Trade Union Bill

Lord MacKenzie of Culkein Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall intervene briefly, given the lateness of the hour. First, I apologise to the Committee, because I was unable to be present for Second Reading; I was out of the country.

Like most other people, I wondered what mischief this clause sought to remedy. Having read the impact assessment, I found that the rationale for intervention is a potential lack of awareness among members that they might be contributing to a political fund.

I have been around in the trade union movement for a very long time. When I first joined my former union, the Confederation of Health Service Employees, in 1958, I was given a rulebook which explained that there was a political fund and told you how not to pay into it if you did not wish to. In those days, that was probably as far as it went. We have heard tonight about the King-Murray agreement, if I can describe it as such. I wanted to check tonight whether my more recent union, UNISON, was still honouring that agreement. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Monks that the four big unions are still doing that in one way or another. I looked at UNISON’s website tonight. UNISON came together from the merger of three unions with two different traditions. Two of the former unions, mine and the National Union of Public Employees, were affiliated to the Labour Party, but the third, NALGO, was not. We wanted to bring the traditions of those three different unions together.

On the website—I have printed it off and it is writ very large; I am sure that it can be read from the other side of the Chamber—it states, under “Our political funds”, that,

“in UNISON you can choose whether to pay a proportion of your subs into the affiliated political fund (Labour Link), the general political fund … both, or neither”.

At the bottom of the page, it gives a list of forms, including the political fund exemption form, so it is writ large in that document. I printed off the political fund exemption form which, again, is fairly large.

Every member gets a rulebook when joining. I am sure that they do not all read every page of it, any more than I have read the 16 pages of contract rules for a holiday I booked last weekend. Nevertheless, that rulebook states:

“A member who is exempt from the obligation to contribute to the political fund shall not be … directly or indirectly under any disability or disadvantage”.

That is honouring the agreement reached by the noble Lord, Lord King and the late Lord Murray. The rulebook also tells you how to get in touch with the Certification Officer if you are aggrieved or believe that there is a breach of the rules on the political fund. As we have heard tonight, there have been very few complaints and none has been upheld.

I make that point in support of my noble friend Lord Monks and Lady Smith of Basildon. My noble friend’s amendment or something like it is an answer to some of the perceived problems that are referred to in the impact assessment. If it is not possible to go along those lines, it is quite clear that it is about much more than a perception of a potential lack of awareness; it is about that unfairness which we heard about a few moments ago. That is something up with which I hope that this House will not put.