Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a director of J&J Denholm, which has shipping and port services interests. I have not participated in this Bill because I thought it was excellent and doing the job that Ministers made clear was its purpose, which was to prevent a recurrence of the appalling behaviour of P&O in its ferry services. That was declared at the time.

We are looking at the provisions in the Bill and the suggestion in Amendment 2 that we should leave out 120 and insert 52. I believe that P&O has something like 15 crossings per day between Dover and Calais, so the Bill clearly deals with the problem that it was presented as seeking to solve. I am not unsympathetic to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who is splendid and very careful in the work that he does in this House. Indeed, we have agreed on matters such as HS2 and others from time to time. But his amendment would completely change the Bill’s scope, and to do that on Report would be quite ridiculous, when the whole thing has been presented to the public.

I am intervening because of representations from the Chamber of Shipping, which accepts that the Bill is right and the number 120 is right, but is concerned that we are drawing in other services. I have no idea what those services are and the noble Lord did not say what they were; I have no idea what the implications and costs are for the administration of the ports and so on. What I do know, however, is that it is not what the Bill was introduced to deal with. Therefore, at this late stage, it would be wholly inappropriate to amend the Bill in this way or to create an unknown administrative burden on the ports.

I guess that the noble Lord chose the number 52 because it meant once a week, but that does not address the problem that has occurred, so I hope my noble friend will continue to resist the amendment. The noble Lord seems to me to be in danger of trespassing on international conventions and rules. The Labour Party has always been a great supporter of the ILO and so on, and of having an international approach. We must tread with care. The Government, in seeking to deal with the P&O episode, took a step in a direction that moved away from the conventions that the flag of convenience should govern the rules on board ships, which was entirely justified. But this amendment is a step too far. As it is Report, I shall say no more.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Forsyth has said. We have set out to deal with the problem of P&O. I have heard nothing from the RMT—it is clearly not that bothered about this side of the House—but this pushes things a bit further than they should go. I hope the noble Lord will not test the opinion of the House.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I shall make only a short contribution. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a duck, and I know a filibuster when I see one. We have this ridiculous amendment to the Motion when, as my noble friend has pointed out, we have had a vote at Second Reading. We have all these other amendments tabled in the names of my noble friend and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. What is going on here is an attempt to frustrate what is the majority view of this House. It is a majority view because we value the hereditaries and the important contribution they make to this place. I personally am opposed to an elected House and I thought the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—that hereditary by-elections meant that the Prime Minister could not appoint people who would be compliant—was an insult to us all. None of us is compliant in this House, as my noble friend the Chief Whip will remember from yesterday. We act appropriately on our judgment, and that is the value of this place.

I saw in the Sunday papers that the Speaker in the other place had spent a bit of money on devising a new logo. When I looked at the new logo, I could not see the difference. Then I realised that it was not just about a few balls on a portcullis; rather, there was a huge difference. It has been proposed that the existing logo of the portcullis and the words “Houses of Parliament” should be replaced by one saying, “UK Parliament”, thus downgrading this House. Again and again, this House produces excellent reports—I declare an interest as chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee—which are largely ignored.

The reputation of this House has fallen considerably because of the numbers, and frankly, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, pointed out in his excellent article in the House magazine and as the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has pointed out, this is about the reputation of this House. If we wish to maintain the hereditary presence—I was privileged enough to join the House while the hereditaries were still here and they make an excellent contribution—we have to get rid of a process that generates ridicule and damages us. It enhances the argument of those who would wish to get rid of the hereditaries and make this House an elected Chamber—one, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has suggested, in which the Prime Minister’s patronage and the patronage of the Chief Whip and others would run well. That is not what this House is about and it is not its function. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw not only his amendment to the Motion but these ridiculous other amendments, which are designed to prevent this House taking a decision and sending it to the other place for it to take a view.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a couple of points as someone who gave both written and oral evidence to the Burns committee. The Burns committee did not deal with this subject. It decided specifically not to do so because it felt that it would be outside its terms of reference. We hear that the resolutions of Burns have not been implemented, but then, parliamentary reform is an ongoing process. From the 1832 Reform Act through to votes at 16, which will inevitably come, we have reformed the way we run the country and how parliamentary systems work. I believe that we are passing up an historic opportunity if we do not back the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.

Many years ago, I remember having a conversation over dinner with the late John Smith, a man I greatly admired. I asked him, “What is the most difficult thing you face?”, expecting him to come up with some problem in the House of Commons. He replied, “The queue of people outside my door who think that they should be in the House of Lords”. It is inevitable that at some point there will be a change of government. At that point, there will be a big difference between the number of Peers on each side of the House. In the city of Cambridge where I live, there is not only seething anger at what is seen as a party that is somewhat out of touch with aspirations of home ownership and the like; there are a lot of people who think. Let me tell noble Lords what I think will happen. If the Labour Party has any sense, which it does occasionally, it will include in its manifesto a line saying, “We will remove the right of hereditary Peers to legislate”. This would then be covered by the Salisbury convention, and the measure could be passed. When there is a change of government, there will be a great demand for radical measures—and this is an easy radical measure. The balance of the House would change very quickly because there are more hereditaries on this side of the Chamber than on that side. That would get the Labour Party out of a difficult corner and reduce the number of people.

