Business of the House
Ian Murray Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
Happily, the hon. Gentleman may recall that during the autumn statement the Chancellor set out some of the ways Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is continuing to bear down on schemes that are clearly designed to avoid tax. If I recall correctly, they included issues relating to the question of employment and self-employment, and they will be pursued in that context.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to everyone in the House.
May we have a statement, as early as possible next year, from a Treasury Minister to tell us why millionaires are paying less tax this Christmas than they were last, before the Chancellor makes a decision in the Budget to ensure that millionaires pay less tax next Christmas than they are this?
Mr Lansley
I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that I do not think we need a statement. First, as I said earlier, the 1% with the highest incomes are paying 30% of tax. Secondly, the highest rate of income tax is now higher than it was in every month of the previous Labour Government, except for the last month. Thirdly, 2.7 million of the lowest earners have been taken out of income tax altogether.
Business of the House
Ian Murray Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I will, if I may, ask the Home Secretary to respond to my hon. Friend on that specific case. Generally speaking, it is her responsibility to enforce the law, including immigration law, and she does that robustly.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I do not know whether the Leader of the House is a reader of fiction, but if he is I recommend that over the Christmas period, he read the Scottish Government’s White Paper on independence. Once he has read that paper, I urge him to come back and offer some time for a debate on it in this House.
Mr Lansley
As it happens, I have read the Scottish White Paper. Having read it, I was surprised to find that assumptions within it were overturned within hours. The House might want to seek an opportunity to debate that paper, not least through the Backbench Business Committee, because it is important to Members across the House.
Business of the House
Ian Murray Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. The Ministry of Defence is committed to giving the families of service personnel all the support it can, especially when they tragically lose a loved one on operations. The most recent loss of a soldier from 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment provides us with a painful reminder of the sacrifices our armed services personnel make. The Ministry of Defence is sensitive to requests from families who wish to visit the place where their sons and daughters have died while on operation in Afghanistan. However, its overriding responsibility is one of safety, both for those visiting and for our service personnel. Afghanistan, as the House will know, remains a dangerous environment, and the Ministry of Defence has a responsibility to ensure that those who are escorted are not exposed to unnecessary risk, and that doing that does not expose service personnel to additional risk.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The House’s Select Committee system has proven itself time and again to be a cornerstone of our democracy. Given today’s serious allegations in The Times that some of its impartiality and independence might have been compromised, why will the Leader of the House not allow the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to come to the House and tell Members and the public what he has told the Leader of the House, and to reassure us that that independence will be defended at all costs?
Mr Lansley
I have informed the House of the situation, so the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s question is not justified. I have no reason to believe that the independence of the Public Accounts Committee has been compromised in any way.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Ian Murray Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 103, page 37, line 39, leave out
‘in relation to each reporting period’
and insert
‘if
(a) a formal complaint is received by the Certification Officer that would result in the Certification Officer requiring a membership audit in relation to the reporting period when the complaint was verified and
(b) the Certification Officer determined that a certificate was required.’.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 104, page 38, line 7, at end insert
‘unless—
(a) the Trade Union is appealing the membership certificate; or
(b) the Trade Union has challenged the Certification Officer’s acceptance of a membership audit certificate and invoked paragraph (a).’.
Amendment 106, page 38, line 22, leave out from ‘certificate’ to end of line 23 and insert
‘for which the trade union may request reasonable payment as per charges for requests for access to accounting periods in section 30(6).’.
Amendment 121, in clause 37, page 38, line 42, leave out
‘in relation to each reporting period’
and insert
‘if section 24ZA(1) is invoked’.
Clause stand part.
Ian Murray
It is a great pleasure to get to part 3 under your chairmanship, Ms Primarolo. I shall speak to clause stand part as well as to all the amendments in the group. It is totally inadequate that we are discussing part 3 of this hotch-potch of a Bill without having seen the impact assessment for part 3 or any results from the curtailed consultation that was put in place at the start of the process.
It is worth putting the amendments into context. The past three days and the hundreds of e-mails that all Members have received from their constituents show how much of a dog’s breakfast the Bill is. It is in good company, following the hotch-potch of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and the total shambles that the House witnessed during the passage of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill. Part 3 of the Bill before us provides wide-ranging new powers to the certification officer on trade union membership lists, but no one, including officials of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the discussion paper, the explanatory notes, the trade unions and, I bet, even the Minister can tell the Committee what problem the Bill is trying to resolve.
The TUC stated in its evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee:
“As with part two we are unable to discern the problem that this part of the Bill is meant to remedy.”
Nigel Stanley from the TUC went on to say:
“We have asked BIS, the certification officer and ACAS through freedom of information requests whether they have received or made representations that we need to amend current powers to regulate union membership . . . We cannot find any demand for part 3.”
The only justification for part 3 has been the publicly stated view that it came out of a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. What a contribution and combination that is. I wonder whether Lynton Crosby was in the room at the time.
Without any rationale for the Bill coming from the Government, perhaps we have to look for our own rationale. The reason given for the Bill by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in its discussion paper is the potential for trade union activity to affect people’s daily lives. It says:
“The general public should be confident that voting papers and other communications are reaching union members so that they have the opportunity to participate”.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is aware, as we all are, of the clamour for at least 20 years for the reform of lobbying practices. Can he think of any demand for part 3? Is it not sensible to judge that this is merely an afterthought—a spiteful swipe at the trade union movement—in order to distract from the fact that the Bill does not address 95% of commercial corporate lobbyists?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is right. Parts 1 and 2 have been shown over the past few days to be utterly deficient. There is no evidence, no drive, no remedy to be pursued, no problem to be resolved that would justify part 3. There is legislation in place, which I shall come on to later, which shows that membership lists from trade unions are heavily regulated already. Part 3 is merely a legislative burden on the trade unions timed to deflect attention, as my hon. Friend says, from other parts of the Bill that are completely deficient.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
My hon. Friend hit the nail on the head when he said that part 3 came from the high-level discussion between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. This is a continuation of other Bills that have been introduced over the past three years on the constitution of this country. They all aim at one thing—giving advantage to the parties in the coalition in the upcoming general election. Yesterday we saw their attempt to hide from lobbying groups and not be answerable to them. Now they are trying to curtail the influence of the trade unions and the support that they give to the Labour party in particular to give their own parties an advantage. That is what this is all about.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government cannot win the next general election on the arguments so they nullify the Opposition. It is ironic that part 3 heavily regulates trade union membership lists, whereas most of the stuff attacking workers’ rights came from the report written by a certain Mr Beecroft, who donated £550,000 to the Conservative party. The Bill deals not with the Beecrofts of this world but with the ordinary working people throughout the country.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Does not part 3 show that the Bill is partisan, and is it not one of the main reasons the Bill has lost the confidence of the public?
Ian Murray
Absolutely. Parts 1 and 2 have been shown to have lost public confidence. I am happy to be corrected, but since I came to the House in 2010 I do not think I have had this number of lobbying e-mails from concerned constituents who feel that they are going to be gagged by this Government. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), the governing parties cannot win the next general election on the arguments alone so they are trying to nullify the opposition, which is made up of trade unions, charities and lobbying organisations which do so much on behalf of our constituents throughout the country.
No evidence was put forward in the discussion paper to demonstrate that communications are not reaching trade union members or that there are shortcomings in the existing law relating to a trade union’s duty to maintain a register of members. Moreover, no evidence was produced to explain why the Government need to acquire yet further extensive powers over the lives of citizens and voters through this mechanism.
Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend find it as bizarre as I do that the Government are demanding that trade unions reveal their membership lists in detail, yet the Conservative party keeps its membership secret?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend makes an interesting intervention—the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), a Lib Dem Minister, shakes her head—and he is absolutely right; the Conservative party refuses point blank not only to give us any details of its membership, but to tell us how many members it has. I believe that is either because it cannot tell us or because its membership lists are deficient. [Interruption.] The Government Whip chunters “Tell us yours” from the Treasury Bench, but essentially we are talking about the Conservative party.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, in its justification for this part of the Bill, stated:
“The general public should be confident that voting papers and other communications are reaching union members so that they have the opportunity to participate”
because they affect everyday lives in this country. Well, if the governing party does not affect the daily lives of people in this country, I do not know who does. Perhaps we should extend the Bill’s provisions to that party. The only thing we know about Conservative party membership, of course, is that the average age is 68, which might tell us something about where the party is going.
We should not be surprised by the Government’s failure to provide any evidence, as we know that they run by opinion poll and anecdote. The House will recall the now infamous Beecroft report, which would take this country’s employment rights and health and safety landscapes back to the era of Queen Victoria. When Beecroft appeared before the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill Committee last year, he said that he had absolutely no evidence to back up such claims on compensated no-fault dismissal and the abolition of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, to name but a few, but that his assessments were based on anecdotal evidence and who he had spoken to. This “met a guy in a pub” type policy making is certainly not good government.
Dr Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab)
My hon. Friend raises some fundamental human rights issues. When I asked the Deputy Leader of the House yesterday why the Government had failed to produce a human rights memorandum, he failed to answer. Perhaps that speaks volumes—[Interruption.] I am not sure what the Leader of the House just said from a sedentary position, but perhaps he will want to respond properly in due course.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will move on to clause 37 later this afternoon, when we will address some of the issues relating to confidentiality and the European articles. [Interruption.] The Leader of the House chunters from a sedentary position that we should speak to the amendments. As I understand it, Mr Speaker has grouped the stand part debate with the amendments, and I am addressing why I think clause 36 and part 3 of the Bill are deficient, which I think is perfectly appropriate.
I was talking about the Beecroft report’s ideological attack on working people and how the Government are making it easier to fire, rather than hire, employees. That is reflected in the thrust behind amendment 103— I say this for the benefit of the Leader of the House—and subsequent amendments in this group. The Government have yet again failed to produce any evidence whatsoever on what problem they are trying to resolve and what the impact will be on membership lists. Not only do they have no evidence, but, as I mentioned at the start of my speech, they do not even have an impact assessment for this part of the Bill and they have done no suitable consultation.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will remember that Adrian Beecroft appeared before the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill Committee last year. When asked detailed questions, he could give absolutely no evidence whatsoever for what he was suggesting, yet some of those suggestions can be found in this Bill today.
Ian Murray
Absolutely, which is why we should be addressing those issues in the Beecroft report, because they influence part 3 of the Bill. Perhaps Ministers, rather than chuntering from a sedentary position, might at last answer some of these questions when they come to the Dispatch Box.
I was talking about the lack of suitable consultation. As far as I am aware, the Government have still not published an impact or cost assessment for part 3 —[Interruption.] The Minister says that they have, but it was not there at 10.30 this morning. They did publish assessments for parts 1 and 2 back in July. In fact, the equality assessment states:
“A full impact assessment will be developed after, and informed by, a period of targeted consultation and engagement of a range of experts.”
