Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Mawhinney and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Mawhinney (Con)
My Lords, I, too, want to look briefly at Amendment 69. When the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, introduced these amendments, he did so, if he does not mind my saying so, rather well—at least for the bits that he talked about, but it is the bit that he did not talk about that I want to draw to his attention. I will read to your Lordships from new subsection (1A)(c) proposed in Amendment 69:
“Expenditure of money on the following shall not be treated as spending on political objects— … encouraging the electorate not to vote for a political party or candidate”.
I had the honour to stand seven times for election to the other place. The first of those seven was the routine safe-loser seat that parties frequently invite prospective candidates to stand for, and I did very well in Stockton and Billingham—I lost by only 18,000. I won the other six. In those elections, there were people encouraging my constituents not to vote for me and there were people encouraging my constituents to vote for somebody else. I say gently, and with a good deal of warm feeling towards the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, that the noble Lord needs to make up his mind. He either says that the money cannot be spent or that it can be spent, but the logic behind new subsection (1A)(c) in Amendment 69 is totally inconsistent. I hope that your Lordships notice—I am trying to contribute to that noticing—the fact that he did not mention it, and that the contradiction was passed over by the more high-flown rhetoric and passionate exposition on other aspects of political funds. He needs to explain with a good deal more clarity than he has so far attempted, and I hope that the Minister will encourage him to do so, how this particular aspect of Amendment 69 is meant to hold together.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I will contain my remarks to just a couple of points that have been made during the debate. I do not think this problem would exist if the Government were not actually trying to reduce the amount that is raised through the political levy. That is at the bottom of the story here. They are trying to reduce the political fund money, and these amendments—which I accept complicate the whole process of accounting for political funds—are being drafted only because trade unions are concerned about where will they get the funds for the activities they want to carry out if they are to lose so much funding and their political funds are restricted. So the issue is both the cost to trade unions of the bureaucratic requirements to comply with this legislation, and the fact—although the impact study will not admit this—that a major objective is to reduce the amount of money coming forward in the political funds.
The points have been very well made. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, made the point that those of us who believe in civic society support the principle that funds must be available in the political process, and one of the major sources of funds in our political system is the trade unions. If that source is being constrained by the opposing side—as it clearly is—then we regard that as unfair, unless they are also taking the opportunity to look at exactly what they are raising and spending in opposition to the trade unions and, indeed, the Labour Party and ourselves. We want to see fairness in this whole process.
There are quite strict requirements already in the system. The unions have ballots to support or not support the operation of political funds every 10 years, so there is accountability. They are required to account for this money. All the Government’s efforts are clearly designed to reduce the amount of money in the pool. For those reasons, we are opposed to this aspect of the Bill, and we hope that the Select Committee will find a much fairer way through it than the Government clearly are intending at the moment.