Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Lord Harris of Haringey
Lord Kerslake
I will say a few very brief words; I apologise for detaining the House. I tabled this amendment because I feel that we are conducting the debate about the Bill in a fact-free and certainly analysis-free zone. It felt to me that before action is taken we should have a proper analysis, not just of the costs but the benefits of trade union facilities, if nothing else to properly inform decisions that might be taken under delegated powers. It is very hard to see how government can make those decisions without this proper analysis of costs, benefits and their relationship. That is why I have suggested what I hope is a reasonable amendment, that a piece of work be conducted by the Government on this issue. I beg to move.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, this is a helpful and useful amendment. It would be even more helpful had the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, suggested that Clause 13—and possibly Clause 12 as well—could not come into force until such time as this review had been completed. The whole issue about having proper information and a proper background to what we are talking about here is clearly critical. The noble Lord, Lord King, who has just rejoined us, and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, spoke movingly about the importance of facility time, both as regards health and safety but more generally as regards good industrial relations. The implication from their speeches was that it was fine to have transparency on those issues but, by implication, it would be wrong to try to impose a limit if an agreement had been reached locally.
The information proposed in the amendment, which would probably be of the nature of academic research, would provide your Lordships with a proper background against which to consider these matters. Obviously it might take longer to compile than between now and Report, or indeed between now and Third Reading, but if these two clauses were removed from the Bill, the Government could bring them back in a year’s time having had the benefit of this research.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendment 90A. If Clause 12 was about transparency, for which I have a great deal of sympathy, Clause 13 is essentially about compulsion—top-down “Whitehall knows best” micro-management. That is what it adds up to. If transparency has the desired effect, which the Government argue it will have, it is difficult to conceive of why there is a need for Clause 13. If this was seen as such an unacceptable expenditure in Sheffield, Doncaster or Brighton, the electorates would be able to make their decisions accordingly.
Let us take first the example we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. There are arguments in favour of full-time trade union officials and arguments in favour of part-time ones. I have worked in different organisations with different models. What I would never presume to know is which one is right for any particular organisation, and I cannot conceive of circumstances in which the Government would know the right model. The second point I would like to make is that the requirements in relation to facility time would not vary just between organisation and organisation; they will vary in time as well. If a local authority is going through a major restructuring, it is perfectly reasonable—I have done this—to agree to extra time for trade unions in order to enable them to play their part fully in that change. If a cap is introduced, flexibility in the process is taken away.
It is not clear whether Clause 13 will apply to individual public bodies, individual local authorities or groups of local authorities. It seems to allow for all possibilities, so it would be interesting to hear from the Minister which she thinks it would be. But if we are talking about groups of local authorities, you will almost certainly get it wrong in either direction. If the cap is set high then people will not unreasonably take it as being the marker that the Government think is appropriate. If the cap is set too low, you will undermine the effectiveness of negotiations and the proper running of affairs in a local authority. All of this adds up in my mind to an example of centrist government at its very worst and I think that it should be dropped from the Bill. At the very least, local authorities should be given the flexibility to make this decision for themselves. If we believe that they are capable of leading economic development, running social care and being responsible for developing new housing supply, we must surely think that they are capable of deciding what the right level of trade union facilities is for them.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, we have already spent some time during the course of today’s Committee looking at the value of facility time and I do not intend to rehearse any of those arguments. However, when we were talking about the so-called transparency clause, the Minister told us that this is about a reserve power which she assumed or hoped would never be needed. So the question is this: why are we writing into this Bill now something for which there is so far a complete lack of an evidence base and a complete lack of clarity as regards its extent or how it would be applied? We have no information on how discerning it is. Will the Minister be sitting in her office, deciding whether the time-off arrangements for facility time in the Newcastle parks department should be this number of employees for this number of hours, as opposed to those working on social care in Newcastle, or those who might be doing similar functions in the London Borough of Haringey? How exactly is this supposed to be done? If it is not the Minister, in whom we have absolute faith, how can her officials make those discernment judgments between the different local authorities or organisations concerned?