Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Rishi Sunak
Q 345 I understand, but there is no opposition to the threshold in principle under the convention.
Professor Ewing: Well, the ILO bodies are very unclear. In a sense, they say, “If you have a threshold, it’s got to be reasonable,” but they also say, “You should only be counting people who vote.”
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Q 346 Professor Ewing, in relation to the devolved Administrations, what impact will the Bill have on both their policies and criminal or civil law?
Professor Ewing: This is going to be a really difficult question in the months ahead. The issue here particularly for Scotland is the proposals on the check-off and the powers in relation to facility time—the duty on public bodies to publish facility time arrangements. I think there are two problems here. One is a question of whether these provisions fall within the reserved powers of the Westminster Parliament.
I am sure that a lot of people are taking advice—legal or otherwise—about this at the moment, but I am not sure if the check-off provisions would satisfy the requirement that they fall within the reserved powers of the Westminster legislature and there are lots of reasons why that might be the case. I would hope that the Scottish Parliament will have an opportunity to think about and comment on this question. But, at the end of the day, this is a sovereign legislature and you can push through whatever legislation you think appropriate, whether or not it is incompatible with the devolution settlement. I have doubts about whether all of this package will be compatible with the devolution settlement, but I have no doubt that you have the right to push it through, despite the incompatibility.
The problem that I think will come will not necessarily be a legal one. The problem will be a very severe political problem in the future. The problem will be if a Scottish public body decides, “We are not going to comply with this ban on the check-off,” or “We are not going to publish the facility time arrangements that we give to trade union representatives.” What will happen at that point? We are looking at the question of who will enforce those obligations against Scottish public bodies. Are we really saying that the Secretary of State for Scotland will bring a case against a major Scottish public authority to enforce those obligations? The Government are walking, almost blindfolded, into a major constitutional crisis around the Bill. That constitutional crisis could be as explosive for this Government as the poll tax was for the Thatcher Government in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is a big, big problem, and I am not sure that people have really thought through the consequences.
Chris Stephens
Q 347 One last question on the thresholds. Do you think that there are also gender equality issues, where in workplaces a majority of women workers might not be able to go on strike because a shift change would impact on them more than it would on male workers?
Professor Ewing: That is a good point, which I had not thought of, and it is something that I would like to think about before coming back to you. I am happy to address the Committee on that point, but I would like to think about it first.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
Q 348 You talked about the ILO conventions. A great deal of your report is concerned with ECHR conventions, and I accept you cannot mention everything in your brief summary today, but would you accept that as recently as last year, the European Court acknowledged that it was legitimate for the Government to legislate to impose some constraints on article 11? Would you accept that there is a wide margin of appreciation for the Government in the way that this can be handled?
Professor Ewing: Are we talking about the RMT case?
The Chair
May I point out to people giving evidence and answering questions and to Members that we are approaching having used two thirds of our time? We should make it more succinct if you want to get the answers in. I call Chris Stephens.
Chris Stephens
Q 368 Thank you, Sir Alan. First, I ask the panel for their thoughts on whether they regard the threshold proposal to have any impact on women who wish to pursue industrial action. Secondly, can they give examples in relation to their political funds? I believe that they are all at the moment not affiliated to a political party. How will the Bill affect those political funds, and what organisations will it affect?
Mark Serwotka: Very briefly, the changes to political funds will have an enormous effect. People should not confuse it with affiliation to the Labour party in our case, because we are non-party politically affiliated. It is timely that we have been asked that question, because I am here on the very day that the Government announced that they were essentially backing down on the privatisation of criminal fines enforcement in the Ministry of Justice. My union has waged a five-year political campaign pointing out that that privatisation is wrong, and the Government have accepted that argument today.
A year and a half ago, we made a political argument not to privatise the Land Registry, which was also successful. Those campaigns are funded by political funds, which would be devastated by the opt-in, rather than opt-out method. It would massively curtail things. Directly, there is evidence that had we not run those campaigns, the Government would probably have made the wrong decision on two occasions.
On the right to strike—I will keep this short so other people can speak—all I would say is that in my union, it is predominantly the women membership who are suffering from 11 years of low pay and freezes to tax credits. Some 40% of PCS members claim tax credits. It is quite clear that there is a disproportionate effect on them if their ability to strike is undermined.
All I would ask the Committee is to consider this: do the Government really care about thresholds? Over the past 10 years, during the last Labour Government, the coalition Government and now, I am on record as saying that we would love to sit down and talk about changes in ballot methods to allow secure, online workplace balloting. In my union, we have done pilots. Where the law allows ballots in the workplace, the turnout is treble what it is when you have a statutory ballot by post. There is irrefutable proof that in comparable elections, three times the number of people vote in work. We have the technology to do it securely. That is what the Government should be talking about, because that would have a massive upwards effect on turnout.
Matt Wrack: Very quickly on the political fund, we were affiliated to the Labour party. We are not currently affiliated to the Labour party, but we have a political fund. Our members have the right to opt out of that political fund. In our union, they also have the right to make clear that they would not want any political fund going to a political affiliation, even if we were affiliated. They have a number of choices on the political fund. As Mark said, our political fund is primarily used for key political campaigns around the terms, conditions and safety of firefighters. In our view, were the Bill to proceed, it would seriously undermine our ability to function in that regard.
On the point about balloting, we note that both major political parties have recently used modern forms of balloting—for example, electronic balloting has been used by the Tories for the appointment of the candidate for London Mayor—so it seems bizarre to us that trade unions are being told that we cannot use such balloting methods going forward.
The Chair
May I pause you for a second? We have 10 minutes remaining and four Members want to ask questions, so we need to speed up the replies and the questions.
The Chair
I wonder, Ms O’Grady, whether you can send us the stats you have been referring to. If you can send it to the members of the Committee, we will distribute it on either side.
Chris Stephens
Q 397 I think all four of you have an interest in public services. Obviously, you will be aware, as was alluded to at the start, that not all UK employers, including the devolved Administrations, support the Bill and the impacts it will have. Can I ask each of you whether you believe that all public sector employers in the UK should either provide their consent to parts or all of the Bill or get opt-outs to parts or all of the Bill?
Len McCluskey: First, it is a serious issue that, again, I have raised publicly and Conservative members of this Committee will want to take it on board. At the general election, the Conservative party ran part of its campaign on English votes for English laws. The reality that we find with this Bill currently is that the Scottish Parliament has indicated that it will not implement the Bill; Stormont has indicated that it will not implement the Bill; and the Welsh Assembly voted yesterday not to implement this Bill. There is a real danger that English workers will be the worst treated workers not only in the whole of Europe, but indeed in the British Isles themselves. That is what is deeply divisive. The direct answer to your question is, yes, we know that there are local authorities and employers right throughout the British Isles who are indicating that they will not implement this measure, and certainly the devolved powers should have that view.
I will finish on a quick point, which is again for colleagues on the Conservative side. I deal with every single major manufacturing company within our nations—blue chip companies. Not a single CEO of any of those companies is in favour of this Bill, and I ask that that is taken seriously on board. So, yes, I am in favour of an independent approach to this.
Sir Paul Kenny: I will be quick. I think the consent issue is quite clear.
Just dealing with the issue about check-off, as it is commonly called, effectively it will still remain lawful. If the wagons roll on for a deduction to be made to just about any organisation—to the bowling club, to Uncle Ben’s shop, to any appeal whatsoever—despite all the arguments about how difficult it is and costly, it seems the only organisations that will not be allowed to use that facility are trade unions. I am sort of getting the drift that someone has got it in for me, you know? Basically, when you look at it like that, you cannot justify that argument.
Also, in terms of facilities, there are statistics coming out of the walls about the job that people do in saving so much in employers’ time: stopping stuff going through to litigation, dealing with health and safety issues and dealing with grievances. You know, kettles have spouts for a reason and you are trying to put a sock in it, and that will not do. That is not the way to deal with genuine grievances and disputes. So it is one of those occasions when I am beginning to think that devolution is a pretty good idea.
Dave Prentis: I will concentrate on check-off and sign-off, as I did at the beginning, and I will remind you that we have 7,242 employers who operate check-off systems and with whom we have agreements on time off. Not a single one of those employers has said anything in relation to this Bill that would lead you to believe that they want this blanket ending of check-off arrangements. In fact, nobody was asked before the Bill was put together. The NHS employers were not asked; the local government employers were not asked; individual employers were not asked. It takes away all these ideas of localism and the idea that employers should have a right to talk to trade unions or not, as they feel, and reach agreements that they wish to have.
The Bill brings in draconian central planning, and all the discussion has been not just about devolution within the nations of Britain—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—but also in English regions and the combined authorities. Combined authorities will be allowed to do everything, but what will be taken away from them is the right to talk to their staff trade unions about the arrangements that they want in place, either for check-off or not for check-off.
At the moment, any employer can withdraw check-off; it is in their gift. There is nothing in law that prevents them from doing that, and it would be virtually impossible to take industrial action to stop them doing it. And some employers do take us off check-off. Wandsworth did; one of the new private probation companies has just done it; and we deal with it as a local issue, because it is an issue between us and that employer, and maybe we will reach compromises. But the thing I will say, which seems to have been forgotten completely, is that we pay for these check-off arrangements. They are not the gift of the employer; it is not costing the taxpayer money.
I will give you examples: Fife Council and East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. Both of them cost us at 5% for collecting it, and it does not cost them anything like 5%. Bradford City Council charges £38,000—that is the cost of running our social workers. You end check-off and you are talking away one and a half social workers in Bradford. Derbyshire County Council charges around £5,000 a quarter. Others will hold on to the money for three months, put it in the bank account, get interest on it—it is small at the moment, but it is usually fairly big—and then give us the money and they make arrangements from it.
What I will say is I do not believe that any taxpayer should pay for this arrangement. Where we do have agreements, we are more than willing to pay a commercial amount of money to have these arrangements stay in place. Taxpayers should not pay, but neither should central Government issue a diktat saying that employers are doing something unlawful in reaching an agreement with their local union reps about the collection from source of union dues when there are so many different areas where the member of staff can have deductions from salary, including MPs and councillors, which are denied to our members for reasons that we do not understand.
The Chair
Mr Prentis, can you also get the detail of that and send it to the Committee? We will distribute it. It has been a very useful piece of information and I think both sides would welcome it.
Dave Prentis: I am saying categorically here that we believe that taxpayers should not fund this arrangement. If that is the issue, we will make sure that we have stronger commercial arrangements.
