Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Lord Lea of Crondall

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I have talked to many unions in the public sector, and that is the sort of feedback I get. It is for the two reasons I have given, but perhaps the noble Lord needs to be reminded of what I have only just said. The first reason is the extra administrative hurdles over which the trade unions would have to jump. It does not happen by magic. It will place a huge administrative burden and cost on trade union officials, who have other things to do, such as helping with day-to-day issues. To crank all this into action, whether in the Civil Service or elsewhere, will be a huge administrative burden. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, pointed out, people within the system see this as a ridiculous extra administrative burden. Secondly, people are not too keen on forms and might even blame the union for troubling them with another piece of paper or form to fill in. If I am wrong, I will naturally be relieved, but I might be wrong the wrong way round: it might be a bigger hit than 20%.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I might be able to help the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. If he checks with the Prison Officers’ Association, he will find that it had facilities withdrawn from check-off, and it has real troubles, as I mentioned on Second Reading.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

The Government imply, without ever spelling out anybody specifically, that they have support for this radical change, but the Financial Times—hardly a Labour newspaper—has reported that,

“human resources directors in the National Health Service”—

the largest employer in the country, as we know—

“including those in some of the biggest hospitals, have written to Matthew Hancock, cabinet office minister, questioning … plans to scrap the … system”.

Another letter from human resources directors reported on in the Financial Times is to the effect that the five-year plan to improve performance would actually be set back by the changes set out, on the basis that close working between managers and union representatives had been,

“recognised by health ministers as fundamental”,

to its delivery. So why go around stirring up trouble? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, has a good answer.

As Dave Prentis from UNISON pointed out in oral evidence to the Commons Public Bill Committee, the unions often pay for check-off deductions by arrangement. As has been said by everyone who has touched on this topic so far, it is perhaps peanuts in the bigger scheme of things, but if that is an issue at all, the amendment which could deal with that would be one that the Government, I am sure, would now wish to support. In summarising this financial question, on the one hand we have huge costs to the trade unions, relatively speaking, both in gross loss of income and through loss of members; on the other hand, there is the huge administrative burden. If unions are offering to make payments, this is the right time to reach a consensus on that point at least. However, I might add that it is monumentally unhelpful, given the time constraints on the requirement to sign up to direct debit payments, to be faced simultaneously—and we were discussing this two days ago—with the loss of facility time at the very point of explaining these untoward changes. Inside the Government, does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

In response, therefore, either today or in the next couple of weeks, will the Government take the opportunity to meet the employers which have a degree of independence? There is a whole range of bodies, including those whose reputation suggests that they have a considerable degree of independence—the BBC, the British Museum and so on are listed. They are not organisations, I am sure, that the Minister would wish to say should be subject to any degree of intimidation to fall into line.

I now turn to the widening of the ban to privatised companies, which is the subject of the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Monks and others. As with facility time, with the banning of check-off the Government are again giving us the spectacle of extending the net to enterprises that are not in the public sector. I draw attention to the extraordinary scope of subsection (3) of Clause 14, which inserts new Section 116B into the 1992 Act. It is there on page 11 of the Bill. You can hardly believe it, but there it is. It allows a Minister to provide by regulation that a private sector employer can be deemed to be carrying out,

“functions of a public nature”—

I do not know what the Supreme Court lawyers would make of that—and it can be caught by Clause 14. What sort of legal drafting is that? Many distinguished jurists must be turning in their graves. One is inescapably reminded of the dictum, well known to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, of Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.

That is the only way I can describe this extraordinary interpretation that public sector means private sector where the Government say it does.

As regards which companies this will apply to, by the way, we do not have a complete list. It may be wishful thinking to think that the ones we have heard specified are it. We do not know. Ministers may be having second thoughts. We do not know. Perhaps they just want to leave it all dangling there, blowing in the wind. We could be talking about air traffic control or about any of these companies. I repeat: why go about stirring up trouble and uncertainty? We could be talking about the field of nuclear decommissioning and companies such as Magnox Ltd and Sellafield Ltd. The letter from the Minister dated 22 February is not clear as to its scope: whether it is the definitive list or only a list of people within the public sector. One can only therefore assume that the examples given are not exhaustive. How do we find this out? Where can workers and unions find clarity—by guesswork? It is not exactly a model of transparency, and employers would have to err on the side of caution.

To take the example of nuclear decommissioning one stage further, this sector may have a bigger hit—