Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Fox

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Hendy, are finding yet another way to try to deprive the Bill of any effect. In their own ways, they are trying to make it entirely voluntary to take part in the provision of minimum service levels, if requested by an employer. That runs completely counter to the policy intent of the Bill.

If noble Lords think that the Bill needs to be modified in some way to reflect their concerns, it is incumbent on them to produce amendments which find a practical way through that. To simply, in effect, make compliance with a minimum service level work notice voluntary is unacceptable in the context of the Bill. Although I understand the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, makes, those issues are already covered by discrimination law. The concern she has about being selected on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation or race is already covered by discrimination law and does not need to be protected again in the Bill.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Does the noble Baroness accept that in Committee, there are two sorts of amendments: there are amendments which are very practical and designed to be used as a template for changing the Bill, and there are probing amendments? I point out that I made it very clear that the latest two groups I was speaking to were probing amendments. On that basis, I think her criticism is invalid.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for engaging so specifically and constructively in the debate, but I do not think she appreciates just how difficult it is, even under the present law, for people to go to a tribunal, with or without the assistance of lawyers or their trade unions, to demonstrate that they were picked on for one of these reasons. Now, in this Bill, a specific protection against unfair dismissal is being removed. An employer will say, “No, no, X, Y or Z was picked for this other reason. They are essential to the service”. It just happens to be the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who is essential to the service every time and not, for example, my noble friend Lord Hendy, who of course is the expert. If I am always essential to the service and he is not, it will be very difficult for me to demonstrate that it was discriminatory, when the whole purpose of the Bill is, as the noble Baroness said, to remove protection from unfair dismissal.

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, this is neither a wrecking amendment nor a probing amendment; it is a most reasonable amendment. Why? Because some of us who have constitutional concerns about skeleton Bills and Henry VIII powers do so because, even with affirmative procedure, Members of Parliament and Members of your Lordships’ House are not able to amend secondary legislation, unlike Bills. The ability to improve the legislation just is not there. If that is going to be the case here, because we cannot persuade Ministers that these matters, if necessary in extremis, should be dealt with in primary legislation, what are we going to do instead?

If there is to be any possibility of improving minimum service level agreements and the regulations that impose them, there needs to be a statutory amount of time on the face of the primary legislation so that parliamentarians, while they will not get the process they get when a Bill goes through Parliament, will know that they will have at least a month to look at what is proposed and then try to speak to Ministers, write to Ministers and raise questions in each House. That, in some small way, would be an attempt to compensate for the fact that this is not primary legislative procedure with the ability to table amendments, divide the House and so on. This seems totally reasonable to me and a constructive amendment in the face of these Henry VIII powers that have caused such concern to the various august committees and the noble and learned Lords who normally sit with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe—he is a bit lonely at the moment. It is totally reasonable.

I cannot understand what the objection could be to just being clear, even if informally, that there will at least be this amount of time to be able to improve the regulations. I think Hansard will record that the Minister, in answer to me on a previous group—it may have been a slip—said that Parliament can improve the regulations. Actually, it cannot, but by this kind of stipulation it could, at least informally, make its attempt.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, this is something of an hors d’oeuvre for the next group, so I will save my comments on this issue—although I thoroughly agree with the noble Baroness—for Amendment 37, which I consider to be a meatier version of the same issue. This is clearly starting the move to the territory where we give Parliament the opportunity at least to scrutinise, if not amend, what comes before it. We will come to more of that in a few minutes.

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[Lord Fox (LD)]

What an awful mistake to have made—I am very sorry and correct the right reverend Prelate’s territory. This is a serious group of amendments. The fact that it comes at the end of a day, and a long week, should not detract from that seriousness.

Listening to the Minister’s response, I was struck by the tone, which is: “This is a perfectly reasonable process. We are having a consultation and doing this and that. These people can contribute, and Parliament can contribute through the consultation”. It is for Parliament to make these decisions—not for the Government to do so, allowing Parliament to feed a little into the process.

The Minister has proposed the particular frame that we see in Clause 3 too many times. He went through a short list of Bills. I am aware of two of those, having participated in them, and I spoke against that power on both occasions. None of those is seven pages long and devoid of the detail required, but that is what the Bill is.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Surely all these other Bills consist of a bit more than two delegated powers. That is what this Bill is.

I am beginning to feel sorry for Henry VIII. He was born a King and born to rule. I am thinking more of Julius Caesar, who was supposed to be part of a republic and led to its demise so that it became an empire. How did he begin that process? It was by diktat, by becoming a dictator. Powers such as this pave the way for that.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness, who has now introduced history; having failed geography, I will not enter into the history debate. She is completely correct: these powers are being taken for a Bill that is nothing. For the Minister to use the examples he did was completely inappropriate: they are different Bills of a different nature and scale.

We look forward to the Minister’s official response. I think he promised a letter on the DPRRC. I will study Hansard carefully on this. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, put it, we will be doubly resolved that this issue cannot be left in Committee. We will certainly come back, unless the Minister’s letter turns out to be better than I normally expect. That said, as usual, I beg leave to withdraw.