But the Committee is debating this Bill before any of that work has been either completed or formally published.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
On the question of consultation, my hon. Friend has quoted from the TUC’s evidence, which was given to my Committee in very short order indeed, because the Committee decided that the House should have some evidence. The reality is that this part of the Bill appeared eight working days ago; it appeared just before the end of July, the day before the House rose, and Second Reading was the day after the House returned, so that is three working days, and that was a week ago. If one wanted part of a Bill to not be properly scrutinised, this is precisely how one would do it. Either this House will do the scrutiny properly, or the other place will do it in due course.
Ian Murray
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. As Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, he has done some wonderful work on the Bill, and at very short notice. It is a great credit not only to him and the Committee’s staff, but to the other Members who serve on it. He has demonstrated how the Government operate. If one wanted to put something through that was ideologically driven but did not want it to be scrutinised, one would do as the Government have done with this Bill.
Paul Flynn
Was not my hon. Friend astonished by the fact that, while 11 Conservative MPs last night voted against the low, mean attack on charities, not a single Lib Dem MP did so? Why does he think they are so enthusiastic to embrace their own extinction?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend tempts me to use unparliamentary language, but I will not go down that route. It is a fact that last night every single Lib Dem Member went into the Lobby with the Government to vote for part 2 and that it was only Conservative rebels who decided not to put up with the Bill. I think that is unfortunate.
Ian Murray
I will take one more intervention, but then I will have to make some progress.
Andrew George
I do not want to tempt the hon. Gentleman into using unparliamentary language, but he is factually incorrect. I do not wish to have yesterday’s debate about charities all over again, but the fact is that reassurances were given by the Government that there is a lot of work to be done, in which I hope we will all engage so that we can bring forward improvements on Report. I would have thought that we should all be working constructively towards that end.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Perhaps we could return to clause 36 and the amendments before us. General Third Reading points about the entire Bill, or any comments about the whole part, are not in order.
Ian Murray
Thank you, Ms Primarolo. You are absolutely right. That would have tempted me to discuss the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) producing amendments to other Bills in Committee and then not following through on the Floor of the House.
I was talking about the Government’s failure to produce any evidence, which I think feeds into amendment 103, because it is critical to the operation of the entire part, in relation to clause 36. My second point about the Department’s consultation is that it has not published or responded to any of the responses. The only information that Members of the House have seen is when people who have responded to the BIS consultation have self-published them, and I do not think that is good enough.
Trade unions are already heavily regulated, not just with regard to membership, but in other areas, too. No other membership organisations, voluntary sector groups, businesses or, indeed, political parties in the UK are subject to equivalent rules. There are already extensive regulations through the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act of 1992 and the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998—a fact that the Government seem to have wholeheartedly disregarded in bringing forward the Bill—and the responsibility trade unions have to the Information Commissioner.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
When the hon. Gentleman refers to the 1992 Act, he is of course referring to legislation from the mid-1980s that was virtually lifted into that Act. Does he not think that it is now time for a general review of that 1980s legislation?
Ian Murray
If the hon. Gentleman wants to bring forward a general review of any legislation, he is more than welcome to do so. Perhaps in my haste I forgot to use the word “consolidated”. I was referring to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, because of course it consolidated lots of legislation from the mid-1980s.
It is self-evident that trade unions want to have good membership records; I cannot see why anyone would argue that they do not. It is in trade unions’ own interests to engage with members just as any voluntary organisation wishes to maximise membership fees and ensure that people want to remain as members. Unions are nothing without their members; they exist to represent their members. They invest in a wide array of ways of communicating with them—from printed magazines, leaflets and posters, to websites, social media and e-newsletters.
Let us look at what clause 36 proposes for unions with more than 10,000 members. Should political parties have to account for their members? On Second Reading, the Leader of the House said:
“Trade unions are influential participants in public life. They have an important role representing members’ interests both with specific employers and in wider public debate.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 184.]
Who would argue with that? On the certification of trade union membership details, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills discussion paper says on page 4:
“Trade union activity has the potential to affect the daily lives of members and non- members.”
Surely those definitions apply as much to political parties as to trade unions. Political parties represent their members’ interests, influence wider public debate and can affect the lives of members and non-members. Trade union members represent a very wide and varied section of the general public.
The House of Commons Library brief shows that there are 7.2 million trade unionists. They represent a cross-section of ages, are split evenly in terms of gender and are well represented in terms of race, disability and types of work. Surely trade unions are in a good position to influence and share public opinion. In sharp contrast, there is an organisation that is the complete opposite and totally unrepresentative—the aforementioned Conservative party, which refuses to say how many members it has.
Mr Allen
On a point of order, Ms Primarolo. My Committee looked at the White Paper on the lobbying Bill about 18 months ago. It made no mention of anything to do with the trade unions. The trade union provisions appeared in July, one day before the House rose—a bit about trade unions was bolted on to a Bill that all of us in the House had already dealt with as a lobbying Bill. Is it in order for those provisions to have been added when the House has been under the misapprehension that the Bill is about lobbying? Is this not a hybrid Bill and therefore disqualified from discussion in the House?
The Second Deputy Chairman
The hon. Gentleman is very experienced and has been a Member for a long time. As he knows, what he has asked is not a point of order. The House has given the Bill a Second Reading, and his points are for debate, if necessary, on the Floor of the House. They are certainly not a matter of order for the consideration of the Chair today.
Ian Murray
Thank you, Ms Primarolo, for that ruling on an important point of order. I remind my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, that other stuff has been bolted on to Bills, including the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill—disgracefully, the agricultural wages board was abolished at the last minute in the House of Lords without any political debate in this House.
Before the Government start lecturing unions about transparency, they should take a long, hard look in the mirror, subject themselves to this Bill and publish their own membership audit certificate.
Mr McKenzie
Will my hon. Friend share with the Committee why he thinks a Government who came to power saying that they would cut and eliminate red tape should apply it to the trade unions?
Ian Murray
That is a good question. The Government have a policy initiative of taking out two regulations for every one brought in. Will the Minister say which regulatory burden she will be removing from the trade union movement, given the regulations that she has just put on the statute book? The Government have wholeheartedly refused to deal with zero-hours contracts, blacklisting, payday loans and the high cost of credit, but they are unnecessarily piling regulations on to the trade unions.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Is not my hon. Friend’s point the fact that the Government do not want to regulate people such as Lynton Crosby, yet do want to punish trade unions, whose only sin is to represent the ordinary working person? The only things they have ever campaigned for are people’s right to work, the ending of zero-hours contracts, decent pay and conditions, and decent standards. They are being hit, yet all the rich lobbyists such as Lynton Crosby are allowed to get off scot free.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend tempts me to stray from the amendments, but she is absolutely right. Week after week, the Prime Minister tells us at Prime Minister’s questions how wonderful the car industry is. The car industry in this country was saved by a partnership of people who owned the car industry, the trade unions and the work force all working together. The industry survived and is now in a healthy position—all credit to all those involved.
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on outlining why the unions are being singled out. If the issue is fairness, should not shareholders of every company be balloted every time approaches are made to the Government?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why I am so concerned that clause 36 has been added to this part of the Bill without discussion or proper consultation. There are already strict legislative mechanisms to look after trade union membership, but none at all to regulate shareholders or indeed members of the Conservative party. The fact that that party will not say how many members it has shows that we need regulation for that issue as well.
Mr Allen
Could not the shadow Minister answer our hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) in this way? If on a lobbying Bill we are allowed to add in stuff about charities and trade unions, could not our hon. Friend produce another part to the Bill that addressed the issue he raises about shareholders? Obviously, that would be in order—anything can be added. Hon. Members from across the House could add stuff on child care, foreign policy or the Government’s war-making powers. Bringing forward a Bill and bolting on a part such as this at a very late stage is an abuse. It is surely not in order.
The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. As I said to the hon. Gentleman, I will decide what is in order. If a Bill has unrelated purposes in it, that does not necessarily make it a hybrid Bill in procedural terms. It would be as well for us to concentrate on the points before us now.
Ian Murray
Thank you for that ruling, Ms Primarolo. All I would say is that my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) is one of the most experienced people in the House. Perhaps he could bring forward an amendment on Report to consider the issue of regulating shareholders.
Mr Djanogly
The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that shareholder registers are much more highly regulated than union registers. That is one reason why we need to see the changes.
Ian Murray
I do not think that shareholders are balloted on remuneration; they do not have much ability to stop remuneration packages. They are not balloted on political donations or the overall direction of the company. In fact, individual shareholders in businesses are very weak indeed.
Mr Djanogly
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 does deal with votes for remuneration. Indeed, companies have to have annual votes for political donations—unlike unions, which vote only every 10 years to see whether they have a political fund at all.
Ian Murray
At least when everybody is balloted on anything to do with trade union membership, it is completely and utterly transparent because it is already regulated. That is why we do not need this part of the Bill; trade unions are rather heavily regulated already.
I move on to amendment 104, on the membership audit certificate. The Bill states that a union must send any membership audit certificate in relation to the annual reporting period to the certification officer at the same time as the trade union annual report. That may be good and well, but there is absolutely no natural justice for the trade union itself; that point has been made forcefully by the National Union of Teachers. What if the membership certificate is challengeable? It would not be correct for a document of such magnitude to be delivered to the certification officer, with all their new regulatory, enforcement and investigatory powers, without allowing the trade union an opportunity to appeal what the certificate says.
There are no mechanisms at this stage for the union to make representations to the certification officer on the content of the certificate. That does not seem to be a proper process of natural justice or, indeed, fairness. The methods that assurers will follow to determine a membership audit certificate are not yet known. Moreover, given that there is already a well-established body of law covering the membership lists of trade unions, there should be a proper mechanism to appeal or challenge a certificate.
In the absence of a clear process, trade unions should have the right to challenge the certification officer’s acceptance of a membership audit certificate. This should involve a pause in publication and the right for the union to make representations on the content of the certificate, with ultimately, perhaps, an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, where qualified judges can make a determination that any qualifications on an audit certificate are valid and appropriate. The amendment would pause the sending of a membership audit certificate to the certification officer if the trade union is appealing the certificate or has indicated to the certification officer that he should not accept the certificate and the trade union will be appealing its content through a process to be determined. That is a fair and reasonable way to uphold natural justice and provide a degree of certainty in the system. I hope that the Minister will consider the amendment.
Since the Government have been unable to justify what this part of the Bill is trying to achieve and will not even tell us their party’s own membership levels, we must start from a position of determining whether the existing system is working. The Opposition will do that work for the Government if they are not willing to do it. As the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) said, since the mid-1980s every trade union has been under a duty to compile and maintain a register of the names and addresses of its members. That duty is provided for in section 24 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Under that Act, a trade union has a duty to maintain a register of names and addresses of its members and a duty,
“so far as reasonably practicable”,
to ensure that entries in the register are kept up to date. Section 24 also provides that a union must allow any member, on reasonable notice, to ascertain whether the register contains an entry relating to him or her and, if requested, supply a copy of any such entry. This means that the trade union has an existing obligation in law to ensure that its records are accurate.