John Howell
Q 415 Like you, I listened intently to John Cridland’s evidence on Tuesday, but the intention of the questions we have been asking has not been to show that the Bill is a pro-business measure. What we have tried to show is the impact of that on parents, patients, carers and commuters. I think we have actually demonstrated that quite effectively. Would you like to comment on how that fits into the purpose of the Bill?
Nick Boles: That is absolutely right. We were always thinking, when drafting the Bill, about what to tell the public when a strike has happened to reassure them. The public support unions’ and individuals’ ability to strike, and they often would like to feel that they have the ability to avail themselves of that right in an extreme situation. There is absolutely no question about it; the public do not support something that withdraws people’s legitimate right to withdraw their labour in a case where they are being badly treated or a dispute that cannot be resolved otherwise. The public are frankly not very impressed when a strike happens that closes schools or bus services on an incredibly low turnout or a ballot that is several years old, and we are responding to that concern.
Chris Stephens
Q 416 Mr Boles, in relation to political funds, I want to outline my discomfort with dealing with this issue via the Trade Union Bill and not through other mechanisms in Parliament. Political funding should be dealt with across the board. I also point out to you that it is not just about those trade unions that fund the Labour party—those unions are in the minority, actually—but a trade union’s ability to campaign to change Government policies. The general secretary of the PCS made that point. Do you not think that it is inappropriate to deal with political funds only through this Bill and not to look at political funding arrangements across the board?
Nick Boles: I do not, and perhaps I could explain why. We have heard about the contributions that the political funds made to HOPE not hate. We certainly heard that on Second Reading. We have heard of other very worthwhile causes that are supported by unions’ political funds, but we live in a society, thank God, where there is an amazing proliferation of charities and campaign groups that are successfully and endlessly raising money from members of the public. They are lobbying for all sorts of changes in laws and practices here and around the world. It does not seem to me to be an unfair restriction or to be likely in any way to undermine the support for fantastic organisations, such as HOPE not hate, to say that if an individual wants to contribute part of their income towards an organisation, they should make an active choice to do so. That will not choke off any worthwhile campaigning activity in this country, where there is a huge array of it happening already.
Chris Stephens
Q 417 That breaches the Churchill convention, do you not agree? What you propose in the Bill breaches what has been referred to as the Churchill convention.
Nick Boles: Yes, there was a gentleman, a member of the Labour party, who gave extensive and fluent evidence earlier this morning, which we were all gripped by. He referred to a Churchill convention. Winston Churchill was a great man who said many great things, but not everything he said necessarily becomes a constitutional convention.
Chris Stephens
Q 418 Professor Ewing also referred to the Churchill convention.
Nick Boles: Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?
Chris Stephens
Q 419 Surely employers, when they are given notice of the ballot—currently, it is a seven-day period—at that point they know that there is a potential for industrial action, usually 45 days down the line. Why would you want to change the strike action period from seven days to 14?
Nick Boles: Again, this is a very revealing question and, I hope, a revealing answer. This is less about the employers than it is about the public. The public are not going to know, necessarily, because frankly we do not all read the papers or listen to the radio every day, when notice of a ballot has been given. What they will know is when a union that effectively controls a service on which they rely will have a strike. That is when the public, as colleagues of mine have adequately described, will know. Frankly, it could make a huge difference to the public if they had two weeks’ warning, rather than a week’s warning, to have to arrange emergency childcare because their school is going to close.
The Chair
I appeal to Members that we have 10 minutes or so left and five speakers. Could both Members and Ministers please be a bit more succinct?
Chris Stephens
Q 420 I will just ask Mr Hancock one question. Why have the devolved Administrations not been consulted or contacted by you in relation to facility time or check-off? Surely, they should have the right to maintain good industrial relations by keeping those things in place.
Matthew Hancock: The reason is that this area of policy is reserved, as confirmed by the Smith commission.
Chris Stephens
Q 421 Industrial relations is not reserved. That is the point. Surely, the Scottish and Welsh Governments have the right to make a policy decision on industrial relations in terms of check-off and facility time.
Matthew Hancock: This is a question of labour market policy. Labour market policy is reserved, as confirmed by Smith.
Chris Stephens
Q 422 So it is okay for a staff association to use check-off, but not a trade union?
Matthew Hancock: It is very different. There is a difference between deducting something from source when it is paid to an external and outside body compared with when it is part of a wider set of non-pecuniary remuneration such as a staff association or, indeed, a pension. These are two completely separate matters.
Chris Stephens
Q 423 Charities, credit unions—these all come off employees’ salaries. I am aware of many organisations that are external bodies that get check-off arrangements. Are you looking at them as well?
Matthew Hancock: No. It is perfectly reasonable. For instance, your pension, which is often deducted at source, is completely different. It is part of your non-cash benefits of being in work. If you look at each item on its merits, in a modern trade union system and a modern labour market—this is an area of labour market policy—it is perfectly reasonable and sensible that the relationship between a union and its members is just that and not one that is intermediated by the employer.
The Chair
Let me appeal once more, finally, to Members. You only have a few minutes left and five Members want to ask questions. To be fair to each other, make it short and make the replies short, too.
Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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John Howell
Q 247 May I follow up with one question? I am still struggling to see what harm the notice period causes.
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I do not believe it causes any harm, as such. The challenge for policing is whether it is necessary for us, how we then administer it within police forces across the country, and whether we could obtain that information in other ways, either through local authorities or directly with the employer. As I say, we do not see any direct harm in receiving it, but we feel it could be discharged in other ways.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Q 248 It may appear that I am shouting at you, but I am not; it is so the other members of the Committee can hear me. I apologise.
I have two quick questions. Do you both agree that the proposal to allow agency workers to come in and replace striking workers would result in increased tensions in the workplace and that the police would have to become more involved in those sorts of issues? What more resources would the police need to police some of the aspects in the Bill?
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I do not think it is for the police service to determine the merits of whether agency workers should come in or not. We know from disputes we have policed in the past that the mention of agency workers tends to increase tension within picket lines. I think there is certainly the possibility that that could be the case if agency workers are brought in to cross picket lines. Clearly, within that we would need to judge each situation on its merits, and potentially we would need to increase police resourcing accordingly.
Steve White: It probably would not surprise you to hear me suggest that our current resource levels in policing would make it extremely—
The Chair
Mr White, you are talking to us.
Steve White: Sorry, let me try that again. You will not be surprised to hear that, from a federation perspective, we are saying that in terms of the resource requirement needed, we would find it very hard to cope with current resource levels should there be large-scale disputes. We are finding it extremely challenging to cope with day-to-day policing with the current resource levels, and the likelihood is that they are going to become squeezed even more. If there is an increased requirement for police involvement around the policing of industrial disputes, that would be more challenging.
Chris Stephens
Q 249 And on agency workers.
Steve White: I agree with Charlie’s view. It is not for us to give a view on that.
The Chair
As you are a main Opposition spokesman, Mr Stephens, if you want to have the same amount of time as Mr Doughty, I am very relaxed about it. Are you happy?
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Q 250 Thank you for coming in today. I want to focus on the point about identification. Mr Hall, you said that it may be of benefit to be able to identify who to speak to and know who is the organiser. Is that not currently the case, in your experience of dealing with disputes?
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I think it is generally the case that you can find out that detail, but I would not say it is always the case. Certainly, when we attend, our ability to find who is supervising the picket line and discuss and negotiate with them about the way the picket is conducted enables people to continue to cross the picket line if they wish to do so and enables those on the picket to approach vehicles or individuals trying to cross the picket line. It is always helpful if we can fairly quickly identify who that supervision is. Generally we can do it, but that is not always the case.
Seema Kennedy
Q 276 Could you describe some of the effects that has had on the workers?
David Palmer-Jones: Clearly, people feel very intimidated. They have now moved from Wilton to our other sites within the north-east, where we have a number of energy-from-waste plants. They attended yesterday another protest—the 29th protest—so they seem to be changing tactics. They disrupt local people. They stop the traffic. They cause an undue amount of disruption, and it is not nice for people to have to go through picket lines, with people only yesterday saying, “We know where you live. We’re going to visit you.” It is not at all something I can condone. We have to protect my staff. I have come here to protect my staff. It is really important that you understand the normal situation. I am not an employment lawyer at all, as you can hear; I just see the effects on our business and on my feelings about whether I continue to invest in Teesside in the future.
Chris Stephens
Q 277 I have some questions for Commissioner Dobson. Could you confirm whether you believe that the evidence collected in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consultation on intimidation in the fire and rescue services is pretty thin? Could you also confirm that according to the Carr review, the decline in allegations of intimidation between the two disputes you referred to was down to better contingency planning? Given that you have intimated that industrial relations are more positive, would that not demonstrate that the Bill is unnecessary?
Commissioner Dobson: In relation to the evidence submitted to the Carr review, the majority of that is in relation to the London fire brigade during the 2010 local dispute. The evidence there is not thin; it is quite substantial in terms of the intimidation and bullying that some non-striking workers and people who were providing our contingency plan experienced. I would not say the evidence was thin. I do not have any particular basis on which to compare it with other industries, so the evidence is as it is.
My view is that the relationships with the Fire Brigades Union are difficult at times, but they are being managed well and are improving. We are working very hard to improve relationships, and I do not see anything in the Bill that would particularly make relationships between management in the London fire brigade and the Fire Brigades Union worse. There are potentially some safeguards within the Bill that would help both the London fire brigade and the Fire Brigades Union in respect of our relationships.
Chris Stephens
Q 278 Okay. The Carr review said that allegations of intimidation decreased between those two disputes because of contingency planning. Do you agree with that?
Commissioner Dobson: There are a number of reasons why bullying and intimidation decreased in the national dispute. There are differences between a local dispute and a national dispute, and the feelings they generate among the people going on strike and the unions. We learnt some lessons in terms of the management of the strikes during the 2010 dispute. It is true to say that, managerially, we have put some things in place to try to prevent intimidation of non-striking workers and the blockade of workplaces. We learnt some things and we think we did well.
During the 2010 dispute, because of some of the behaviours in relation to picket lines and striking workers elsewhere in London following around our contingency crews and trying to intimidate them at the incident ground, we sought to go to court to have the code of conduct on picketing enforced. We did not actually need to get the court order in the end, because we managed to reach agreement with the Fire Brigades Union prior to getting to court. Since that agreement was made and the code of conduct was adhered to, we have seen much lower levels of intimidation and bullying. The conduct of the picket lines and the strike generally in the past two years has been in line with how we would expect people to behave.
