King’s Speech

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, on his speech today and his presence on our Front Bench—indeed, I congratulate all the new Ministers. It is great to be in this situation again. I also congratulate and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Booth. His maiden speech was not uncontroversial, but I hope the House authorities take his point on discrimination and the procedures of this House in the not too distant future.

I do not normally intrude on constitutional issues, and I do not intend to change that today. You can speak on anything you like in the King’s Speech debates, so I will try to take a number of different issues and focus on their constitutional implications. I usually speak on energy, environment, housing or employment, so I will pick a couple of issues in those areas and draw the constitutional implications from them.

I start with climate change. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, was just in his place and I wished to compliment him on his role here. I too have been involved with the crucial issue of our time. I was a Minister in John Prescott’s department when we signed the Kyoto agreement; I was a member of the Joint Committee with the Commons that led to the Climate Change Act 2008. Theoretically, we have had cross-party support for all these initiatives for nearly 30 years. It is important that we have that degree of commitment to a long-term programme—both of the institutions support it, and particularly the Climate Change Committee. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Deben, back in his place—I was just congratulating him. Where we have such cross-party support on long-term strategies, we ought to consider, as a constitutional issue, protecting them rather better than we do.

In recent months and years—in the last couple of years of the Tory Administration—the then Government and the national press effectively took us away from the strategy on which we were all agreed. That ought not to happen lightly. There ought to be a way to ensure that a slight change in the political mood following a particular by-election—which in this case was misinterpreted by both major parties—does not drive us away from a commitment we have made for years. In this case, the commitment is vital to the future of not only this country but the world. The effect of this has been to undermine not only our carbon change and net-zero progress but the United Kingdom’s role in leading the way around the world. That has a colossal implication, and it should not have been jeopardised by short-term political moves or relatively minor regulatory timetable changes to achieve changes to building standards and to electrify transport. The new Government can rectify this, and I believe they should.

The body politic as a whole needs to ensure that such strategies are protected. I am not saying they should never be altered—I am not a Mede or Persian—but I believe that we should have a stronger way of protecting such long-term strategies. It may be that defence strategy, for example, is in a similar category, and there will be others. I am not suggesting that we should never change them, but we should make it much more difficult to do so, and we should ensure that the good will and cross- party support for such measures is there.

The second issue relates to local government. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, recently spelled it out. The reality is that this Government’s measures on key issues such as social care, employment, and housing and planning will not be delivered without the co-operation of local government. Yet we know that, particularly in England, local government is in a terrible state. It is arguable—and it was argued earlier—that the structure of local government needs further addressing, and I believe that to be true. Certainly the finances of local government need addressing, which means that other resources must be available to local government, both directly in their own patches and through the system of rate support grants and the redistribution of that revenue from central government. If we do not do that, a lot of our programme will not be delivered.

I hope my colleagues on the Front Bench are listening and that, on both those issues, we will have some serious new thinking.

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

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

29: Clause 37, leave out Clause 37

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 29 would deal with the problem that was alluded to in the previous debate. A number of my noble friends referred to the new office of assurer and queried why we needed it, what exactly the role of the officeholder would be and suggested that it was an additional level of red tape and bureaucracy for trade union administration. In replying to the previous debate, the Minister did not address this point but rather sought to reassure the House in relation to confidentiality. However, in seeking to leave out Clause 37, my amendment suggests that there is no point whatever in inventing this new role. The oversight of trade union administration is clearly in the hands of the certification officer, and has been so for many years.

The Government may feel that the certification officer needs new powers—they are contained in the Bill to a limited extent—or that he needs new resources to carry out his job, but the relevant apparatus for doing that is already in place. They have invented a new officer without defining that officer’s qualifications, which will be defined in technical regulations at a later stage. The Minister referred to a list from which trade unions could choose but, presumably, the list is drawn up by the Government. The House does not have before it the qualifications that are required for someone to be on the list, the details of how you get on to it or what professional standards the assurer should meet.

As my noble friend Lord Lea asked, why is no other body in society having an assurer imposed upon it? No reason has been given for that by the Minister so far; perhaps he will do so when he replies to this debate. The only reason given in the impact assessment for not moving entirely down this road is because, as he says, assurers are an important part of society and the public and union members need to be assured that their membership records are in order. As far as the rest of society is concerned—I include in that employers and the Government—clearly the membership records of a union are most important at times of possible industrial strife. The list of members taking part in a ballot on a potential industrial dispute must accord with the union membership covered by the issue under dispute. There are reams of case law in that area, so the assurer has not been invented in order to monitor strike ballots more rigorously as that issue is already covered.

The full union membership list, excluding members’ personal details, is an important document when union elections are held. We need to ensure that internal elections are proper and fair, that members who are given a vote in those elections have the right to vote in them and that everybody who falls into that category has a vote. However, that issue is also covered in existing legislation and there are already complaint mechanisms and potentially draconian sanctions for a union which breaches those rules. Therefore, I see no reason to invent another officer.