The existing law specifies that there is an obligation to remove from the register the names of those no longer wishing to be members, that the primary responsibility for informing a union of a change of address is that of the member—I hope that hon. Members remember that part, in particular—and that there is a duty to secure an accurate register
“so far as reasonably practicable”,
which permits a margin of error. The remedy for failure to comply with these requirements is by way of complaint to the certification officer or the courts. Section 25 of the Act states:
“A member of a trade union who claims that the union has failed to comply with any of the requirements of section 24…may apply to the Certification Officer for a declaration to that effect.”
The main thrust of amendment 103 is that, in our view, clause 36 is without foundation and encourages vexatious inquiries for no purpose. I also contend that it will not make membership lists any more accurate. I will be interested to hear whether the Minister has any evidence whatsoever that demonstrates that overlaying this law on to the existing law will make trade unions’ membership lists any more accurate.
On Second Reading, the Leader of the House said of the clause:
“It will require trade unions visibly to demonstrate that they know who their members are and can contact them. The principle that unions must be able to contact their members”—
this is key—
“is well established in legislation.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 184, c. 567.]
He is right; it is well established in law already. The facts bear this out, and I will give some of them to highlight how detailed membership information already is, as shown by the extensive annual reports published on the certification officer’s website. First, the certification officer’s annual report for 2012-13 says that 166 trade unions submitted returns—not membership lists but returns—recording a total of 7,197,415 members, a figure that does not appear to be inaccurate, compared with 7,261,210 in the previous year: again, a very exact figure. The largest reduction in membership was in the construction sector, which perhaps says more about the Government’s policies than trade union membership.
Secondly, the annual return has to include a copy of the auditor’s report on the accounts, allowing the certification officer to compare revenue from dues with the numbers reported. In 2012-13, the last full year for which returns have been published on the certification officer’s website, the returns showed that income from members increased by 1.3% to £873 million. The returns also show that the total number of contributing members was about 90.5% of the total membership, compared with 89.4% in the preceding year. There are a number of detailed reasons why those figures differ, but to go into them would rule me out of order. As I am trying to demonstrate, the information is already available in the public domain for anyone to dig into. It is on the certification officer’s website, transposed from the annual reports of each of the 166 trade unions that submitted their returns. I would think that any reasonably independent person looking at those publicly available reports would agree that the Government already have extensive information-gathering powers on the finances and membership of trade unions.
Significantly, in 2012-13 not a single trade union member lodged a complaint with the certification officer about the maintenance of the register’s names and addresses.
Mr Djanogly
The hon. Gentleman says that no one made a complaint. Can that not be turned around? If members of the public suffer when a service is removed because of a fraudulent union vote and they cannot go about their daily work, why should only members of the union be able to complain about that and ask for an investigation?
Ian Murray
Members of the public are suffering not because of the trade unions but because of the policies of the Government. While the hon. Gentleman continues to attack ordinary working people up and down this country, people will be looking at this at home and thinking how out of touch this Government are.
I repeat that in 2012-13, significantly, not a single trade union member out of the 7,197,415 members registered with the certification officer made one complaint to him about the maintenance of the registers of members’ names and addresses—that is, not one complaint from nearly 7.2 million people. Let me emphasise that the trade unions and the certification officer work very closely together because they have a mutual interest in ensuring that processes are accurate and transparent. The certification officer’s own figures bear this out, and it is worth recording them; it is a shame that the hon. Gentleman does not have a piece of paper and a pen to write them down. Some of the figures may shock Members because they reaffirm how much of this Bill is completely ideologically driven and total and utter nonsense.
In the past five years, the certification officer has had no complaints to adjudicate on from, if we take the figure of 7.2 million, a total of nearly 40 million people on the membership registers. In fact, he has had only six complaints since 2000. Five of those were dismissed and he did not even issue a declaration on the sixth. Only 10 complaints have gone to a decision since 1987.
Mr Djanogly
Is the hon. Gentleman maintaining that because union members are not complaining about their own unions everyone else should be content?
Ian Murray
I keep giving way to the hon. Gentleman to be polite, but his interventions are complete nonsense. We are talking about 7 million to 12 million people being on the registers of trade union members every single year going back to 1987. That information is verifiable under current legislation and publicly available on the certification officer’s website. Yet all the hon. Gentleman can say is that there is a problem. Why do we need this Bill to go beyond the existing legislation? I am happy to give way to him again if he wants to tell me, in no more than one intervention, why part 3 and clause 36 are necessary.
Mr Djanogly
People who are not members of a union may have a complaint against, for instance, a vote that is taken, and therefore a proper investigation procedure is needed.
Ian Murray
That has absolutely nothing to do with the registration of 7.2 million trade union members. If an individual member of a trade union on that list has a complaint, I do not see any reason why they would not raise it.
John Cryer
My hon. Friend will be aware that the legal strictures on trade unions with regard to balloting are among the tightest in the world; they are certainly the tightest in the European Union. I can think of one ballot for industrial action that was ruled illegal because a comma was in the wrong place. The idea that trade unions—this is the notion suggested by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly)—are conducting fraudulent ballots left, right and centre is simply illusory.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are getting to the crux of the issue, because it is becoming clear exactly why this part has been included in the Bill. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the accuracy or otherwise of the membership lists of trade unions. If the Committee does not believe me, it should listen to Lord Tyler, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on constitutional affairs, who said that one explanation for this part of the Bill is the role that some unions play in the Labour party:
“The third arm of the Bill is about ensuring that trade unions have accurate membership lists. We will listen carefully to what people have to say about how the detail of this is set up, but the principle seems beyond dispute. The membership numbers of a trade union have a bearing on how much money they can give to a political party through their political funds. In this sense, the trade unions have a unique role in UK politics. It is therefore important for transparency’s sake that the membership lists are accurate.”
I agree with Lord Tyler that it is important that the lists are accurate, but they are already heavily regulated in law. I think this has more to do with the Government’s obsession with the Labour party and trade unions than with legislating to help hard-working, ordinary people.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I had hoped that we would get an explanation as to why this part of the Bill is essential. If the only argument that can be made is that the public should be able to complain about a controversial ballot, surely if it was that controversial it would be taken up by the trade union movement and a trade unionist would object to it rather than wait for a member of the public to do so.
Ian Murray
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. No general secretary of a trade union, whether it is affiliated to the Labour party or not, would take strike action on the basis of a 51:49% vote of its membership. It would also be concerned about the legality of its membership list if any of it was found to be inaccurate, but the point is that legislation on the accuracy of membership lists already exists. It is in the union’s best interests—this has nothing to do with strike action—to have and maintain accurate membership lists, because it wants to communicate with its members, and it is also in the members’ interests to ensure that the unions have accurate details.
Yasmin Qureshi
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill was supposed to deal with moneys being exchanged so that people could pursue personal agendas to, in effect, line their pockets? We have heard about lobbying scandals, but the Bill was never intended to cover trade union members who write to their local MPs to say, “I don’t agree with zero-hours contracts,” or, “My pay is absolutely rubbish; could you please fight for my pay and my terms and conditions?” That is not what the Bill was meant to be designed for, yet it is being used as a weapon to hit the ordinary working person.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am not even sure whether Government Members have read amendment 103, because it agrees with the need for a process, but only if a proper complaint is made and verified and the certification officer decides that the process has to be followed. There is nothing wrong with that. It is incredibly transparent.
Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the very small number of complaints made to the certification officer. I have in my hand the text of a speech that was given at a conference that I organised for trade unions and at which the certification officer spoke. The certification officer had done an analysis of complaints and, importantly, highlighted a small number of cases. He found that
“some of the allegations are clearly made with a view to cause problems for the union and not necessarily because of concern for the member’s interests”,
and that
“some of the allegations of irregularities come from those involved in the irregularities”.
There was nothing of any substance in most of the complaints made.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is right. Our amendment would allow people who have a proper complaint about a trade union’s membership list to make it through the normal channels, and the certification officer would then determine whether the complaint was vexatious or had merit before, on top of all that, deciding whether to instigate a process. If people wish to make legitimate complaints about a trade union’s membership, this Bill gives them a mechanism to do so, but our proposal is that they should be able to do so only if the professionalism of the certification officer proves that that process is required. Given that there have been only 10 complaints since 1987, I think the certification officer is pretty wily in determining what is and what is not a vexatious claim.
Mr Anderson
It is interesting that my hon. Friend has gone back to 1987, because the root of this law in the 1980s was a direct political attempt by the then Conservative Government to get trade union members to undermine their own union. There was a backlash after the miners’ strike when the then Government instigated the setting up of the scab unit to try to undermine the trade union activities of the National Union of Mineworkers.
The issue here is that only a small number of people complain to a certification officer. Does my hon. Friend know—if the Minister was listening, she might be able to answer as well—whether there is any evidence that the certification officer has raised concerns? Has he said that this is not working and that we need to change it? My understanding is that that has never happened.
Ian Murray
The trade unions have complied with the legislation, with bells on, every single year since it was introduced in the mid-’80s, and the published figures are available to the public from the certification office. As I have said, the TUC made a freedom of information request to the certification officer asking whether he had recommended a change in the law to the Government, and he replied that no discussions had taken place. That underlines my hon. Friend’s point.
Mr Allen
My hon. Friend is making a powerful and compelling speech. I am tempted, as the organiser of the highly successful 1985 political fund ballots, to venture into all our yesterdays, but I will limit myself to one question. He is telling us that there have been no complaints whatsoever, yet the lobbying Bill has a big part on trade unions. Has he noticed that, although complaints have been made over and over again about lobbying, big business, money and sleaze, they do not appear in a Bill that is called the lobbying Bill, and that something about which there have been no complaints has a big section in it? Is he able to explain that to me?
Ian Murray
I am delighted that this Committee sitting has allowed the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee a little walk down memory lane with regard to his organisation of ballots in the mid-’80s. He is right that there is no compelling evidence. Of the hundreds and hundreds of e-mails I have received from constituents about the Bill, not one has mentioned part 3, because the public are concerned with lobbying, which is what this Bill was supposed to address.
As I was saying, only 10 complaints had gone to a decision since 1987. As my hon. Friends have suggested in their interventions, we must wonder whether the certification officer needs any of these powers, given the level of activity there is on membership lists. Indeed, the certification officer has less work to do in this particular area than the Leader of the House has in counting support for the Bill. People will be asking themselves whether the powers are unnecessary and disproportionate, and the answer is clearly yes.
Let us reflect again on what the Leader of the House said on Second Reading:
“All we are doing is asking unions to provide an annual assurance that they are doing everything that they can to ensure that they know who their members are and how to contact them.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 185.]
