Trade Union Bill
Lord Whitty Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I had not intended to participate in the debate. I thought that it was going to go through smoothly and that a rather unfortunate period of legislation would have passed relatively quietly before the end of this parliamentary session. However, my former colleagues on the Select Committee have provoked me to intervene.
As the Minister pointed out, this is a compromise. All compromises are, by their nature, difficult for the parties. It is clear from the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Robathan and Lord Callanan, that it is difficult for the hawks in the Conservative Party, who landed us with this proposition in the first place—but it is also difficult for the trade unions. There is more administration and considerable cost involved in this, and it is a difficult situation in the long run. But it is also a difficult compromise for the body politic because of the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—one of my other colleagues on the Select Committee—put forward.
I remind the House that we have spent hours on the issue of how trade unions deal with political contributions, but other organisations and extremely rich individuals make contributions. None of those organisations is required, like the Bill still requires trade unions, to have a separate political fund in the first place; to report precisely on how it uses and expends its political money; to give each of its members the possibility of an opt-out; and now to require future members to opt in rather than to opt out. In no other organisation in this land are those restraints put on political expenditure or involvement.
As was revealed in the Select Committee report, on the basis of figures given to us by the Electoral Commission, in the five years to 2015 the trade unions gave £64 million, the vast majority of it to the Labour Party. However, other organisations in this land gave £80 million—to, admittedly, a variety of parties, but predominantly and overwhelmingly to the Conservative Party. Yet none of those organisations was affected by previous legislation requiring separate political funds or opting out, or by new legislation requiring more detailed controls and more detailed reporting.
This relates to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, raised. If we are to come up with a democratic balance that is acceptable for a long-running constitutional settlement of this issue, we have to look at political funding in the round. As he said, the drafters of the Conservative Party manifesto recognised that and made a commitment that way. That has conveniently been dropped. Whatever the motivation for the compromise here—I do not particularly wish to go into that; it is possibly a matter for private grief within the Conservative Party—there is no reason now for the Conservative Government not to open those talks on political funding in the long run by organisations, individuals and the political parties themselves. That way we may get a balance in political funding that accords with democratic principles and is acceptable to the majority of the people. Without that, and despite this compromise, which I support, we will still have a seriously unbalanced situation once the Bill passes.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I think we have to reflect, briefly, upon what has happened. We had a Motion, carried by a large majority, that the Select Committee should be established. I did not support it. I explained during the debate that I felt that the Bill was seriously impaired and that there was much unfairness in it, but I questioned whether a committee could, in the very short timescale that my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has referred to today, produce a really good, definitive report. Thanks to the hard work of colleagues from all parts of the House and expert chairmanship, to which they all testified, by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, the deadline was met and a report was produced. It was signed up to by all the members of the committee—although, in the final, conclusive paragraph, there was, it was explained, a divergence of opinion.
The noble Lord, Lord Burns, decided to encapsulate that recommendation in the amendment which he moved on Report in your Lordships’ House. He moved the amendment with great skill and was supported by Members from other political parties as well as Members on the Cross Benches. My noble friend Lord Balfe and I voted enthusiastically for him. The names of a number of leading members of the Conservative Party will not be found in the Division list—I went through it carefully—because they felt that they could not oppose the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. It was carried by a large majority. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, explained that when he came to the negotiations at the beginning of last week, what was on offer not only did not meet his amendment but did not even meet the amendment to which my Conservative friends had signed up—in paragraph B, I think it was—so further negotiations were held.
What happened was very simply this. The parliamentary Session is coming to an end. The State Opening of Parliament has already been designated for 18 May—a fortnight tomorrow. So what was to happen? My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and Mr Boles in another place decided that half a loaf was indeed better than no bread: that it would be far better to have a Bill that had widespread support—albeit that some of it is reluctant support. I myself do not think that this is the greatest Bill that the Government have placed before this House. Nevertheless, it is now, as far as one-nation Conservatives are concerned, a fairer, more decent and more equitable Bill, and one that has within it some recognition of the underlying dichotomy of party funding, because the Bill in its original state—and I used the words “unfairness” and “choice” many times in contributing to earlier debates—whether by accident or design, was penalising one of the great parties of state and not the others.