Unions, through their own rules and through legislation more generally, are already required to audit their financial records. A significant part of those financial records comprises the receipt of membership dues and the recording of those receipts. The auditor of a trade union already has to do that. The oversight of that process is already there with the certification officer, who has substantial powers to intervene. Where in this does the assurer rest? He is not an auditor, a lawyer or an officer of the certification office. No standards of professional attainment exist for such a creature. In the previous debate, the Minister failed to reply to my noble friends Lord Lea and Lord Morris of Handsworth as to why such a person was necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

It is certainly not to confuse, my Lords. As I explained, the role of the assurer is to provide that element of credibility which is not there at present. The assurer will also be working closely with the union and a contract will be drawn up with the union, notwithstanding the core powers that the assurer must have. That is why we believe this is necessary, in particular for the larger unions with 10,000 members and above.

The current statute does not provide an assurance of the union’s compliance as there is no sufficient enforcement mechanism. The Bill addresses this shortcoming by allowing the certification officer to investigate instances of possible non-compliance where there is good reason to do so. The certification officer will require access to the register and other relevant documents in order to determine whether a union is diligent in maintaining a register that is up to date so far as is reasonably practicable. The current system relies on individual members making formal complaints to the certification officer before he can investigate. As members can have no way of knowing the state of the register as a whole, the route for the certification officer to determine whether a union is compliant with its statutory obligations is not that effective to ensure that the existing duties are complied with. There may be a good reason for the certification officer to investigate a union’s compliance with the overarching duties even in the absence of a complaint including, for example, where a membership audit certificate has not been provided by the union or it is unsatisfactory.

We want to give members and the wider public an assurance that all unions are complying with their existing statutory duties. If the measure is applied only when the certification officer receives a complaint, we will not achieve this objective. Just because there are few formal complaints that we are aware of, it does not mean that there is no problem and this is an important point to make bearing in mind the comments that were made earlier by the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Monks. The access to and handling of union data is a concern that has occupied a great deal of time and debate. The Government understand the sensitivity of union membership data and agree with the importance of protecting them. However, for the reasons discussed at length previously, I reassure noble Lords that this amendment is unnecessary. Membership data will be well protected by both the existing and new legal safeguards. The assurer will owe a contractual duty of confidentiality to the union as set out in the Bill. The assurer, the certification officer and the inspector will be subject to the obligations of the Data Protection Act whenever they handle union membership data. Furthermore, the certification officer is obliged to act in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes the individual’s right to privacy.

These two amendments between them would undermine the Government’s policy objective in Part 3 of the Bill. Amendment 29 would remove the independent scrutiny that is fundamental to the credibility of large unions’ annual reporting on duties. Amendment 30 would remove the provision for the certification officer to proactively investigate and assess a union’s compliance with Section 24 of TULRCA where there is good reason to believe that there may be an issue. For these reasons I cannot accept the amendments.

Just before I ask the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to withdraw his amendment, I want to respond to a question he put to me. He raised the important issue of who would be appointed to be an assurer. We have already said that we will consult on who will be eligible to be an assurer, and further to this consultation the Secretary of State will make an order setting out who is eligible. They are likely to be qualified professionals such as solicitors and lawyers, which was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, auditors or independent scrutineers. This is similar to the system in place for independent scrutineers, and furthermore the unions will have discretion over whom to appoint from the list of eligible assurers and to remove them from the role on agreement with their members. Unions will be able to define the detailed terms of contract and their relationship with the assurer. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that lengthy reply, in which he repeatedly referred to the Government’s key policy objective. However, it is not clear to me what the policy objective of the whole of Part 3 is, and in particular the invention of this new category of assurer. I am glad that there is to be a consultation on it, but I do not see that anything is likely to emerge at the end of that consultation which could not be written into the terms of the annual audited return from the trade unions, whereby the external auditor would be required to certify that their membership system complied with the requirements. Why we have to invent a whole new structure is creating grave suspicion among the unions. The whole of Part 3 is very difficult to understand, but its effect will be a significant cost on union administration. The creation of an intermediate level between them and the certification officer is bound to increase distrust, and there is a suspicion that the Government’s motive in this is, at the very least, suspect.

Some of the motives that we have to tried to impugn have been denied by the Minister. It is not about tightening up on strike ballots. It is not about assurances on internal elections. It is not about the political fund. It is about imposing a cost and a bureaucracy on trade unions that will increase the likelihood of conflict between them and their regulator. I do not think that that is in the interests of trade union members and I cannot see that it is in the interests of wider society. The suspicion therefore has to be that other, sinister motives are involved here—that the Government wish to impose someone right in the heart of the administration of the trade unions, someone employed or contracted theoretically by the trade unions but who is actually a different type of person. I do not want to go too far down the paranoid road but I am quite a long way down it.

It seems to me that all the objectives that the Minister has mentioned can be achieved by a tightening up of the audit and by the certification officer and his or her powers. This intrusion of an assurer has not been justified. Had we not been voting so much today and we are all getting very tired, I would have asked the opinion of the House. I think that this is a bad part of the Bill and this is the worst part of that bad part. Before they put it into operation, the Minister and the Government need to think about this very carefully again. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 29 withdrawn.