Draft Trade Union Act 2016 (Political Funds) (Transition Period) Regulations 2017

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 General Committees

[Margot James]

If trade unions hold conferences biannually, they will surely have at least one conference opportunity between now and March 2018. As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, it is not necessary for unions to amend their rules in this regard at a conference. They can apply to the certification officer for the acceptance of any form of union ballot on such a change of rules. Although many unions would prefer to give effect to the changes at a conference, there is no obligation on them to hold a conference to achieve that.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

As it is the hon. Lady, I will give way.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I declare my proud membership of Unison and the journalists’ union. One of them allows members to opt in and has a political fund, while the other does not. Does the Minister not realise that trade unions rely on their rulebooks and the legitimacy of any changes to them in order to ensure that they are appropriately and politically accountable to members who may have different views on different policies? If they were to start amending their rules in this unorthodox way, to fit in with the Government’s purpose, that would set very unhelpful precedents for many other issues. I speak as someone who has very detailed knowledge of how trade unions operate their internal affairs. Will she at least acknowledge that point and go away and think about it? Will she also—

[The Chair]

Order. Interventions should be brief and to the point.

[Margot James]

I defer to the hon. Lady’s considerable experience of trade union matters, but she has just pointed out that trade union members have widely different views on many political issues. I think that that provides inherent justification for the measures.

[Ms Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

I have not finished responding to the hon. Lady. She correctly referred to a reliance on rules to provide proper accountability to members, and we respect that. However, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West said in an earlier intervention that many unions hold biannual conferences. There is therefore an opportunity between now and March 2018 for the vast majority of those unions with political funds to agree the rule changes at a conference. As I have said, if they cannot meet at a conference to introduce the new rules, they can at least ballot their members in consultation with a certification officer.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Wallasey is frustrated and disappointed by my response, but I think that it is reasonable. The Government believe that a 12-month transition period is adequate for unions to ensure that they comply with the statutory requirement under the Trade Union Act. That balances the need to provide unions with sufficient time to implement the changes with the Government’s view that the measures are delivered promptly.

Once the regulations have received parliamentary approval, they will come into force on 1 March 2017 and the formal 12-month transition period will run from that date. The Government’s view is that unions have known about these changes for some time and it is not unreasonable to expect them to have already done some planning to meet the requirement. We are also grateful to the certification officer, who has consulted unions and issued model rules and guidance, which should assist them in complying with the new requirements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gill Furniss]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. As a result of that legislation, unions will need to renegotiate check-off arrangements with hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of employers across the public and private sector. According to the recently issued model rules, securing approval from the certification officer alone could take up to five weeks.

[Ms Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that trying to change the rules for trade unions by a non-usual route, as suggested by the Minister—allowing rule changes by a secondary route to that which is normally allowed—to comply with these wholly irresponsible regulations creates the potential for real burdens to be placed on how unions operate internally? Does she also agree that unions’ rulebooks are an important part of how they operate their internal democracy and ensure their stability as they move forward as organisations? Is there any other civic society organisation that the Government have decided to treat in that way?

[Gill Furniss]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The rulebook is there for the benefit of everybody—employers and members—and it is a well-trodden path that has always succeeded. I ask the Minister whether there is another example of anyone in civic society who has been treated in this way. That would be an interesting concept.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I have listened with great interest: every Member on the other side of the Committee has declared being a member of a trade union—

[Ms Eagle]

It’s not a crime yet, you know.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Nobody is saying it is. I am sure it is declared in the register of Members’ interests. Would the hon. Gentleman care to share with us what that means in practical terms for him?

[Ms Eagle]

On a point of order, Mr Stringer. It is not in the House’s rules that Members have to declare membership of a free organisation in a democracy, is it? Could you confirm that for me?