Chris Stephens
Q 279 I have one last question. My understanding is that you gave evidence to the Carr review.
Commissioner Dobson: No, I did not.
Chris Stephens
Q 280 Okay. Did you have any private meetings with Mr Carr?
Commissioner Dobson: I did. I had a private meeting with Mr Carr.
Chris Stephens
Q 281 Was that in a professional or personal capacity?
Commissioner Dobson: It was professional, because I was commissioner for London, but it was in my personal opinion, rather than that of my fire authority.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
Q 282 Mr Palmer-Jones, you were just touching on intimidation and the picket line you saw yesterday. Could you tell us a bit more?
David Palmer-Jones: I was not actually there yesterday, but we had reports back from my staff. Again, there is a movement from the Wilton construction site to our own sites and threats of other, secondary protesting. That was why I was very keen to come today, to explain the grey area that could expand.
Chris Stephens
Q 315 Just a quick question to Commissioner Dobson. In an answer to Mr Cartlidge, you indicated that you agree with the thresholds in the Bill. Is that your private opinion or were you speaking for you organisation?
Commissioner Dobson: That is my opinion.
The Chair
Thank you very much for your evidence, gentlemen.
Examination of Witness
Byron Taylor gave evidence.
Nick Boles
We do not intend to intrude upon the conversation among members of the Labour party, who seem to be having a very good time.
Chris Stephens
Q 320 Just a couple of questions, Mr Taylor. Can you confirm that, in many cases, the workplace will be multi-union and that some unions will be affiliated to the Labour party, and some will not? Therefore, many people already have the choice, because they can choose which trade union to join depending on whether they want to fund the Labour party or not. I should have congratulated you on the fact that you separated Scotland from the UK when you referred to plastic bags, and I welcome that.
I must emphasise to you, as someone who is a trade union activist, that if trade union members are uncomfortable with the trade unions’ relationship with the Labour party, it is up to them to raise that, and there are plenty of democratic opportunities for them to do so. It is also up to the Labour party to justify to the trade unions why it should be funded. The political funds are not just about the Labour party; there are many organisations that receive money from political funds, such as HOPE not hate, so what impact would there be on them?
Byron Taylor: Multi-union representation in the workplace is a reality. I used to organise British Bakeries down in Avonmouth docks, where we had seven trade unions on site. There are a clear number of trade unions, and members can join the appropriate one as they see fit. As for the political fund and its use, it is important to recognise that trade unions do not simply use the political fund for the purposes of the Labour party. There are 52 trade unions here in the UK, 13 of which are affiliated to the Labour party. In the other trade unions, there are a good couple of million people out there paying the political levy to allow their union to conduct political activity. That is what the political fund is for; it is for the conducting of political activity.
There is a proud history for the trade union movement of political activity: the campaign for the eight-hour day, the minimum wage, universal suffrage, campaigns for the NHS, campaigns for housing, peace movements after the second world war—all those things have been supported out of the political fund, and they are appropriate uses for it. What is being proposed is to strip trade unions of that political voice to a great extent. My real fear about this Bill is that it is designed to reduce participation in political activity. Such activity is well established. The European Court ruled just eight years ago that it is perfectly legitimate for trade unions to conduct political activity. The Court said:
“They are not bodies solely devoted to politically-neutral aspects of the wellbeing of their members, but are often ideological, with strongly held views on social and political issues.”
That is a legitimate role for trade unions.
Ian Mearns
Q 335 Mr Taylor, have you ever made a contribution to the Conservative party by means of buying a good or service from a company whose profits from that transaction were then used to make a donation to the Conservative party?
Byron Taylor: I have, and I had no opt-out from that.
Chris Stephens
Q 336 Just one quick question, Mr Taylor. When it comes to legislation affecting elections, party political administration and funding, or trade union political funding, do you agree with me that it should have the agreement of either all the political parties represented in the House of Commons or a majority of the political parties represented in the House of Commons?
Byron Taylor: Yes. This comes back to my initial point about the Churchill convention, which has existed in UK law for the best part of 80 years, and I will say it again:
“It is a well-established custom that matters affecting the interests of rival parties should not be settled by the imposition of the will of one side over another, but an agreement reached either between the leaders of the main parties or by conferences under the impartial guidance of Mr Speaker.”—[Official Report, 16 February 1948; Vol. 447, c. 859.]
Even Margaret Thatcher realised the danger of interfering in the affairs of other parties. What is being created here is a circumstance in which the party of government is seeking to undermine the party of opposition. That is a very dangerous place to go in our democracy. It is deeply concerning that we find ourselves here, discussing a matter of this kind, when there is no clear agreement between the main parties.
The Chair
I think that is it. Thank you very much, Mr Taylor, for your evidence.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Stephen Barclay.)
Trade Union Bill (Second sitting)
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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John Howell
Q 105 Would you like to give us a view of what you think it will look like, and how the Bill would affect that in five to 10 years’ time?
Julia Manning: Again, I will try not to get too technical or philosophical. The Bill does not go into the detail of the many different NHS roles and responsibilities, but those are going to change. As patients, as the public and as what we call “participatients”, we will have information and access to all sorts of things that we currently do not have access to, which have been the preserve of the NHS. Down the line, the impact of action could be quite different because of what we as the public will have access to, which will no longer be within the control of NHS professionals. That is something we should be mindful of.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Q 106 It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan.
I would first like to ask: are you aware that the current law in terms of trade unions participating in industrial action is that they must provide life and limb cover? If so, does that assuage your fears? In addition, what surveys have you taken of the members in your organisation? You did intimate to Mr Doughty that you are organised across the UK. Also, do you believe that, with any changes at all within any of the health services across the UK, there has to be a negotiated change and a mutual partnership arrangement between employers and the trade unions?
Julia Manning: On the first point, in terms of like for like—
Chris Stephens
Sorry, it is life and limb cover. Trade unions are legally obliged to provide life and limb cover in any industrial action.
Julia Manning: Sorry, could you repeat the question?
Chris Stephens
Basically, are you aware that trade unions have to provide life and limb cover in an industrial dispute? Does that assuage your fears of what is currently taking place in the workplace? Are you more relaxed that because a trade union under current law has to provide life and limb cover that you are comfortable with that? You have raised a lot of points on some of the earlier questions about the impact on patients.
Julia Manning: My concern with that is about the projected increase in the number of patients and, therefore, the workforce we will potentially need. We already have shortages in skill sets in all sorts of areas. If I understand you correctly, the opportunity to provide cover is going to be harder.
Chris Stephens
Q 107 Do you know what life and limb cover actually is?
Julia Manning: Give me your definition.
Chris Stephens
Q 108 In an industrial dispute a trade union is obliged to maintain services while workers are on strike, and to provide cover in case of emergencies: health and safety emergencies, for example. In the NHS, there would have to be some sort of provision for those who are critically ill. Have you considered the life and limb cover issues that are in existing trade union legislation?
Julia Manning: As an organisation, no we have not.
John Howell
Q 142 Would you like to sum up the overall impact?
Janet Cooke: It is the attrition. For the first strike, people can often make other arrangements. Strikes have a particular impact on people in jobs where they do not have flexibility. I could work from home if I could not get into work or I could start late and finish late, or whatever. People working in critical, front-line jobs, who do not have that flexibility, are affected disproportionately, because they have no options.
David Sidebottom: Back in 2009-10, London Midland inconvenienced passengers as a result of its inability to roster railway staff to work on Sundays. That is a traditional working pattern that was provided largely through overtime and informal arrangements. We have seen a bit of that with one or two other train operators in recent years, but not on a large scale.
The bigger impact for passengers is short notice and cancellations. It is not a week’s or two weeks’ notice. The ability of a train company to buy out those working arrangements is very much between it, the unions and the staff. It seems to be something that is not quite cured yet. I do not know how that would fit with the Bill, but it does come across as inconveniencing passengers slightly more.
Chris Stephens
Q 143 I just have one question for the organisations. If for any reason existing staff, in this case train drivers or bus drivers, were replaced by agency workers, who would be inadequately trained, that would cause both your organisations concern for passenger safety.
David Sidebottom: If that manifested itself to us through representations from passengers, it would of course, yes.
Janet Cooke: Whether they were staff employed by the operator or agency staff, if they were not properly trained, it would be inappropriate for them to work.
James Cartlidge
Q 144 I want to focus on the point about timing of ballots. You may be aware that the Bill introduces a four-month time limit. You are talking about the uncertainty caused by striking. It seems that it is on the transport network that these long-standing ballots have been used. What is your view? Do you support that time limit, so that there is greater certainty for yourselves and your passengers?
David Sidebottom: The message that we get loud and clear from passengers whenever there is any disruption, whether it be industrial action, bad weather, or engineering works is, “Get me out of the mess that you are putting me into. Give me the options, give me the information on which I can make choices. When I get up in the morning, is my train going to run, because there are three inches of snow outside and the wind has been blowing, or is there a threat of industrial action?” The requirement for quality information comes across loud and clear.
The Chair
Can I just help you? We have got a lot of names down to ask questions and you have got a very short period of time to answer. If you feel that you want to give a fuller answer than you can on the floor, it is open for the Committee to receive written documentation. If, on any of the questions put to you, you do not think that you fully replied, you are more than entitled to submit more evidence in writing to the Members of the Committee, who will read that and take it into account in their deliberations.
Chris Stephens
Q 162 I want to ask Amnesty and Liberty if they have done any analysis on the basis of thresholds and the impact that would have on gender equality issues. For example, female workers are probably more affected by shift changes than male workers. Have you done any analysis on the democratic mandate of the devolved Administrations and other public bodies in terms of check-off and facility time as proposed by the Government?
Mr Smith, a lot of people watching these proceedings will wonder what a blacklist is. What are the consequences for a picket supervisor who is put on a blacklist?
Sara Ogilvie: On the issue of gender inequality, this was a surprising statistic to me: there are more female trade union members than male trade union members. So it seems likely that reducing the right to strike of trade unionists will impact more on women. Certainly, when we look at low-paid jobs across society, many more women are employed in them than men.
I am ashamed to say that I do not know a huge amount about how much it will impact on the devolution settlement. I am aware, however, that the proposals in the Bill do not seem to reflect adequately the make-up of government, local authorities and other public bodies in Scotland and Wales. If the proposals are to be introduced—I hope that they will not be—there will need to be much further thought about how they will work in practice.
