Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Ian Mearns and James Cartlidge

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.