[The Chair]

That is a matter for individual Members, not the Chair. I call Chris Stephens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

We have here a particularly mean and nasty part of a grossly mean and nasty Act of Parliament. It was put in place deliberately to make trouble for trade unions, because the Conservative party does not like the voice of working people being heard and being effective, not only in Parliament but in the workplace. What the Conservative party fails to realise is that it is in all our interests for trade unions to do a proper and good job in protecting people at work, because that civilises all the norms in our society. The Government’s motivation in coming up with the legislation and persisting in forcing these kinds of statutory instrument through the House in this way is plain and obvious for all to see.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I have to take issue with the hon. Lady’s comments about representing working people. My wife is a member of a trade union, my father was a trade union shop steward, I come from a working-class family and I went to a comprehensive school; there are many Members of all parties who do their best every day to try to represent working people. When we party politicise things in this way, it does none of us any good. Will she please appreciate that?

[Ms Eagle]

This Government party politicised the entire issue, and they have a history of doing that over years. I will not go into that because you will rule me out of order, Mr Stringer, but it is in the history books that opting out was brought in during the aftermath of the general strike to punish trade unions for having the temerity to stand up for their members’ rights then. What we are seeing now is a similar process.

We all know that opting in reduces participation. We know the Government accept that: we in Parliament all agreed to change pensions so that there is auto-enrolment, because the Government want more people to enrol in workplace pensions. We legislated for auto-enrolment to maximise participation.

The sole point of the particular section of the Act with which this statutory instrument is connected is to reduce participation in political funds, so that there is less money available to trade unions to campaign on issues that are important to them in the workplace—health and safety, wages and the conditions that millions of people up and down this country rely on in their jobs—so that the casualisation, the move to zero-hours contracts and the deregulation of our labour market can carry on without effective barriers to that. That is part of the motivation behind this short statutory instrument. I have never seen a smaller and more innocuous-looking statutory instrument that has been designed to cause so much havoc.

If we were feeling generous about the Conservative party’s motivation in proposing the transition period, I suppose we might think that it is just totally ignorant of how trade unions work, but we know that it is not. The Conservatives consulted the unions, the certification officer and the TUC, although in a very unsatisfactory way, but they completely ignored every aspect of that consultation, which drew attention to the practicalities. The unions are being forced by law, like no other organisation in this country, to put themselves through hoops for arbitrary reasons of political expedience, I suppose, to change how they operate. That is because the Conservative party, which has always been opposed to trade unions having a political voice, happens to think that it can get away with being even more opposed to trade unions having that voice, so that there is less resistance to what the Conservatives want to do to working people in this country in the next few years.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I will try to keep this brief. I have to join my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire in challenging the constant attitude of Labour Members that only they speak for working-class people. My father was an engineer, my mother was a school dinner lady and I went to my local state comprehensive. I have all the working-class back-story that they want. I just caution the hon. Lady: from her attitude and, it has to be said, that of some of her colleagues, they often seek to give the impression that they have some kind of monopoly over the support of working-class people. As a matter of fact, they do not, and if they had, we would never have won the general election.

[Ms Eagle]

All I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that if he wants to demonstrate that he supports working-class people, he should join us when we vote against this wrecking statutory instrument, which is designed to weaken the voice of trade unions and working people in the labour market in our country. It is designed to make it harder for them to achieve an appropriate remuneration for their work, and to make our labour market less fair than it is.

We have seen the explosion of zero-hours contracts and exploitative pay and conditions in that market, which is driving many people to have multiple jobs and still be in work poverty. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to demonstrate his working-class credentials, and if he wants to demonstrate that he really cares about what goes on in the modern labour market, he will join us in voting against the statutory instrument. I look forward to his doing that, because it is about time that the Government were defeated on this wholly irresponsible and unreasonable transition period that they are proposing in the statutory instrument.

I presume that the Minister has read the responses to the consultation, so she must know that all the organisations responded by telling her how difficult it was practically, within their existing rules, to do what she wants in the proposed period. An extension of only a few more months would enable far larger numbers of trade unions to do in an appropriate fashion what the Government are ordering them to do—requiring them to do—and in a way that would not cause chaos to their rule books or with their systems.

