Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Dykes

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I added my name enthusiastically to that of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, on Amendment 22 about electronic voting. I thank him for his wise words, spoken with authority and knowledge of trade union activities. That is not necessarily linked automatically to the Labour Party in any way. This is especially so in the modern world, compared to the past when it might have been more automatic with the big trade unions. We now see a much more open scenario and there are many who support or vote for the Conservative Party in general elections who are enthusiastic about their own membership of different kinds of trade unions. That should be the norm in any modern, balanced society. It should not be two competing elites with nothing moveable in between.

This amendment helps to widen the possibilities for voting for strike action in the future. This is so infrequent and rare in British society nowadays, compared to the past, that it is not a general problem at all. That adds to the need for this cluster of amendments. I am referring now to Amendment 22, but the rest all fit together. They ask the Government to think again carefully about the underlying reasons why the Bill was introduced. There is still an element of surprise in wider society among people who follow new Bills about why the Bill was engineered and created as it was. Any Government, as was said in the Second Reading debate, who have the authority of only 24% of the electorate, have to be careful to introduce legislation that is not only properly drafted and intelligent but creates consensus, fairness and balance to deal with areas of pressing need for public governance.

There is considerable dismay about the Bill among those who are not keen on any limits on trade union voting activity. In my view, it should be completely open, but the threshold idea has caught on with some people, so one has to accept that it will be supported in the future, to whatever extent that is rational. The Government have to respond to that pressure and think again.

One of the ironies is that the Bill would be easier to get through if the Government responded to intelligent amendments that represent the views of Members from all parties in this House. I hope that the amendments will be received with some interest and enthusiasm in the other place if the Government do what we are requesting today.

On electronic voting, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, referred in his speech to what he did in Sheffield. Electronic voting is feasible and can be just as secure as any other method of voting if proper procedures are put in place. It can be secure, as provided for in the Central Arbitration Committee report system, which is an excellent part of the amendment drafted by colleagues including Lord Monks.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, expressed reservations about Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown referred to the potential mathematical absurdity of the Government’s latest 50% proposal, which needs changing. All those problems were raised by Cross-Benchers, which is yet another illustration of the substantial changes that need to be made to the Bill.

I was in business for many years and we may compare the fairly easy-going procedures for corporate AGMs with what is being planned to bring the trade unions to heel. That might be an emotional phrase that is used fairly by some people and probably with enthusiasm by some of our right-wing newspapers. It would be a great tragedy if there were one standard for one set of people and another for another.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, very much for his advice on the common-sense element of trade union behaviour. There is a real need to make progress on this cluster of amendments. This is a great opportunity for the Government to refer positively to them and accept the ideas behind them. Then the Bill would make progress in other important areas.

[Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab)]

For 30 years, I was president of BALPA, and I notice that the union is very well represented in the Committee today. I beg the Minister to think again about the Bill. Every speech that has been made so far has indicated that the Government ought to think again. We do not know whether the Minister will think again. I plead with her to do so, because this is not an ordinary Bill. It goes to the very heart of what not only the trade union movement or the Labour movement but the whole country thinks about this issue. I hope that the Minister will be more placatory than the Government have indicated so far. I repeat that the Bill is misplaced, as it is written. Therefore, I hope that she will say later on that she is prepared to think again about what the Government are putting forward.

I am very glad that BALPA has set a good example. Although on the whole the executive has been Conservative—there are one or two people who are not, but not many—the important thing about the union is that it is prepared to put aside its political views and think in a way that is representative of the country as a whole. BALPA has done a great deal for British aviation. It is not always right, but on the whole what it has advanced has been for the benefit not only of pilots but of those who use all the airlines in the world. Will the Minister say today that she will think again about the whole virtue and principle of this Bill, which is vitally important?

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Dykes

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I suggest that my noble friend Lord Lamont was doing himself down when he referred to 1998 and possibly earlier periods when on the debates that were always going on about Europe he had not given any illustration of being in favour of much to do with the European Union. I remember that in the 1970s, he, like others of us, was an enthusiastic European. I cannot remember the exact years, but I believe that that was the case. He was doing himself down, because I vividly remember—I stand to be corrected, but I believe that my memory is pretty safe on this and I am happy to look at the Hansard reference as soon as I have the chance—that in the early 1990s, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, at one stage he said, “Of course, when you are a member of a club, you have occasionally to do what the other members want as well”. I thought that that was a rather impressive way of saying that he was in favour of some aspects of not only international co-operation in general, but the international co-operation that comes from the mechanisms—the integrated parts of the structure and the sovereign government parts of the structure—of what was then the European Community and is now the European Union, enlarged and with Lisbon as its basic fundament.

That is a phenomenon that we witness in the case of the present Foreign Secretary and others who were viciously anti-European in all sorts of aspects. We remember the role of William Hague when he was leader of the Conservative Party in opposition: his “10 days to save the pound” campaign and his attitudes then. Inevitably, in government, his attitudes have become more modulated as a result of both the basic requirement of working with colleagues, partners, fellow Ministers from other countries in all the European Union mechanisms and the logic and common sense of always garnering general support from the public. The idea that there is huge anxiety in this country about competence creep, mission creep, the European Union taking over too much or the Commission becoming overmighty is to my mind grossly exaggerated. There is very little evidence of that. As we said on Second Reading, it is a campaign that has been got up in the press and by a small number of very anti-European politicians of all kinds, mainly in the Conservative Party and UKIP, but also politicians outside Parliament. We think of the BNP and other rather dubious organisations in that context as well.

If we could gauge the attitude of the public, it is one of general acceptance of all these matters. This debate has been going on for some time both in the Commons and here, and it is interesting to note that there has been no public reaction of support for the Government. I do not think that Ministers could cite messages that they have received from the public saying, “Thank you very much. You’ve done a wonderful job. We are so glad that you are resisting the encroachments of the Commission”. I do not want to upset the Minister by going too much into Second Reading points, because this point was made then by several speakers, but can we get away from that canard?

The Commission remains in number of both officials and senior officials a very modest sized body, despite enlargement. It gets the general support of the European Council and the Council of Ministers, because it does a very good job with all the difficulties built in of blending 27 national cultures of public finance and administration. That is a complicated task and it takes time to get habits to coalesce in joint working. None the less, there is no sense that the Commission is exceeding its powers or has done too much in any way with either the connivance or the resistance of the member Governments. Indeed, apart from its own delegated powers, which are either from the treaty or from the exhortations and requests of the various ministerial Councils, the Commission is a modest part of the total.

The main panoply and structure of the European Union remains the sovereign member Governments in the European Council and the Council of Ministers making their sovereign decisions collectively, enhancing both the individual sovereignty of every member state participating automatically and the general sovereignty of the European Union itself. That is why common sense among the public accepts that as a natural process.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

When I was a Commissioner, we made it imperative to listen to the many people who had views about Europe, and I think that that continues today. Is that not an expression of faith in the democratic process by the European Commission?

[Lord Dykes]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention because it reminds me of the series of visits by individuals and groups—schools, universities, students, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, business community groups, trade unions and all sorts of public and private institutions—not only to the European Parliament but to the Commission to see how they work. Taking Eurosceptic and anti-European individuals from the British Parliament on their first visit to Brussels, I have had the personal pleasure of witnessing how they change their mind when they see how it works. It is in no way a threat to our country.