Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Donaghy

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

Yes—“Come into my parlour”.

I attended the Wales TUC and the Scottish TUC for well over a decade—some might say I do not have a home to go to. That helped me to understand the completely different cultures of those countries and the completely different relationship that the workforce, the trade unions, employers, Governments and successive Administrations had with each other, and the respect that successive Governments had with the trade unions. It is not just that this is a damaging Bill; it is an affront to those countries that there should be some imposition of power. That is what we are talking about, not whether employers should be forced to issue a work notice but that there will be an overall power, the details of which are not known, which the Welsh and Scottish Administrations will have to accept.

We are talking here about the tone of employment relations, which has always been completely different. It has been conducted in a non-legalistic way. There have been as many strikes, and I am not saying that the services are particularly better in Wales or Scotland, but the tone of the relationship is what could be so badly damaged.

It was most interesting at Question Time today for those noble Lords who were here to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, talking about the distinction between the workforce and the trade unions. I have been trying to make the point all along that this Government are doing their best to separate trade unions from their workforce. The noble Baroness was very keen to assure the House that she was not blaming the workforce for people not doing non-contractual rest-day work; she was blaming the trade unions for those members not doing non-contractual rest-day work. That in any case is a bad practice that has grown up over the years, which has really been because members have wanted a better standard of living, but are we really saying that a minimum service level will have to include this non-contractual rest-day working, or will it not include it? Or will it not be mentioned at all in any document?

The Minister is shaking his head and smiling. I realise that he must be getting very fed up of listening to all of this. Maybe that will help the Government next time to bring forward a Bill that actually has some content in, and then he will not be so bored.

I do not know how many people here watched “Boys from the Blackstuff”—some Members are certainly too young for that—but I am reminded of the character called Yosser Hughes, who went around saying “Gis a job”. In this case it is the Government saying, “Gis a power. We don’t know what we’re going to do with it, we can’t tell you yet, we promise to consult you, but gis a power.” I think the Government are hoping that, if they carry on repeating that for long enough, everyone will sit back and say, “Oh all right, let’s see what they do with it”. As far as I am concerned, that is the main principle: the Government are asking us to give them a power and not telling us how they will use it.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, there is a feeling growing up or being put around this House that somehow the Conservative Benches are historically against trade unions. These Benches are not historically against them. I spent 25 years in the European Parliament, and my noble friend the Minister spent some years there. I spent some time on the European Economic and Social Committee, which, as with Scotland and Wales, bases itself on trying to get a consensual view of industrial relations. If you want to improve the wealth of the country, that is the way forward. That is what made the German economy as successful as it is today: the works councils and the compulsory consultation. We seem to be in danger of drifting in the opposite direction, but I remind the Minister that the great tradition of Christian democracy in Europe, which has a much wider following than conservatism, is based on working between social partners.

This legislation is, let us say, imperfect. It has great difficulties and is almost unworkable, and I do not know why the Government are pursuing it. I hope that maybe at the end of this series of debates they will decide to pause it and not go forward. As these amendments show, it is going to be very difficult to implement, even if the Government wanted to. Set aside the local mayors, which I think are impractical; railway trains run between our countries and planes fly between them, while I am told that some services, such as organs and blood in the health service, are organised on a national basis so that people can get the best service wherever they live. We are after all in a United Kingdom, as this party often says.

I ask the Minister to look at hitting the pause button on this piece of legislation because even if it is passed it will not work, and it is not good government to pass legislation that just will not work.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Donaghy

Committee stage
Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, hit the nail on the head: this is a completely unnecessary Bill. It tells us nothing and no one is demanding it, apart from the Government, who seem somehow a bit obsessed with problems which I am not sure exist.

I begin by declaring my entries in the register. I can actually top the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, as I have been a trade union member for 63 years consistently, and I still am today—and very proud of it. I am not also completely dominated by our need to respect international law. Having been in Brussels and Strasbourg, I have seen how sclerotic it often is. On the migrants Bill, for instance, there may well be a need to stand up to some of the international law provisions. But that is not the case here—there is no demand for this Bill at all.

I am not, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, implied, trying to be Mr Micawber. The Bill is so defective that the Government will need a couple of years to sort out what it means. All the different industries and professions mentioned in the Bill have a quite different profile. Nuclear decommissioning, driving an ambulance and flying a plane are somewhat different occupations; they have different standards and necessities. What is a minimum service level? I had a delightful four hours with representatives of the National Health Service last year—I was in the back of an ambulance because I had had a fall, and I was waiting to be admitted to hospital. The workers said that, if they had more of a reception area, they would not be here, but that it was nice to talk to me as it covered half their shift.