Why does the Minister not listen to those wholly reasonable suggestions about how the changes could be made in a way that would not compromise the internal workings, constitutions and rules of those organisations? Why not work with them, instead of imposing these arbitrary dates? I heard no explanation from her; perhaps she has one in front of her now. I will happily give way to her, if she can show a bit of flexibility.

I have had a look at the consultation response to which the Minister referred in the slight apology at the end of her speech, and it is the most unforthcoming document. It is three paragraphs, and nowhere does it say whether any of the trade unions mentioned objected to the transition period that she suggests. Why not put that information in the consultation response? Is it because all of them objected to the short time that the statutory instrument gives for the transition?

I did not think it possible to cause as much havoc, red tape, inconvenience and cost to any organisation as will be caused by the arbitrary changes—imposed from outside, to the way that trade unions must work with their members—made by this statutory instrument and the primary legislation to which it refers. We have not seen the certification officer check-off regulations yet; those are potentially even worse, because they involve having to renegotiate, with multiple employers, very long-standing arrangements.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion, given the Government’s cloth ears on the subject, that they are trying to cause as much administrative havoc as possible to reduce the number of people who participate in unions and pay into the political funds, so that there will be less money available in civic society for pointing out the inequities in the decisions that the Conservative Government are taking across the piece. They do not like opposition, well organised arguments against their approach or campaigning that is done in a way that is likely to elicit sympathy from voters, so they are using—in my view, misusing—their powers to stifle, and to silence, dissent.

There will be a backlash, because in a democracy people who are put upon in this way will always fight back. What the Conservative party does not understand or appreciate is that in a proper democracy we must have due respect for all shades of opinion, including the opinions of the trade union movement. This statutory instrument shows contempt for the trade union movement’s culture and history, its internal organisations and its rulebooks. It puts burdens on trade unions that would never have been put on any other civic society organisation in our country, in what is meant to be a free democracy.

That should be seen for what it is. I will be proud to vote against this statutory instrument at the end of the debate. The fight for proper, free trade unions and proper means of political expression for those who are at work and are protected by their trade unions, day in, day out, will go on beyond this pettiness from the Government—this attempt to misuse Parliament’s powers to ensure that opposition is stifled.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

No, I do not. Indeed, I fear that costs are a consequence of many other parts of the legislation. Fines can be introduced for non-compliance, and there are many other restrictions. Many of the unions we have talked about, particularly USDAW, have been clear that they are trying to comply with the legislation within a reasonable time, yet the Government are not listening to their very reasonable concerns. The unions are suggesting that this be delayed not by years or decades, but by months, given their pre-existing and very reasonable democratic structures and processes.

I go back to the TUC’s key concerns about this statutory instrument. It has been clear that it believes that the proposed 12-month transition period is inadequate and fails to take into account the complexity involved. As I have said, a financial penalty of up to £20,000 can be imposed by a certification officer.

On revising the rulebooks, the changes need to be agreed through union democratic structures—a lengthy process that differs greatly from union to union. They need to consult branches, as has been mentioned several times, and there are rule-making conferences where union democracy can be conducted, with full transparency for the public and members. Why would we want to undermine that by suggesting that unions could go through a secondary process and have a little meeting of the executive committee under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992?

[Ms Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend, who has been active in a union, think that if union rules could in future be changed through a quick meeting of the executive, without its telling anyone, it would be a good thing, or a bad thing? In my experience, it would cause chaos.

[Stephen Doughty]

Indeed. It sets a dangerous precedent. Labour Members want to promote democracy and transparency in trade unions and in all civil society organisations, so that their members can see what is going on, how decisions are made and how money is spent. We support such transparency. We support the transparency around the funding relationships between affiliated unions and the Labour party. Unfortunate comments have been made by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham. We are clear about our support; the Labour party registers donations. We are not just talking about trade unions affiliated to the Labour party; we are talking about all trade unions and the impact this will have.

