Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I want to emphasise that, in a period of mass disillusion with mainstream parties, opt-in was actually a very important way of putting those parties on their guard that they had to inspire people to want to opt in. Relying on inertia, or not being in a situation where you feel you need to go out and win the support of people to opt in politically, is very dangerous, because it will create the kind of complacency that we have seen mainstream parties of all sides show over recent years.

I note that it would be dangerous—and I am sure that nobody is implying this—for the party of government, the Labour Party, to assume that it is any longer the party that represents the working class. Long gone are the days when that claim could be made, and I think that it would be better for that party to consider how it can inspire ordinary working people to support it, both at the ballot box but also in relation to something such as political funds. I had every sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Prentis of Leeds, talking about the difficulties of campaigning when you do not have enough money. Tell me about it: I have been doing it for years. I have not had a political fund to help, mind.

It all sounded very admirable, but it really did sound as though the noble Lord was discussing not so much UNISON but an activist campaign group, a particular group around particular issues. That is fine. I have no objection to that: I am involved in some of those campaigns, although not all of them. I have to go out and raise the funds in order to be able to carry on campaigning for things I believe in. I do not think it is right that trade unions use their political funds to pursue what are political issues beyond the issues of trade unionism. Trade unionism is a particular thing. It can inspire great political revolutions over the years, I agree, but it is not a hobby-horse for trade union bureaucrats to pursue the particular political issues that they enjoy or agree with.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I shall primarily speak to the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Cash in respect of political funds, but I will say in passing that I found the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the excellent speeches of my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady Finn not just erudite but very compelling.

There is a challenge to try to understand what has significantly changed that has led the Government to make these epochal amendments to what has been accepted by Governments of all persuasions—including, as has been said, the Blair and Brown Governments—which will radically alter industrial relations.