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

Debate between Ian Lavery and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful intervention. I grew up in Liverpool in the 1980s and I remember a great deal of industrial action. I survived. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon said that the purpose of the Bill is to take things back to the 1980s so that that exists as the status quo now. I am not particularly interested in the ideological arguments going back and forth across the Committee. I genuinely believe that the purpose of clause 36 is to help people who feel that they want to make a complaint but cannot. I heard the shadow Minister talk earlier from the Dispatch Box about the possibility of a charge of £1 or £2 being exercised in respect of clause 36. I imagine that most trade unions would hate that because it would probably cost more to administer the charge than it would to send off the certificate.

The basic purpose of clause 36 boils down to transparency; it innocently says that trade unions need to know where their members are. There is a massive reality gap here. We all know from the electoral register, which we deal with every single year in all our walks of life, that the number of people moving in and out of constituencies when they move home is huge.

[Ian Lavery]

Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the points he is raising are already covered by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992? Everything that he is talking about is already covered.

[Stephen McPartland]

I am delighted that hon. Members believe that everything I have said is already covered by various Acts. I am even more pleased that they are not objecting to what I have said.