Shane Enright: Briefly, I have seen figures—I do not have them in front of me—from the TUC that indicate that 72% of those who will be affected by these public sector strike thresholds are women. Women represent a greater proportion of employees in the public sector and, as mentioned, are now a majority of trade unionists overall in our economy. Inevitably, there will be a disproportionate impact on women workers and their ability to defend their interests, pay and conditions in the public sector.
Dave Smith: Blacklisting is not a myth. When we talk about this, people sometimes think we are making it up. The impact on the 3,213 people whose files were found in the construction industry has been that every time they applied for a job, because their name was on this list—this is the key thing for us: the police are going to be holding a list, and the police have been complicit in the blacklisting that has been going on in the building industry. The building industry will not be something special; it will happen everywhere. The impact was that every time we applied for a job, our name was checked to see if it was on this list. If it was, you were dismissed or not given a job in the first place. It means that people had massive periods of unemployment, even though they were very skilled workers, and, prior to becoming involved in a union, had unblemished unemployment records. It means that people lost their houses. It means family breakdowns and divorces, and in some cases, we have reported that there have been suicides.
To be crystal clear about this, I would like to quote something put out last week by Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska and VINCI. They changed their defence to say that they were actually involved in blacklisting and have produced new documents. The statement from their PR people says that the new documents
“contain a full and unreserved apology for our part in a vetting information system run in the construction industry first through the Economic League and subsequently through The Consulting Association; we recognise and regret the impact it had on employment opportunities for those workers affected and for any distress and anxiety it caused to them and their families.”
My fear, which I keep repeating, is that blacklisting exists and that police involvement in blacklisting is a fact. Last week, I was at the High Court. Theresa May has set up the Pitchford inquiry—
The Chair
Mr Smith, I have been really quite kind. You went very wide of the mark. If you get the documentation you refer to and wish to submit a new written piece to the Committee, I will more than willingly distribute it, but I am going to move the Committee on at this stage. We need to get more questions in, because we have little time left.
John Howell
Q 189 And the effect of the thresholds in the Bill?
Tony Wilson: To me, the thresholds are all about proportionality. We rely entirely on collective bargaining within our organisation. We have a very good relationship with Unite. Across many years, I have never had any great issue with them. For us, it is the fact that very low numbers of the organisation can dictate to the mass. Some of that is to do with the fact that our particular company has quite a low percentage of union members in the first place, but even they do not all go and vote. I think something like 12% of the total bus driver workforce actually voted yes and dictated to the vast majority.
I heard something earlier on about picket lines. On 13 January, there was no police presence on our picket lines, but there were a lot of people, and a lot of staff who would otherwise have come to work were deterred from doing so. Most pickets were not particularly antagonistic—some were a bit different—but the sheer number of people that they had to pass to get into work was a barrier to them. At one depot, the roadway was blocked, so we could not actually get buses in and out. On the second day, co-ordinating with Transport for London, we had a large police presence on all of our sites. It was far more organised and there was a lot less disruption. It was noticeable that people do not want to come to work and cross that barrier. Whether on the day or the stigma afterwards, they do not feel comfortable.
Chris Stephens
Q 190 This is a question to the TaxPayers Alliance. I know from my previous employment that your organisation is well-versed in freedom of information. In relation to facility time, what do you consider to be a trade union duty and what do you consider to be a trade union activity? When you have done research into facility time, have you been able to establish how many trade union activists have had either part or all of their salary paid by a trade union?
In terms of check-off, why is it correct that public sector employees—even those who would be in a staff association—can pay council tax, rent and charitable donations via check-off, but not a trade union?
My last question goes back to the taxpayers and the democratic mandate. If a political party has been elected in a devolved Administration or a public authority and it has a democratic mandate to carry out good industrial relations by providing check-off, either charitable or free, or good facility time, who is anybody to interfere in that? Surely, it has the democratic mandate and the taxpayer has made that decision.
Jonathan Isaby: There are quite a few points there. You talked about the difference between activities and duties. Those things are defined, are they not? ACAS has defined them and our most recent report quotes exactly what they are.
Chris Stephens
Q 191 Have you specifically asked employers what duties and activities are in a major freedom of information request?
Jonathan Isaby: No. I am not sure of the wording of the exact request that we put in, but the difference is that employees can take paid time off for duties, while the time off for activities is unpaid. What we are concerned about is the paid time off when it is taxpayer-funded time that is being used.
Obviously, in that respect, we are talking here about duties rather than activities, although this comes back to the point that we uncovered. I think I am right in saying that it was 344 public sector bodies, of which 154 were local authorities, 122 were NHS trusts and 37 were quangos, that either did not record facility time or only recorded it partially. That comes back to the whole issue that this Bill is seeking to address: it is unclear how much additional subsidy unions are getting and whether time is being spent on activities rather than duties, which is absolutely not what the current law envisages. That is why it is right that the law should be seeking to better define this.
Chris Stephens
Q 192 But you are making an allegation—I want to be clear about your answer—that in the public sector what is being allowed to happen is that activities that should be unpaid are being paid. Is that what you are alleging?
Jonathan Isaby: We do not know. The fact that so many bodies—literally hundreds of public sector bodies—are not properly recording this means that we have no idea. They are not recording it. Therefore, I think the Bill is absolutely right to be saying that this should be recorded properly, so that there can be proper accountability and knowledge that there is absolutely no abuse going on.
Chris Stephens
Q 193 So have you established that the trade unions make a contribution to employees on facility time?
Jonathan Isaby: Obviously, trade unions have people that they employ and they are not solely funded by the taxpayer, but there is clearly a big subsidy here.
Chris Stephens
Q 194 Trade unions give money to public sector employers for some trade union activists who are on facility time, usually in cases of full-time facility time. You have not been able to establish that?
Jonathan Isaby: I do not know off the top of my head the extent of that; I do not know is the honest, quick answer.
The Chair
Mr Isaby, in the context of the request that I made for Committee members, when you submit material could you also submit a paragraph or two on your view on that and how you arrive at those estimates or projections? If you can do that, it would be helpful to members of the Committee.
Jonathan Isaby: Yes, happily.
Chris Stephens
Q 195 I asked questions that I do not think I have got an answer to, in terms of check-off, and obviously the taxpayer and who represents the taxpayer in the democratic mandate.
Jonathan Isaby: If there was a check-off, I simply do not think that it is for the public sector—that is, a taxpayer-funded employer—to organise its employees’ memberships of any organisation, whether that be a trade union, a political party, the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, or whatever it might be. It is a private decision that people need to make. With direct debits and banking these days really making these things very easy for individuals to handle, there is no justification for that to be done by the employer.
Chris Stephens
Q 196 Surely, it is a contractual obligation. Have you established that in many public sector bodies there is a contractual obligation between the employee and the employer to have a check-off?
Jonathan Isaby: I simply do not accept that there should be. It is not the role of the public sector—whether it be a Government Department or a local council—to organise those things.
Chris Stephens
Q 197 That might be your view, but surely if a public body that is democratically elected has decided to put that in individual employees’ contracts, who are we to argue with that?
Jonathan Isaby: I think you are to disagree because you are the Parliament of this country, and if you change the law and say that you can no longer do that, then that will stand, surely?
Chris Stephens
Can you hear me, Minister?
Roseanna Cunningham: Yes I can. I cannot see you, but I can hear you.
Chris Stephens
Is Mr Smith there, too, from the STUC?
Roseanna Cunningham: He is sitting beside me.
Chris Stephens
Q 233 I will ask you a question first from the STUC point of view. Can you outline for the Committee what discussions the STUC has had with the Scotland Office on the Trade Union Bill? Do you have specific concerns in relation to check-off and facility time?
Grahame Smith: Perhaps I should introduce myself, given that Members may not know who I am. I am the general secretary of the Scottish TUC. I have had a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State at the Scotland Office to discuss a variety of things, among which was the Trade Union Bill.
Victoria Prentis
Q 234 Presumably, you do not think that industrial relations should be an English, Welsh and Scottish issue. You think they should be devolved.
Roseanna Cunningham: Yes, I do think they should be devolved. I would offer as evidence the different industrial relations picture here from what is happening south of the border.
Trade Union Bill (First sitting)
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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The Chair
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have a few preliminary points. Welcome to this Bill Committee. Today, we will consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence sessions. We will then have a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. Please turn off your mobile phones. Banned substances such as tea and coffee are not allowed. I am sure that, in view of the time available, we can take these early motions without debate. As we are now sitting in a public session, it might be a good point for anyone who wishes to make a declaration of interest to do so now.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I declare my membership of Unison and my trade union activity over the past 20 years as a trade union activist prior to my election.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I declare my membership of Unite the union and my trade union membership and representation as a senior rep over the past 14 years.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Q 6 It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. The Bill has already been described by Mr Doughty as “draconian”. Can you give me your impression of how much this is a fundamental change to the way that trade unions operate and how much you think it is more of a step-by-step increase in the modernisation of the trade union movement?
John Cridland: I echo Mr Martin’s comment about a failsafe. In most workplaces, relations are harmonious. Most workplaces are now not unionised, but in the unionised part of workplaces, most relationships are harmonious, and employers recognise that. There is a small minority of situations, which we have already described, where many people—businesses and consumers —are significantly disrupted. If that is to happen, and if the right to strike is to be exercised, I think it is reasonable, given the level of disruption involved, that there is clear evidence of a significant mandate. That is a modernisation of a system that is broadly working well.
Dr Adam Marshall: I would probably agree with my colleague and simply add that having an expiry for ballot mandates is an important thing in this day and age, given that we are in a more complex world for both business and industrial relations than perhaps ever before. Having a clear mandate renewed on a regular basis is very important.
David Martin: I again echo the comments. I can only refer to what I said earlier—that in the event of a breakdown in industrial relations, which does not happen very often, let us have a very clear mandate that reflects the wishes of the membership as a whole, and let us have a situation where we can minimise the overall impact on the travelling public and the UK economy at the same time.
Chris Stephens
Q 7 It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. My question is for the CBI. First, I was a bit unclear in your answer to my colleague about secure workplace balloting. You have said that trade union recognition ballots work well, but in trade union recognition ballots there is scope for secure workplace balloting. Can you clarify that?
