Trade Union Bill

Debate between Chris Stephens and Jonathan Djanogly

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I found it curious that when I googled my name I got a link to his website and it was the exchange that we had in Committee. In fairness, the same thing happens with the hon. Members for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) and for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens). The Open Rights Group is saying that trade union ballots do not apply in these cases, because there is the additional safety of a scrutineer and so on.

We are told that trade union ballots should be subject to tighter regulation than elections for officeholders in private businesses or non-governmental organisations. If the Government were genuinely concerned about levels of electronically based elections in the private sector, they would legislate for all bodies to be required to use postal-only ballots. They should also rerun the election for the Mayor of London using a postal-only ballot.

Labour’s amendments on balloting are in a similar vein. They can be broadly supported, as their intentions mirror that of our amendment. We are asking Members to vote for our catch-all amendments to make this draconian, Dickensian Bill a little bit better.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clauses 5, 6, 7 and 9. In overall terms and despite the heat coming out of the Bill, I think we can all agree that we have moved a very long way in industrial relations and strike laws towards consensus and away from the polarisation we saw in the early 1980s.

The Trade Union Act 1984 requirement for compulsory industrial action ballots to be put in place for there to be statutory immunity was a very significant step, although it did cement the rather odd situation whereby there is, technically, no right to strike. Rather, we give unions in certain circumstances statutory immunity for the tort—civil wrong—of inducing a breach of the employment contract. That being as it may, I think we can all agree that voting before a strike is vital, and that the vote itself should be carried out in a free and fair manner that reduces, so far as possible, any chance of coercion, threat or intimidation to the voter. It is certainly the case that the Bill addresses ballots insofar as voter turnout requirements and how the questions are put, but it does not address the question of how the ballot itself is physically conducted. This is now being put to the test by the Opposition in their amendments. New clause 7 argues for secure workplace ballots and new clause 5 suggests implementing electronic voting in ballots for strike action.

My first observation is that those two concepts do not necessarily sit very well together. Namely, if the Opposition believe that e-voting is the future and the way to go, why are they proposing returning votes to the place of work? The problem is actually more profound, of course. The security of a postal vote sent to a person’s home does remove a large area of risk in terms of intimidation that could attach to returning votes to the workplace. The benefits of the 1984 ballots and the use of post were hard won. They have been of great benefit to working people; not perhaps to the union organiser or the militant activist, but to the everyday working man and woman who has benefited from being able to reflect calmly on the merits of a strike ballot in the safety of their own home.