Trade Union Bill

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of points on this group. Why it is necessary to change the notice? What is the significance? On the face of it you might say, “What is the difference between one or two weeks?”. In the context of our suspicion as to where the Government are coming from on this, I think there needs to be suitable due diligence to look at what really is necessary. The Committee ought to be reminded that it will not be one week. To give notice that you are going to have a ballot, to have a ballot and then to have another week or two after it to give notice for industrial action gives the employer quite a lot of notice already of what could happen.

I accept that the Government are changing the need for action within four weeks of the ballot, so if this was a quid pro quo for that requirement—I do not see the Government arguing that—that might be more understandable. With all the detail that is going to go on the ballot paper, if the date of the industrial action is specified on the ballot paper is that going to act as notice? Is that going to be adequate? Have the Government thought of that?

The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, recognises reality, and where there is agreement between an employer and the trade union it makes sense to recognise that and exclude it from this provision. We question the essential nature of this section of the Bill but we also understand that whether it is one or two weeks will not make a huge difference in the context of the notice that the employer already has of industrial action.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the two speeches supporting this amendment. There has been a lot of talk about management on the one side and unions on the other and the context of balloting and industrial action but neither of them mentioned the people actually affected by the action—the commuters who want to go to work or the parents who want to take their children to school so they can work. Surely they have the right to at least two weeks’ notice to try to make alternative childcare arrangements, adjust their own employment arrangements or make alternative transport arrangements so as to go about their normal, lawful proceedings at the time. To give them two weeks’ notice is reasonable. Obviously, unions and management are important, but I ask noble Lords to bear in mind that other people are affected by action as well.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

The noble Lord has made a point about the time that this process takes, but we are focusing on industrial action ballots. Anyone listening to our debates would think that industrial relations were simply about industrial action ballots; of course, they are not. In the private and public sector, negotiations take place every year without the need for them. We now have a statutory framework for industrial action ballots that provides for time periods. With this additional proposed week, we now have one week’s notice to the employer that a ballot is taking place, at least two weeks for the ballot period, then the announcement of the ballot result, before giving a further two weeks’ notice. We end up with a period of balloting for industrial action of some five weeks: five weeks to create uncertainty for an enterprise.

[Lord Callanan]

I understand the point that the noble Lord is making, but that is five weeks’ notice that it might happen; there is only two weeks’ notice of the precise date when the action will take place.

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

As my noble friend pointed out, the rationale for the amendment has been changing while the Bill has been under consideration. Nick Boles in the other place said that the clause will give employers the last opportunity before industrial action takes place to reach a negotiated settlement. At least that is a positive approach. The purpose of industrial action is not inflicting pain, distress and disruption. Clearly, that happens; there are always consequences. Its purpose is in the negotiating process: to try to bring parties together. In the main, at the end of the day, whatever the strike, there is a settlement and an agreement. It is sad that, often, it is strike action or the threat of it that brings parties together. I wish it was not so.

The Minister—I know I keep mentioning this; she must regret it—was part of an industrial agreement with a trade union in Tesco, which has practised a very good partnership agreement. Through the practice of negotiations, it strives to avoid disruption to the enterprise. That partnership agreement recognises that the success of the enterprise is in everyone’s mutual interest—to come back to the word “mutuality”.

Nick Boles said that the extra week is to provide that opportunity so that negotiations can take place to reach a solution. I want to challenge that a bit. The impact assessment seems to be about something else. It suggests that it is about making arrangements for contingency plans. The Government have conducted a consultation, and published the results in the impact assessment, on the use of agency workers to cover duties normally performed by an employee of an organisation who is taking part in a strike or other industrial action, but there are no provisions in the Bill on the use of agency workers. Will that be included in the Bill on Report, or will we face another series of amendments that propose secondary legislation? As my noble friend pointed out, such action is likely to undermine industrial action and will give employers an incentive to engage at the local car park rather than in positive negotiations to reach a mutual settlement.

I support my noble friend Lady Donaghy’s amendment, which returns the notice period to seven days. Our Amendment 34 is basically another probing amendment. It states that, where a union has indicated a specific date for industrial action on the voting paper—as the noble Lord has mentioned—it is not then required to give the notice.

We are trying better to understand the intent of the Government and the consequences of these actions. I am keen to get a sense of the Minister’s thinking on why two weeks. What evidence have the Government considered which demonstrates that the current seven-day period is ineffective?