I believe that it is important that the second recommendation in the manifesto, which has already been alluded to two or three times in this debate, should be followed up. I hope that there will be something in the Queen’s Speech about it, because I do not like the way in which party politics is funded in this country—and I know that that view is widely shared in all parts of your Lordships’ House and in all parts of the country. But what we now have is a Bill that can go on to the statute book and which honours a number of the important pledges in last year’s manifesto. I accept that a manifesto Bill is different from another sort of Bill. Therefore, we have something in which the Government can take a degree of quiet satisfaction—and those of us who were concerned about the underlying unfairness of the original Bill can also feel that it has been improved.
I was only too glad to put my name—alongside that of my noble friend Lord Balfe—to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, also signed it. Your Lordships’ House gave that a very large majority, as I said. So the Government’s choice was a very simple one: should they go along with the will of your Lordships’ House as expressed in the Division Lobbies or should they invite further defeat, which could have jeopardised every particular of the Bill?
I think that the Government have made a wise, moderate and sensible decision. I pay unreserved tribute to the unfailing courtesy and diligence of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and to Mr Boles in another place. I hope that we can now move on. Last week, when we had the Third Reading, I said I hoped that the spirit of euphoria was not premature. I hope that it will not prove to have been premature and that we can now accept what is before us and get something on the statute book that is much more acceptable to those who have genuine concerns.
Trade Union Bill
Lord Whitty Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, these Benches would also welcome the simplification that this amendment recognises. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Burns, that it provides a much better balance. I have two questions for the Government. I hope they have not forgotten something which we have said throughout this debate: for every new regulation put in, two should be taken out. Is that no longer the Government’s policy, or is this yet another example of the Government ignoring that diktat when it comes to somewhat partisan legislation?
We now have the slightly ridiculous situation where two bodies monitor political funds and expenditure: the Electoral Commission and, in relation to trade union funds, the Certification Officer. What consultations have the Government had on this new amendment with the Electoral Commission, and are they satisfied that it eliminates unnecessary duplication between the two organisations?
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, although I welcome the Government’s movement on this, the original draft of the clause was, frankly, unworkable. This is definitely a step in the right direction, although my noble friend Lord Collins and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, require answers to their questions.
Before the Minister replies, I will point out something which I have mentioned at earlier stages in the passage of the Bill. In the five years to 2015, £64 million was given by trade unions in political donations, but £80 million was given to various parties—predominantly the Conservative Party—by other organisations. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that there is a parallel requirement for reporting for all the other organisations which make political donations?
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
I welcome Amendment 1. The Select Committee actually said there is a “lack of transparency” over how political funds are spent. Such transparency would assist union members in having an informed choice over whether to sign up to paying a political levy. The amount of money in political funds varies from £14.8 million in reserves for Unite to £8.2 million in UNISON and so on. While I welcome Amendment 1, which seeks to categorise payments, Amendment 2 would take away the whole point of the transparency that would allow union members to see how their money is spent when it is not being spent directly on political parties.
The move to transparency is taking place throughout all areas of our lives. In the Conservative Party manifesto—indeed, it is actually happening—the Government committed to disclose online any expenditure over £25,000. Given the amount of money the Government spend in a year, it does not seem unreasonable to look for similar transparency on union political spending.
Economic Leadership for Cities
Lord Whitty Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I find myself in this House agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, far too often, to the consternation of my friends in the north-east, and I am very glad that he initiated this debate. I also find myself slightly out of place in that I have only ever lived in either London or the English countryside and my football team is Millwall. Nevertheless, I have developed a great love for the English cities, although over most of my lifetime there has been a sad relative decline of those cities, as my noble friend Lord Monks said. That has turned around a little in recent years, and the city centres certainly look a lot better than they did 20 years ago, but there is still much deprivation, dereliction and lack of economic activity.
We need to emulate in our key cities the performance of European cities and the performance of our own cities back in Victorian times. Relative to the national economy, they should be leaders, whereas at the moment many of them are followers. To do that, I commend the reports of my noble friend Lord Adonis and the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who has been praised much in his absence.