That is almost a one-paragraph description of the current legislation that trade unions abide by, including the Data Protection Act and their responsibilities to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The current law prescribes exactly that. It says that trade unions should ensure that they do all that is—we will come back to this terminology again—“reasonably practicable” to maintain their membership lists.
While the Government trumpet the slashing of red tape for business, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) said—and for “slashing red tape” read “demolishing workers’ rights back to what they were in Victorian times”—they are imposing a completely unnecessary burden on trade unions to resolve a problem that does not exist. Indeed, officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills cannot tell us what the problem is.
Amendment 103, with consequential amendment 121, would result in part 3 of the Bill coming into force only if a complaint was received and verified by the certification officer as a valid compliant, and if the certification officer felt that a membership certificate process was required. That goes back to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). The trade unions have absolutely nothing to hide. The amendment would mean that part 3 would come into force only if a verifiable and non-vexatious claim came forward.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Is there not a legal contradiction in the Bill? A trade union has a duty under the Data Protection Act to keep in its records, but not to divulge, personal and private details relating to each member. If the Bill is passed, it will give the certification officer, the certification officer’s staff and the new assurers access to that information. That is a huge contradiction and I believe that it contravenes European law. Should we not consider that at the first possible opportunity?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is right that there are contradictions with the Data Protection Act and an inconsistency with articles 8 and 11 of the European convention on human rights. Those matters will come up when we discuss clause 37 and the cluster of amendments to it. Those inconsistencies highlight the way in which part 3 has been completely rushed through, without any proper consultation or dialogue with the people who are involved. There is also no identifiable problem that will be resolved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) has just informed me that, as of 1.35 pm this afternoon, the Vote Office still did not have an impact assessment or a response to the consultation. [Interruption.] The Minister might say that that is not correct, but that information must be available to Members. If it is available, I wonder whether the Minister’s office could photocopy two dozen copies and pass them around.
Ian Lavery
It is extremely important with Bills of this nature that there is consultation with all parties that could be affected. Part 3 was introduced in July without any prior notification. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) said, there have been only eight working days since then. There has been a lack of consultation and there might not have been any. We have received legal advice that, because this is being done without prior consultation, it could violate the rights to privacy and freedom of association that are enshrined in the European convention on human rights. What is my hon. Friend’s view of that?
Ian Murray
There is a very strong view that part 3 contravenes the European convention on human rights. The Committee will discuss that in some detail when it considers clause 37. That just shows how part 3 is being rushed through.
I say to the Minister that I am happy to pass around a hat so that Opposition Members who want to see the impact assessment can pay for the photocopying and so that her office does not have to waste paper. Perhaps she could come to the Dispatch Box and tell us whether it is available.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
I will happily explain. The assessment has been in the public domain for more than eight days on gov.uk. My understanding is that it has been sent to the Vote Office, but we are investigating whether there has been a problem in communication.
Ian Murray
Problems of communication are not the responsibility of the Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool, the staff in my office in Edinburgh and the office of the shadow Business Secretary have been searching for the impact assessment. I think that the Minister might be referring to the equality assessment, not the impact assessment. We will wait for it to be photocopied and handed round.
Jo Swinson
I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that although he has been searching so hard for the impact assessment, he clearly has not looked on gov.uk, which one might have expected would be an obvious place to look.
Jo Swinson
I happily accept that it should be in the Vote Office. We are looking into that now.
Ian Murray
I have looked at the pages of the gov.uk website that relate to the Bill incessantly over the past week or so. The only thing I have been able to find is the equality assessment for the Bill. As far as I am aware, the impact assessment is not there. I am not trying to be difficult with the Minister. If it has been published on the website, we would certainly be talking about its contents.
Mr Djanogly
On process and transparency, will the hon. Gentleman advise the Committee who drafted the Opposition amendments? Was it the unions that gave them to him? If so, which unions, or was it union-paid lawyers? That should be reported for the purposes of transparency.
Ian Murray
That kind of intervention is pathetic. Let me put it on the record, in front of the Committee and the country, that I drafted all the Opposition amendments personally because I take an interest in the Bill and it is part of my shadow ministerial portfolio. I did every single bit of the work myself. I also refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have a £2,000 constituency development programme with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. That is as far as my responsibilities go in declaring such issues.
If the hon. Member for Huntingdon would like a crash course on how to write amendments, I would be happy to meet him this evening. Perhaps he could then write some amendments to make the Bill better. All I would need to do is show him how to spell the word “delete”. That would certainly make the Bill better. [Interruption.] The Government Whip chunters that we should have declared our interests at the start. He will not even tell us how many members the Conservative party has, never mind anything to do with the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. We are absolutely transparent and people can look at my entry.
Mr Allen
Given that my hon. Friend has been so busy drafting his amendments, he might not have heard all the proceedings over the past two days. I advise him to be very careful about offering to draft amendments for the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), because he may end up becoming a lobbyist under the definition in the Bill. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said the other day, he could end up with the IPSA of lobbying looking at what he is doing. I therefore advise him to tread carefully.
Ian Murray
I am delighted that my hon. Friend intervened, because it allowed me to look at the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Huntingdon cannot draft his own amendments and would like a crash course from me, given that he received a £21,406 donation from a legal firm only a few years ago. Perhaps it is lobbying him about the Bill. Perhaps he would like to stand up and correct the record.
I forget where we were, but I will go back to discussing amendment 103 and consequential amendment 121. Amendment 103 would prevent vexatious claims. The Lib Dem Minister should think about that carefully. The principle behind introducing the draconian fee of £1,250 for people who want to seek justice through an employment tribunal was that it would prevent vexatious claims. A Bill that deals with trade union membership lists should therefore deal with the fact that vexatious claims might be made to the certification officer. The amendment would resolve that by giving the certification officer the power to consider whether vexatious claims had been made.
Secondly, the amendment would prevent third parties from submitting unwarranted queries. Interestingly, third party submissions are mentioned in the consultation but not in the Bill. I wonder whether the Minister could address that point when she comes to the Dispatch Box. The amendment would reduce unnecessary costs for trade unions. The Government parties tend to forget that any additional costs for trade unions from draconian legislation—there is no evidence for the Bill and it does not resolve any identifiable problem—is merely pushed on to the 7.2 million members, whose membership fees are then increased.. Any additional costs hit ordinary workers who are already engulfed by the Government’s cost-of-living crisis.
The amendment would give the certification officer a mechanism to take complaints—he must ensure that they are verified as competent and of a sufficiently serious nature to warrant the commencement of the complicated process.
Yasmin Qureshi
Does that measure not confirm to the country at large that the Government are not bothered about the ordinary person’s living standards, and that the only people they are concerned about are the rich and powerful?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend makes the point for me, but it is true that the 7.2 million trade union members will be worse off as a result of the measure, because the burden of any significant additional costs on trade unions from duplicate legislation—they already conform through the Data Protection Act and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992—will be passed on to the membership in the form of membership fees.
I therefore ask the Minister to answer a number of questions on this group of amendments. Has the certification officer asked for the additional powers? Has the certification officer approached the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to say that those powers are necessary, and that he would like the Government to legislate to ensure they are introduced? Has DBIS consulted the certification office, trade unions and other relevant organisations on whether the powers are required and, if so, why? Have there been meetings between certification office and DBIS officials on the subject at which anyone described a need for a problem to be resolved? Have the Government considered the two-out, one-in regulation policy, or demonstrated what measures will be removed to alleviate the burden of regulation on trade unions? Lastly, will the Minister give the certification officer additional resources to deal with the problem? If the answer is yes, there will also be an onus on trade unions to find additional resources.
Amendment 106, on additional resources, is fairly standard and self-explanatory. The new bureaucratic process will be costly for trade unions, and those costs will ultimately be passed on to the trade union membership. At a time when we should do all we can to encourage a healthy trade union membership in the UK, we must not put the burden of this ideologically driven policy on to those hard-working members. Under the amendment, a charge to cover the costs of production can be levied. There is a reasonable charge for accessing Companies House information on companies—the hon. Member for Huntingdon is interested in those regulations. That principle should be continued in the Bill. I believe the charge is £1 or £2 to access basic information from Companies House. The amendment would make the Bill consistent with section 30(6) of the 1992 Act—this has been discussed at great length by my hon. Friends—which states:
“Where a member who makes a request for access to a union’s accounting records is informed by the union, before any arrangements are made in pursuance of the request…(a)…of the union’s intention to charge for allowing him to inspect the records to which the request relates, for allowing him to take copies of, or extracts from, those records or for supplying any such copies, and…(b)…of the principles in accordance with which its charges will be determined…then, where the union complies with the request, he is liable to pay the union on demand such amount, not exceeding the reasonable administrative expenses incurred by the union in complying with the request, as is determined in accordance with those principles.”
Clause 36 is barely consistent with the 1992 Act. The amendment is a way of resolving that and other inconsistencies.
On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House said:
“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.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 199.]
The Bill is a partisan attack. Clause 36 and the rest of part 3 of the Bill are completely and utterly unnecessary. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister forget that the people they attack are the people who deliver the mail, serve in the shops, teach our children, care for the sick, look after the elderly, clean our streets, assemble our cars and build our bridges. They deserve better than to be subjected to another piece of the Tory ideological jigsaw.
Mr Djanogly
The hon. Gentleman is clearly not listening to what I have been saying. I have not been saying that there has been ballot rigging. In fact, in some ways I think I am helping his case by saying that we need to look more carefully at the purpose behind the clause. This would be a good opportunity for the Government to give at least a sense of direction on part 3 about their intentions on strike balloting. Perhaps that purpose is related to party funding, given that the previous part of the Bill relates to election funding. If that is so, why are we not giving the certification officer the power to check that the political opt-out is clearly stated on the union membership application form—that has clearly not always been the case—let alone going the further step, as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition no less, of reversing the position to an opt-in?
Despite the Opposition’s position being muddied following the Leader of the Opposition’s speech at this week’s TUC conference, why are the Opposition not taking this opportunity to amend the Bill to that effect? This is a pressing issue, not least because the majority of union members do not even vote for the Labour party. Even if such reform needs more time to be formulated, why cannot the Government indicate their intentions for party funding as a result of improved membership records?
The clause deals specifically with auditing membership numbers, but what about overseeing matters in the context of the return as a whole, let alone dealing with issues of client care or quality of service? The provisions do not even tighten up the definition of what membership means, which would be helpful, if that is what is to be audited.
Ian Murray
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is reeling off a list of potential obligations on a trade union with regard to its members. Does he not think that if a trade union was not compliant with obligations under customer service and so on, the member would just simply leave?
Mr Djanogly
Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example. If we are to have the provision to audit members, we should know what “member” means. This is a fundamental omission, as was shown with the miners compensation scheme.
