Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks]

My Lords, this is an important amendment on an important topic, on which other amendments have been tabled in the names of my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Lea. It is important that union administration processes are taken into account in introducing this legislation, and Amendment 156A suggests that the Act should not come into force until the Secretary of State has placed in the Libraries of both Houses a review of the burden of regulatory responsibility that Part 3 will place on unions, including the need for them to make rule changes and the timescale for doing that.

The purpose is to give unions adequate time to comply in a way that is cost effective, economical and practical from their point of view. It is very much in line with the Regulatory Policy Committee report that we discussed earlier at some length and which drew attention to the lack of reliable information on the increased burden imposed on unions. That was one of its major reasons for giving the Government the red card in its report and on the whole exercise.

It also highlights the fact that unions have these procedures for making changes in their constitution, and it will be necessary, as the Bill recognises, that unions will have to make some changes to the rules. In the union that I was familiar with, a rules revision conference was held every few years. Often the Government of the day were sensitive to the union timetables, and so on, particularly on a matter such as this. It hardly seems a matter of life and death, even to the aficionados on the other side, in terms of the importance that the Government attach to it. We know already that the BIS estimate of around £461,000 is an underestimate. It will cost unions a lot more than that. Before the Bill is enacted we need a better idea of the costs that will be incurred. We need an approach that is reflective of the union’s need to take steps to comply with the law properly and effectively. I mention again the need to keep costs down.

I am sympathetic to the amendments in the name of my noble friends. They seek to specify a time limit, which would be useful. Some unions have longer timescales for making changes. I mentioned one that did it every few years. I hope that we will get sympathetic and sensitive understanding, especially given the complete lack of information in the impact assessment, as pointed out by the Regulatory Reform Committee, on the Government’s figures and the regulatory burden being put on unions. They are shoving a load of red tape on to unions and it is important to give the unions at least a period of digestion that errs on the side of minimising a little bit of that red tape. I beg to move.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, in the course of thinking about this last week I went to the Public Bill Office. I do not know whether I should mention the clerk’s name, but it was Simon Burton and he is right there. I wrote something down and asked whether we could put 1 January 2116. He said, “2116?”. I said, “Yes”, and he said, “Don’t you mean 2016?”. I said, “Oh, I probably do, but hang about a minute, why not make it 2116?”, but I chickened out.

Anyway, the more this discussion goes on today, the more obvious it is that we are juggling lots of timescales and deficiencies in the procedure so far, such as no pre-legislative scrutiny, no scrutiny by the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords, no discussion of post-legislative scrutiny, and so on. Yet, everybody knows, and the Minister has said it several times, that ostensibly it is because of the difficulties that unions have in getting their membership lists up to date. I wonder why that is not true of electoral rolls, but let us stay with what we are on. This will take some time, so what is the connection between that and commencement dates?

The other point that I want to bring into this discussion concerns the pause. The pause for Part 2 has been for a particular purpose, but the pause in Part 3 is simply a consequence of the pause on Part 2. I do not know why the Minister is looking puzzled, but there is de facto a pause before we have the next discussion at the same time as Report of the Bill. Am I not right? Yes, of course. That is how it is. So, between now and the new year all sorts of people, including the Cross-Benchers and so on, will be thinking about all sorts of ideas.

In the middle of this I happened to read, being an insomniac, a very interesting discussion in the Moses Room led by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on the importance of commencement dates. Indeed, I noticed that my noble friend Lady Royall took part in that discussion. I was quite amazed that commencement dates are a key part of our constitution, but even Ministers sometimes do not know who takes the decision. Certainly as often as not there is no further parliamentary discussion or decision on them, yet I suppose that we could find, for the anoraks on these matters, some reference to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and so on. Therefore, I think that we could bring into the mix the problems that have been mentioned for our consideration between now and the new year.

This thing is half-baked. One of the reasons it is half-baked is that it should be in the oven for at least an hour but has only been in for 20 minutes. That is one of the reasons it is half-baked. We should take this in the spirit that it is intended—namely, where should commencement dates come in the Bill? Obviously, we are not advocating that we pass legislation that is never implemented. That is, however, not as stupid a comment as one might think because apparently a huge amount of legislation is never implemented. Just read the report of the noble Lord, Lord Norton. He was the chairman of the commission on this very question. That might be nice, as I say, or implemented in 2116.

De facto, I thought somebody might notice that there is a general election coming up between now and 2016. All I would say about that is—and it cuts both ways—in 2016 and those sorts of periods, people will at least not be thinking all the time about how these matters may affect a general election. They are matters that have a serious footprint into the trade union movement, as we demonstrated this evening, including all the different timetables of changing union rules. The Minister may not have tried to deny that, but he did not appreciate that one cannot simply go to the next conference in Blackpool and say, “We’ll put a rules revision on the agenda”. There are rules for the procedures and timings of rules revision conferences.

Therefore, I think at the moment—there is no voting this evening—we would like to link this proposition with the one that my noble friend Lord Monks referred to. We are trying to relate this, with considerable difficulty, to the realities on the ground. If something in this field is to be done, it has got to be done within a timescale that allows for post-legislative scrutiny. I will ask the Minister a specific question about that. Where does post-legislative scrutiny now fit into his conception of where we will be going on this? I look forward to his comments.