I urge my colleagues to think carefully before they reject what I stress is a very modest proposal. I would like to see it passed, to see Burns implemented and to see us demonstrate to the country that we are capable of reforming ourselves. We should not have this charade of pretending that somehow, this or that has not been completed. This is a challenge for the whole House: to show that we are not, as was described to me by students at a recent meeting in Cambridge, the “pensioners’ party”, but that we are actually a part of the living government of this country. We play a vital role in the governance of this nation and the House of Lords has a definite place in the running of this country. We should get on with it, take the reforms on board and settle down to some sensible work. I hope that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will be supported.

Finally, I appeal to the Government because it is the Government who can help. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I believe that, in the 1960s, we had the greatest Home Secretary of the past 100 years—Roy Jenkins. He dealt with a lot of radical measures by the simple means of saying, “I will give government time to these Back Bench initiatives”. I ask the Government to seriously consider taking this Bill under their wing and enabling it to pass, because if they wanted to, they could. If the Bill falls it will be in part because of this House, but also because our Government have not willed it to pass. I hope they will look carefully at making time available for this Bill to go down the Corridor, where I do not detect any great opposition to it.

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, there seems to be a great reluctance among your Lordships to speak. I will not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has said, but obviously I agree with everything that he did say. The amendment that we have down—let me remind noble Lords—asks for an independent review. It says neither that we are putting electronic balloting in the Bill, nor that we are endorsing it. We are simply asking for an independent review. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, outlined a number of organisations that use electronic balloting. There are a number of venture capital trusts of which I have knowledge that use electronic balloting—as, incidentally, does the Co-operative Wholesale Society for the elections of its board of directors. There was a lot of controversy around the last election, but none of it was about the fairness of the ballot.

We seem to have somehow sanctified the idea of a postal ballot. As noble Lords will know, particularly those on the Opposition Benches, I have a very dubious background. One of the people whom I can claim as my friend—now long dead—was involved in rigging the ETU ballot in 1959. There are also people who have rigged local authority postal ballots. Indeed, there are regular allegations of people going around collecting postal ballots. I am not justifying this, but I am saying: do not sanctify the postal ballot as being beyond reproach and dismiss the electronic ballot as something that we cannot consider. We are, after all, in 2016; technology has moved enormously fast.

I was impressed with my noble friend’s evidence about the Transport and General Workers’ Union. I had not realised that he was a notable fan of its history. But I seem to remember that it was a postal ballot, not an electronic ballot, where things went wrong. So I go back to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake: we have no evidence that it would go wrong, but—and I underline this key point—all we are asking for is a review. The review could conclude that everything that the Government say is right, and that this is not the opportune time. But this is certainly, in my view, an opportune time to have a review.

There is a lot in the Bill, as the Minister knows, that I support. I agreed with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said. If we are to make the Bill work, we must not make it appear to be making things as hard as possible. I am afraid that that is the conclusion that is coming through if we turn down this very reasonable amendment that says no more than, “have a review”. So I hope that noble Lords will reflect and find themselves able to support this amendment and that when, as the amendment says, the report comes forward, we will be able to decide whether it is an opportune moment to introduce e-balloting.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I am not certain that I understand why no one is getting up on the other side on this matter. I will just intervene briefly to ask the Minister, when she comes to reply to this amendment, if she could explain the Government’s thinking on the use of the internet and technology. I ask because the Finance Bill is providing for the use of digital returns for people’s entire financial affairs. At no stage did I hear the Government suggesting that the internet was prone to hacking and that, therefore, it would be quite impossible to move to a system where we have people presenting their tax returns electronically. It is also the Government’s intention that returns should be filled in electronically by other people detailing income or savings or investment income.

Either the Government believe in embracing the future and the importance of the use of digital technology or they do not. It seems to be both. In respect of people’s financial information, they believe that it is a proper and sensible way to get more efficient application of government services. Increasingly, people’s personal health and other information will be transmitted and shared over the internet. I suspect that that is because the Government fully understand that, with good hygiene, it is possible to have secure digital systems in place. So I very much hope that my noble friend will explain why that does not apply to ballots organised by trade unions, which are independent organisations and which will have an interest in ensuring that the ballots are properly conducted. Perhaps she could also explain how on earth she could possibly be against the amendment, because all that it suggests is that the arguments put up by the Government should be looked at within six months by an independent body, and there is provision for this to be brought into effect.

This is important because I remember, when I was first elected to the House of Commons, making speeches in support of our trade union reforms. The argument that I used at the time was that we wanted to give trade unions back to their members; we wanted their members to be more in control. That is why we opposed the closed shop; that is why we brought in ballots. This sensible legislation is intended to ensure that people do not go out on strike without the support of our members. If that is our intention, why on earth would we want to resist something that will allow increased participation?

The big danger for the Government is that those who are perhaps not their friends may be able to argue that what they are really doing is trying to undermine the rights and responsibilities of trade unions to look after the interests of their membership, and making it more difficult for them to take industrial action, even where that enjoys the support of the membership. That would be a foolish error to make. So I very much hope that, having listened to the debate, my noble friend will feel able to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake—who, after all, has very considerable experience of dealing with the public sector unions and is very well aware of the issues that arise.