Let us be realistic about this: a minimum service level would be very easy to find if you had a properly organised service in the first place. Yesterday I was talking to a doctor in Cambridge, where I live. Apparently, there is going to be a junior doctors’ strike on Monday, and he said to me, “We’ve cancelled some of the routine appointments so that we have enough capacity to deal with emergencies.” That is on a strike day, and that is a doctor who is covered by that strike but who is also very cognisant of the needs of the community he serves.

There may be a need for some arrangements with blue light services, but there already are lots of arrangements with them. There are not groups of workers saying, “We refuse to talk to you—we want a few people dead.” Most of the workers are very keen on providing minimum services; most workers do not like going on strike. As I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, will be happy to tell us, most workers never go on strike in their whole career as trade unionists. They join trade unions for protection and benefits, and to have someone to help if they run into trouble, as well as to deal with an employer who steps out of line by being racist or sexist or something like that.

I have been active as a trade unionist, and most of the work of trade unions that I experienced was welfare work. You are helping to sort out problems—and more than once people have said to me, “Which side are you on?” You find that things escalate out of any reasonable action, and suddenly you have people saying, “I’m going to get them, I’m going to get them,” and you have to say, “Calm down; you can’t. Let’s just sit down and have a cup of tea and look at what the options are.” Frankly, the trade union movement plays a big part in good industrial relations in this country. It plays a much bigger part in promoting good industrial relations than anything else. Hardly any time in a union organiser’s or member’s life is spent organising or even thinking about going on strike; it is mainly about making the work more pleasant and efficient.

These are the people who create the wealth of the country—that is what I would like the Government to remember—and if they were not there, we would have no wealth in this country. I see that we are going to have nuclear installation inspectors subject to minimum standards; but nuclear installation inspectors, as far as I know, have never been on strike, so what are their minimum standards going to be? Why are they in the Bill in the first place?

My amendment may look like Mr Micawber, but it would give the Government a chance to sort out what the Bill actually means. Apart from that, if the Government are so convinced that this is the right policy for Britain, it will give them something to campaign on at the next election. They can say, “Vote for us and we will bring this Bill into being.”

On a very final point, I served as the president of a trade union for some time; I go to meetings. I am afraid we spend far too much of our members’ money on legal services. There is an absolute demand by the executive that everything is absolutely legal. The profession of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, makes a huge amount of money out of trade unions because we do not believe in breaking the law; we believe in adhering to the law. All the Bill will do is provide yet more challenges and yet more times when, sitting around the national executive table, we will say to the general secretary, “Are you sure we have got all the bases covered?” The general secretary will say, “I am pretty sure, but I will go back to our KC and absolutely finally check before we take this action.”

I therefore do not really think that this is necessary. It will not add to relations; in fact, it will sour them because it is an unnecessary piece of legislation. It will not be respected. Most employers do not want it. I have not got any letter from an employer saying, “Dear Lord Balfe, you are a Conservative, please go in and support this legislation”—not one letter. The Minister should think about pressing the pause button on this, because the Government have far more important things to do.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a reference to Charles Dickens; I am going to mention Lewis Carroll, because I think this is straight out of Alice in Wonderland: you are wandering through a maze, you do not know what questions to ask, you ask a question and all of a sudden the answer is, “Off with his head”—or “Off with her head” in my case. It really is very difficult to pin things down to common-sense questions and to pin the Minister down as to what he may or may not finally include in either the Bill or the statutory instruments. I will have a go, however, because I think the noble Lord, Lord Henley, is quite right that the report we have been referring to is quite a mild report.

I was particularly drawn to the conclusions and recommendations, one of which said—I think the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has already referred to it—

“We do not consider that the Government has given clear … reasons why the current legal protections that apply to strikes and the current practice of establishing voluntary minimum service levels are no longer sufficient to balance the rights of the wider public against the rights of the employees and unions concerned.”