In that situation, certain unions created a new class of “associate membership”, with no rights other than the right for the claimants to be referred to the union-picked no win, no fee lawyers, from whom the unions then took a kickback commission. The scam was uncovered and the lawyers were heavily penalised by their regulators. However, not—
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
It is a real pleasure to follow the impassioned speech of the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), although I must point out that no one has a monopoly on caring about working people. I shall confine my remarks to clause 36.
I have discovered over the past three days that I am probably one of the most optimistic Members of the House, because I believe that the purposes of the Bill are very different from those suggested in some of the narratives that we have been hearing. Clause 36 introduces a clear duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I note with interest that if a union has fewer than 10,000 members, it can self-certify. Only unions with more than that number will need to certify.
I appreciate that there has been a certain amount of jolliness in the Chamber—
Stephen McPartland
Some Members have been teasing the Conservative party about its refusal to publish its membership figures. Clause 36 clearly states that unions with fewer than 10,000 members can self-certify. However, a Conservative party association with more than a certain amount of money will have to send its information to the Electoral Commission. That information will include membership numbers, but if they are below a certain level, there will be no need to send it. This part of the Bill therefore contains very similar provisions to those that are already in place for members of political parties, as well as trade unions.
It has been suggested that no complaints have been made under the present arrangements for a number of years. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) mentioned the possibility that people who were not union members were unable to make a complaint at the moment. I stand here as a friend of the unions. I am happy to work with them, and I am proud of the union members who come to see me, whether as union members or members of local communities or organisations. A number of members of my family are members of unions. I am also happy to work with the national unions on a range of issues—
Stephen McPartland
The short answer is no. Clause 36 introduces a duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I genuinely cannot imagine that many of the unions will be bothered by it. The reality is that they all want to know where their members are so that they can communicate with them. Most unions do not send letters out to their members simply asking them to take strike action. They also want to sell them services and to make the union a part of their lives.
Ian Murray
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I shall pass a membership form to him before the end of the debate. Amendment 103 allows for clause 36 to be implemented. All it does is give the certification officer the power to take out vexatious claims and to decide whether the draconian and expensive measures in the rest of the Bill should be enacted.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly compelling speech about the deficiencies of clause 36 and he is right to do so, because the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 states clearly that the onus is on the member to tell the trade union that they have changed address. If the member does not tell the union that, the membership list is therefore deficient.
John McDonnell
That is exactly what it is. I am speaking on the clause standing part, as well as to the amendment, Sir Edward, because we have to understand what this clause means. I cannot, for the life of me, interpret it other than in the way my hon. Friend has just done. It is an attack specifically on the role of trade unionists and their rights to fulfil their responsibilities.
We have seen the operation of challenges to membership lists in respect of industrial relations and, in particular, of industrial action being taken and determined by members. The history is that the employers have used the existing legislation and interpreted it so that any minor discrepancy about a membership list is used in a rush to court to seek an injunction to prevent industrial action from taking place. Some examples have been given, but I have been involved in a number of activities associated with trade unions where even though there has been a 99% overwhelming decision in favour of industrial action, one or two members out of thousands have been missed off the ballot and so an injunction has been awarded. Therefore, the industrial action, along with the will of the members, has been prevented from being implemented. We tried to overcome that through legislation in this House—I tried to put such legislation through on three occasions, but it got talked out every time—but we have just overcome it in the courts. We have received a decision in the courts that enables minor infringements not to be taken into account and the decision of the overall will of the members to be acceded to.
However, the Bill opens up a whole new vista of potential legal challenges. As colleagues have said, it relates not only to industrial action, industrial activity, ballots and so on; it could relate to the whole operation of the union. Employers could trawl over membership lists, go off to the certification officer and then we could get to court, where the challenge will be about how the union operates overall. So lawyers will be able to tie up trade unions in legal actions for years to come, preventing them from undertaking what the impact study calls their “core” trade union work of representing members.
I ask Government Members: what is the motivation for this measure? Some of that has leaked out. They have listened to what has happened in recent months—the anger there is among working people about the cuts to their wages, the zero-hour contracts and the undermining of employment rights. People are beginning to react. They do not usually react at the depths of a recession, doing so when they are coming out of one and when the living standards of some are rising. So we are talking about a recovery for the rich but a recession for the rest. That is when people get angry and when industrial action takes place—that is when strikes happen. It is also when trade unions need to be representing their members. So I think this measure is part and parcel of the Government preparing for the potential for industrial activity over this coming period. It is another mechanism by which they will do everything they possibly can to undermine the rights of trade unions and their ability to operate effectively in representing their members. It is so short term, because all it will do is anger people even more and as these impediments build up, although they are relatively minor at first, people will become more angry. Then, we will have wildcat action—action that is uncontrolled—because people are so furious at how they are being treated by their employers in collusion with the Government.
Let me make one final point, because I want to understand. If the argument is that the clause is about ensuring that membership organisations are open, transparent and accurately reflect their members’ views, and if it is about organisations that have an impact on the general life of our society, why does it not refer to the CBI, the Institute of Directors and all the other trade associations? They are membership organisations and they have as much of an effect on the daily lives of our population as trade unions, yet they remain completely unregulated. That portrays to me the in-built bias of this Government against trade unionism and working people. That is why we must vote against clause stand part.
The amendment is moderate, and simply says that if the certification officer identifies a problem we should implement the provision—I have similar amendments on the implementation of the Bill, which we probably will not reach. That is all my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South is saying: if there is a grievance or a problem let us by all means have some action, but not unless a problem is identified. That is a relatively moderate, pragmatic way forward. If the Government do not accept the amendment, that will completely endorse the view that this is bias motivated by prejudice against trade unions and trade unionism.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is making another compelling speech. He mentions organisations such as the Church, the IOD and the CBI; is he as astonished as I am that while this draconian measure is going through to restrict trade unionism even more in this country the Conservative party will not even tell us how many members it has?
John McDonnell
I fear when Governments start seeking to regulate civil society generally. That is what the clause does: it is a step along the path of regulation of wider civil society organisations. What else? The Countryside Alliance? We might be up for that, just to see where the money comes from, but there are a range of organisations whose rights, privileges and privacy we want to be respected for reasons of basic civil liberties. Why are trade unions being singled out in this manner? The Bill is being targeted and comes at a time when the Government are predicting that they will be faced with trade unionists who are very angry about not being able to share in what is supposed to be an economic recovery. It is about the exercise of trade union rights.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) mentioned the legality of the Government’s legislation. Let me be clear that our Governments have been condemned by the International Labour Organisation and other international organisations for two decades now because of their trade union legislation. It is not just about the right to strike; it is about certain basic and fundamental trade union rights. The clause, yet again, imposes further duties that I believe to be completely contrary to ILO conventions. Yet again, this country will be isolated in the world and condemned for its attack on trade union rights, which are incorporated in all those international statutes and conventions as a basic human right.
In summary, that is why I oppose clause stand part and support the moderate, pragmatic amendment. If we reach that stage in our consideration of the Bill, I will discuss the amendments I have proposed, which basically say that if the Government want the legislation—which we do not support—to go forward, they should at least have some form of trigger, such as a complaint or concern that has been raised and assessed. If there has been a complaint and there needs to be further action, fair enough. That is not the case at the moment and I think that this is just biased prejudice against trade unions and trade unionism overall.
Ian Lavery
Of course that should be the case, but I am not sure that the Opposition should ask the coalition Government even to try to be sympathetic to the trade union movement. I would be afraid of their response. I know that it would not be positive. Perhaps instead of taking away 90% of trade unionists’ facility time, they would take 95%. That is an example of the ways in which the trade unions have been attacked by the coalition Government.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case for why this dreadful legislation should not make it to the statute book. Given his vast experience of trade unions, can he think of any scenario in which it would be in a union’s interest not to keep an updated membership list?
Ian Lavery
Speaking from vast experience, it is always in a trade union’s interest to maintain the best possible record of its members, for a whole raft of reasons. A good trade union does not stand on its hind legs every week screaming, “Strike, strike, strike!” A good trade union needs the correct names and addresses of its members, so that it can address all the problems that society currently faces. This is not just about strike action, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). That is always a last resort. But I will tell you something, Mr Sheridan. I was on strike for a full year during the miners’ strike, and what a brilliant year it was! I was fighting not for myself but for the wider society, for jobs and for communities up and down the country. It gives people a lot of pleasure if they are taking action and suffering greatly for those reasons. My father and my four brothers were all on strike—my mother had a hell of a job—but we enjoyed it because we were fighting for others. That is what the trade union movement is about, and that is why I get terribly upset by the constant union-baiting from the Liberal Democrats and of course the Tories.
It is in everyone’s interest to keep accurate records. Under the measures that were introduced in 1992, trade unions have to have that information for balloting reasons, among others. They normally have to send a full membership list with the annual return form, the AR21, to the certification officer anyway. The problem was that whenever we tried to take any type of democratic industrial action, the employer would say to me as the local representative, “You’d better have the right names and addresses. If you haven’t, we’ll get an injunction. Then, under the law, the union will be liable for any loss to the company resulting from strike action.” At the same time, the employer obviously had a list of everybody’s names and addresses. A responsible employer has everyone’s name and address in order to pay them—some trade unionists might prefer to keep their identity private—so surely it should be incumbent on the employer to allow any change in name and address to be passed on to the relevant trade union so that the union can act in accordance with the law. Is that too much to ask? It is feasible, but it is a trap.
I was a representative at different levels of the union, and we would sometimes appear in front of the certification officer and often the High Court. If industrial action occurs, it might be said that somebody’s name has been spelt incorrectly or that somebody has died without people being aware of it in order to try to get that whole democratic process abolished. That is the problem with this legislation.
Many colleagues on both sides of the Committee might agree that bureaucracy is not always a dirty word. Since the Prime Minister got the keys to Downing street, the Government have promised to cut red tape. What have we seen? We have seen the Government making it easier for people to be hired and fired for no particular reason. They have gone to work with some zeal in attacking workers’ rights at every opportunity, and they have relaxed health and safety legislation. The unions have rightly opposed all those things, which they won in the first place.
I have said before that it is funny that the only area where the Government have sought to increase bureaucracy is in the administration of trade unions. This will not be for the last time either. Unfortunately, this coalition, with Liberal Democrat support, will continue to oppose and attack not just trade union members, but many of the most vulnerable people in society. That is what they are about. As I have said, I believe that at the ballot box they will reap what they have sown. That, by the way, is democracy.
This Bill is undoubtedly about ideology. It is a thinly veiled attack on a movement that the parties on the Government Benches despise. We could move on to deal with the duty to appoint an assurer, but at this point I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South and of course the shadow BIS Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who has highlighted another issue relating to another problem with these lists: they will allow organisations to increase blacklisting, which is already the scourge of the working class. Because of information being passed willy-nilly from employer to different secret organisations, some people are on blacklists. At the end of the day, these people and their families can suffer greatly for the rest of their lives.