That sometimes requires bringing together a city region rather than observing the local boundaries, such as they are at the moment. Issues of transport, planning, housing, skills, employment, training and regeneration require crossing what are very tight boundaries within our urban areas. In my own area of housing, you need a wider area of approach than current city boundaries allow. This can be done. You can create combined authorities and co-operating councils without necessarily unravelling the whole of English local government; you can do so without recreating regional structures or metropolitan counties; you can do so without requiring a mayor in each of these areas; and you can do so without any net increase in central government spending.
But it will work effectively only if those combined authorities are supported by the local authorities within their area, and by business within their area, and—more importantly perhaps—only if the Treasury is prepared to let go of a lot of things, including the expenditure identified in the various reports and control of business rates. Not only the Treasury but all Whitehall departments have to eschew their ring-fencing, their requirements, their stipulations, their minimum standards and so forth. It is not only the political and administrative apparatus; the media and the public at large need to get rid of their obsession about the postcode lottery, because there will be different solutions in different parts of the country and quite rightly so. That is what local democracy is about.
More specifically, we have to allow the new city regions and local government generally, contrary to existing Treasury rules, access to borrowing powers so that they can genuinely invest in housing and infrastructure in their own areas. It means a genuine absence of strings on block grants and it means that there are at least some discretionary powers of local taxation. That is what happens in all those European cities we are seeking to emulate.
We must also recognise that partly because of the dominance of London and the south-east in our whole structure, any move to city regions will require a significant redistributive process from the centre. London has twice the level of value added per head even than Manchester. That means some serious redistribution will still be needed. The recognition of the dominance of London means that the strategy within which we are attempting to recreate our cities also has to do something about the overheating of London and the south-east. As my noble friend Lady Hollis said, it also has to do something about the other parts of England. I would add Exeter to her list of areas that require unitary status. Unless we do something for the shires and the small towns of England, the cities will not prosper. We need a balanced approach.
This debate is about economics and devolution of democratic powers. But the terminology of devolution is going to undermine the importance of this debate. This is not the same as legislative and political devolution to Scotland and Wales, and the constitutional arguments should not be mixed up with the arguments about economic autonomy.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Whitty Excerpts(10 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Grantchester, and with his permission.
We come to page 154 of this remarkable and fascinating Bill. Hidden within it is a remarkable backing off, if not a total retreat, by the Government in relation to the important issue of air quality. A relatively, apparently, small deletion from the Environment Act 1995 needs to be seen in a broader context. I brought this wider context to the attention of the House yesterday in Oral Questions—and I should, once again, declare an interest as the vice-president of Environmental Protection UK, although as of now I am very temporarily speaking on behalf of the opposition Front Bench.
Yesterday in my OQ I asked the Government to spell out what they were doing about air pollution, which still causes 29,000 premature deaths. We have failed to meet EU standards in the vast majority of areas; 93% of the designated urban sites are not meeting their criteria, and the WHO has indicated on the N02 front a significant part of our urban area to be in a dangerous state. That includes this city and the second city of Birmingham, as well as places like Nottingham and many other urban areas. The Government’s own forecasts in this area indicate that those areas—London, the West Midlands and west Yorkshire—are unlikely to meet the EU limit values for N02 until, at the earliest, 2030. That is 15 years after the EU deadline. Some 29,000 premature deaths requires the Government to have a bit more urgency about this.
In the Question yesterday, other noble Lords also intervened; the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, talked about low emission zones and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Chesterton, who has just returned to join us, raised the issue of diesel. No doubt we will come back to that in a moment. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, replied, accepting the difficulties in one sense, but spelling out a range of the things that the Government are doing and a rather more impressive list of things that the Mayor of London is doing—some of which I accept.
The Minister’s colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, also denied that the Government were lacking a strategy, but the reality is that the Government abandoned the national strategy on air quality. They tried to draw up a new one in 2013 but the reaction from stakeholders was such that they had to drop it and indeed it would not have met the EU requirements. They have removed the impetus that the previous Government had towards local authorities introducing local low emission zones and the only real initiative that the Government have taken in this area is a failed attempt to get the EU to agree to the postponement of the application of the next stage of EU limit values. I was right to say that there is no strategy.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I think there are some limits to how far we would necessarily take this as a general model in this area. The noble Lord will be well aware that all efforts to agree speed limits within the European Union and to deal with the problem of cars going extremely fast are blocked by the Germans, who have a very powerful lobby, not unconnected with BMW and Mercedes Benz, which insists on having cars which are extremely powerful, which we all know also produce more pollutants when they are being driven very fast. They are driven very fast across Germany, rather more quickly than they are allowed to be driven through other countries, so Germany is a mixed example, I think.