Secondly, in your submission, you say that you are looking to extend the notice periods from seven days to 14 days on either side. That is 28 days in total, even without a ballot period. Do you not think that seven days’ notice to ballot and seven days’ notice to strike, with a period in between of at least 14 working days, is sufficient for a business to look at what they need to do and the steps that need to take place for disruption and any industrial action?
John Cridland: Thank you for the question. On your first point, the analogy I was using for trade union recognition was with ballot majorities. That is a relevant point, I think, about the ballot majorities and thresholds that the Government are proposing for the Bill. The current notice periods are inadequate. Many corporate members of the CBI faced with these situations simply do not feel that they have enough time to provide information and to put in place mitigating measures. I think the business community does want to see longer notice periods.
Chris Stephens
Q 8 Part of the difficulty, though, is that the notice for compulsory redundancy is now 45 days. The danger of the Bill—I am curious to hear your views on this—is that trade unions will have to ballot right away when an employer issues a statutory redundancy notice, because it is now 45 days. Given the timescale, does it not worry you that there will actually be more balloting, rather than less?
John Cridland: For employers, we are trying to get the principle of clear consent. If a trade union and its members are going to withdraw their labour, which is clearly their right, we want to see evidence of consent in those situations. The difficulty with the current legislation is that it can leave employers faced with a situation where there is a low turnout—we have already heard the situation that Dr Marshall described of a ballot, prior to a situation where the ballot was some period before. These are not giving clear signals to the employer. So the spirit of our evidence is, “Can we have a system that both in time and in signalling makes it much clearer to the employers the nature of the dispute, and allows the employer to deal with that?” That is what we are after.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Q 9It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Dr Marshall, you raised the point about productivity, and I just want to ask about some of the wider economic impact of the Bill, if it is passed—in particular, the impact on investment, including inward investment, and on making the UK an attractive place to invest, and perhaps, Mr Martin, in terms of your industry, on whether having greater confidence about industrial relations will enable you to have stronger management and therefore attract more investment into it.
Dr Adam Marshall: Many thanks for the question. Undoubtedly, businesses that believe that the framework for industrial relations is modern and secure will be more confident when it becomes time to invest, particularly in those industries, such as the one represented by Mr Martin, that are affected by some of the enhanced thresholds that this Bill puts in place.
We have been very supportive of the definition of which areas should fall under those enhanced thresholds, in part because those businesses are extremely capital-intensive and do things that are extremely important to the functioning of the broader business community. So whether we are talking about transport, the delivery of energy supplies and indeed—vis-à-vis the supply of future skills—whether we are talking about the education sector, these are things that have a huge knock-on effect on the rest of the economy. So we believe that these measures are proportionate to help with that particular challenge.
Vis-à-vis our attractiveness to overseas businesses, one only needs to look at the media impact of transport strikes in London—how they are reported—and what you see are the knock-on effects on the economy of this particular area, and of course we have seen that played out in other cities as well, right across the UK. That has a deterrent effect on would-be investors, and I think that we would see that deterrent effect being lessened with a modernised system.
The Chair
Okay. We have a long list of questions. You are warming up your audience, gentlemen, so we will be as brisk as we can.
Chris Stephens
Q 58 Gentlemen, both of you have extensive trade union experience. In your experience, what factors lead to low turnouts when it comes to ballots? Do you support the modernisation of the ballot process—for example, secure workplace balloting? Do you think that it is going to be more difficult to obtain industrial action on issues where there are now 45-day notices of changes to terms and conditions and voluntary redundancy? Lastly, do you think that the picket proposals will lead to more blacklisting?
Roy Rickhuss: There are a lot of questions in one there and it is difficult to answer. I am not sure why there are low turnouts in ballots. We do not experience that. In our union, we recently had a ballot on a pensions issue in one of our traditional industries and we had a well over 75% turnout. I think one issue is the way ballots are currently run. There are already significant, onerous conditions on trade unions in terms of balloting.
One issue in our response to the Bill has been the use of modern technology and electronic balloting. For the life of me, I just cannot understand why there would be any objections to that sensible move forward. I have seen some commentary saying, “Well, it’s not safe and secure.” That is so ridiculous, in fairness. You have to realise that people are not stupid; they do everything online these days. You can do all your banking, you can sign legal documents—you can do everything possible online. To suggest that you cannot vote in a ballot because it is not safe and secure undermines the whole principle of the debate. I think if we had a sensible debate about how ballots are conducted, we might make some serious progress.
Blacklisting is not an issue that my union has experienced significantly. Other unions, predominantly in the building and construction industry, obviously have major concerns about that, so yes, I would imagine that for some unions, it would be a serious concern.
John Hannett: A union like USDAW organises completely in the private sector. We operate in sectors that operate 24/7, seven days a week. My experience when I was particularly active as a union representative was that we had workplace arrangements whereby you could ballot. That used to enable people to go and vote. Of course, the world has changed and it is difficult to facilitate that kind of arrangement, but in terms of the technology, we know that the number of members who join online and who are communicating with the union online is increasing on a regular basis, so the idea of providing a new form of voting is, I think, a sensible one. Like Roy, I have heard nothing that persuades me it could not be done.
The other thing is the industrial relations side that you are picking up. We have a big productivity challenge in the UK. Everybody understands that. What I fear with many of these issues, including the argument about making it harder to run these events, is actually going the other way. So if you are really serious about turnout, you would consider electronic balloting. And in terms of engineering and encouraging good industrial relations, it is not about control mechanisms; it is about engagement, partnership and talking. In fact, if anything, I think this makes it harder for the employers, because this is seen more as controlling mechanisms than constructive relationships. I think it will have a negative impact.
The Chair
I still have seven people who want to ask questions, so from now on we will have one question and one brisk answer, if you do not mind.
Rishi Sunak
Q 84 This is the basic issue of fairness—of people’s contributions being taken without their active consent at the time of membership. We heard in earlier evidence that some unions support that but it is very much not the widespread practice among all unions to provide that information to their members. If you support transparency, it is clear today that that transparency does not exist across the entire board.
Stephen Cavalier: It is a legal requirement to tell members that they have the right to opt out of the political fund. If they wish to, they do so.
Chris Stephens
Q 85 I have several questions. First, do you agree that there is a danger in introducing thresholds—the impact that it will have on some gender equality issues, for example? Shift changes impact workers trying to pursue equal pay issues and the like. Secondly, is there a new danger of public bodies having to reissue new, individual contracts on the basis of opportunities to check-off and those sorts of issues? Do you see any impact on the devolved Administrations given that your organisation has offices across the UK?
Stephen Cavalier: First, on the equality point, the TUC has already submitted evidence. There is a disproportionate impact of thresholds on women workers; it is absolutely clear that there is a discriminatory impact. On the question of check-off and facility time, we are also a large employer. We have check-off and facility time and we are pleased to do so. It is something that we have agreed with our workforce and it works very well for us. I very much endorse the comments made in a 2012 paper by called “Stop the Union-Bashing” by Robert Halfon MP, who says that Whitehall should not dictate to employers and that it should be a matter for employers to agree facility time. I commend that paper to the Committee. It is certainly right that employers should agree facility time and check-off. It is a matter for them.
There are serious issues here associated with the devolved Administrations. As I understand it, they have the right to determine these arrangements within their own spheres. This does cut across that, and it does so in a very negative way. It is very concerning that the impact assessment itself—in fact, I think the European convention assessment that the Government have produced says specifically that this removal of existing contractual arrangements and collective agreements may have retrospective effect. That is a serious potential breach of article 1, protocol 1 of the European convention.
James Cartlidge
Q 86 Thank you both for coming. You have both spoken about thresholds and their potential impact, but neither of you seem to have focused on the key point that matters to the country at large, which is that it is so unfair to our commuters, our parents and so on that their public services can be brought down for days on low turnouts. We heard earlier from Arriva that on a 17% ballot, 50% of their buses were out for a day, causing massive disruption to its passengers. Do you not accept, in principle, that it is right to deal with that?
Mike Emmott: Our view is that although it is conceivable that the increased threshold will influence the outcome in some cases, it is quite unclear whether it is going to make striking more or less likely. There are lots of way of causing problems. We do not have a view on whether or not the thresholds are right in principle. We simply take the view that they are just as likely to cause more trouble as they are to reduce it.
Trade Union Bill
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sajid Javid
It is good enough for all sectors. There is nothing wrong with facility time—the Bill is clear about that—but it should be open and transparent, and the current rules do not ensure that.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Why have the Government not consulted the devolved Administrations and local authorities across the UK about facility time? They would tell him about its benefits, because these employers and organisations see the benefits of facility time.
Sajid Javid
I am a bit baffled by the hon. Gentleman’s question because there are three consultations that relate to the Bill. The main consultation is a nine-week consultation and it is open to every stakeholder in the United Kingdom, including those in Scotland.
Finally, the Bill enhances the role of the certification officer—a role that has served workers, unions and employers well over the past 40 years. It equips the certification officer with appropriate new powers for a modern regulator, such as allowing investigations to begin based on information from a variety of sources, without having to wait for specific complaints from union members.
For the first time, the certification officer will have the ability to impose financial penalties on unions that do not comply with statutory requirements—the very requirements that Parliament has deemed necessary. The Bill passes the cost of that regulation on to the unions. That is entirely in line with modern best practice. It is why banks fund the Financial Conduct Authority and why utility regulators are paid for by utility firms.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I rise in total opposition to this Bill. Let me declare my Unison membership and my 20 years of trade union activity before my election. In my maiden speech in this place, I said:
“The trade union movement gave me a political education and the confidence to stand for election, and I know that this experience is shared with other Members who did not have a privileged start in life.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 832.]
I will never be ashamed of being a trade unionist.
The irony of this Bill is that it comes from a political party that believes the answer in today’s world is to deregulate—except in the case of the trade union movement and trade union law. The unions are subjected to heavy regulation, which the Tories bitterly oppose in other circumstances. This is a timely reminder that this Government fear the trade union movement and that this Government know they can be defeated. That is because the trade union movement is the largest group in civic society that stands up against exploitation. The Bill will lead to a deterioration of good industrial relations and it has no support within public opinion. It is designed to reduce civil liberties and human rights.
The Bill also displays a remarkable ignorance—we have heard about that from several speakers already. The Government attempt to justify this Bill by citing industrial action that actually meets the thresholds. The Bill seeks to introduce the 40% rule, but I think it is dangerous for this Government to introduce that rule because the last time a Government tried to introduce such a rule, which affected Scotland, they had a low majority and they ended up being kicked out in a vote of no confidence. We will have the situation where dead people will be described as “not supporting” industrial action. That is why the thresholds are dangerous.
