Trade Union Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, I am most interested in the contribution that the noble Baroness has just made, and I am sure that those issues will come in for further discussion during consideration of the Bill. I am delighted at the interest that both Ministers are taking in the Bill because this House has a unique contribution to make, with a number of people on all sides who have some experience and background in these matters.

The challenges and problems posed by the abuse of trade union power were one of the reasons why I came into politics in the first place. I worked in the printing industry for 12 years of my life. For the last five years before I came here I was running a printing plant in Bristol, employing 700 people with nine different unions. While in the main the union relationship was extremely good, one did not have to look very far, to Fleet Street, to see some of the real abuses that were taking place at that time, before Mr Murdoch decided unilaterally to change the arrangements. Such abuses did real damage. I saw the amount of work that the UK printing industry lost overseas because of the uncompetitiveness of the restricted practices that existed in it.

In no sense am I anti-union, and I hope that those who have worked with me on both sides of the House know that I recognise entirely the positive role that responsible trade unions can play. On a personal note, my father was the human resources director of a company called the Dickinson Robinson Group, which employed many thousands of people and was headquartered in Bristol. His most treasured possession when he retired was the gift that he got from the fathers of the federated chapels. I always thought that that was a wonderful term in the printing industry; instead of having common shop stewards, their shop stewards were called “fathers of the chapel”.

I came into Parliament in the wake of the failure of In Place of Strife. If one thinks forward, one can look at the Benches opposite and feel the sadness that there must be in some hearts that In Place of Strife did not happen. I recall that at the end of 1978 the Labour Government held a five-point lead, while at the end of the winter of discontent the lead was 20% to the Conservatives, and in a very real sense that helped to put Margaret Thatcher in power.

There is a need for sensible, constructive reform. I said in the 1971 debate on the Bill introduced by Robert Carr, as he was then, and Geoffrey Howe—a less than wonderful industrial relations Bill dealing with the problems at that time—that if trade unionism,

“is to flourish, it must be on the basis of encouraging voluntary union membership … and not upon the basis of compulsive sanction”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/1/1971; col. 688.]

That lasted until the Conservative Government came into power and introduced a programme of trade union reform. Jim Prior, as he then was, introduced the 1980 Act, which sought to tackle the abuses of the closed shop and the picket lines. In 1982 my noble friend Lord Tebbit, who is not in his place, removed the immunity from trade unions which organised unlawful industrial action, made closed shops subject to ballot, and introduced postal ballots for the election of officers and taking industrial action. At the time my noble friend Lord Tebbit made it clear that we would have preferred voluntary action by the trade unions, but in the absence of that we legislated.

The legislation was not entirely disagreeable to many Members of the party opposite. I did a little research and found that there was an Early Day Motion in 1975, during the Labour Government, which was signed by two Members of the Labour shadow Cabinet and by five other Front-Bench Members, including the noble Lord, Lord Evans—a Member of this House—urging the Government to legislate to fund postal ballots. That is the background.

In 1983 I introduced what became the 1984 Act. I remember being hugely influenced by a conversation I had with Sir Michael Edwardes, who had been the chief executive of British Leyland. Those were the days of “I’m All Right Jack”—of the car park meeting, being called out on strike by an aggressive trade unionist, and of the notorious Red Robbo. Sir Michael Edwardes told me that in his first year as chief executive, there was not a single day when one or other major plant of British Leyland was not on strike. My God, what happens to a group like that, faced with that sort of industrial challenge and difficulty? I can tell you what happens—we all know it. You can see Honda—not Nissan, which has a new factory—BMW in Oxford, Tata and the Jaguar factories; you can see where other companies have come in and a great British company was effectively destroyed.

When I introduced our Bill in 1983 I claimed that nothing was being proposed in the Bill that was not being done by one union or another. Indeed, the AUEW was particularly active in the field of secret ballots, which is one of the provisions I introduced in the Bill. I said:

“If some trade unions can follow proper democratic procedures, why should they not all do so?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/11/83; col. 159.]

We have been here before. We heard an interesting speech by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn. However, I recall the late John Smith. We had both just come to our new responsibilities, and in 1983 he was leading for the Opposition, backed up by the Member for St Helens North, John Evans—as he was—on the Front Bench. Referring to secret ballots and secret postal ballots in advance of strikes, John Smith said,

“when we come to power … we shall repeal it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/11/83; col. 173.]

Sadly, John Smith did not live long enough to come to power. However, someone who came to power will be well known to Members of this House: a promising young brand new Member of Parliament, the honourable Member for Sedgefield, Mr Tony Blair. He said:

“We shall oppose the Bill, which is a scandalous and undemocratic measure against the trade union movement”.—[Official Report, 8/11/83; col. 210.]

He was backed up by another promising new Member of Parliament called Mr Gordon Brown. I notice that the noble Lords, Lord Hoyle and Lord Foulkes, both took part in that debate, and they will remember it.

It is perfectly understandable that when Labour came to power the trade unions expected that that would be repealed. As we know, nothing happened, and I seem to recall Mr Blair, as Prime Minister, saying, “How could anybody take away from democratic union members the right to a vote in a secret ballot?”, so when I hear the dire warnings about what this Bill proposes, I remember that history.

If trade unions are to continue to enjoy public support for the very special immunities they enjoy under the law, it is our duty to ensure that we keep trade union legislation up to date to meet current issues and concerns, which is very much the point the Minister made in her speech. At the same time, I absolutely accept that the Bill covers a number of quite separate issues. I am concentrating on Clauses 2 and 3, which deal with ballot turnouts and majorities. I also accept that some difficult issues will have to be discussed, such as modernising voting and how to maximise voting turnout. We have heard a lot about electronic voting. We live in a world of cyberspace and hackers of all descriptions. The Speaker’s Committee has already warned about the challenges and difficulties in trying to move to electronic parliamentary voting.

Turning to the responsibility for calling strikes, the House may notice that among the briefing papers on the Bill is one from the Mayor of London. It is well known that Boris Johnson is in favour of requiring a higher turnout. The paper from the TUC says that unions and employers have a shared interest in the success of their organisation. If it is Rolls-Royce or BAE Systems, for example, that is right. If they do not reach a sensible agreement, they are out on strike, and they will lose orders and lose their jobs. However, we know the challenge when it comes to essential public services. Nobody in this House has any excuse not to recognise it, because we have lived through tube strikes in London, for example, and the chaos that they cause. I do not think we have ever had an accurate check-back on what tragedies may have occurred during those periods as a result of people being unable to get to hospital, for example. My noble friend talked about the problem of people having no care facilities. All those difficulties emerge. It is not just a question of essential public services such as transport. I dare say that if there was a bus strike in Bridgwater—my old constituency—people would get by. A bus strike in London is a very different matter, however.

I look forward to a serious and constructive Committee stage. I have some reservations about certain aspects of the Bill, but it is important that this House adopts a constructive approach and makes sure that trade union legislation takes account of the challenges of our time. The time has come to consider that issue.