Energy Price Caps

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I could pursue the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham. The reality is that the CMA inquiry found that the standard variable tariff, which is the bulk of the market, was being exploited by the oligopoly that runs most of our energy supply. It was an absolutely condemnatory finding. Unfortunately, the remedies proposed by the CMA did not add up to very much, which is presumably why the Prime Minister thought she had to make clear that heavier government action was necessary.

If my noble friend Lord Grantchester is right that the remedy proposed in the letter to Ofgem affects only a minority of those consumers, and that in any case it depends on Ofgem finding a way within its existing rules to implement it, that total market distortion is not going to be resolved by the relatively slow creep of greater competition; it is going to require some clear and probably legislative action by the Government. None of that was reflected in the Queen’s Speech. Can we therefore expect that, if Ofgem gives an unsatisfactory answer to the Minister, we will get legislation on this basis in this Session of Parliament?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I think the Secretary of State made it clear that, if there is an unsatisfactory response from Ofgem, he will resort to bringing through legislation. I should add that we should be careful about the law of unintended consequences in this case. It is very easy to win a headline with a blanket price cap and to reap adverse consequences later when the distortions that you bring into the market through that price cap make it worse for consumers rather than better.

Important Public Services (Border Security) Regulations 2017

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, the real purpose of the Act was revealed to me by a former Conservative employment Minister, when he simply said, “Bills against the trade union movement don’t cost anything and they don’t half cheer up Conservative associations in the country”. That is the double benefit derived from a trade union Act.

As we can see, the pressure is already on for another round of action—which was what, I guess, the Minister was referring to in his remarks. I will not repeat the speeches that we gave during the passage of the Bill and the situation we have arrived at now, except to say that the regulations on the double threshold are extraordinarily tough, unprecedented in their application compared to other organisations and very difficult for unions to carry through in a way that will not leave them open to legal challenge.

For example, a GCSE teacher is covered in a different way from a teacher of A-levels. In my experience, teachers often teach both. I am not arguing for widening it, I am saying that there will be many borderline areas where it will be most unclear, and very difficult for a union to specify exactly who is covered by the double threshold and who by the turnout one.

I want to emphasise the point of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, about electronic balloting. I do not see why this measure could not have been left until we have completed the exercise on electronic balloting—whether it will be permitted or not. That makes a considerable difference to turnout and the impact that this law will have. It could simplify things enormously.

Secondly, I would underline a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the political fund adjustment time. Again, this year is a tough one. I am thinking not just about union conferences—everything that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said in that respect is correct—but also about the check-off agreements with employers. The big unions have hundreds of such agreements. They will have to adjusted, and that is a major task. They will have to be renegotiated in many cases: it will not be done just by an administrative stroke of the pen. They will have to be talked about and explained to the members and to the employers.

These regulations, therefore, are tough, and I echo the request that has already been put to the Minister, to give unions rather longer to respond—an extra six months would be extremely useful.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, in focusing on the last of these regulations I do not mean to say that I agree with any of the previous five. However, the points have already been made on those.

I served on the Select Committee during the passage of this Bill, and the last of these amendments is out of keeping, in two senses, with the recommendations of that committee. First, as has already been alluded to, it presents unions with a very severe administrative problem. Secondly—to my mind this is the largest problem—even to proceed on this basis is a major constitutional outrage. I will come back to that.

Having received representations from both sides—and to try to maintain consensus—the Select Committee said that the transition period should be a minimum of 12 months. That, however, was subject to a consultation with the unions. I wanted a minimum of 18 months, subject to consultation, but we agreed on what currently stands.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, has already referred to evidence from USDAW. I suspect that the belated report on the consultation on this point will reveal that several unions will be hard hit because of the timing of this regulation. Most unions have their conference between March and June. USDAW has it in April; my own union, the GMB, has it in June. It is impossible, in both those cases, to abide by both your own rulebook and the timetable laid down as a result of this regulation. Had the Government decided to trigger it and give them 12 months in, say, August, that would have given the unions plenty of time to abide by all the pre-proceedings of conferences and rule changes by this time next year. Instead, the Government have done so in such a way as to sabotage the ability of a conference such as USDAW’s in April—since the proceedings for it have already started—to meet the requirements of its own rules while complying with the regulation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

One cannot accept the recommendations until one has seen them. We will look at the review and make up our minds on which parts of it to implement. We cannot give any guarantees now to implement it.

As I said, I shall resist the temptation to get into a debate about the funding of political parties. That is for another time. We have had a debate before about the main issues in the Bill and there is no purpose in going much beyond what I said in my opening speech about the Government’s view. I explained the purpose of the 40% ballot threshold regulations—to rebalance the ability to strike of union members in the health, fire, education, transport and border force sectors with the interests of the general public. That is quite a significant limitation. We have tried to draw the distinctions carefully. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, about the definitional issues; we have tried to be as clear as we can in that regard.

We have also taken a proportionate approach in relation to the political funds opt-out in transition periods. It is reasonable to say that the trade unions knew back in May that we would be going for a transitional period, and 12 months was stated as a reasonable period by the Lords Select Committee. The unions have a way of avoiding the need to hold conferences, through Section 92 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act if they wish to use it. I do not think 12 months is unreasonable: in the Conservative manifesto it was actually three months. I imagine that some noble Lords on the other side of the House were surprised by the Government’s response to the Select Committee’s recommendations. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, it was a fair package and that was also the view of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. We have taken a proportionate approach to the political funds opt-in transition period regulations. We took on board the very helpful recommendations of the Select Committee, and these regulations provide for a 12-month transition period for implementation.

[Lord Whitty]

Just to be clear, the Select Committee recommended a minimum of 12 months, subject to a consultation. The noble Lord has now had the consultation, the burden of which is that we need longer than that if we are starting in March. So he is at odds with what the Select Committee intended.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

We did have a consultation, and it is true to say that our views and those of some of the trade unions were different. We do have a different view: I think the trade unions would like a longer period. But our feeling was that 12 months was a reasonable period.

The regulations support the Government’s commitment to delivering a modernised industrial relations framework to better support an effective and collaborative approach for resolving industrial disputes. I believe they are fair and appropriate, and I commend them to noble Lords.