have concerns about this clause—have time to consider the very serious implications for jobseeker’s allowance for people who are sent off for that type of post.

In addition, some people may send off hundreds of job applications but receive only one reply; some may get one interview; some may even get one offer. A job offer for shares-for-rights is a job: do the Government seriously think that someone will turn it down after months of searching? Many people cannot pick and choose jobs, even if they are worried about the reduction in rights, especially in the current climate, with many businesses folding. I cite Paul Callaghan from the legal fund Taylor Wessing, who suggests that shares-for-rights contracts will be optional to the extent that eating and drinking are optional.

The amendment would write into the Bill a statement that makes it absolutely clear that the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus will not penalise an individual who makes the difficult choice to turn down a job. Should they accept it, they must have access to the same legal and financial opinion that we discussed under the previous group of amendments. That needs to be written into the Bill to ensure that protection and to provide Jobcentre Plus with clear and unequivocal direction.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about the absence of the guidance that the Government are eventually to publish. The whole point of Committee on a Bill is that we can debate in detail the implications of the Government’s proposals. By not publishing the guidance at this stage, the Government are preventing the Committee discussing the essential detail of their proposals. For my part, I do not find it satisfactory, even if the noble Viscount produces answers this afternoon. It should have been done in time for noble Lords to debate the matter today.

In the absence of any guidance, we can proceed only on the basis that Clause 27 does not at all protect the prospective employee from being denied welfare benefits if he or she refuses to take up a job offer which involves the absence of employment rights. Even if there were adequate guidance, I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that guidance is in principle inadequate. The Bill must state clearly the legal position in order to protect the prospective employee.

Clause 27 is bad enough in its implications for employees, as we explained in a previous debate. It is even worse for the prospective employee. Under Clause 27, the employer can refuse to offer employment to applicants who decline to enter into one of these agreements giving up statutory employment rights. The irony is that the worse the job market, the more willing prospective employees will inevitably be to take the job, even if employment rights are lost. However, the poorer the job market, the greater the employee’s need for the statutory protection against unfair dismissal and redundancy that the employee will be giving up. It is a vicious circle indeed.

Amendment 82 and the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, each address a particular vice of Clause 27 in that respect. The vice is clear. It is that the prospective employee who wishes to maintain his or her statutory employment rights—during the previous debate, the noble Viscount emphasised that this is a matter of choice—and refuses to be bought off, is at risk of losing welfare benefits. That is indefensible for a simple reason. Clause 27 can only be based on a theory of equal bargaining power. It is a wholly unrealistic theory, but that is the theory. That is the fig leaf which shelters the substance of Clause 27. Even the fig leaf—the theory of equal bargaining power—is removed by the fact that the prospective employee’s bargaining power is wholly removed if he or she is going to lose welfare benefits if he or she does not agree to take the job in the absence of the statutory protection of employment rights. Therefore, the absence of protection against losing welfare benefits for the job applicant inevitably means that, in practice, Clause 27 does not simply provide for a choice, it imposes an obligation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick]

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, posed a series of questions about the benefits of Clause 27. Perhaps I may add to the burdens on the Minister, who is playing a very straight bat—he would be a credit to the cricket team of the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger. I will put these questions to the Minister in the hope that he can explain whether the Government have taken account of two very troubling legal consequences that will follow from the current contents of Clause 27 and which are relevant to the amendments in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

First, some of the rights that the employee or prospective employee is being invited to sell are concerned with issues that are particularly sensitive in anti-discrimination law. There is the right to request flexible working, which is obviously of particular importance to working mothers—as is the eight-week notice period that would be imposed for the return to work after maternity leave. These are very sensitive matters. It is inevitable that employers who seek to rely on an agreement which purports to override rights in this context will face legal challenges under EU law, the expense of which will far exceed the amounts that they would pay to employees for giving up those rights. Have the Government taken that into account in deciding on the merits or otherwise of Clause 27?

I would be grateful if the Minister would comment also on a second legal implication. If the law allows for the sale of unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, it is inevitable that aggrieved employees, when they are dismissed or made redundant at some stage in future, will not go quietly. Having sold their unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, they will formulate their grievances by reference to whatever legal avenue has not been sold. Nothing in Clause 27 affects—and because of EU law nothing in Clause 27 could affect—their rights of protection under anti-discrimination law. So instead of claiming unfair dismissal, or seeking compensation for redundancy, the aggrieved employee will contend that the dismissal or redundancy was based on a prohibited ground. Therefore, my second question to the Minister is whether the Government have really taken into account that any employer that enters into one of these agreements—and it seems highly unlikely that there will be many of them—will not be protecting themselves against the litigation that will result when an employee is dismissed or made redundant in future.

[Baroness Brinton]

Clause 27 requires employees to give up a range of rights. Many of these rights are ones that the Beecroft report recommended should be removed from employees more generally. The Secretary of State, Vince Cable, hit out at Beecroft’s unfair proposals. He said:

“One of Mr Beecroft’s recommendations was a suggestion to bring in no-fault dismissal. In my daily conversations with businesses, this has very rarely been raised with me as a barrier to growth. Businesses are much more concerned about access to finance or weak demand than they are about this issue”.

Given that the clause is in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill and that the Secretary of State does not believe that giving up the right to claim unfair dismissal is a barrier to growth, why should we ask workers to give it up under this new status? In fact, Mr Cable went even further and stated that it would be counterproductive. He said:

“At a time when workers are proving to be flexible in difficult economic conditions it would almost certainly be counterproductive to increase fear of dismissal”.

I never thought that I would support Mr Beecroft, but he recommended a compensated no-fault dismissal. The Government are going one step further and do not even provide compensation for no-fault dismissal under the employee shareholder status. Given how controversial Mr Beecroft’s proposals were in the first place, and the Secretary of State’s protest, does this not give us further reason for the removal of subsections (2)(c) and (d)? Beecroft also recommended the removal of the right to request flexible working—another of his recommendations that the Government are trying, perhaps, to sneak in by the back door through this status for certain employees. However, I have to say that this directly contradicts the coalition agreement and the mid-term review, which states that the Government will extend,

“the right to flexible working to all employees”.

How can the Government fulfil that pledge when they will be removing the right from employee shareholders?