Mr MacNeil
Does my hon. Friend not think it even stranger that the 40% threshold is demanded by a Government who got only 24% of the electorate vote overall and only 10.5% of the electorate vote in Scotland? They were rejected by 90% of the voters of Scotland.
Chris Stephens
Yes, I agree. In Scotland, at the last election, the Conservative party received its lowest share of the vote since universal suffrage began. If the Government are going to introduce thresholds, they need to consider securing workplace balloting, which could be easily sorted out by Electoral Reform Services, or online voting. Political parties use online voting when selecting their candidates, so the suggestion that there might be fraud is nonsense.
Angela Rayner
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that some of the rhetoric we have heard from Conservative Members is offensive to public sector workers, who do not take strike action at the drop of a hat and who are dedicated public servants? I am talking about home carers, cleaners, cooks, social workers, bin men, bin women and all those other people who safeguard our public services today. They do not take strike action at the drop of a hat, and it is disgraceful that Conservative Members have been using this rhetoric today.
Chris Stephens
I agree completely, and I will give some examples confirming what the hon. Lady describes. Introducing online voting and securing workplace balloting would be modernisation. We keep hearing about modernisation from Conservative Members, and we will come on to deal with it.
The other danger about thresholds relates to issues of equality and, in particular, gender equality. We know that in some male-dominated trade union workplaces women who have young families are affected when there are shift changes, and thresholds would have an impact on the rights of women workers to pursue industrial action on that basis. That happened recently in the case of a fire brigade control service in Essex.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
We have heard rhetoric from Conservative Members about how the Bill will help hard-working people go about their business. Does the hon. Gentleman not therefore find it ironic that curtailing the rights of working people to organise collectively through trade unions, which is what this Bill is designed to do, will stop those people arguing for and bargaining for better working conditions?
Chris Stephens
Yes, I do. The Bill is designed to continue austerity—that is exactly what it is about. It is about trying to curb the largest organisation in the UK that is campaigning against austerity.
These issues of gender equality are very important, because recent trends have shown that what is on the increase is pregnant workers being dismissed and women workers coming back from maternity leave being made redundant. That is a recent phenomenon and this Parliament will need to address it. The Government have not taken any of those issues into account. As we heard earlier, 270 Conservative Members would not have been elected if those thresholds had been in place.
There is also the issue of the deadlines on ballot times. I was interested to hear the Secretary of State say that industrial action would not be curbed, but in actual fact it could be. Let us say that a large employer issued a 45-day redundancy notice. If the trade unions have to give 14 days’ notice of a ballot and 14 days’ notice to take industrial action, it will be very difficult for them to organise themselves within that timeframe, and it could well make industrial action impossible.
We oppose the changes on political funds. This is about not just party politics and attacking the Labour party, but the general campaigning that the trade unions fund as well. I am talking here about equal pay; stronger maternity leave; 50:50 gender representation; and giving money to organisations such as HOPE not hate and other anti-racist organisations, community groups, and international aid organisations such as Justice for Colombia and Medical Aid for Palestine.
Dawn Butler
On that point, the Bakers Union is campaigning for fair rights for fast food workers, and is trying to increase hourly pay in America from $7 to $15 and in the UK to £10. Does the hon. Gentleman think that this measure is trying to restrict that kind of activity?
Chris Stephens
That is exactly what it is designed to do. This attack is to weaken the rights of trade union members. When it comes to political funds, it should be up to the trade union members to decide. If members have issues about who trade unions are funding, it is up to them to organise themselves and to take up the matter with their trade unions—just as I always do. When my union funds a campaign that I might not necessarily support, I am told, quite rightly, that it should be up to us to organise.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this area is much regulated at the moment? Not only do union members have to vote every 10 years on whether they want a political fund, but individuals also have a right to opt out of a political fund at any time they want. All the accounts of a political fund must be not only validated by the internal accountants but published. How much more transparency can we get?
Chris Stephens
Yes, indeed. I think the system is transparent. In my own trade union, we had the choice to fund the affiliated political fund within Unison or the general political fund, or even to opt out of the political fund.
The other danger with this Bill is that it politicises the role of the certification officer. We are also concerned with the new proposals on picketing and providing names. Such measures can only result in a new blacklist. Anyone who is a picket might as well wear two armbands—“union picket” on one arm and “blacklist me” on the other. That sets a very dangerous precedent. It also does not take into account the fact that Scotland and England have different criminal laws. I believe that is why we have heard comparisons with Franco’s regime.
The other concern relates to agency workers who are not supported by the agencies themselves. That can lead only to distrust within a workplace between those who are agency workers and those who work for the employer. Any time an employer asks a trade union about bringing in agency workers, there will immediately be suspicions about what the employer is up to. It is a rogue employers’ charter and the Government must think again on the matter.
I want to talk about check-off and facility time, and the incredible statements we have heard from the Government in that regard. I submitted a written parliamentary question on check-off and received the following answer from the Cabinet Office:
“It is no longer appropriate for public sector employers to carry the administrative burden of providing a check off facility for those trade unions that have not yet modernised their subscription arrangements. Employers are under no obligation to offer this service. There would therefore be no cost associated with an employer not providing this service”.
That shows a lot of ignorance, because what the Government appear not to know—they seem blissfully unaware of this—is that in many instances trade unions pay for check-off and for workers on facility time.
Let me give some examples of the deductions that could be made from a worker’s salary: charities’ give-as-you-earn, season ticket loans, credit union payments, staff associations—under these proposals there can be deductions for staff associations, but not for trade unions—bicycle loans, council tax and rent. Those are just examples of what can be deducted from a worker’s salary, and the Government call removing check-off modernisation! What a ludicrous suggestion.
Chris Philp
First, all the examples that the hon. Gentleman has just given involve the employee opting in, rather than opting out, which is exactly what this legislation proposes. Secondly, of the 972 public bodies that do check-off fees, only 213—that is 22%—charge for the service; 78% do it for free.
Chris Stephens
The point is that they have chosen to provide the service for free. If there was a genuine consultation on this, many public bodies, including the Scottish and Welsh Governments, would say that they are not interested in removing check-off. Indeed, my former employer, Glasgow City Council, has today said that it is not interested and that it will ignore the request. The hon. Gentleman appears to suggest that people join trade unions automatically, but that is not the case. I signed a form and decided to tick my political fund arrangements on that basis.
Our view is that the Government have no right to interfere in the industrial relations of councils, health boards or devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom. Facility time improves industrial relations. It negates issues that would otherwise go to tribunal. If an employer has good facility time arrangements, disciplinary hearings and grievance hearings, for example, are conducted in a timeous fashion. If facility time is interfered with, those timescales will slip. Facility time is a good thing; it is good for industrial relations and it gets things done.
Geraint Davies
Do the hon. Gentleman’s points not illustrate that this Bill is causing division where there was harmony—between the nations, within organisations, between agency workers and workers, and between management and workers—and that it will therefore undermine productivity, cause conflict and protest and be contrary to its alleged objectives? In fact, it is just an ideological, mean-spirited measure that should be voted down by any sensible person.
Chris Stephens
I agree. The Bill is an ideological assault against the largest group in civic society that is standing up to the Government’s policies and to austerity.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman familiar with what the International Monetary Fund has said about the benefits of collective bargaining when it comes to economic success and prosperity? The Government are clearly either unaware of the IMF’s support for strong trade unions or not interested in having strong trade unions.
Chris Stephens
I agree, because what has happened to collective bargaining is tragic. In 1979, for example, 81% of workers in Scotland had their pay determined by collective bargaining, but that figure is now 23%. Collective bargaining should be encouraged across the board, because it leads to higher wages.
The Government should be going in the opposite direction. We need stronger trade union rights and stronger employment rights in this country. It cannot be right that an employer can issue a 45-day redundancy notice to a worker. That was one of the big mistakes of the previous Administration. We believe that trade unions have the right to bargain collectively. We believe that this Bill seeks to undermine the great work of the trade union movement. It is a 19th-century solution in a 21st-century world.
Martin John Docherty (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this Bill by the British Government is a real threat to the positive working relationships between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Trades Union Congress? The secretary-general of the STUC has said:
“The Westminster Government is essentially arguing, on the basis of an apparent desire to save ‘taxpayers money’ that the Scottish Government”—
a devolved Government in this United Kingdom—
“should not be allowed . . . to promote positive working relationships”.
Should not this Bill just be thrown out, because if we are “better together” it doesn’t bloody well feel like it?
Martin John Docherty
I will rephrase it, Madam Deputy Speaker. It feels like murder. [Interruption.]
Chris Stephens
Murderopolis, indeed.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The TUC, the STUC and the TUC in Wales are having these discussions. The STUC and the Scottish Government oppose the Bill, and the TUC in Wales and the Welsh Government oppose it. Local authorities oppose it. Health boards oppose it. It has no support whatsoever across the public services.
Chris Stephens
I am just finishing.
The Bill is an attack on our civil liberties and our human rights. As such, it does not deserve a Second Reading.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I will be a lot brisker than the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). I hope I will be able to get through what I want to say in three or four minutes. If I do it briskly enough I will irritate everybody in this debate, because there are fallacies on all sides. I was not going to declare an interest, but the contribution by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) has provoked me. I do not have a financial interest, but my grandfather was blacklisted.
Mr Davis
The reason those comments resonate with me is that my grandfather, who brought me up, was as a young man blacklisted and unemployed for 17 years because he was an organiser in the coalfields in the north-east. The House will understand that I am a little sensitive to some of the impingements on civil liberties that can come out of industrial relations.
It is a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. I keep calling him my right hon. Friend. He was a fabulously good trade union leader. As we just heard, he is a great debater, but he and I have also served occasionally on the same side in negotiations. Every single time, we managed to get an outcome that was helpful to the workforce and to the companies we were dealing with. That does not mean, however, that he has everything right here.
I have been very helpful to the Labour party in some of the comments I have made, but I will say this: there is an issue when a monopoly—it does not matter whether it is a private or public sector monopoly—goes on strike. The victim is then the public. It is not the workforce, because they tend to get their money back in overtime, and it is certainly not the owners, because their market share does not go away and they do not lose anything. The public, however, have nowhere else to go. I have some sympathy with much of Labour Members’ criticisms of the Bill, but they have to address this issue: how do we deal with a problem where action by a trade union, without proper and sufficient support from its membership, discomforts the public very badly?