This government proposal is not to lower air quality. I recognise in the admirably clear speech of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, the much wider issues which he is raising about the Government’s overall strategy on air quality. This is a deregulatory measure which simply aims to remove the requirement for a further assessment when an air quality zone has already been agreed. The Government give active support to local authorities when it has been decided that a low emission zone or strategy is the appropriate action. We have so far funded 15 separate low emission zone-related projects or feasibility studies for our local air quality grant scheme. We have also disseminated the results that have come from these studies as good examples for local authorities. Since 1997, over £52 million has been spent to support local authorities in delivering low emission strategies, including feasibility studies with low emission zones and the uptake of clean vehicle technology and programmes to change behaviour.
There is regular feedback from local authorities, and an independent review of local air quality management in 2010 indicated that this requirement for a further assessment, or a second round of assessment, did not add to the understanding of local air quality and actually delayed the production and implementation of local action plans required under the Act. This was confirmed in a consultation with air quality stakeholders in January 2013. I refute the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has put forward—that this is an attempt to weaken the local air quality regime. This is very much an attempt to support what local authorities do and to speed up their implementation of such zones when they are agreed. The Government continue to give active support in this regard. I recognise what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said about the overall problem of air quality. As I sat listening to him, I recalled that, as a boy, when I first came to a choir school in London, I was here just in time for the last great smog, in 1953 I think it was. Air quality has improved a little since then, and life expectancy has improved with it.
However, this change is a limited one, as are many others in the Bill. It will allow local authorities to prepare and implement air quality action plans more quickly and to avoid duplicating information gathered either in the earlier, detailed assessment stage that is required or in the preparation of the air quality plan. That is the limit of what we are attempting to do here. We remain actively committed to higher air quality throughout Britain. We have supported local emissions zones: I have just been handed a note which remarks on the local emissions zones in Oxford, York, Bradford, Southampton, Birmingham and Hackney. With that reassurance, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Whitty
I thank the Minister for that. As on the previous occasion, I have no option but to withdraw it. However, the basis on which I withdraw it is not quite the same as the Minister’s.
The Minister is right to say that this is a relatively specific requirement, relating to checking what the effect would be of the emission zones, once established. But that is part of the evidence for extending them further. If they were simply replacing it with something more useful, I would not object to the deletion as such. But the reality is that that is just one part of what the Government seem—despite what the Minister has said—to be retreating from. They are not encouraging local authorities in a broad sense, although some local authorities, because of impetus within themselves, are still putting forward local emission zone propositions. I was surprised to hear Birmingham on that list, but I take the Minister’s word for it; some of the others I do know about. Local authorities as a whole do not feel that they are being encouraged to initiate new local emission zones. The Government are not really answering the essential thrust of this: if they are deleting what they regard as pernickety requirements, they should do so in the context of replacing them with a broader approach to encourage initiatives and activity at local and national level to improve our air quality.
Deregulation Bill
Lord Whitty Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I think I start from that point. I have a whole range of comments on the Bill, which start with Clause 1, relating to the self-employed being excluded from health and safety duties, and end on page 202. As a vice-president of the LGA, I know that one of its anxieties has been about the provisions on the breeding of dogs on the last but one page of the Bill.
However, as comments have been made on most of those points, I will start by being a bit more general, philosophical and procedural. Although the Government do not exactly look like Bourbons, they have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. The coalition started this Parliament by bringing into this House a Public Bodies Bill which managed, in all parts of the economy and society, to alienate large chunks of civic society. We had representations, and the Government had to drop a major part of the Bill. Thanks to my noble friend Lord Rooker and his committee, one of the worst parts of the original draft of this Bill has been jettisoned this time, because we had pre-legislative scrutiny. Having a portmanteau Bill such as this is exactly the wrong way to go about modernising our regulation.
