Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[James Cartlidge]

Q 251 To follow up, I am not trying to pass comment on whether the parts of the Bill that deal with social media are right or wrong, but you use social media for investigations at the moment. People can commit offences using social media. That is currently the case.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Yes, it is, and we certainly investigate, all across the country, offences that have allegedly been committed across social media. What we do not do is to censor or vet tweets and social media messages before they are sent out. Once things have gone out, however, we may investigate. Clearly, we could do that in an industrial dispute, as we could in any other area of business.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Q 252 On social media, I do not think that this appears in the Bill, but it was certainly referred to in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consultation document on the Bill. The consultation document referred to having to give notice of use of social media in support of a picket, and it referred to having to give notice of the content of social media used to support a picket. That concept is interesting, because if you have to give notice of content on Twitter, you potentially introduce the question of secondary and/or wildcat tweeting in support of picketing. Have you got any comments about that?

Steve White: Goodness gracious me. That fills me with dread and fear, I have to say, in terms of having to vet tweets in advance—crikey! I do not think that that is anything that we want to be getting involved with. I am sorry; I just find that quite bizarre.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I think I agree. I do not know how we would manage that. I do not know that it is appropriate for us to do that, because we do not do it in any other area. How we would manage that, I really do not know. I think our only role would be when things have been sent out. If people are potentially committing a criminal offence by sending those out, there is a role, potentially, for us to investigate those, as there is with any other use of social media.

[Ian Mearns]

Q 253 And there is law covering that sort of content anyway, is there not?

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Yes.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Q 254 You have both mentioned limited resources. I just want to ask you whether you think it is right that your limited resources are used to get involved in large-scale strikes in the country. Looking at the tube strikes, for example, do you think that it is right that police resources are used to manage the strikes when only a minority of people have asked for them in the first place?

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: As Steve has already said, in policing we have got many priorities at the moment, and industrial disputes, if I am honest, are probably not at the top of the list of what we need to deploy resources against. What I would say is that we have a responsibility to keep the peace and uphold the law, and that can see us deployed into all sorts of different situations. Clearly, industrial dispute is one of those.

If there are industrial disputes where that role is necessary, then I would say that we will continue to need to deploy resources, but it does take resource away from other areas that I am sure all the police and crime commissioners around the country would consider to be our priorities, such as dealing with vulnerable people and reducing crime. This is not a natural area that falls into those priorities, but if we need to deploy resources to keep the peace, of course we will continue to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.