I think that pinpoints exactly why the Bill is just an antagonistic approach to unions, rather than a sensible set of proposals. I have a specific question for the Minister is, the report suggests several amendments in its annexe: will the Government consider its amendment 4? I am not proposing it; I am just asking if this is something that would be considered. The recommendation is:

“In deciding whether to identify a person in a work notice and in specifying the work required to be carried out by them, the employer must not have regard to whether the person is or is not a member of a trade union (or a particular trade union) or any trade union activity the person has undertaken or otherwise been involved in.”


Are the Government minded to accept that amendment from the report?

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Donaghy

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, I think that I know where I am now. We are on to the proposal for a levy. Points have already been made about this proposed levy, which effectively means that trade unions and not the public purse will be paying for the Certification Office. Like others, I oppose that on principle, which is why I support the proposal that Clause 18 should not stand part of the Bill. I will not go into a great deal of detail about that. The points have already been made during general debate about why this levy is a new and very unwelcome development. Even now, I hope that the Government will reconsider.

The TUC is concerned that the Bill does not place a cap on the levy which can be charged to unions, other than providing that the total amount levied must not exceed the expenses incurred by the CO over a three-year period. Under the Bill’s current provisions, the Certification Office could expand well in excess of the Government’s current staffing estimates, with unions expected to cover the entire cost of the increased enforcement regime.

The TUC is also concerned that the Bill does not require either the Government or the CO to consult with stakeholders before determining the level of the levy. It believes that this is unreasonable, so I hope for an assurance from the Minister that there will be such consultation and that it will not take place, as I said, in the August-fest.

To speak specifically about Amendments 118 to 121, this is the old argument about “may” and “must”. If the Government have something in mind, it is really their responsibility to give some indication about their thinking rather than leaving the Certification Office to hang in the wind on this. The amendments would make it mandatory—not just a “may”—for future regulations introducing a levy to cover the costs of the Certification Office to specify what would be considered as recoverable expenses, including costs incurred by ACAS in providing staffing, accommodation and equipment, and to specify how the levy will be calculated for different organisations, taking into account the number of members and whether an organisation is a trade union, an employers’ association or a federated employers’ organisation, and the functions carried out by the CO in relation to different organisations.

I am looking, first, for some chink of light about the Government having second thoughts on the levy at all. Secondly, if there is to be consultation it should take place at a reasonable time and for a reasonable length of time. Thirdly, we need to be clearer about the Government’s thinking on this levy. It seems that it could be a bit like student loans: the minute you have it introduced, it could go really sky-high. As I said at Second Reading, it could look like the thin end of a very large wedge as the Certification Office is part of the ACAS family, which could include other functions of ACAS. I would be particularly concerned about that.

In the light of the time, I will confine myself to those remarks and hope that the Minister will give us some more positive response.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of points about new Section 257A(4) in Clause 18, which covers the amount of the levy. They could have been made at various points, but they are probably as well made here as anywhere else. Before I start, can the Minister confirm that the various letters and information mentioned today will be sent to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate?

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Donaghy

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe]

My Lords, part of the problem here is that the Government have a bit of history to live down on this. As the noble Lord, Lord King, said, this clause is about the publication requirement—it is not about the detail, which comes in Clause 13—but I can understand why people are a bit suspicious.

When I started doing trade union work for the Conservative Party back in 2008, a huge number of Questions were being put to the then Labour Government about facility time. At one time, I asked the honourable Member in the House of Commons whether he had calculated how much cost he was generating in finding out about the cost of facility time. But if you look back to the records of 2008 to 2010, you will find 400 or 500 Written Questions asking various things about the facility time. I am not surprised that the trade union movement got a bit suspicious about what was going on. It is similarly unhappy about this.

I do not think that anyone would justify the examples given by my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. Those were unacceptable. But the question is: whose job is it to sort out the unacceptable? My view is that if there is sufficient publication of what is happening, it is then up to the bodies concerned to sort it out. After all, facility time is something that comes from the employers locally to the unions. Clearly, there have been examples where the employers—not the unions—have bought off trouble by giving facility time that might not be justified. It is not all on one side. As has been mentioned many times, the fact is that facility time—which equals local representation rather than someone from the hierarchy of the union—is often far more effective in sorting out disputes.

It is also extremely useful for smaller unions. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, mentioned a couple of the smaller unions, which, in the interests of fairness to all sides, have also written to me, so I will not repeat what she said. I will use the example of the union of which I am president, the British Dietetic Association. It has 10,000 members, very thinly spread around the country, the vast majority of them in the National Health Service. Because it is a union of 10,000 members—which also, incidentally, acts as a professional organisation —it does not have many staff. It relies to a very large extent on its local representatives gaining local knowledge to help sort out the generally minor problems that come up at a local level.