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[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, for the points he made; I agree very much with them. It shows once again that when someone is speaking with direct experience of industry—on both sides—of his memories of occasions of industrial and commercial disruption and dispute, it helps this House in its deliberations on this Bill.

Notwithstanding the comments of the noble Lord who has just spoken, what particularly concerned the public in London was the strikes on London Underground. One can understand that: they can affect millions of people in their daily routine and are therefore a very serious matter. While I was concerned at the time that the unions might be overreaching themselves and making proposals that were going to be too difficult, I was concerned also about the other side of the picture, which was the hysterical approach of the only evening paper in London, the Evening Standard. It automatically and immediately condemned the unions without explaining in detail the reasons for the action, just saying that they were being irresponsible. There was the notion that for some reason there was an obligation on those unions never to strike or take industrial action, even if they were genuinely concerned about many underlying matters of the operations of London Transport, including safety considerations, which I think were uppermost in many trade union officials’ minds. That never got a hearing or any coverage in the Evening Standard, which was, apart from other free sheets, the only regional newspaper that one could get in London.

That was the general background, and I think it is therefore in the folk memory when it comes to industrial relations that there is an extra special obligation in the public sector and that, particularly with transport, it is selfish for any industrial action to take place. Driverless trains is a separate matter that needs to come back on to the agenda.

Notwithstanding that, the priority should surely be to have a balance in industrial relations provisions of legislation. I was very pleased when, at Second Reading, the Minister referred in her remarks opening the debate to the question of picketing, and said:

“The Bill also makes an obligation of the appointment of a picket supervisor. This requirement is already in the code of picketing, which has been followed without difficulty on many occasions by many unions”.—[Official Report, 11/1/16; col. 14.]

Concluding the Second Reading debate, very late at night, just after 10.45 pm, she referred to it again, saying:

“We are also comfortable with the measures on picketing, which are designed to make it clear to the police and the employer both where a picket is taking place and whom the police or an employer should contact. These are reasonable steps to ensure that pickets pass off peacefully”.—[Official Report, 11/1/16; col. 126.]

The difference between those two quotations is, of course, the absence of any reference to the code. That might have been acceptable, except that the clause includes 10 subsections at least half of which are just an irritant to union and employer procedures in dealing with these difficult subjects.

If industrial action has been called and a strike is looming, or things are getting difficult, already, the temperature has risen. To have detailed measures about the individual behaviour of pickets—most of whom, according to the police, have behaved very well in the examples we have over the past 20 years since the period of unusual unrest before that—is putting oil on the fire and raising the temperature still further. Surely that cannot be right.

The Minister has been accommodating and forthcoming in Committee both on Monday and today, saying that she will give careful thought to lots of suggestions made in amendments, allowing us to have no Divisions so far and clauses to go through. I hope that she will be able to give such an undertaking in respect of this very important clause and the procedures on picketing.

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, I have listened very carefully to noble Lords who have spoken in favour of these amendments. I am slightly at a loss to know what their complaints are. It seems that everybody who has spoken so far supports the picketing code, which has been reasonably successful for more than 20 years now. I hope that nobody supports the kind of tactics and behaviour outlined by my noble friend Lord De Mauley. I think that we, on this side of the House, also accept that the vast majority of union picketing operations abide by the code—but not all, as my noble friend outlined. So what can be the complaint from people who support the code and who agree that it amounts to responsible picketing? What can be the complaint about incorporating some, but not all, of those provisions in statute?

There are one or two isolated examples, still taking place, of disgraceful intimidation of those who want to go about their lawful business. It seems right that the provisions which have worked successfully for the vast majority of responsible unions should be enforced in statute for the small minority of irresponsible unions. All the proposers have spoken in favour of the code.

[Lord Monks]

Does the noble Lord accept that the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, are illegal under the present law and can be dealt with now with all sorts of different measures? I assume that the problem with the examples quoted was of enforcement, not of the weakness of law.

