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

Debate between Hywel Francis and Iain McKenzie

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr McKenzie]

My hon. Friend is right; that would be a consequence of this Bill. In the past, unscrupulous employers would go to any lengths to find out which of their employees were trade union members. I recall being photographed entering trade union meetings by my employer. It would have saved a great deal of money if it had been able to get its hands on these lists.

“Reveal your membership,” the unions are told, on the basis of demanding accuracy.

[Dr Francis]

I have made this point previously, but I want to make it again in the context of what my hon. Friend is saying. The Deputy Leader of the House has been seen denying this from a sedentary position, but yesterday he did not adequately respond to a question I asked about the Government’s failure to produce a human rights memorandum on this Bill. If they had produced one, they would have had to address this fundamental question of privacy.

[Mr McKenzie]

My hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point on the privacy issue. It seems that those on the Government Benches might somehow be surprised to learn that there are still employers who do not welcome trade union membership or activity among their employees, and they would be delighted to have these records at hand. As we have heard, the Conservatives will not reveal how many members they have.

These proposals will mean significant additional bureaucracy for unions. We have heard about the costs of that, and they will escalate considerably for an organisation with 1 million or more members. The Government’s intentions are transparent. As we have heard from Government Members, they want to tie the hands of the trade unions. They want to put a ball and chain around the train unions’ ankles and to hamper their activities. This comes from a Government who said they wanted to cut red tape, and yet here they are imposing it on others.

I have not heard any general objection from the TUC to unions being able to provide regular membership figures to the certification officer. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who has now left the Chamber, suggested that the certification officer is toothless, when it has been some six years since he visited the certification officer and he was unable to give any idea as to how many times the certification officer had been challenged for lack of action or for being toothless. After all, we know that the trade unions supply membership lists to ACAS, especially when triggering recognition of a ballot in the workplace. I have often found out that the reluctance to hand over accurate lists comes from the employers; they have refused to supply ACAS with lists of their employees to match things up with the trade unions so that they could verify that they indeed had the membership numbers to trigger a ballot. Trade unions have never held back their membership lists; they are happy to give them over, but only if they have privacy for their members and the assurance that the lists will not be handed over. ACAS, of course, gives them that assurance.