One difficulty that some people have, in my party particularly, is that they imagine that unions spend all their time on class warfare. In fact, in my experience—and I was for a time a lay union official—they spend most of their time dealing with and sorting out extraordinarily mundane difficulties in the interface between the troubled worker and the troubled institution. I am afraid I find it very difficult to attach the words “taxpayer subsidy” to the time that is given. Local authorities, as employers, are required by law to have facility agreements and to involve trade unions in a quite wide range of processes and activities involving staff. It is a legal requirement. Whether they are in the public or private sector, they have to involve union officials in certain areas, such as redundancy, disciplinary procedures and grievance procedures. If it is a legal requirement, it cannot be a taxpayer subsidy.

I have a letter here from the Conservative leader of North Yorkshire County Council. He says:

“North Yorkshire County Council has some 22,000 staff including 5600 teachers and in the current climate there is a cost benefit analysis to be considered in relation to whether facilitating trade union input at work is a good thing or not. Our experience at a local level is positive … Since 2010 there have been over 200 service restructures, affecting over a third of the workforce in some way with a proportion of our staff going through potential redundancy processes … To date all changes have been delivered in the timescales set … We have worked closely with Unison as the locally recognised union to deliver the savings”.

This is the Conservative leader of a county council, a very responsible official looking after a lot of people. He ends his letter by saying that,

“the local unions have been a real asset in delivering the changes needed and I hope this will continue for the foreseeable future”.

I have never met Councillor Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, but I venture that he probably knows how to handle his local facility time better than someone working off a spreadsheet in an office which is probably some way away from there.

By all means let us have transparency. That is a good thing. But let us not use transparency as a weapon to try to force out the best of what we have had. A British Dietetic Association lay official said to me recently, “The atmosphere at the moment is a bit difficult. I’m not sure I want to put my head over the parapet”. If a feeling gathers that we do not want to put our heads over the parapet, industrial relations will suffer. They will get worse, not better, because situations that would have been solved by the input of someone who knew what was going on locally will be referred upwards to full-time union officials who probably will not have the time to do the job properly anyway; industrial relations will deteriorate and the employers will lose out.

I was very impressed by the words of my noble friend Lord Hayward, who clearly has a lot of experience in this field. I counsel the Minister to let us have transparency, by all means, but let us not use transparency as a way of yet again making life difficult in an area of industrial relations which, overall, actually benefits from the ability of unions and management to negotiate sensible levels of facility time to help employees and employers deliver their targets.

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, for putting some balance into the debate. I have a lot of respect for his experience. He called for honesty. I could say a few words about my experience when I was chair of ACAS of certain behaviours on both sides of industry but I do not think it would be a good idea or take the debate forward, but I would be very happy to have private discussions with him at some stage so that we could swap examples. I am also very grateful to my noble friend Lord Harris, who reminded me what it was like to be a lay union representative, which I was for 33 very long years, for both NALGO and UNISON. I was not a full-time official; we prided ourselves on dealing with our problems without needing a full-time officer.

This issue of transparency needs to be looked at in the context of the Trade Union Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, touched on this just now. This is not just about transparency being a good thing, so that everybody who undertakes a fishing expedition can find out wicked things about what certain individual trade unionists are up to; the context is that the Bill appears to be a general attack on the trade union movement. The context is the clause that is coming up next, which talks about cutting, curtailing and capping facility time. One of the things that I worry about is that facility time should be seen in the light of a cost-benefit analysis. Nothing has been said by the Front Bench on the government side about the positive work that is done by union officials and the savings that are made by union health and safety representatives and union learning reps, through saving time dealing with grievances, redundancies and reorganisations.

There were times during my trade union lay career when I was accused of being a management stooge because I was delivering an unwelcome message to the members about what was practical; there were times in ACAS when I was accused of being a management stooge because I was not in a position to agree with everything that the union said; and there were times when I was accused of being a union stooge because of my background and because I did not always entirely accept what the management argument said. It is extremely important that we keep on reminding ourselves, in the context of the Bill, that things of this kind are not just about saying, “Oh let’s get some information; it’ll be a jolly good idea”. It is more like a scene from an Arnold Schwarzenegger film with him standing there, fully armed, and saying, “We are not going to do you any harm, just give us the information”.