I am in favour of better regulation; I am not necessarily in favour of deregulation. The best way to deal with our legislative inheritance and what is needed for modern society is to take each area of regulation, look at it every two or three years, and ask what is still relevant, what is cost-effective, what is working, what is absolutely redundant and what is counterproductive. Each area needs to be looked at as a consistent whole. The way not to do it is for the Cabinet Office to write round to the rest of Whitehall saying, “Can we have 24 clauses that we need to delete so that we can get rid of them all in one Bill in the last Session of this Parliament?”, but that seems to be what it has done.
The one area in which the Government have taken a more coherent, comprehensive approach from full consultation is rights of way. I told the Minister that they were very sensible to do that. I was the Minister who brought in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act; it was a pretty torrid time in this House, I can tell you, with all sorts of different interests, but we have a package which is largely agreed. I agree with other speakers that that may not be the end of the story, and I warn the Minister that there will be attempts to unravel or add to it, but that is the way we should approach each of those areas. Instead, we have piecemeal bits of legislation that we are going to cross out. Some of them are utterly redundant, and I am absolutely in favour of crossing them off the statute book—there are still bits in Norman French that we ought to be deleting from the statute book. These need to go. We have a process for doing that; we have a Law Commission, which is proposing how we get rid of redundant statutory provision. It also, incidentally, has good ideas on how we consolidate legislation. Having got that machine, somehow we never find enough parliamentary time to implement its recommendations; the next Parliament needs to look at how we can do that better.
There are some areas that I will comment on specifically but I think the Government and future Governments have to reflect on the way we deal with this. The better regulation approach—I see the noble Lord, Lord Curry, just coming in—was looking on behalf of the whole of government at different areas. Rather than this piecemeal, portmanteau Bill, perhaps we should have followed procedure a bit more closely. Having got that off my chest, I will comment on one or two aspects of the Bill.
I follow my noble friend Lord Davies in relation to the transport provisions and, in particular, CCTV. This is populism gone mad. If we cannot enforce parking restrictions, we not only endanger the safety of road users and pedestrians but also provide no parking space for motorists. If people can continue to park in restricted areas with impunity, there will be no parking space for the vast majority. By adopting the Jeremy Clarkson interpretation of the motorists’ interests, the Government have gone down exactly the wrong road. Just as the taxi provisions are not in the interests of the users of taxis, these parking provisions are not in the interests of the vast majority of motorists; our towns will get clogged up and there will be more accidents.
On housing, the right to buy is perhaps the most obvious aspect of my general contention. The right to buy has been hugely contentious. I do not oppose the principle of right to buy. However, in the present housing crisis, it is very important that any exercise of the right to buy is put in the context of what is available in social housing, and affordable housing generally. We have one provision in relation to eligibility for right to buy. The right to buy was very good for those people who would never be able to afford their own house or who were too old to get a mortgage. That does not mean people who have been in social housing for only three years. The right to buy is for people who have been tenants for a large proportion of their life and deserve a chance to get on the housing ladder. At the same time—tomorrow, I think—in the Moses Room we are dealing with the change in the right to buy provisions relating to the discount. Therefore, we have two changes in different parts of the House in relation to one subject that needs to be seen in a wider context. The right to buy ought to be a local decision. The provision, eligibility and discounts for the right to buy are not suitable for national legislation, but should address the housing market in the locality. In any case, it is an example of something that needs to be seen in the round.
Clause 83 relates to putting another requirement on all non-economic regulators. Most legislation on regulation over the past 15 years has inserted the provision on economic and non-economic regulators that they should have regard to sustainable development. Quite often the previous Government, in their initial years, were slightly resistant to that, but they were persuaded by the sensible arguments of the Liberal Democrats by and large, to put those provisions in. That meant one had to look after the economics, the environmental effect and the social effect. Obviously the main focus for any individual regulator was one or other of those three corners, but they all had regard to all three. This seems to have an override, even for areas such as human rights and environmental controls that should not be overridden by short-term economic considerations. There is a real danger in that.
