Employment Agencies and Trade Unions

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Jerome Mayhew

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

Does the hon. Member understand that as the normal remedy is an injunction, what he proposes might, ironically, make injunctions against strikes more difficult for employers to obtain? One of the conditions for the grant of an interlocutory emergency injunction is that it must be shown that damages, if awarded at full trial, would not be an adequate remedy, so raising the level of that remedy makes it less likely that an employer could get an injunction. The hon. Member’s argument has therefore undermined itself.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful for that intervention, but I fundamentally disagree. As the hon. Member will know, when someone makes an interlocutory application for an injunction, they often have to give an undertaking in damages. The cap, which I have not yet come on to, will not be raised to a new level; the order merely restores what was put in place, which was the will of Parliament when the legislation was enacted back in 1982.

There is a very strong argument that an organisation that causes loss to another through its breach of a duty of care should be responsible for 100% of damages, but the Government have not taken that view. They have capped the liability in damages for trade unions, even when strikes are illegal. They have tried to balance the disincentive from strike action, for which I make no apology, with protection for trade unions from the full consequences of their actions, even though they might be illegal. The reason is that the Government are in favour of trade unions and do not want crippling damages being awarded against them. There is a balance of rights and obligations, which in my view is absolutely reasonable.

The cap was set by Parliament under the Employment Act 1982 at between £10,000 and £250,000, based on the size of the union and its ability to pay. It seems quite wrong, in 38 intervening years, for the caps not to have been increased by the rate of inflation or by any other amount. The rights of unions and the rights of damaged businesses and individuals have now, in my submission, become unbalanced. The legislation is no longer acting as proposed, and I think the Government are quite right to take action to rebalance it, as it originally required. I have looked up, on the Office for National Statistics website, the retail prices index figures for inflation between January 1982 and May 2022. The multiplier, to be entirely accurate, is 4.31963. The Government’s proposals, which use a multiplier of four, are actually less than the inflationary increase.

It is entirely right that the order restores the original intention of Parliament. The legal right to strike is wholly protected, and it is disingenuous for Opposition Members to suggest that the right to strike is being in any way affected. The order merely restores the balance of rights between the damages available to the victims—and they are victims—of tortious losses caused by illegal strike action and the protection of trade unions from crippling losses. That is right: it is an incentive to avoid illegal strikes, which I think is a good thing.

This is good government. I support the order; I only suggest that from now on, the limits should rise automatically with inflation to avoid having a repeat of this debate in 2060.

Border Carbon Adjustment Tariffs and Decarbonisation

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Jerome Mayhew

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

I say that we go it alone. I think it is one of the great freedoms that we have from Brexit. We have taken the trouble to get our independence. What use is it if we are not prepared to use it—if we are too scared to use our independence to make a bold statement and say, “This is the right thing to do. We are going to do it. Follow us if you like.”?

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am delighted to hear the depth with which the hon. Member is exploring this subject. What he has been saying is fascinating. Does he agree, though, that if it is about the right thing to do, the first thing we must do is to stop the subsidies and tax concessions that currently go to carbon industries domestically, and that it only makes sense as part of a whole package if we do that?

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Member recognises that we are on a journey in our decarbonisation of industry. I would be delighted if I managed to persuade the Minister to accept this one element of the policy without rewriting the entire economic agenda for the next period, but it is clearly true that, over time, we will be moving away from petrochemicals, and the economic case—the business case—for subsidising what will soon become stranded assets becomes less and less clear.

Our hosting of COP26 would be the perfect forum to crystallise these disparate movements that we have already identified around the world into a coherent whole. What better objective for the conference could there be? Politics is full of mis-steps and compromise. Very rarely do the stars align in favour of a truly inspiring act of political and economic leadership—one that can transform the future of our country and the world for the better. The stars are aligning for border carbon adjustments, if only the Government will believe in the Prime Minister’s vision of a post-Brexit Britain and be bold.