That is a problem with the data. The new rules will mean that three new groups will have access to individual membership details—three new opportunities for data to escape into the public domain. Several organisations have raised a concern—I have already mentioned it—about the legality of that. The trade union movement and its individual organisations have a duty under the Data Protection Act to ensure that the information they hold on individual members is kept secure, but this new legislation when passed—not “if”, because it will be passed—will prevent that from happening. There will be a legal contradiction about who is right and it will be up for legal challenge.
I think that in any other country, action such as this on the part of a democratically elected Government would be condemned as an attack on free trade unionism, and I think that that is exactly what is happening in this case. It is about time that the coalition Government sat back and paused, as they have in the past. It is time that they consulted others, got the legal position right, and then returned with reforms that actually meant something and changed something. I look forward very much indeed to the Minister’s response, which should take all of one minute.
Mr Anderson
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as there is absolutely no doubt about what he says. I do not think that any Government Member has said that it is not the case. The one Government Member who made a serious contribution was the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who spoke about whether this measure should be more restrictive. Although I would not agree with his view, he was making the point that we have something in place. He was asking whether we could make it tougher, but even he accepted the fact that the certification officer was saying, “There isn’t a problem.” The numbers that have been cited clearly show that there is no problem.
The TUC was right to say that this measure is part and parcel of a package that is attacking free speech: it is limiting criticism of the Government or Government policies; it is threatening the legality of the TUC to do its business through its congress; it is preventing the TUC from having a national demonstration in the lead-up to any elections; and it is preventing campaigning. As the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) said, it also raises particular issues in places such as Northern Ireland and has implications there. So, if nothing else, we should be saying, “This is not on.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne asked the Leader of the House, when he was still here, why he will not do the same as he did when he was Secretary of State for Health—pause and reflect.
Mr Anderson
He could resign—that is a good idea.
I am clear that the Government will not pause and reflect because they want to ram this measure through. There is a timetable involved. The Conservative party has decided that 7 May 2015 will be the date of the next general election, so 8 May 2014 is the day when campaigning stops, when criticism stops, when the charities have to shut up and when the trade unions have to watch what they are doing. We will get through the process of the Bill going to the Lords and coming back here just before Christmas. It will then be banged on the head and the Queen will put the stamp on it before 8 May 2014, so that Government Members can try to hide from their liability for the state they have got this country into. It is not on. This measure is not needed and it should be withdrawn. I will be supporting the very moderate amendments that have been tabled by Labour’s Front-Bench team, but it must be said that we are being led by the coalition, which is doing this for no other reason than self-interest, just as was the case on other constitutional matters. They are trying it on in this way and if the measure gets through it will be a disgrace for democracy in this country.
Jo Swinson
I want to make progress, because we want to scrutinise other elements of the Bill today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) made a powerful contribution. He mentioned that social pressure can be applied to make people go on strike; those at the workplace who are not members of a particular union may be affected by industrial action. They might be an example of those who would like reassurance about the updating processes for the membership lists.
The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) asked whether we would commit to publishing legal advice. As he will know from his time as a Minister, the convention is that the Government do not publish such advice. I am, of course, happy to give reassurance on his point. Clause 36 requires the provision of the certificate but will not contain information about individual members, so the article 8 right to privacy is not breached. I am sure that when we discuss the next group of amendments we will come to some of those human rights, privacy and confidentiality issues.
The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) said that data would be revealed in some way, but the confidentiality of members’ details will still be subject to data protection rules, the Human Rights Act and the obligations of confidentiality in clause 37.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said that the provisions would displace core union activity, but we should recognise that the changes are modest. Unions are already required to keep the register of names and addresses and of course we will work with unions and others to ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new system, supported by appropriate guidance.
Analogies with other membership organisations were raised by various Members. As I outlined to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, charities are regulated by the Charity Commission, which has widespread powers that focus on financial management because of the importance of donors and beneficiaries. The commission can carry out regular supervision and monitoring, including compliance visits. If a charity is under investigation, the commission can freeze assets and suspend or remove trustees. In the case of companies, the Companies Act provides the regulatory powers. The information has to include names and addresses and dates of membership, and fines and penalties are in place for non-compliance with these duties. The IOD and the CBI are lobbying organisations incorporated by royal charter, which means that the Privy Council is responsible for significant aspects of their internal control. I doubt that unions would think that those regulatory frameworks were appropriate to their unique status. Trade unions have a unique set of powers. They have rights and obligations—for example, the ability to take industrial action without financial liability for the consequences on those it affects. That is a special set of rights and it is therefore appropriate that they have a tailored set of regulations.
The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) said that it is hard to keep accurate records of a work force, particularly in sectors where they are very fluid, such as construction, where there is significant churn. I absolutely appreciate those points and agree with him. That is why it is important that good procedures are in place to provide assurance that the lists are up to date. That is qualified by the phrase,
“as far as reasonably practicable.”
We will take into account the difficulties that are encountered.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North made a thoughtful contribution in which he made good points about previous problems with great swings in policy direction from one Government to the next and the importance of trying to get agreement between the TUC and the CBI. There can often be common ground, as we find through the agreements on, say, the agency worker regulations or the way in which such organisations are able to work together through institutions such as the Low Pay Commission. He thinks that we are demonising trade unions, but I respectfully disagree. Many companies have very good relations with trade unions which play an important and welcome role. He over-eggs the impact that this measure will have.
I have dealt with the consultation issue raised by the hon. Member for Wansbeck. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) made a number of points that mainly echoed others that had already been made and that I think I have dealt with. I appreciate that I may not have satisfied every member of the Committee. None the less, I have set out why clause 36 should stand part of the Bill and the amendments should be rejected.
Ian Murray
Thank you, Mr Sheridan, for chairing this debate.
I thank all hon. Members who have spoken—my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and my hon. Friends the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer). We also heard from two Government Members—the hon. Members for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland).
I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Minister, but let me put on record that this is yet another case of a Liberal Democrat doing the Tories’ dirty work for them in this Chamber: again, that has been left to her. We are over four hours into this debate and we have yet to hear one bit of evidence for clause 36 being necessary or what problem it is trying to remedy. The Minister has said absolutely nothing about that. The TUC, the certification officer, ACAS and BIS officials are still to produce any evidence at all about the problem in the system that this clause is trying to remedy.
Before we test the will of the Committee on amendment 103, let me point out that Labour Members are saying clearly that if there is a problem, the Government should bring forward the evidence. The amendment would say to the certification officer that if a complaint is made by any third party and he decides that it is verifiable, he can then take the power, if he so wishes, to instigate action under the clause. That is a very modest change to a very draconian part of this ramshackle Bill.
Finally, I remind Members that we are not talking about trade unions in the round; we are talking about the people who deliver the mail, serve in the shops, teach our children, care for the sick, look after the elderly, clean our streets, assemble our cars and build our houses. The Liberal Democrats should remember that and come into the Lobby to vote for amendment 103.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Ian Murray
I beg to move amendment 107, page 39, line 7, at end add—
‘, and
(c) to have a duty of confidentiality to the trade union and its members; and
(d) to abide at all times by the trade union’s obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 to protect the information of members.’.
The Temporary Chair (Jim Sheridan)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 108, page 39, line 16, at end insert—
‘(3A) The conditions set out in an order under subsection (3)(a) shall include the qualifications, status and experience an assurer requires in order to qualify under that subsection.’.
Amendment 110, page 39, leave out lines 29 to 35 and insert—
‘(1) The appointment and removal of an assurer will be conducted as per the specification in section 49(1) and section 49(5) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.’.
Amendment 109, page 39, line 46, at end insert—
‘(e) The person has breached the confidentiality of the Trade Union, or
(f) The person is in breach of his statutory duty or the terms of his appointment, by reason of incapacity or for any other reason which in the reasonable opinion of the union justifies his removal, or
(g) There are any other reasonable circumstances where the continuation of the assurer would be deemed inappropriate.’.
Amendment 111, page 40, line 12, leave out from ‘opinion,’ to ‘for’ in line 14 and insert—
‘the trade union secured, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the entries in the register were accurate and up-to-date.’.
Amendment 112, page 40, line 19, at end insert—
‘(c) Whether, in the assurer’s opinion, the trade union has taken all reasonable steps to ensure their membership register is up to date taking into account—
(i) that the union should not be held responsible for inaccuracies in cases where, in the assurer’s opinion, an employer is not sharing timely and accurate details, and
(ii) any other aspects that, in the assurer’s opinion, have been out of the control of the trade union in the maintenance of the membership register.’.
Amendment 166, page 40, line 29, at end insert—
‘(4A) The Secretary of State will determine the definition of “satisfactory” and “not satisfactory” in this section and produce guidance for assurers.’.
Amendment 116, page 41, line 1, leave out from ‘union’s’ to ‘such’ in line 2 and insert ‘data controller’.
Amendment 115, page 41, line 4, at end insert—
‘(c) has the right to make a reasonable request to any employer for information that the assurer considers necessary for the performance of the assurer’s functions.’.
Amendment 117, page 41, line 4, at end insert—
‘() where this does not conflict with the union’s responsibilities as set down by the Information Commissioner.’.
Amendment 119, page 41, line 25, at beginning insert—
‘(za) to comply with duties owed by him under the Data Protection Act 1998, and’.
Amendment 118, page 41, line 28, leave out ‘all reasonable steps’ and insert ‘all steps necessary’.
Amendment 120, page 41, leave out lines 34 to 39.
Clause stand part.
Ian Murray
I know you thoroughly enjoyed the debate on the previous group of amendments, Mr Sheridan, so it is great to see you in the Chair in this debate. I thank the Minister for her apology on the impact assessment. We had a committee meeting during the Division and decided to accept her apology, even if the impact assessment arrived in the Vote Office at 1.53 pm—we understand that that is the official time recorded.
Amendments 107, 116, 117, 119 and 120 address the concerns of trade unions, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, lawyers, trade unionists and organisations such as Liberty, which believe that clause 37 could result in the improper use of sensitive material and accidental disclosure. It also raises questions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) mentioned in his contribution on the previous group of amendments, about international law, specifically articles 8 and 11 of the European convention on human rights.
Amendments 107 and 119 place a legal duty and obligation to provide total confidentiality and an express statutory duty of that confidentiality for the assurer, in addition to the oblique references already in proposed section 24ZF. The assurer should therefore have a statutory duty of confidentiality to the union and, more importantly, the union’s membership. The amendments also ensure that the assurer agrees not to engage in conduct likely to lead to a breach of a union’s obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.
It should be noted that union membership is in the significant category of sensitive personal data. It is not known how far the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has consulted the Information Commissioner’s office on the Bill. There is a significant risk that the union might be held accountable for breaches by the assurer. Will the Minister address what discussions she has had with the Information Commissioner’s office on the new assurer position, and what its thoughts were on the ability of trade unions both to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and be responsible as the data holder to an assurer who, by nature of the definition of the Bill, is independent from that data controller in terms of the trade union? The 1998 Act is clear and it may be worth considering this issue in detail, Mr Sheridan. When one overlays the Data Protection Act with the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, we can see how unnecessary the proposed changes are.