The world and his wife will be agitated about various aspects of the Bill. Some of it—probably most of it—is very sensible and I can support it. However, I wish the Government would not go down this road. When one gets to almost the very final page, there is an interesting provision relating to the deletion of offences by people who fly kites. I am in total agreement with that because it is a grave inhibition on the work of the House.
House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report
Lord Whitty Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, when I first entered this House, quite a few years ago, there was an anticipation of a modernising, radical Labour Government taking over and delivering their manifesto promises. I was a bit surprised, therefore, when my first pass extended my attendance here into this century. Well, we are past that, we are past the 100-year anniversary of the Parliament Acts, and the future of the House of Lords is still not clearly defined.
I remain a committed and unrepentant democrat. I think every part of the legislature needs to be at least predominantly elected. I recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has just reminded us, that that dramatically changes the terms of trade and engagement between this House and another place. That needs to be codified, written down and made clear before any move to radical reform. I agree with my noble friend Lord Rooker on that point.
Despite my strong views on the long-term future of this House, I welcome my noble friend Lady Taylor’s report, and her presentation of it today, because I am enough of a realist to recognise that we are not going to get a radically reformed House very quickly. Therefore, if we do not do something about it, we will stagger on in roughly the same way for at least the length of the next Parliament. That is slightly depressing but it means that we should look at some changes and reforms to the way in which we do our business that will both improve the way we operate and give us greater legitimacy and a better image in the eyes of the public. I regard this report as being part of a blueprint for how we operate in the next Parliament—no longer than that, no more than that but also no less than that. The group has done a very good job.
I broadly support the intention to have a constitutional convention because there are a lot of other constitutional issues that we need to look at. That does not mean that we will resolve them all within two years, and we will no doubt legislate in a piecemeal way thereafter, but at least we can have a coherent cross-party and cross-society discussion of them.
I agree with most of what the report says about our numbers. We need to deal with our numbers. We need to deal with the way in which people get in here, in terms of at least a modicum of legitimacy, and we need to deal with how we get out of here with at least a modicum of decorum. My noble friend hesitated to use the word “cull” but that does mean a reduction. By definition, the three-fifths rule that we now have will cause a significant reduction, and quite rightly so. People who do not attend regularly should not remain in this House. However, to some extent, the problem with our processes is that the people who do come here are too numerous and want to get engaged in too many things. That does not resolve the problem.
Therefore, I support a cut-off point—if that is the term. I tend to be more favourable to the view of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, that we should have a fixed term rather than a fixed retirement date, which is unfair to those who come in when they are 70. Nevertheless, some sort of cut-off point is needed and we need to grasp that nettle. Whatever age or length of term we adopt, some people will be upset and it will be unfair to some. We need to adopt that process, consciously, so that everybody—existing and future Members—is aware of it. In the old days, tsarist Russia was described as “autocracy tempered by assassination”. The House of Lords ought to be, at least for a short time, “oligarchy tempered by forced retirement”. I therefore support the general view on that.
I will mention two points that I do not think have been raised. One is a slightly delicate one and relates to the way in which we are paid, which has been, for one reason or another, subject to some serious media criticism. We are on occasion vulnerable on that front. If there is a three-fifths attendance requirement, why can we not move to a salary basis for our remuneration and why should that not be taxed? One of the most difficult things for the public is to see that we are not taxed like anyone else doing a decent job—and if we are talking about working Peers, it is a job.
I agree with most of the points that the report made on procedure, but I think it was a bit timid on the structure of our committees. One of the strongest arguments for an appointed House is that it brings into the legislature all sorts of experience, expertise and, at least in some cases, wisdom—and brings it to bear on the process of government. But, by and large, we do not make use of that expertise because we do not have a comprehensive range of standing policy committees in the House. We have some good committees, such as the EU Committee, the Constitution Committee, the Economic Affairs Committee and the Science and Technology Committee. All their remits could be broadened, but they are cross-department.
We need some more cross-department committees: for example, on industrial and employment matters, social affairs, and international and defence policy. A huge number of people in this House are expert in that but apart from the EU committees, which are limited by what EU legislation is before us, we never really make use of that expertise in terms of actually holding the Government to account. We have our own debates in which we can all pontificate but if you look at second Chambers around the world, the first one that anybody thinks of is the United States Senate. The great glory of the United States Senate is that it can hold powerful people, in and out of government, to account.