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I rise to oppose the Bill in the strongest terms on behalf of Plaid Cymru. As the son of a retired trade union shop steward and the representative of an area steeped in coal-mining history, I value the role the trade union movement has played in advancing the lives of working people since it was legalised in 1871. It should be remembered that a royal commission in 1867 advocated the legalisation of unions as it would benefit both employees and, crucially, employers. My party believes that instead of pursuing further draconian measures aimed at restricting trade union activity, a speedy inquiry on industrial relations and employee rights should be convened to look into the role trade unions should play in a modern economy and the challenges faced by working people, such as zero-hours contracts, low pay and the increasing lack of workplace rights.
If we are serious about creating a more socially just society, trade unions have a vital role to play. Instead of reducing their influence, I would like to see Government action to increase workplace democracy. In Germany, for instance, in an economy that has outperformed the UK’s over many decades and is more balanced both in terms of industrial sectors and geographical wealth, trade unions play a key economic role in formulating industrial strategy. In the German legal framework of co-determination, representatives also sit on company boards, giving workers a direct say on company strategy and the hiring of management. I would also add that Germany’s decentralist federal governance system has also greatly helped to distribute its economic success more evenly geographically, unlike in the UK.
The Bill has been labelled the biggest attack on trade union activity for 30 years and follows a long line of anti-trade union laws brought in by Conservative Governments, most of which were not overturned by Labour Governments between 1997 and 2010.
Chris Stephens
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that there are trade union traditions within many of the political parties, even the Conservative party, which has the equivalent of what can only be described as a “walk out”—a privilege denied to the trade union movement in this country?
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful for that well-made point. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech as the spokesman for the SNP.
By my counting, there were 10 Acts between 1980 and 1996 that attacked the trade unions. The coalition Government, much to their shame, tied in a further assault on trade unions with the issue of trust in politics in the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014.
The Bill aims to make it more difficult to take industrial action by forcing unions to give further notice before striking, introducing even higher thresholds for successful strike ballots and further restricting the right to picket. I note from elsewhere—this is critical to how the Bill will work—that the Government are minded to allow employers to bring in agency workers in the event of a strike. They are consulting on that currently. The Bill will undermine facility time, which will reduce the ability of union officials to represent their members at work.
The UK has some of the most restrictive trade union laws in the western world. It is a shame that an early priority for the new Government is to bring in another Bill at rapid speed, less than a week after three separate consultations on some of the measures in the Bill were completed. That raises the question of whether the consultations were valid exercises.
The Bill applies to Wales, Scotland and England. It does not apply to Northern Ireland, where employment law is a devolved issue. Regressive measures such as those in the Bill should make progressive politicians and individuals in Wales consider whether the responsibility for these issues should be devolved, instead of being held here in Westminster. I note that the Scottish Government are keen to press ahead with the devolution of employment rights. If these issues were devolved to Wales under a future Plaid Cymru Government, I suggest that there would be an alternative scenario to the one that we are faced with here today with this Bill—a scenario where the role of trade unions in the workplace and public life is enhanced, helping to shape economic and industrial strategy; one where trade unions play a pivotal role in the management structures of the public and private sectors; and one where the pay and conditions of employees are strengthened to resemble European norms.
Chris Stephens
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that this is not just an attack against one political party and that many organisations have benefited from trade union political funds?
Richard Burgon
That is right. One example is the anti-racist organisation HOPE not hate that I have enjoyed campaigning with over many years. The Government who say that they are against red tape and regulation now want the biggest voluntary member group in our country to drown in red tape and bureaucracy—or “blue tape”, as it should indeed be called. What is this obsession with things that could be done electronically being done on paper? Do we want to live in a society where supervisors must be appointed for picket lines, wear a badge or armband, and have to give their names to the police in advance? That is in clause 9.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
I agree with the hon. Lady.
What is demanded, and what we require, is a clear and unambiguous exemption from the deal that guarantees that democratically elected Governments in Scotland and beyond cannot be forced to privatise services, and that any attempts to roll back previous privatisation will not be open to challenge under the new rules. These conditions must be explicit.
We come now to one of the areas of greatest concern: the process known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. Including this type of measure in the agreement potentially undermines the right of European Governments to regulate effectively on a range of issues. As the Minister will be aware, the most relevant example of that is the recent action by the Uruguayan Government to legislate to increase the size of the health warnings on cigarette packs, in an attempt to reduce the number of people smoking and improve public health.
In response, the multinational tobacco giant, Philip Morris, used a similar process to sue the Uruguayan Government. The concern of many of us, including the Scottish Government and our trade unions, is that similar measures could be used by private organisations here to limit our democratically elected Government’s powers in a range of important areas. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) has considerable experience in this area, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I understand that if he catches your eye he hopes to raise it before the Minister replies.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that Unison Scotland has concerns about TTIP being a threat to the new public procurement legislation that has just been passed through the Scottish Parliament, whereby Scottish public bodies can take local environmental and social wellbeing concerns into account in contracts?
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s position in relation to Unison. I am about to come to Unite in a similar respect.
In February this year, SNP Members of the Scottish Parliament, led by our First Minster, signed up to a pledge proposed by Unite, which stated, amongst other clauses, that
“TTIP must not give current or future US investors new rights that they could use to sue any level of government, public authority or NHS organisation because of their policies or actions relating to public healthcare.”
My colleagues and I absolutely support that pledge. Of course we welcome the recent developments announced by the Commission in May, but there is still some distance to travel if the final agreement is to gain our full support. This Government must clearly state to our European partners that the UK will veto TTIP unless we receive an explicit exemption for the NHS and Scottish Water as part of a general public sector exemption.
We are very proud of our public services. Governments in Scotland, the UK and beyond must therefore be able to manage those services for the greater good without fear that their democratic mandate might be overruled in the courts.
Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap
Chris Stephens Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gloria De Piero
That is why I am so delighted that my hon. Friend has made that intervention. This cannot be seen as a women’s issue; it is a family issue. If women are not paid what they are due, all families are poorer and we are all poorer. It is for that reason that those of us on the Labour Benches have long argued for the gender pay gap to be measured in the difference in hourly wages among all male and female workers—full-time and part-time workers combined. The ONS and the current Government use the figure for full-time workers when referring to the gender pay gap, but that masks the true extent of the pay gap across our economy. An hour at work is an hour at work.
As I am sure everyone in this House would recognise, the gender pay gap in Britain is not simply about the difference between those performing the same work for different pay. It is about the dominance of women in low-paid work, and the lack of highly paid, high-quality flexible and part-time positions at the top of companies that allow parents to balance work and family life.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I probably should declare that I have an outstanding equal pay claim against my former employer. It is clear that a number of public bodies have a number of employees—thousands, in fact—with outstanding pay claims. How does the hon. Lady think that should be settled? Should the Government step in and discuss with public bodies how to settle these outstanding claims?
Nicky Morgan
I know that the hon. Lady is new to the House and that she will not have seen all the debates in the previous Parliament when we talked about the impact of her party—the economic legacy left to us and the justice—[Interruption.] The issue, honestly, is that the best way to have justice for women and children, given the earlier statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is to have an economy that works for all, where there are jobs for all, paying good wages, and where we help all children to reach their aspirations.
Chris Stephens
On equal pay audits and employers, some of those employers who are found liable will be public bodies. Indeed, public bodies are being taken to tribunal at the moment, as I indicated earlier, including my former employer, Glasgow City Council. If public bodies are found liable with regard to equal pay at tribunal, what action will the Government take to help them because they will say, “This is costing the taxpayer money”, and will go to the Government for some of that to be recouped?
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of course if a public body were found to be liable we would need to work out what the situation was and the context in which that had occurred, but I go back to a point that was made earlier. To be fair, the motion says, “Let’s have the transparency, and the regulations and the consultation, so we know exactly where there is a gender pay gap,” and therefore employers, before being taken to a tribunal, can address the issue for themselves, rather than—I say this as a former lawyer—providing more work for the lawyers and less immediate pay equality for people working in those organisations.
As a result of the actions this Government have taken, and as a result of having a strong economy, women are playing a greater role than ever before in the labour market. There are more women in work than ever before. There are also more women-led businesses than ever before, and critically, as the hon. Member for Ashfield said, the gender pay gap is the lowest on record—she obviously knew that I would point that out at some point. I am pleased to say that it has been virtually eliminated among full-time workers under 35.
The hon. Lady also talked about the full-time and part-time differences. That is interesting because the gender pay gap based on median hourly earnings, excluding overtime, has narrowed for full-time employees to 9.4% compared with 10% in 2013, and for part-time employees the higher rate of pay for women than men results in a negative gender pay gap. Although there is evidence that the part-time gap has widened in the long term, it has remained relatively stable in recent years, standing at minus 5.5% in April 2014. But the overall points remain: there is a gender pay gap and we would very much like to get rid of it.
While the fact that the gender pay gap has narrowed is something to celebrate, I am in no way complacent. That is why we pledged in our manifesto to go further. We will publish a consultation in the coming weeks to seek views on how best to implement our commitment to require employers to publish gender pay information.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
In a feminist debate, I am going to say, Ms Deputy Speaker, that I congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches, and I remind Members that when we say “maiden”, what we mean is someone who is inexperienced. So that is another example of sexist language that gets used.
I wonder whether Ms Deputy Speaker has read Caitlin Moran’s book, “How to be a Woman”. In it, she compels people to stand on their chairs and shout, “I am a feminist”. If the motion is carried today, perhaps the Speaker would allow us the indulgence of standing on these Green Benches altogether to shout those very words. If it passes throughout the House, we will have done something really feminist. I proudly say that I am a feminist and that a bit of feminist marauding would be a welcome relief from some of the groaning we normally get.
Taking the title of Ms Moran’s book, “How to be a Woman”, it seems that the answer before us today is very simple. It is to get paid less. In my constituency, for every pound a man earns, a woman earns 83p. This is not always because women are simply being paid less for the same job, although that is obviously a feature; it is because we simply value less the work that women do.
I went to university and I have two degrees. After leaving university, I had the misfortune of having two children—both sons, incidentally, so I cannot ring the daughter bell. I went back to work quite quickly, thanks to the tax credits I received, which enabled me to do that. For the first seven years of my career, I earned less than my husband. I am sure he will not mind my saying that I am not sure that he even has a GCSE. The work he did was what is considered to be man’s work—he is a lift engineer—and, after all, I was working only in a charity, helping victims of domestic and sexual violence. The value is there for all to see.