Andrew Gwynne
Is not my hon. Friend’s amendment is necessary to make it clear in the Bill that the assurer picks up the union’s responsibilities to protect its personal data?
Ian Murray
That is exactly the purpose of all our amendments to clause 37: to ensure that any independent person, as described in the Bill—whether the assurer, the certification officer’s staff, or an investigator that might be appointed by the certification officer—is covered by existing data protection law and the European convention on human rights. That was a timely intervention, as it is important to run through the schedules to the Data Protection Act and relate them directly to our amendments, and the overlaying of clause 37 and other clauses in part 3.
Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act lists the data protection principles in the following terms. I realise this is slightly technical, but it is worth running through them to ensure that we have got it absolutely right.
“Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless—
(a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met…”—
I will come back to that a little later, and, crucially, that—
“(b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.”
It is a condition of schedule 2 that, because trade union membership is classed as sensitive personal data it has to have a category in schedule 3 too. Sensitive data includes trade union membership, so we have to take that category into account overriding schedule 2.
Interestingly, section 4 of schedule 1 to the Act states clearly that
“Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.”
This is a strong requirement of the Act and in this context trade unions must abide by that condition as a data controller. There is already a strong obligation on trade unions under the current legislation, the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992—I wish there was a shorter way of saying that—to keep membership lists up to date. We have discussed that at length this afternoon in terms of legislation already in place to deal with many of the issues that the Minister deems to be a problem that have to be dealt with in the Bill.
Appropriate technical and organisational measures should be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data, and against accidental loss, destruction of, or damage to, personal data. Accidental loss could be a significant hurdle when being processed by independent assurers or independent investigators appointed by the certification officer, and that is a key concern for many stakeholders. The responsibility for the data under the Data Protection Act lies with the data controller at the trade union. They will be responsible for the actions of independent bodies looking at that trade union’s membership list.
Julie Elliott
Does my hon. Friend agree that if our amendments dealing with this issue are not accepted, there is a danger that such sensitive information, as classified by the Data Protection Act, will become much more vulnerable?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly good point. One of the key aspects of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act is to ensure that trade unions’ membership lists are up to date. The current categories are set out in sections 24(1) and (2) of the 1992 Act—my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) spoke about them a few hours ago—which contain provisions to ensure that anyone unhappy with their personal data being held by the trade union can apply to the certification officer for a ruling on whether those data should be held. There are therefore already strict rules about the data, which is right, given, say, blacklisting and whether data on trade union membership become an issue.
The purpose of amendments 116 and 117 is to restrict data collection in a trade union to collection from the data controller only. The data controller can subsequently obtain the required information from individual branches or sections, as mentioned in the Bill, but the responsibility for that must come from the data controller of the union, who has the legal obligations both under the Data Protection Act and their responsibilities to the Information Commissioner. Inquiries to other centres makes the job of the data controller near impossible. Trade unions manage their membership data carefully; that should be explicitly maintained in the Bill.
Such considerations have given rise to a fear that part 3, and clause 37 in particular, could result in a new scandal of people being blacklisted for being members of a trade union. That is the reasoning behind amendment 120, which would restrict disclosure of a member’s data to where the member had consented—that is, given explicit consent under the Data Protection Act—and the investigation of criminal proceedings. The list of other such circumstances set out in clause 37 is unhelpful in dealing with people’s data protection concerns and the blacklisting issues that might arise. Proposed new section 24ZG(3) of the 1992 Act, as set out in clause 37, is too widely drafted and creates other legal responsibilities that the data controller might not be able to meet.
In the last couple of years we have seen the increasing exposure of blacklisting activities in some sectors, in which individuals have concerns about joining a trade union for fear of victimisation at work and loss of employment. Increasing powers for state officials to access union membership records and addresses can only increase the deterrent against such activities. May I respectfully suggest to the Minister that, rather than increasing the regulation of trade unions through this Bill—which might increase the risk of blacklisting—the Government should take active steps to abide by the decision taken by this House back in February, after the Opposition day debate on blacklisting, to instigate an inquiry, release the information held by the Information Commissioner’s Office about the victims of blacklisting and look at a compensation package for those on the blacklists?
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way. Is not the nub of the issue—which I think he is coming to—that although the purpose of clause 37 is to increase transparency and confidence among the general public, it is likely to have the opposite effect for trade union members? If they felt that their personal data were at risk of falling into the wrong hands, that would have the opposite impact on union membership.
Ian Murray
It absolutely would. Given the evidence of blacklisting that has emerged over the past few years, particularly in relation to the inquiry by the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume either that someone might not wish to join a trade union, or that an existing member might wish to leave, on the ground that their membership could affect their employment prospects. That matter has not been dealt with in the Bill, as a result of the slapdash way in which it has been put together and placed before the House.
The Data Protection Act imposes strict conditions for processing sensitive personal data. Anyone processing such data must satisfy one of more of the conditions for processing that apply specifically to such sensitive data, as well as one of the general conditions that apply in every case relating to non-sensitive data. It is arguable that the Bill does not satisfy those conditions, which merely emphasises how incompatible it is with the Data Protection Act.
The conditions in schedule 3 of the Act for processing sensitive personal data are as follows. First, it is necessary for the data subject to have
“given his explicit consent to the processing of the personal data.”
The members would therefore have to consent explicitly, meaning that the assurer would have to contact all the members on the membership list, should they require the data. That would surely be impractical and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) said earlier, a requirement that the assurer contact everyone to obtain their explicit consent would impose an onerous burden of cost and bureaucracy on the trade unions.
The second condition in the Act states that the processing should be
“necessary for the purposes of exercising or performing any right or obligation which is conferred or imposed by law on the data controller in connection with employment.”
Unless I am mistaken, however, the proposal in the Bill has nothing to do with employment law. The third condition states that the processing must be necessary
“(a) in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another person, in a case where—
(i) consent cannot be given by or on behalf of the data subject, or
(ii) the data controller cannot reasonably be expected to obtain the consent of the data subject”.
That should not apply in the case of a trade union member. The processing must also be necessary
“in order to protect the vital interests of another person, in a case where consent by or on behalf of the data subject has been unreasonably withheld.”
I would imagine that, in relation to trade union membership, those conditions could be satisfied fairly easily. It is not clear that any of the proposed process is designed to protect the individual. It could therefore be argued that the Government have failed to tell us what problem they are trying to resolve, and what process they are trying to protect.
The fourth condition states that the processing must be carried out by a not-for-profit organisation and should not involve disclosing personal data to a third party unless the individual consents. Extra limitations apply to this condition, in that individual consents are required for disclosure to a third party. Will the Minister tell us whether the assurer or the certification officer are third parties? Would any investigator appointed by the certification officer be deemed to be a third party, given that they are deemed in the legislation to be independent? That would not be compatible with the responsibility of the data controller in the trade union.
In addition to those conditions in the Data Protection Act, regulations set out several other conditions for processing sensitive personal data. Their effect is to permit such processing for a range of other purposes—typically, those cases that are substantially in the public interest and that must necessarily be carried out without the explicit consent of the individual. The Government would have to put up a strong argument to convince us that checking a trade union’s membership list was substantially in the public interest, and I cannot see how the provisions in part 3 of the Bill can be deemed to be fulfil those conditions. It is difficult to construct a public interest test in relation to the annual membership list of a trade union. The nature of the consent required to satisfy the condition for processing sensitive data must be explicit. The Act particularly mentions the word “explicit”, yet it is not mentioned in the proposed new clause.
We have tabled amendment 108 to ensure that the assurer is a person of suitable calibre. The Secretary of State should explicitly set out regulations to ensure that the assurer can demonstrate a strong knowledge of and previous compliance with the Data Protection Act and other regulations relating to data protection. Our amendment 109 provides for the removal of an assurer if they are in breach of any of the confidentiality conditions, or if the trade union has any reason to believe that it would be inappropriate for them to remain in post. Amendment 118 would raise the bar on confidentiality, requiring the assurer to take “all steps necessary”, instead of the present “all reasonable steps”, to secure obligations under the Data Protection Act and other legislation.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
The inherent reason for legislation and regulation of trade unions seems to be that some of those unions donate money to the Labour party, but can my hon. Friend find any provisions within this Bill that impose similar regulations on organisations such as the United and Cecil Club or the Royal Automobile Club, which donate money to the Conservative party? Given that the RAC is a membership organisation, would it be covered by this legislation?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend makes an interesting observation. No, the RAC would not be covered by part 3, which deals exclusively with trade union membership. In our lengthy debate on the preceding group of amendments, we found that the Conservative party will not even tell us how many members it has, despite the fact that it could well be argued that it has a major vested interest in public opinion and how the laws of this country are determined. Should not the Conservative party therefore be obliged to tell us how many members it has and whether or not its membership lists are accurate? That seems to be falling on deaf ears with the Government. I pressed Members from across the Committee to provide a figure on Conservative party membership, but it has still to come forward.
The Temporary Chairman (Jim Sheridan)
Order. I remind the Committee that we must stick to debating clause 37; we seem to be wandering away from it.
Ian Murray
Thank you, Mr Sheridan. I shall certainly try not to wander off topic.
It is worth pondering the question of the compatibility of these provisions with the European convention on human rights. A vast number of organisations, including the well-respected organisation Liberty, have raised that issue. Liberty believes that part 3 should be removed in its entirety, and I could not agree more. It believes the proposals breach article 11 on freedom of assembly and association, which takes us back to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) who was worried about the impact of this part of the Bill on trade union members, and article 8. For many individuals, membership of a trade union is a deeply private choice.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend accept that if there is a breach of the European convention, it would be open to trade union members to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights against the UK Government on the basis that their freedom of assembly had been denied?
Ian Murray
That is essentially what Liberty is pointing out in its contribution, which I think is a valid and strong one. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) when we debated clause 36 that this is probably what the Government want to do—they want to wrap trade unions up in their own membership lists and taking legal action about them, as well as having to deal with the assurer and certification officer, rather than getting on with the job that their members pay their membership fees for, which is to represent them in the workplace. Both those issues are valid and might be a consequence of this part of the Bill.
I was saying that for many individuals, membership of a trade union is a deeply private choice—one that they wish to keep confidential for perfectly legitimate reasons, whether they be about blacklisting or otherwise. Part 3 and clause 37 in particular open up the possibility that these confidential matters could be made public. For example, Liberty referred to a recent case in which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs decided to suspend its dispute with Equity about providing personal information relating to its members. Wide-ranging powers for the certification officer are, according to Liberty’s lawyers, incompatible with article 8 of the European convention on human rights.
