Employment Rights Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I wish all colleagues a happy and prosperous new year.

I welcome these proposals. Only this weekend, I was speaking with a constituent in Torbay who told me that the unit he worked in had transferred out of the NHS and been taken over by the private sector. He was gravely concerned about sharp practices that he saw being undertaken by the new employer. My best advice to him was, “Have you engaged with the trade union on site? How can the trade union help you? If I can do anything to assist the trade union, I stand ready to help.”

Trade unions are a force for good in the workplace, and many of the proposals that we will discuss today will put us mid-range in the OECD on trade union rights. Far from the extremism that the Conservatives are painting us into a corner with, these measures will actually put us back on an even keel as a nation in our relations with trade unions, rather than something like third or fourth bottom among OECD countries in the rights that we give unions.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and I wish you and other colleagues a happy new year.

I want to follow on from the comments made by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, and emphasise that the clause is completely pointless. Of course all workers have the right to join a trade union and the right not to join a trade union. Will the Minister outline the consequences for a small employer of not complying with the clause? Will there be a penalty? Will the employer be taken to a tribunal that can make a protective award? If there will not be a penalty, surely the clause is only performative, and just more evidence that the Government are doing what their trade union masters are telling them to.

Time and again in the Bill, we see measures that are small and inconsequential individually, but in total mount up to £5 billion of additional costs, most of them on small and medium-sized businesses. We see from surveys of business confidence that businesses are reeling under the imposition of additional taxes and of these rights, and the Government’s business-unfriendly stance. While the Minister talks about growth, the actions of his Government point to the very opposite. They believe that somehow they can regulate their way to growth. We start this new year with more regulation from the Government, none of which will contribute to the wealth and prosperity of our citizens.

[Justin Madders]

There was a mix of responses there. We heard from the hon. Member for Torbay that the Liberal Democrats welcome the clause, I think the shadow Minister was generally supportive, albeit not explicitly, and then the hon. Member for Bridgwater was fairly critical. I will address the points made by all three individuals.

The shadow Minister made a fair point that the frequency with which employees will have to be notified is important. That will be determined by the responses that we get to the consultation. Clearly, we do not want to make this measure too onerous, but we believe that it is important as a matter of principle that employees are aware of their right to join a trade union, for all the reasons that have been amply set out over many months and years.

On making it clear within a notification that the employee is not obliged to join a trade union, I am sure the shadow Minister is aware that the closed shop principle was abolished quite some time ago—possibly not even in his lifetime. [Interruption.] Well, possibly not; perhaps his rest over the Christmas period has made him look more youthful than he is. The precise wording of the notification will be set out in secondary legislation. I am sure it will not be worded in a way that indicates that there is a compulsion on individuals to join a trade union, but it is important that people know of the right.

In reference to the comments from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Torbay, I too have had many conversations with constituents who have notified me of issues with their workplace. I hope most Members respond with the question, “What has your trade union said about this?” When I ask that, quite often I get the response, “My employer doesn’t allow us to join a trade union.” That response is far too common for my liking. Evidence has been submitted to the Committee, particularly by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, about the lack of awareness of employees’ right to join a trade union. In a free society, we should be ensuring that people are aware of their rights.

On the points made by the hon. Member for Bridgwater, the consequences for not notifying an individual of this right will be the same as they currently are for failure to provide a statement of terms and conditions under section 38 of the Employment Act 2002. It is not a free- standing claim on its own; it can be put on top of another employment tribunal claim, and the penalty can be between two and four weeks’ pay.

On the administrative burden, there is already prescribed in legislation a long list of matters about which the employer must notify the employee when they join in a statement of terms and conditions. Really, we are just adding this to that list. We think this is an important measure.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I think this comes together with day one employment rights. Take the example of a very small businessman or woman who takes someone on with no written contract, and within a week or two the employment does not work out and the employee is fired. They might be within a—what is the word for the period of time in the first few weeks of employment?

[Justin Madders]

Probation.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Probation period—thank you. It is early in the new year, Mr Mundell. That member of staff might be within their probation period, but if that is not specified in a written contract, that dismissal would be procedurally unfair, according to the Bill. If that same small businessman or woman has not notified the employee of their right to join a trade union, the Minister seems to be saying that the employee will get a protective award of another two to four weeks’ salary on top of that. Can he not see that for microbusinesses, the array of sanctions becomes threatening—many weeks’ wages, for a very short contract that did not work out—and that he threatens to make it very difficult and onerous for them to take on new employees?