[Lord Callanan]

Well, they might be against the code but, as I understand it, the code is voluntary at the moment. It is not enforceable. I assume that outright intimidation is against the law and I hope that the police would take appropriate action. In its briefing, the CBI refers to a number of instances where the existing code has not been followed. As a responsible trade unionist, the noble Lord should be standing up for the majority of responsible unions that do follow the code and condemning, rather than seeking to support, the small minority that do not and that indulge in irresponsible behaviour. The provisions are entirely reasonable and those who are in favour of responsible trade unionism and responsible picketing should have no problems with them.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House for long. In 1970, I was elected to the other place for a mining constituency. I saw the first miners’ strike and I still had a very large colliery—Littleton Colliery—one of the largest in the country, throughout the second miners’ strike.

During that period, I was impressed by two things. One was the close community feeling locally, which meant that I was a welcome visitor at any time to the pits—and later to the one pit I had left. I never had any fierce altercation, even heated argument. I had many discussions, but I was also very conscious that ugly things were happening elsewhere and that there was abuse of people who wanted, in all conscience, to go to work and whose lives were made fairly miserable in the process. So I do not think any moderate, sensible, balanced person could possibly disagree that there should be a code. The question is whether we give it the force of law.

The noble Lord, Lord Monks, made it quite plain that the ugly, indefensible actions to which my noble friend Lord De Mauley referred are illegal anyhow. We have measures that we can take against people who behave in this way. A code does not have the force of law in that sense. The question is whether we incorporate some or all of the code in a piece of legislation, which I think is frankly not necessary. It was in the manifesto and therefore the Government are entitled to bring it before your Lordships’ House, as they have taken it through another place.

We had a reasonable discussion about taking measures to define what people could and could not do. When I suggested the substitution of the word “clear”, my noble friend gave a moderate and helpful reply. Clearly, there are going to be long discussions taking place between now and Report. I think the answer is for there to be a discussion on the whole subject of picketing. In the 21st century, no reasonable person could conceivably argue that there should be no legal protection for people who wished to withdraw their labour. Of course there should. It therefore follows that there must be proper legal provision for those who wish peacefully to persuade their fellow workers who have not accepted the strength and validity of their arguments to do so. It must be done within a wholly peaceful, unaggressive, unintimidatory context. I do not think anybody in your Lordships’ House would disagree. My noble friend the Minister has shown herself open to ideas and suggestions. We need a proper discussion with her to see if we cannot come to a proper compromise that can be in this piece of legislation without overdoing it—without putting boots on it, if I can use that metaphor. I hope that this will follow from this debate.

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[Lord Collins of Highbury]

I am sure that we will come on to that requirement. One thing that this debate has to deal with is the existing requirements in relation to trade unions. Any code of practice or model guidance more than 30 years ago was made in the context of 10-yearly ballots on whether a union should have a political fund. A union’s practices in terms of notifying and making its members aware of opt-out provisions are laid down by statute. They are not set out simply in a code; they are laid down in model rules specified by the Certification Officer and the unions must comply with them. For example—this is my point about some of the regulatory requirements— if a method of communication were electronic, it would not necessarily be compliant with the union’s existing rules and you could have the ridiculous situation where the unions were challenged for breaching them. Regarding the operation of the opt-out, you would need to ask how many complaints there had been and how many people had been dissatisfied with their rights.

Not only was I an assistant general-secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and Unite but I was general-secretary of the Labour Party. I recall that in 2008 the Scottish National Party, the Conservative Party and, I think, the Liberal Democrats mounted a campaign to ensure that members knew of their right to opt out. It did not result in a huge number of opt-outs because I think people were perfectly aware of the procedure. It is a bit like some members of the Conservative Party asserting that the relationship between the unions and the Labour Party is a secret. If it is such a secret and is not known, all I can say is that the Daily Mail certainly seems to make enough of it. During the last general election campaign, I saw Conservative Party literature that made it absolutely clear who funds the Labour Party.

I have absolutely no problem with being totally out and proud of the relationship that the Labour Party has with the trade unions. In 1900, the trade unions established the Labour Party. They were the members of the Labour Party for the first 18 years. There were no individuals in the party. It was a federated body whose purpose was to ensure representation in Parliament. Over the years, things have changed. The last time these sorts of proposals were implemented was in 1927—

[Lord Callanan]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I have the honour of serving on the committee which is currently studying this matter, and I suppose that we should be grateful to the Labour Party for suggesting this. One factor that we have been considering a great deal is the Collins review, which I believe was written by the noble Lord. Correct me if I am wrong, but did that not propose moving from an opt-out to an opt-in system, albeit over a slightly longer timescale?