Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley]

I am grateful for that clarification. The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, has explained how Ministers approach these problems. Sadly, again, I have never had the honour of being a Minister. That is most unlikely. I come from more of a business background and in business when one wants to get things done invariably there has to be an element of compromise. Like the rest of the House, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on achieving a compromise. How and why it was achieved we will perhaps never know but it has been achieved. We will end up with an opt-in. It will take longer than other people thought appropriate but it will happen. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, of the publication of the opt-in levels achieved is excellent and to be welcomed. On all those grounds, I welcome these amendments.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, I think we are in for a pretty bad couple of months, in which conspiracy theories will abound and suspicions of motives will arise in every possible circumstance as we approach an interesting referendum. I notice the good humour in the Chamber today. I think that if these amendments had not been tabled, there might be a very different atmosphere indeed. I agree very much with what my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, have said.

Democratic power has to be used with discretion and responsibility. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to this, and I agree with aspects of what he said. I was worried about the way that the Bill, as originally drafted, was going to go. Whatever discussions there were in government and in another place when the amendments came forward and were considered, I hope that there was a bit of historical memory in them—I think that there was—because we have been here before.

I was there in 1984, when it was proposed that we would do something about opting-in. I do not think that I am breaking a great confidence if I tell the House that the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who was then the Chief Whip, had an interesting discussion with the Labour Chief Whip of that time, Michael Cox, who some may remember. They were arranging the business, as Chief Whips do, in those awful usual channels. There was agreement and compromise at that time in the Session. Then the issue came up about opting in—and the message was delivered quite simply and clearly: “If you do that, there will be war”. That was because it is an essential problem of political funding, with which all parties have problems, that the trade union contribution is massively important to the Labour Party. A sudden change in that would have significantly affected the balance and would have seemed, to many eyes, to have been a pretty unfair action and maybe an abuse of majority political power at that time.

It was against that background that such a proposal was put forward. When we considered it in the Bill that became the Trade Union Act 1984, Mr Len Murray came to see me for the trade unions and we discussed the issue. He had previously had discussions with my predecessor and noble friend Lord Tebbit, who one could not call a soft touch on these matters. But my noble friend made it clear that if the Trades Union Congress wished to put forward alternative proposals, he would be prepared to consider them. It fell to my lot to consider those proposals. We agreed that we would not proceed with the opting-in proposals, on the strict understanding that actions would be taken by the TUC and all affiliated unions at that time. That is why I agree very much with the last comment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, because we are where we are now. I support the actions in respect of new members coming in. That is an important step forward which did not exist before. We were not able to arrange it or go forward on it in my time; maybe we should have done.

I would like to read part of the statement that Len Murray—Lord Murray, as he was subsequently—gave when he came to see me and exchanged correspondence. He gave me a copy of the statement of guidance to the trade unions. It said:

“Following discussions between the TUC and the Secretary of State for Employment, the General Council have prepared the following Statement of Guidance on good trade union practice in respect of political fund arrangements and related matters for use by affiliated unions. Unions are asked to review their existing procedures as soon as possible to ensure that this guidance is acted upon”.

That guidance was satisfactory to me and to the Government because it made it clear that every affiliated union had given an undertaking that it would make sure that all its members were properly informed of what their rights were in these matters. The guidance ended with the statement:

“It is particularly important that unions’ procedures avoid the possibility of members being unaware of their rights in relation to the political fund or being unable to exercise them freely”.

On that understanding and on behalf of the Government, I agreed not to proceed with introducing changes to the situation on opting-out or opting-in.

The disappointment for me in the discussions on this Bill is to discover that only a very small number of the unions which were affiliated to the TUC ensured that the undertaking given to me on behalf of them all was actually carried out.