Employment Rights Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Alison Hume Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Laurence Turner]

In an earlier intervention, I failed to draw the Committee’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions. There has clearly been some learning loss over the Christmas period.

I rise to make a couple of brief points. The shadow Minister said that 10% was not a high threshold. In one sitting before Christmas he encouraged us to listen to Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister; the debates that accompanied the Employment Relations Act 1999 make it very clear that 10% was put forward at that time precisely because it was a high bar for trade unions to meet. It has now been tested by time, and it is the case that for some high-turnover employers the 10% threshold is hard to meet in practice.

I take the point that there might be different views about whether employers’ approaches to trade unions tend to be genial and welcoming or hostile. As former trade union officials, we have had exposure to some of the most hostile employers. There is scope, where there is a limited number of employees who are known to the employer as individuals, to try to whittle down trade union membership to below the 10% threshold. I would also say that 2% is the threshold for the information consultation regulations, which I believe were introduced by the previous Government, so there is some precedent for that lower number.

Let me get to the heart of why we put forward this proposal. The introduction of a statutory recognition regime was an important step forward—we talked before Christmas about some of the historical injustices that gave rise to the regime as it exists today—but there are flaws within it and, where there are flaws, they must be remedied. I draw particular attention to the case of the Amazon Coventry warehouse site, where the GMB union fought a particularly difficult recognition campaign. Having successfully applied for the recognition campaign to start, it suddenly found that the bargaining unit was flooded with a number of new starters, who were very hard to reach in that recognition campaign. Some of that would be covered by the Bill as it stands.

On a related point, the code of practice on access and unfair practices in relation to recognition disputes at the moment does not apply from day one of an application, and I think it is important that that should be changed. This clause clearly contains important changes, however, that respond to some of the adverse and unfair practices that can occur during a recognition dispute. Some Committee members might want the clause to go further in some areas, but as it stands, it should be very strongly welcomed.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my membership of Unison and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

I am pleased that the Bill will take significant steps to simplify the union recognition process by removing unnecessary barriers that unions currently face. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield mentioned, recent events at Amazon’s Coventry distribution site, where the unionisation effort was defeated by 28 votes, serve as a reminder of the challenges that workers encounter.

I particularly welcome the flexibility in the Bill to lower the membership threshold required to begin the recognition process from the current 10% to potentially as low as 2%. That will give workers the opportunity to organise effectively from the outset. Ensuring that unions need only a simple majority in favour of recognition will mean that the will of the workers is fairly and clearly reflected without being stifled by unnecessary procedural hurdles.

[Justin Madders]

We have had a good debate. The main focus of the shadow Minister’s questioning was the 2% issue. The first thing to say is that, as it stands, the 10% figure will remain. We are simply giving ourselves the power to reduce it to 2% following consultation, although as various Committee members have powerfully set out, including my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles and for Birmingham Northfield, there is a strong case for it to be reduced from the current 10%. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield pointed out, the previous Government set a precedent in this area with the reduction to 2% in the Employment Rights (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019, which were introduced not long ago.

The shadow Minister must understand that these measures are about the very worst employers that are actively hostile to trade unions. Most employers recognise the value of a trade union and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles pointed out, enter into voluntary arrangements, but there are examples, such as the GMB-Amazon dispute, of unwillingness to engage. I remember the example of an employer not far from where I live who sacked all the people who joined the trade union. It will not surprise the shadow Minister that no one wanted to join a trade union after that. That is a clear example of why, in the most extreme situations with hostile employers, it is difficult to increase trade union membership. Of course, we also now have workplaces that are much more fragmented, because there is more homeworking and hybrid working, and people are often out in the field.