Like so many local authorities across the country, Birmingham has paid the price for the lack of equal pay in exceptionally costly—and, I am afraid to say, bankrupting—court settlements, with care workers, social workers, cleaners and dinner ladies paid less than bin men. After all, why should we value those who look after our elderly relatives and feed our children? However, Birmingham City Council is trying to settle that score, and the Labour council’s work around paying all staff a living wage and demanding that all contractors, including care contractors, do the same is a huge step forward in equalising some of the public and private sector pay in the city I love.
I commend any advance towards payment of a living wage, but I bet that if I were to look into what is paid to those working for the two large public sector contractors in the city I would find that there was still a stark disparity between the pay of the men who are highways engineers, ground staff members and building contractors, and the pay of the mainly female work force who are caring, nursing, cleaning and feeding.
Chris Stephens
I am sure that there is systemic discrimination, in that bonuses have been paid to those in supposedly male-dominated workplaces, but not to the “cleaning and caring” staff. Did central Government help Birmingham City Council to settle the claims?
Jess Phillips
To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. I believe that the council is selling the family silver, including the National Exhibition Centre, to settle those claims. I will not criticise it for that. The council should have paid the women more in the first place.
The hon. Gentleman is right about overtime. The reason my husband earned so much more than me was that his overtime was paid, whereas mine was just part of my job.
To add insult to injury, the vast majority of unpaid work is done by us, the very much fairer sex. I sometimes fantasise about all the women in the country going on strike for just one day. They would stop doing everything that they do for free: caring for children, caring for grandchildren, and caring for relatives, friends and neighbours. Imagine the cost to social services if we withdrew our labour! Perhaps women’s jobs are paid so poorly because we forgot the bit of the business model that says, “You will devalue it if you give it away.” The constant rhetoric about hard-working families seems to forget that the hardest work of all is that which pays nothing. I challenge anyone to stay at home permanently with a couple of kids, delivering meals, care and company to a dying mother, and then tell me that that is not hard work. I have lots of caring responsibilities, and I can assure Members that coming to this place, or going to any work, is like being on holiday.
Having worked for years with women who have been beaten and abused because of their gender, perhaps I am less keen than others to herald how far we have come. I know that a good, honest and decent society we can all be proud of must value its women. There is a well-evidenced and reliable link between violence against women and their general standing in society. This debate is not just about money and pound signs; it is about value and worth.
We have a chance to do something good here today—to push companies and the country to place equal value on the work of half the population. We have a chance to show our mothers, wives, daughters and constituents that they matter and their rights matter. If we do that today, I will gladly stand on these Benches, or the chairs in the bar later, with any Member from any party, so that we can declare in unison that we are feminists.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I join others in congratulating the hon. Members for Stirling (Steven Paterson) and for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), and the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on their powerful initial contributions to the House. I also associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on the use of language here. I also pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) because whenever I meet women’s organisations in Cambridge I am struck by how quickly they tell me about the work done by them when they were in government and how they were such powerful champions for women. I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) is well on the way to being spoken of in similar terms.
As others have pointed out, this has been a long battle and it is a long way from being won, and, sadly, progress has slowed since 2010. I will try not to repeat the points others have made, but before I entered Parliament I was very proud to work for Unison, Britain’s biggest public service union with over 1 million women members, many in low-paid public service jobs. Unsurprisingly, much of Unison’s time was spent campaigning to tackle the unfair gender pay gap.
As has been pointed out, that is not easy because the causes are complex. It is worth recalling that a decade ago another inestimable champion of women’s causes, Margaret Prosser, was asked by the then Government to look at these issues in detail. She concluded that it is
“a many faceted and multidimensional issue. The pay gap is affected by issues such as outdated work practices; expectations and stereotypes that are ingrained in us from a young age; differences in working patterns because of women’s role as ‘carer’; and a lack of quality part-time work”.
Sadly, in the decade since then these issues remain as real as ever, and the progress that was being made has slowed.
I am reminded of a book whose title has stuck with me over many years: “How working-class kids get working-class jobs.” It is always useful for those of us with time management problems to have a book where the entire message is summed up in the title. I think that same cycle applies to women’s jobs. The positive attempts to break that cycle have been undermined in recent years. For instance, the crisis in our careers service means that young women are again more likely to be directed down the traditional low-pay routes. There is a risk that the depressing funding cuts to many of our further education colleges will have the same effect.
Change comes when we make it happen, and Labour Governments have a proud record. We are particularly proud of the Equality Act which will for ever be associated with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham. It is sad that the coalition Government chose not to implement some of the proposals, but I believe when they are finally implemented—I do believe they will be at some point—the impact will be far reaching.
In the meantime, the Government’s belated conversion to the cause of tackling unequal pay is welcome, as is their stated intention to implement section 78 of the Equality Act, but it is vital that this is done in a way that reflects what actually happens in the workplace, and is not used to hide what is really happening. I am grateful to former colleagues at Unison for bringing some of these points to my attention. For example, perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us whether bonus payments and overtime will be included. Men are typically far more likely to receive both. By not including them, comparisons will be seriously distorted and it will look as if pay in the workplace is more equal than it really is.
We also have to watch out for attempts to game the system. In the public sector, if a company wants to skew the results it will simply outsource the lower-paid, predominantly female part of the workforce so that their salaries are not included in the pay comparison figures.
Chris Stephens
I will call the hon. Gentleman my Unison comrade, if that is in order. Will he confirm that many public bodies now have legal advice which says that if they outsource they are no longer liable for equal pay claims?
Daniel Zeichner
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comradely intervention. I am afraid I am not expert enough to be able to give advice on that, but I am sure others will be able to do so.
On the matter of sanctions for companies that fail to comply and whether that should be a criminal or civil matter, whatever sanction is applied has to be meaningful, or else we will be stuck in the same position that we were in for many years, when local authorities refused to implement equality-proofed equal pay because it was cheaper for them just not to do so at the time. It is perhaps worth considering whether publishing the results should be done as part of the annual auditing process, for which sanctions for non-compliance are already in place. This would work in tandem with Labour’s sensible proposals for an annual equal pay check to be carried out by the EHRC.
It is also worth pointing out that the EHRC has under this Government suffered drastic cuts to its funding and staffing with consequent effects on the level of service it can provide. It will need to be better resourced to take on the challenge of monitoring and supporting employers to do the right things. Other things could be done, including introducing mandatory pay audits for all employers, regardless of size. If we are serious about equal pay, that has to be the ultimate goal, and there must be a requirement to act on the audit. Failure to do so should, in itself, be an act of unlawful discrimination. Any protective award made in such circumstances should be proportionate to the scale of the problem and the number of women affected.
Let me finish by mentioning one sector that has suffered consistently from low pay for many years: local government. It is worth noting that, according to the Local Government Association, the gender pay gap in that sector has widened by 3% since 2010. Women’s pay for full-time equivalent posts in 2010-11 was 83.2% that of men’s whereas it is now 80.8%, so they are almost 20% worse off. It is worth pointing out that the local government workforce is 78% women and that 61% of jobs are part time, but more than 90% of those are done by women. Local government is undergoing constant reorganisation, with many people doing far more complex jobs. I fear that some councils are not undertaking the kind of job evaluation that should be going on, and there is a danger that after paying out some £2 billion in equal pay settlements, councils are again becoming vulnerable to a new wave of equal pay claims. There has to be a better way of doing it.
There are clearly ways forward and clearly things that can be done. As ever, the question is: is there the political will to do it? Sadly, I have to say that the signs from the Government are not encouraging—but we live in hope.
Melanie Onn
Yes, how can I be expected to remember such complicated information?
I was just reflecting on accessing justice, and the difficulties faced by people from across the board. This is about not just women finding it difficult to access justice through the employment tribunal system, but those who are suffering from any kind of discrimination, particularly that relating to their pay. The Equal Pay Act was a milestone in the fight for equal pay, but, clearly, the Act in itself is not sufficient to close that gap altogether, especially in today’s world of casual employment, of people working multiple jobs and of increasing levels of self-employment. I am incredibly proud that the previous Labour Government made equal pay a priority and closed the pay gap by one third during their time in office. I say again that, over the past five years, we have seen almost no progress on this issue. In their manifesto, the Conservatives made no mention of putting in place any measures to try to tackle the pay gap, even though they have accepted that it exists. Today is about Labour challenging the Government on this important issue and trying to get them to change their mind.
We have heard quite a lot today with regard to how much women earn. In my constituency of Grimsby, women earn just 77p for every £1 brought home by men. I heard today that the figure in Coventry is as low as 60p. That is a significant difference. If we do not think that that affects the home lives of the children in our country, we are deluding ourselves.
Why is this such a significant problem in my constituency compared with some other areas in the country? As I noted earlier, there has been a surge of low pay and insecure work in this country over the past few years, and that has particularly been the case in my constituency. I know, from speaking to my constituents, that it tends to be women who have to work two or three different jobs, often on casual or zero-hours contracts, because they receive such low pay. Since 2010, one in three women’s jobs has come from women registering as self-employed. That is a problem that, again, the Equal Pay Act cannot address. On average, self-employed women earn less than half the money earned by self-employed men. Women are far more likely to be in jobs that pay less than the living wage. We heard my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) talking at length and most passionately about the fact that the labour undertaken by women is given such scant value by our society.
Chris Stephens
The hon. Lady has made a number of excellent points, but another factor in decreasing wages has been the substantial reduction in collective bargaining in the UK since 1979. In Scotland, for example, 81% of workers’ pay was decided by collective bargaining in 1979, whereas that figure is now 23%.
Melanie Onn
I agree absolutely. We have seen the demise of collective bargaining in many different areas and employers are now moving further away from those agreements.
Previously, for example, the Labour Government had agreed a national arrangement for teaching assistants, but the coalition decided not to continue with the national pay negotiating body. Teaching assistants are, obviously, largely women, largely part time and largely low paid, and on term-time-only contracts. I know from my constituency and from people I have represented as an official of Unison that some earn as little as £5,000 or £7,000 a year, working in our schools and supporting our children when they most need additional support. That problem is being exacerbated by the move away from collective bargaining and those people are more prone to being exploited and having their wages squeezed.