[Justin Madders]

I understand the point the hon. Member makes. I do not think it is helpful to get into hypotheticals about what might or might not happen under the statutory probation system, given that we have not really fleshed out the details. That will happen in due course, but it is already the law that statements of terms and conditions are required to be presented to employees, I think within the first month. There is not an additional burden of extra paperwork that has to be delivered; this is already built into the system, in terms of ensuring that employees receive their statement of terms and conditions when they start employment.

On that note, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 45 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 46

Right of trade unions to access workplaces

--- Later in debate ---

[Laurence Turner]

I think we have all followed with interest, and perhaps some entertainment, the shadow Minister’s embrace of red tape and pettifogging bureaucracy in as much as he wishes to apply that to trade unions. It is of course important to state that each trade union member has opted in to the political fund, has the right to opt out at any time and has a means of recourse, through the Certification Officer, if there is a complaint about any attempt to opt out that is not successful.

The comparison drawn by the shadow Minister was completely ill-founded. The amendment not only seeks to inform trade union members of their right to opt out of the political fund—that is already well understood—but requires them to continue to opt in annually. Throughout the history of the Conservative party’s relationship with trade unions, it has repeatedly sought to apply punitive legislation in respect of the political fund. That is what the amendment represents: it is nothing more than a transparent attack on the funding of the Labour party and on the wider political activities of trade unions.

Let us not forget that many trade union political funds are directed towards not only party political activity but welcome campaigns, including some taken up and implemented by the previous Conservative Government. I draw attention to one: the campaign to introduce the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018. Had the amendment been in force, that Act would have been much harder to accomplish, and paramedics, prison officers and police officers assaulted in their line of duty would have had less recourse to legal protection.

I am sorry but, to return to the words used by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles, this is a ridiculous amendment. Were it to be implemented, we would have to look closely to ensure that there was not a two-tier approach to donations made by other entities, such as publicly listed companies. Should there be a requirement for shareholders to be informed of, and be able to veto, any donation in furtherance of a political activity? What about other civil society organisations? That is an enormous can of worms that is not particularly pleasant to smell once opened up, and it is a naked and transparent political attack that should be given short shrift.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The amendment is designed to give trade union members the right not to contribute to the political funds. Why does the Labour party want to stop them having that right? It is pure self-interest. Labour wants a conscript army of trade union members to contribute to the funds. Furthermore, I dare say that a good proportion of the political funds end up supporting the campaigns of Labour Members, who one by one in Committee have declared their membership of individual trade unions.

Earlier, we heard the Minister say that, annually, he wanted employers to remind workers of their right to join a trade union, yet he does not want those same members to have the right to opt out, or to be reminded of their right to opt out, of the political fund. I therefore support the amendment, which will assist trade union members to know that they have the right to opt in or out of the political funds.

[Michael Wheeler]

I might surprise Conservative Members by saying that I welcome the amendment. Before those on the Labour Benches start to panic, I welcome it because it is a reminder that the only place in the country where Conservative Members support increasing red tape is for trade unions.

It is always nice to follow and to be of one mind with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield, so I will try not to repeat too much of what he said—although I agree with it all. The shadow Minister challenged Labour Members who have spoken, but it is fundamental to point out that the analogy he drew is false. A trade union is a member-based democratic organisation designed to protect those who are part of it. It is not a subscription or an entertainment package on TV. It comes with more rights, more democratic involvement and more control over where money and resources go. A fundamentally false analogy was drawn.

We heard earlier about businesses. I gently push back on what the hon. Member for Bridgwater said; I do not think I heard the Minister say it would be an annual notice. It was up for consultation, but even one notice was described by Conservative Members as onerous. Yet here we have an amendment pushing not just for reminders but for annual reconfirmation, from people who have already given their consent to pay into a political fund, that they are happy for that to happen, as a compulsory measure. That is deemed reasonable by Conservative Members, but it is not. The amendment is a continuation of a decades-long attack on the trade union movement by the Conservative party.