As the hon. Member for Glasgow South West pointed out, a month is effectively taken out of the period by the need to secure approval from the certification officer. That seems to be another attempt on the side to curtail this period and reduce the time the trade unions have to deal with this, making things even more difficult.

We talked about the complexity of the process. Renegotiating check-off agreements with employers is not straightforward, particularly if you have a disaggregated workforce across many different locations. This is a particular problem for unions such as USDAW, which has many branches and represents many employees, including in small retail outlets and companies. That could require the renegotiation of check-off arrangements with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of employers across both the public and private sectors. That is an incredibly complex enterprise. If trade unions are required to do this by law, they will do their very best to comply, but they have to be given a reasonable amount of time to do so.

There was a mention of the plastic bags legislation, but the argument applies to any new legislation; it would apply if we were imposing new regulations on businesses around tax reporting or introducing new regulations around health and safety. I sat on the Consumer Rights Public Bill Committee. Complex changes take a long time to bring in. This is about what is reasonable, when it comes to insuring that those involved can comply with a new legislative framework.

We talked about the practical operational impact on, say, membership databases. There will be a need to redesign membership forms and distribute them across the country, and to train shop stewards and union officials on how to implement the new legislation. Some of those changes have to be deferred until a rule-making conference, because they link into other decisions. That is the crucial point.

What surprises me is that although these concerns have been raised multiple times by unions and the TUC, and the Minister accepts that those representations have been made, this statutory instrument makes no attempt to deal with any of those concerns. That smacks not of reasonableness but of the ideological approach that we have repeatedly seen the Government take towards the trade union movement and society.

We have heard about the particular challenges that USDAW faces; its conference is due to take place. The Minister seemed almost to give a grudging apology. It would be interesting to hear further from her on that. It is not asking for the moon; it is asking for a reasonable period in which to comply. It wants to comply—it made that clear—but its conference has been booked years in advance at a venue that has been paid for. It has to inform its members of conferences, and those members have to get time off work. The changes are being rushed in on 1 March 2018, just weeks before USDAW holds its conference, at which it would be able to decide to implement the legislation. It seems to me—and I think it would to many members of the public, whether they are politically minded or not—an unreasonable measure. I appeal to Government Members to look at that.

Take the politics out of this and look at what is reasonable. Would hon. Members expect businesses and other civil society organisations suddenly to have to comply with measures when they have processes in place to deal with the changes and have indicated a willingness to comply? I will oppose this statutory instrument. The Government’s whole approach to this legislation from day one has been deeply unfortunate and smacks of its real agenda, which is to shut down the voice of working people up and down this country and, indeed, wider civil society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margot James]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. This has been a thought-provoking, passionate debate. First, I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, for her contribution. I have spoken before about our consultation process with individual unions, the TUC and the certification officer. I accept that there is a degree of complexity to the changes that unions are required to make. At least the certification officer has this month published the model rules and the changes to union rulebooks, which is important.

[Ms Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

Not yet. There are 13 months to go before the due date. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough talked about “wholly irresponsible” regulations, and many hon. Members challenged the basis of what we are doing, not just the length of time that we are allowing unions before they must comply with the law. We Government Members feel that if people’s money is directed into a fund that is used for political purposes, they should at least know that, and have a say in whether they want that to happen. There may be a divide between the two parties on this, but I am afraid that we Government Members feel strongly that if people have money taken off them, they should have a say in where it goes, and that is all that the measure ensures.

Mr Stringer, you rightly allowed Members a degree of liberty in going beyond the confines of what we are debating; I shall take advantage of that and challenge the idea that we have taken an ideological position on this matter. I do not for one instant believe that. In fact, our research showed that almost half of the money raised through donations to political funds is, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West pointed out, devoted to other campaigns, and not Labour party funds. Almost half goes on the sort of good campaigns that he mentioned. It is a complete myth that this is some sort of political attack on the way that the Labour party is funded.