Draft Trade Union (Levy Payable to the Certification Officer) Regulations 2022 Draft Trade Union (Power of the Certification Officer to impose Financial Penalties) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Paul Scully

Tuesday 25th January 2022 General Committees

[Paul Scully]

The certification officer’s work will be charged accordingly, and the levy will be distributed at a level that is capped for each union and employers’ association. It will be for the certification officer to demonstrate what she has been doing in that regard and how those costs are broken down.

In response to requests by trade unions during consultation, two fees will be preserved—the fee for listing as an organisation and the fee for a union to be granted a certificate of independence. The costs of dealing with those applications will not be recoverable under the levy.

I recognise that these are significant changes for the organisations involved, albeit that they are the clear and required implementation of the Trade Union Act 2016. That is why we announced the reforms in June 2021, to allow trade unions and employers’ associations time to prepare before they are implemented in April 2022. That also allowed the certification officer time to put the systems in place to determine and charge the levy.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I declare that I am a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. That body does similar things to those that a union might do: it represents its members, makes representations to Government and ensures that the regulated activities that we undertake as members are properly monitored and controlled. There has never been any issue that the Government should somehow pick up the bill for those things—

[Craig Mackinlay]

Or the taxpayer, absolutely. So I am quite surprised that there is huffing and puffing over this. The Minister has made it clear that 2.5% is the maximum. Has he calculated whether, if that 2.5% maximum levy, which I doubt will apply in many cases, were applied across the income of all the trade unions that are registered, it would cover the true cost of the certification officer’s work, or would there still be a shortfall that taxpayers were expected to make up?

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend makes some good points. As I say, there are exceptional cases when the taxpayer will be paying, in terms of the consultants that the certification officer may pay and the legal advice that she may require, because that will give unions and employers’ associations the certainty that they need. That is part of the proportionate approach that we have taken. None the less, the distribution that I have here, which I can share with the hon. Member for Bradford East, who asked about it earlier, assumes an estimated total levy of £1.15 million for the next financial year, based on the work that the certification officer has been doing.