Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Bridges of Headley and Lord Balfe

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, following our positive discussions in your Lordships’ House on Report, I am amending Clause 14 as I promised, to reflect an arrangement whereby check-off continues within the public sector on the crucial proviso that there is no burden on the taxpayer.

There was one concern, which concerned the Certification Officer’s role. While I appreciate the sentiment of my noble friend Lord Balfe and others, the Government believe that it is not the role, and should not be the role, of the trade union regulator to assess the reasonableness of the cost to employers and unions of check-off. However, it is important that these costs are indeed reasonable. So we have set out on the face of the Bill that employers must satisfy themselves that the total amount of the payment is only substantially equivalent to the total cost to the taxpayer of making these deductions.

I stress that the amendments regarding those organisations within the scope of this Bill apply equally to Clause 14 as they do to the facility-time transparency clause. This means that, were the scope to be extended in future, it could apply to bodies which are not public authorities only if they are mainly funded by public funds. To be absolutely clear, it is not the intention of this Government ever to include charities if they could not also be captured by the Freedom of Information Act.

I assure your Lordships that we will, of course, give adequate timeframes for new charging arrangements to be set up. It is our intention to provide a 12-month period prior to commencement for such arrangements to be properly established. I appreciate the co-operation of the noble Baroness and others and I beg to move.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this clause. It represents common sense and shows that the Minister has listened to the representations that have been received.

I do not intend to speak again during this debate but I will pick up on a point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, who mentioned twice that he had been to an USDAW conference. I am sure that he had a very good welcome there. I was a member of USDAW for a few years, when I worked for the Co-op. I will place on the record that the understanding of the trade union movement would be much enhanced in the political comity of Great Britain if the unions extended invitations to their conferences beyond just one political party. One of the difficulties, which has been seen in the Bill and is seen in other places, is that although 30%-plus of trade unionists vote Conservative and a good number vote for the Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties, the trade unions persistently seek to relate to only one political party. It would be for the good of the trade union movement and that of the noble Lords sitting opposite if the union movement could be persuaded to look a little beyond its comfort zone and to engage with all legislators. That could possibly avoid many of the misunderstandings that have occurred in the past. Having said that, I welcome the clause; it is a very good step forward and I thank the Minister for his introduction of it.

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Bridges of Headley and Lord Balfe

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I apologise to those who have had to edit their speeches so quickly and spent time over the weekend to no avail. In response to the points on charities made by the noble Baroness, I completely agree, and we will seek to address this point. As regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, about further consultation and what the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, said about facility time, she is right. We have made further progress on the reserve power to cap facility time.

Obviously, we are not discussing Clause 12 today, but I will update noble Lords on where we are. Our commitment is to engage the cap only on the basis of evidence from the transparency measure. Our proposal is that the power will not be exercised at all before there are at least two years of data from the bodies subject to the reporting requirement. Following this, should a particular employer’s facility time be significantly above the levels of those of comparable organisations, the Minister will send and publish a letter to the employer drawing attention to the concerns. The employer will have the opportunity to set out the reasons for the level of facility time. The employer will always have a year to make progress in relation to their facility time levels. Nothing would be done until a third set of reporting data was published. If there is insufficient progress, the Minister will then be at liberty to exercise the reserve power and make regulations to cap facility time for that employer or those employers. Our intention is to set out the key elements of the arrangements for triggering a cap in Clause 13 when we introduce it.

As regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on delegated powers, I absolutely hear what the noble Lord is saying. The substance of regulations will be available before Third Reading. I very much hope, therefore, that the skeletons will be well and truly buried. On that point, I would like to thank your Lordships for the comments that were made this afternoon.

[Lord Balfe]

This has been a very pleasant little debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, reminded me that I did not declare my interests, which are to be found in the register. I thank all the people who have contributed to the debate, in particular my noble friend Lord Cormack. When I was first appointed by the Prime Minister as the Conservative Party envoy to the trade union movement, I was met with much suspicion within the party. My noble friend was one of the first people to welcome me and point out the work that he has done over many years with unions, including with USDAW and on Sunday trading and other things. I appreciate the support that I have had from him and from many other noble Lords.

I also appreciate the support and briefings that I have had from UNISON, Prospect and the TUC. Several million low-paid workers depend on check-off. UNISON has more than 7,000 agreements in the public sector and a further two-and-a-bit thousand in the private sector. This is not a very small thing but a major part of low-paid workers’ security. I am pleased that we have secured this. I thank the Minister—he is not only a noble Lord but a noble Minister today—for this and I am happy to withdraw the amendment.