We need a similar process here and that involves us looking at establishing for ourselves a broader range of committees. I do not think that the House of Commons would object to that because the committees would not be dealing with legislation or challenging the legitimacy and primacy of the House of Commons. I know that when the Economic Affairs Committee was established, there was some resistance from the then Chancellor, but we have sort of overcome that. We need to broaden that experience and, therefore, the usefulness of our House for the next Parliament, when for the most part we will still be appointed.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Lord Whitty Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, like many noble Lords who have spoken, I regard Part 1 of this Bill as being probably well intentioned but very perverse in its effect. Part 2 may or may not be well intentioned but is certainly pernicious in its effect. Part 3 is just pernicious. I have some critical points to make on all parts of this Bill. Many of them have been made already, but that will not prevent me from repeating some of them; there are some things that I wish to underline in all three parts of the Bill.
I also want to say something to Ministers and noble Lords opposite, particularly those of a more liberal disposition in either of the coalition parties. I think that there is a feeling in government that the objections to this Bill of the committees of both Houses, of all the organisations in civic society that have been cited and of noble Lords today is due to oversensitivity, suspicion or even paranoia. But, frankly, the Government have done little to overcome that paranoia. They hope that during consideration of this Bill they will manage to do so, but I doubt it because it is part of a wider problem for this Government.
Looking at the wider issue, when the Westminster Foundation or other human rights bodies promoting democracy in Africa or the former Soviet Union visit these emerging democracies, one of the key elements that they wish to develop is the voice of intermediate democratic representative bodies—local government, trade unions, faith bodies, co-operatives, charities—all the kinds of bodies that will be hit by one or other of the provisions of this Bill.
Let us think about this Government’s record. In the third week of this Government, an instruction went from the Cabinet Office to all quangos and arm’s-length bodies that they were no longer allowed to campaign or to try to influence legislators. Then we had the instruction from DCLG to local government that it had to drop or cut dramatically its campaigning activity. Then we had the various restrictions on access to justice, to tribunals and courts, and the cuts in legal aid. Ministers can defend every single one of these moves individually, but the totality adds up to an attack on or at least an undermining of essential elements of our civic democracy. Democracy is not all Westminster or the big issues; it is what goes on in civic society down the line and how people express themselves collectively and individually through those intermediate organisations. The Government need to reflect on that. I particularly ask the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, to do so, for I know him to be a liberal person of great democratic credentials. I am not saying anything different about the other Minister sitting on the Front Bench, but I say that today, because it is worrying.
Most of my points on the Bill have been spoken to. On Part 1, we need greater transparency in lobbying, but, as my noble friend Lord Haskel and others said, we are attacking the wrong target at both ends. The only register and requirements are for consultant lobbyists. Consultant lobbyists are a relatively new operation in our democracy. Some of my best friends are now consultant lobbyists, partly because it has been a bit of a job creation scheme for the wannabe, has-been and never-were politicos of various sorts, but, as my noble friend said, they are not the major part of the lobbying industry—far from it. Some organisations see a need to use consultant lobbyists; some do not really need to. The really big, effective lobbyists do not need to. Rupert Murdoch does not need a consultant lobbyist; EDF and the Chinese Government do not need consultant lobbyists; pharmaceutical companies and defence contractors do not need them. Some of them use them occasionally, but they do not need them because they have the power to address Ministers and senior civil servants directly.
I do not know what the solution is to that huge area of lobbying. As the noble Lord, Lord Lang, said, it is very difficult to have a single definition of lobbying. As I remarked the other day, sadly, anybody who wants to talk to a politician is not really there to enjoy their sparkling conversation, their erudition and wisdom, still less their erotic allure; people are there because they want something. In one sense, almost every encounter that a politician has with a member of the public or a representative of an organisation could be defined as lobbying. We have to pin it down—I understand that—but the fact is that Part 1 does not tackle that problem. We are hobbling the minnows while we let the sharks swim free.
