Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Hywel Francis Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I am rather sorry that I gave way to my hon. Friend, because he has just ruined one of my lines from later in my speech. Great minds think alike.

These proposals seem deliberately designed to burden trade unions with additional cost and bureaucracy from a Government who claim they are against red tape. This is despite the fact that unions already have a statutory duty to maintain registers of members. I understand from the TUC that neither the certification officer nor ACAS has made any representations to suggest that that was not already sufficient. The Government have to date failed to provide any evidence or rationale for these changes, so I can only conclude that this is a deliberate attempt to hamper unions with red tape because a minority of them have the temerity to support the Labour party.

I have serious concerns about the implications of these changes for the security of membership data. We all know that the blacklisting of trade union members may well still exist in our country. Blacklisting has ruined many lives and these changes could have some very dangerous implications, especially in the construction industry, where many are afraid to declare their membership of a trade union openly for fear of the repercussions.

[Dr Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I am Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has not had the opportunity to discuss this matter because of the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny. The fundamental human rights of association and privacy have been raised with us by the TUC. Does my hon. Friend agree that my Committee should have had the opportunity to scrutinise this Bill before it came to the Floor of the House?

[Ms Eagle]

Once more, my hon. Friend makes a powerful point. That is the third Committee that the Government have managed to ignore or insult with the production of this appallingly, rapidly constructed Bill. I hope they will reconsider the Bill and think about delaying its passage so that parliamentary Committees, including the Joint Committee on Human Rights, can do the job the House asks of them on suggested Government legislation.

I hope that the Government will respond next week to our amendments on issues of confidentiality and give the assurances we seek in these important areas.

The Government have arbitrarily singled out trade unions for this attack but have given no reason why other membership organisations should not be covered by these costly and disruptive requirements. It is beyond irony, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) has pointed out, to be lectured by the Conservative party on how to ensure that membership data are accurate when it will not even confirm how many members it has left. Perhaps it should be forced by law to appoint a highly remunerated assessor who can get to the truth of it for all of us. This is another in a long list of anti-employee proposals from a Government who always seem to want to make it easier to fire rather than hire workers and to weaken rather than strengthen their security at work. We will table a range of amendments to this part of the Bill to address concerns.

I also want to say this to the Government: we are proud of our direct link to millions of working people up and down this country and we believe in the right of working people to organise and stand up to unfair treatment in the workplace. Free trade unions are part of a free and vibrant society, and the partisan use of the law in an attempt to disrupt their efficient administration is yet another sinister aspect of this appalling Bill.

This is a bad Bill that will make things worse, not better. It makes lobbying less transparent and it places a sinister gag on charities and campaigners who want to make legitimate contributions to our democratic debate. It is a Bill that the Government should be ashamed of. It is incompetent. It is rushed. It has been developed in a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister and his deputy, but with no other consultation. It is a sop to vested interests, an illiberal attack on democratic debate and involvement, and a cheap, partisan and cynical misuse of the legislative process for the Government’s own ends. We will vote against it and I urge Government Members to join us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments; he is absolutely right. Everything in this Bill is about giving the coalition political advantage in the year running up to the next election—and, indeed, at every election.

The Bill is an unprecedented attack. Charities, campaigning organisations and local groups are frightened by the Bill, but they should wait until they hear the detail and see how it develops. We will see people leaving local groups. There will be no voice for the local opposition to wind turbines, fracking or anything else. We will not have trustees on trustee boards of charities because they will be frightened in case they break the law, because they do not even understand what this law means, and they are not the only ones. We had a meeting this morning with some barristers who said that they had spoken to the Electoral Commission and they did not have a clue what the legislation meant. What is more, they said that the Electoral Commission was not even consulted on the legislation. They are the people who will be policing the legislation and they have not even been consulted on any of the detail. It is absolutely unbelievable that the Government have approached the issue in that manner.

Charities and campaigners have worked tirelessly. They have opposed the bedroom tax, reductions in doctors and nurses, reductions in the police and the fire service, and reductions in many other public servants. Those groups have opposed increases in tuition fees and issues such as fracking, wind turbines and nuclear power. You name it, Madam Deputy Speaker, local charities and groups have been involved, and good on them. Do we not want people to be involved in politics? Are we happy to come here as 650 MPs just to discuss ourselves and ignore what the rest of the country wants? Is that what we want? I am sure it is not, so we need to listen to what is being said out there by the people.

The people who have been e-mailing me are hardly raving militants looking for a revolution. What they want is fairness. They want to be able to understand what this legislation is about. I was embarrassed for the Leader of the House. He made a botch-up of the NHS Bill and here he is the second time, with a Bill placed before him that he could not even defend.

[Dr Francis]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. He has spoken about his constituents. Is it the case in his constituency, as in mine, that, overwhelmingly, those approaching him and writing to him are not affiliated to the Labour party? In fact, they are trade unions such as the NASUWT—the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers—and a range of charities, many of them small organisations that are very local.

[Ian Lavery]

Yes; in fact, of the nearly 300 e-mails I have received, very few are from trade union members, massive charities or the big lobbyists. They are from run-of-the-mill local people who are frightened. They are people whom the Prime Minister described perfectly as “the big society”. They thought they had a role; they are now being kicked in the teeth.

In Wansbeck, the Bill will have disastrous consequences for small charities, like those that my hon. Friend mentioned, and community groups, which have limited resources and limited access to legal advice, and could easily be tripped up by the legislation. The National Trust, a big organisation, often has an input into major infrastructure projects such as High Speed 2. Will those organisations be covered by the legislation? Local community groups opposing the building of wind turbines; charities seeking an increase in the level of GDP that we spend on international aid—will they all be covered by the legislation? People are frightened about what it means, and they have not even begun to understand the consequences of the legislation.

Let me deal with part 3 of the Bill and the nature of the TUC, which has been in existence since 1866. Under this legislation, the TUC could be outlawed—it could be criminalised in the year running up to the election. The Durham miners’ gala, which I am proud to attend every year and which upwards of 100,000 to 150,000 people attend—people from all walks of life and all parts of Britain, getting together with their families—could be outlawed and criminalised because of this legislation. The Tolpuddle march, celebrating the history of the people sent to Australia all those years ago, could be outlawed. People could be criminalised under this legislation. Is it not an absolute outrage that we face this sort of thing in a Bill that is being rushed through Parliament?

[Dr Francis]

Just on a historical point, the TUC was set up in 1868. More importantly, however, the leaders of the trade unions that formed the TUC in 1868 were overwhelmingly liberals, not socialists.

[Ian Lavery]

I accept that point from my hon. Friend.

In conclusion—very quickly—the legal advice suggests that this is a clear violation of privacy and freedom of association, as enshrined in the European convention on human rights. The proposals clearly breach international law, namely articles 8 and 11 of the ECHR. The Government have got this wrong. The target was the wealthy and the corruption in politics, with MPs and people with finances behind them. What the Government have done is hit the people at the bottom of the tree. I urge the Government to bin the Bill.