Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Balfe

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara [V]]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 19, I will also speak to my other amendments in this group. Since there is much agreement, and also duplication, I will try to be brief.

These amendments are drafted pursuant to the 17th DPRRC report. I thank the committee for its hard work on this Bill, and on the emergency Bills on which it has had to work in recent weeks. The timescales are very difficult, and the pressure to deliver is also very high, but it has been able to do that with considerable skill, and we are very grateful.

The DPRRC recommendations set up, in essence, a dialogue between the Government and the committee. However, in a spirit of co-operation and because of the short timescales of the emergency legislation, we often put down the recommendations of the committee as amendments as a way of encouraging the Government to act. In Committee, we had a series of notifications that the Government were preparing to accept the DPRRC recommendations. However, on this occasion, it also produced an interesting outcome. For your Lordships’ information, the wording of our amendments has been strongly influenced by the helpful advice we received from the Public Bill Office, although they are our responsibility and tabled in my name. But it is interesting that on several occasions, recommendations made by the DPRRC in the report have resulted in different wordings in the amendments that have been tabled by the Government and by ourselves. When the noble Earl comes to reply, he may be able to shed light on the Government's thinking and explain some of the differences in approach, and I think that would be helpful. Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Earl says:

“If the Secretary of State considers it reasonable to do so to mitigate an effect of coronavirus.”


But our version in Amendment 79, which we hope will achieve the same result, says

“but regulations may only be made under this subsection where the Secretary of State considers it necessary or appropriate for a purpose linked to the coronavirus pandemic.”

I am not saying that we have a monopoly on the correct drafting, but I think it interesting that we have come to different conclusions about what might be considered the same issue.

I am left with a slight concern that we may have exposed a gap in our procedures that is exacerbated by the nature of these pieces of legislation. I hope that in calmer times, the DPRRC and the House might find an opportunity to reflect on this, and that our other committees, such as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Constitution Committee, might do likewise.

When he comes to respond, it would be for the benefit of the House if the noble Earl highlighted any areas where the Government have decided not to follow the advice of the DPRRC, in whole or in part. I beg to move.

[Lord Balfe [V]]

I only really need to say one thing. I am concerned that some of these clauses might turn into permanent legislation—I am aware that there is a tendency for what is temporary to become permanent. Can I have the Minister’s assurance that it is not intended to extend any of these clauses beyond what is absolutely necessary to deal with this emergency?

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

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Balfe

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, let me first apologise for not taking part in the earlier stages of the Bill. As a new Peer I had not made my maiden speech and therefore under the conventions of the House could not intervene.

There is a common misconception in many parts of the United Kingdom that trade union membership equals Labour Party support. This is not true. Setting aside the fact that voter turnout among trade unionists is not dissimilar to that of the rest of the population, of those who do vote around one third of TU members vote for the Conservative Party—may that grow in the future.

Unions are already firmly regulated in two ways, first by provisions in the Trade Unions and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, passed by the last Conservative Government and left on the statute book by the Labour Government. I noticed the noble Lord, Lord Lea, mentioned the life of legislation as being short, but that is not the precedent we have from the party opposite when it was in government—indeed, it left most trade union legislation firmly in place. Secondly, the contractual relationship between unions and their members is set out in each union rule book, which is a legal document that governs how unions operate. In order to change its rules, a union must obtain support from its members. Having received that support, the rule changes can be made only within the context of statutory legislation.

In order to ensure—and I am sure we all support this—that small and unrepresentative groups of members cannot change the rules of unions without fully consulting the members, unions all have democratic procedures in their rule books which must be followed if changes are to be made. In order to give effect to the provisions of the Bill, many unions will have to hold special rules revision conferences where members vote to change their union rule book to comply with the new provisions. This is, of course, especially and usually the case with larger unions.

Tonight I ask the Minister to consider two points: first, to raise the exemption limit in Clause 37 from the present 10,000 members to a figure of around 40,000. Mention has been made of turnover in big unions. Small unions often face a very different situation. Many are professional unions, such as the radiographers or the physiotherapists, who will be caught by this Act, but have a very low turnover indeed, as do many of the others. If we went from 10,000 to 40,000, we would go from 22 to 37 unions but we would exempt all the unions that traditionally have a low turnover and a highly professional membership.

The noble Lord, Lord Martin, who is not presently with us, earlier mentioned small unions. I had the privilege for many years to belong to a very good small union called AUEW-TASS. I must say that since TASS merged, it has got more and more out of touch. Now I am almost ashamed to say I am a member of Unite, as I remain a member of Unite. I still look forward to the day when we might have an engineering section in Unite that could compare with AUEW-TASS. None the less that is a digression. Even if this change were accepted, 90% of union members would remain within the assurer provisions of the Bill.

Secondly and finally, no doubt the Government and the certification officer will want to ensure that unions are able to make these changes following the agreed procedures. This will mean giving notice to members of a special conference. Good administration—which I am sure we all support—would indicate that a transition period of at least 17 months would be helpful. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that the transition period after commencement will at least accommodate the 17 months, because it is in all our interests that this is done properly and competently.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I have never in my long life met a Conservative member of a trade union. It is very nice to be introduced to one and to hear him speak. It has been very evident from the speeches we have heard, both in this small debate and previously, that if the Bill is to progress and be brought into law it must operate with the best chance of success otherwise it will not have been worth a candle doing it. As my noble friend Lord Monks said in an earlier intervention, the right way to do this is to give the unions—particularly the larger unions—adequate time to comply with the Act in a way that is cost effective, economical and practical, but also from their point of view. Unions are, after all, independent self-governing bodies. As the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said, they rightly have procedures for making complex changes in their constitutions and it will be necessary, as the Bill recognises, that the unions will make some changes through rules conferences and the like. This is not to say in any sense that there is not anything wrong with what is currently in the Bill, but I detect in some of the comments made that we are still not absolutely clear about how the procedures will operate and the timescales that will be on and that will interfere a little bit with transparency.

When he responded to this point in Committee, the Minister said that he shared the sentiment that,

“trade unions should be given sufficient time to prepare”,

and he hoped he could,

“offer a positive and emollient answer”,—[Official Report, 11/11/13; col. 596.]

to allow time for the bedding down of the new legislation. I take it from that that he is still interested in trying to make sure that this works well. Picking up on what has just been said, I get to 17 months from the comments that were made during Committee if I follow two tracks. The first is that a union whose reporting year ends on a fiscal basis—that is, 31 March—would not need to submit a report for the year ending 31 March until the end of August 2015, which I think is 17 months if I do my maths correctly. However, a union that reports on a calendar-year basis would have a little more time. It would not have to submit its report for the year ending 31 December 2015 until the end of May 2016.

That is the sort of level of complexity which we are operating on. If we are going to fit a 17-month period, which I think was mentioned earlier as being appropriate, combining it with a Royal Assent, possibly by March 2014, and a period of consultation on the question of how assurers are going to be both defined and appointed, that suggests that it would be sensible to have one further round of discussions before it is finalised. Will the Minister consider having a short meeting with me and a few colleagues to try to run over this so that we can get some absolute clarity on it? Thereafter, we can all work together, not in any sense to shake the principles which are part of this part of the Bill, but to make sure that they work effectively.