It is also about the other end of the process. We all know from being in or anywhere near government that it is very difficult to get the ear of the Secretary of State or the Permanent Secretary, but it is much easier to buy lunch for the person who has their ear—the spad, the private secretary, the assistant secretary or the grade 5 who is actually drafting the legislation or assessing the contracts. They are completely excluded from the Bill, so the Government have got it wrong at both ends of how we are to introduce transparency in the lobbying sector.
On Part 2, a lot of points have been made both in the House and outside, in the literature that we have all received. It is right that there should be restrictions on third parties in electoral situations. It is right that we should be worried about an American-style super-PAC development here. That is why the Labour Government introduced PPERA in the first place 13 years ago, but Part 2 restricts the activities of third parties beyond the degree that is necessary to protect democracy. It reduces the threshold, so that very small organisations have huge burdens placed on them; it widens the definition of what is to be electorally relevant or regulated expenditure; and it cuts significantly the amount of money that third parties can pay over a period of 12 months before an election, not just the four or five weeks of the election campaign itself.
Obviously, third parties’ campaigning activities can be said to be aligned with one party or another, or with one candidate or another, either locally or nationally. The cutting of expenditure and the widening of the activities that are covered by it will have a drastic effect on many local campaigns—and very soon, if the Bill goes through. We are only 18 months off the general election; we know when it will be these days. Within six months or so, the £5,000 limit on a constituency basis—we need a limit at that basis—will prevent a number of local campaigns against the closure of hospitals, for or against wind farms, for or against particular developments, or campaigns against HS2. All of those local campaigns could fall foul of the constituency limit.
At a national level, several major political events over the past few years could not occur in future in the 12 months before an election, because they would be too expensive. In that, it is not just one organisation’s limit that must be taken into account. If several organisations are in coalition for an event, it is the aggregated cost that is controlled, which includes such things as staff costs of the organisation. In those circumstances, for example, at no time in the 12 months before an election could the TUC organise another March for Jobs. It is highly probable that the BMA would find it difficult to organise a campaign about health service reforms. I see my noble friend Lady Mallalieu here. It would be very difficult for the Countryside Alliance to organise a march of previous proportions against a foxhunting ban. God forbid, if we were engaged in some new military intervention, it would be very difficult for a coalition against the war to organise a march against it. All such events would come up against a limit for 12 months. That is a serious limitation on our democracy and something that this House should not allow through without serious objection. That is not a healthy democracy.
Part 3 has trade unionists specifically in its sights. My noble friends Lord Monks and Lady Donaghy have already pointed out the absurdity of that and others have queried why we are doing it at all. Of course, in my paranoid mood, I think that there are two or three potential reasons. One is that it might make strike ballots even more challengeable in the courts than they already are. Another would simply be to impose additional costs on trade unions, limiting their activities. A third is that it is primarily directed at the political funds of trade unions and therefore has an effect on the finances of the major opposition party.
To intervene in this way 18 months before a general election in some emerging democracies would rightly provoke serious condemnation around the democratic world. I will return to Part 3 at later stages. I ask the Government to stop demonising trade unions and to stop the other interventions that this Bill represents, which seriously limit our democracy and the involvement of a whole range of different sorts of organisations in democracy. Ministers may think that our reaction is an exaggeration, but part of the duty of this House is to be vigilant. We must be exceptionally vigilant about this Bill.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
However, we are not talking about the smallest unions.
I take the point from, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, about whether information given to the assurer or certification officer might fall into other hands. That is a large issue of data privacy—this was raised by another noble Lord—which raises broader issues that concern the Government across the board. I will give him my assurance now but I will also check back and make sure that there are cast-iron assurances that data privacy issues will be resolved. We will have—
Lord Whitty
I think it was my noble friend Lord, Lord Monks, who raised that point. The Minister has not yet said why the Government are proposing Part 3 of this Bill. There are all sorts of suspicions out there, some of which have been voiced tonight, including by me, but the Government have not told the House why they are proposing this part of the Bill.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government are concerned that there is insufficient public understanding when, for example, a union calls a strike vote, that those being polled are those who are currently working. They wish to assure the members and others in society that the lists are accurate. This is not just for unions. Companies are also expected to maintain an accurate register of their members and shareholders and to keep it up to date. This will cover a range of different bodies. I give way once more and then we must finish.