On the power to request other documents, Liberty states:
“The documents of which the CO, authorised persons and inspectors can order production is very wide; it will potentially include matters such as…private correspondence between a union and its members (e.g. about a member’s affiliation to a political fund; membership of an internal section of a union combating discrimination; communications about internal grievances within an employer) and…internal union communications with its membership, such as membership campaigns and industrial action.”
These are all matters that an individual would understandably want to keep private, but the Government proposals will open these up to bodies and individuals who have no duty of confidentiality to the trade union itself, which legally holds the data.
Additionally, future employees may be put off from joining a trade union, as we have already heard this evening, in the knowledge that the union could be required to provide their membership register to a Government body for “any good reason”, which appears in the Bill. That emphasises the point about blacklisting and the strong arguments over freedom of association and trade union membership.
There are three tests for determining whether an interference with the rights in article 11 is justified. This precedent was set in The Sunday Times v. the UK case. It is justified first where the interference corresponds to a pressing social need; secondly, according to whether it is
“proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued”;
and, thirdly, according to whether the reasons given by the national authority to justify it are “relevant and sufficient”. Liberty believes that the changes proposed in part 3 do not pass those tests and that clause 37 does little or nothing to provide reassurance, and it is the driver of our amendment.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Given the seriousness of the duty that is imposed on assurers, I wonder what penalty might be incurred by an assurer who deliberately or negligently failed to observe his responsibilities in respect of confidentiality.
Ian Murray
Under the Bill as it stands, the assurer can be removed, but owing to the weakness of the provisions relating to data protection, it is not clear whether he can be automatically removed if he does not abide by the Data Protection Act. Perhaps the Minister will be able to answer that question. Our amendments are intended to give trade unions the power to remove an independent assurer if they feel that he is causing a trade union data controller to be in breach of his duties.
Let me now deal with the question of whether clause 37 is compliant with article 11. The first issues that emerged from the Sunday Times v. United Kingdom case were “legitimate aim” and “pressing social need”. The Government’s discussion paper states:
“at present complaints to the Certification Officer (CO) about the register can only be made by trade union members and no-one else. In addition, members only have a right to see whether and how their own details are recorded. This means it is difficult for members to make a complaint in relation to the accuracy of the membership register as a whole.”
Liberty rightly argues that that is not a legitimate aim, as the position is already adequately covered by current legislation, and
“the independent scrutineer”
—for whom the Bill also provides—
“is required to examine the entirety of register of their own volition and report any issues to the union.”
That brings us back to the arguments relating to clause 36. Again, these provisions already exist in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act. The same reasoning lies behind amendment 110, which aligns clause 37 and provision for the appointment and removal of assurers—which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe)—with the obligations conferred on scrutineers by section 49(1) of the Act. Any individual challenge to the regulator must involve investigation of the accuracy of the register as a whole, not just the member’s own incorrect entry. The current framework in section 24 of the Act allows for that.
Andrew Gwynne
Does not the scenario that my hon. Friend is setting out throw yet another potential problem into the mix? Would it not start to undermine the perceived neutrality of certification officers by dragging them into industrial disputes from which they have so far been excluded?
Ian Murray
That is a legitimate point. I do not know whether my hon. Friend was present during the last debate, but I can tell him that the certification officer figures are pretty stark. There have been 10 determinations since 1987, none in the last eight years and six between 2000 and 2004, of which five were dismissed and the sixth did not even constitute a formal determination. A new, erroneous part of the Bill could easily cause a certification officer to be dragged into a position that affected his neutrality—which, incidentally, trade unions and their members respect. Unions and certification officers work closely together, and certification officers are always keen to make the point that they are not opposed to each other, but share the aim of ensuring that unions operate correctly and within the law.
Let me now deal with the proportionality issue that arose from the case relating to article 11 of the European convention on human rights. Liberty states that the current regime satisfies the requirement that scrutiny be undertaken to ensure public confidence in the status of any register, and that the current measures to undertake that scrutiny are proportionate.
The increased powers of the certification officer are also disproportionate. First, it may invoke its increased powers if it thinks there is good reason to do so. That is very broadly drawn, and what constitutes a good reason in any case? Might it be a vexatious claim from a national newspaper to the certification officer to have a look at a particular membership list? That was the driver behind our amendment 103 to the previous clause, which the Government have just rejected.
Secondly, the certification officer can view not only the register, but any other document that may be relevant to determining whether there is a breach of section 24(1) of the 1992 Act and it can require people to give explanations.
Thirdly and ultimately, under clause 37 as currently written, the certification officer does not owe a duty of confidentiality to the union. The addition of a third-party inspector would be particularly intrusive and that inspector owes a duty of confidentiality only to the certification officer, not the union.
Liberty rightly concluded:
“These measures clearly go beyond what is necessary and proportionate to achieve any legitimate aim behind the proposals, if indeed there is one at all, and as such constitute a breach of Article 11 of the Convention.”
There is, indeed, a compelling argument to be made that clause 37 breaches article 11. The justification for that claim arises from the fact that there is already legislation in place to deal with many of these issues.
Amendments 111, 112, 166 and 115 are intended to clarify the need for a trade union to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure membership lists are accurate. We discussed some of that language in our debate on the amendments to clause 36. This is completely consistent with obligations under the 1992 Act to take all reasonable steps. That language and responsibility should be reflected in clause 37. There will be an inconsistency of language if we remove the reference to taking reasonable steps in the 1992 Act and replace it with language that is more stringent on the trade unions.
The primary responsibility for the alterations to any membership list lies with the individual. That is already set out in section 24(1) of the Act. However, all too often a union member may move house, change jobs or even pass away and those details will not be passed on to the union membership officer for recording in a timely fashion. In some circumstances, it cannot be reasonable for a trade union to be held wholly responsible for every part of a membership list. People can take a complaint to the certification officer resulting in an in-depth investigation at great cost to both the public purse and the trade unions, when the 1992 Act clearly states that the responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of an individual’s data on a trade union membership list lies with the individual, not the union. If the union has taken “all reasonable steps” to make sure that list is accurate, such a matter should not fall within the remit of this Bill.
It should be the case that the assurer can make a determination that the union has, in so far as is reasonably practicable, ensured the entries in the membership register are accurate. That is what amendments 111 and 112 would achieve. They would give the assurer the power to qualify the membership audit certificate to say that information from employers or members has not come forward in a timely fashion and the union has taken all steps to ensure the information is accurate.
The issuing of any membership certificate will be based on information for just a snapshot in time of that particular moment and day. We have learned from the—late—impact assessment that about 9% or 10% of trade union membership flows in or out of a trade union at any given period. For a major trade union, that amounts to an awful lot of people to keep track of. If a union has taken “all reasonable steps” to ensure their membership list is accurate, it should be taken into account that the list will only be a snapshot of a particular moment in time. It should be possible to clearly state on the audit certificate that any inaccuracies are not the fault of the trade union and therefore the audit certificate is issued with that qualification. The clause as currently drafted would not allow for that.
Importantly, for that process to operate correctly the employers also have a duty of responsibility to the trade union membership audit certification process. Amendment 115 would give the assurer the right to access reasonable information from employers if it was determined that that information would be necessary for the performance of the assurer in determining the accuracy of a membership list. It would also allow for access to data that may satisfy the assurer that the trade union has taken all reasonable steps in compiling the membership register. Many unions have indicated that a lack of information from employers provided in an efficient manner is the main cause of the vast majority of inaccuracies in their membership lists. Giving the assurer the powers to make reasonable requests to employers for information means that there can be confidence that membership registers are indeed accurate. If anything comes out of this process and this bad part of the Bill, it might be that the assurer, as an independent person, could help the trade unions with some of those relationships with the employers, to ensure that the data coming from the employers make the lists that trade unions have far more accurate.
Ian Mearns
One wonders what thought is driving the Government to ask trade unions to do what the Bill requires. I cannot for one moment see a situation where the Government would ask for the same accuracy in electoral lists held by returning officers in particular areas at any given time. It would be almost impossible to provide. The amount of bureaucracy and administration required to keep such lists up to date would be beyond the financial capability of most local authorities.
Ian Murray
That is a good comparison to make, because I would bet that every one of the 166 trade unions registered with the certification officer in this country has far better membership records than any electoral register held by an electoral office. That is not a criticism of the valuation joint boards or local councils; it is simply because people are transient and move in and out all the time, so it is impossible to keep a 100% accurate record. I would guess that the trade union membership lists are far more accurate than such electoral registers.
Finally, I wish to deal with the rather unusual terminology used in clause 37. The word “satisfactory” appears in the proposed new section 24ZD(3) whereas the term “not satisfactory” appears in the proposed subsection (4). The use of that incredibly strange terminology could result in a lack of consistency and direction for assurers. It only fuels the fire in terms of us thinking that that this proposed piece of legislation is designed either to create additional casework or additional case law as some of these issues are taken through the courts, or to keep trade unions busy in the courts trying to justify what is “satisfactory” and what is “not satisfactory”.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines satisfactory as either
“satisfying demands, expectations, or requirements; adequate”
or “atoning” for one’s sins. I hope that the Liberal Democrat Minister will satisfactorily atone for her sins before the next general election—[Interruption.] I would be more than satisfied if she atones for her sins by accepting our amendments on this part of the Bill or, indeed, deletes the clause altogether.
Just how badly this Bill is drafted is shown by the fact that it contains such wide definitions of a term that relates to its fundamental objective in terms of the production of a membership audit certificate. Will the Minister, or indeed the Secretary of State, be determining by guidance what “satisfactory” and what “not satisfactory” means in this context? Will the definitions of and guidance on those two terms have them as exact polar opposites? It is important that that is made clear.
I would term this entire clause 37 as not satisfactory, in sympathy with what is not a very satisfactory Bill. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the Data Protection Act, the significant and real concerns about blacklisting, and the responses from lawyers from Liberty and various other organisations about the inadequacies of this clause in respect of the European convention on human rights. I ask hon. Members to support our amendments.
Ian Lavery
Like most people in the Chamber, I am unaware of why we need assurers. The certification officer, under the trade union and labour relations—TULR—regulations, clearly states that when a trade union submits its annual accounts, its AR21, it must also submit a copy of the names and addresses of the membership. I am puzzled—discombobulated, perhaps—by the fact that the Government are suggesting that we need somebody in the middle to ensure that that happens, because if a union does not submit its membership with its AR21, it is in big trouble with the certification officer.
Ian Lavery
It is up to a trade union and its membership to decide what they want in that union’s rules. It should not be for Government diktat to insist what an independent trade union should and should not have in its rulebook—surely that is undemocratic. Under the democratic process, what should and should not be in a union’s rulebook is decided at conferences following discussions among delegates from the regions, not by the coalition Government. My hon. Friend raises an interesting point because if the Bill is passed, must the 166 trade unions on the certification officer’s website immediately call conferences so that they can adhere to the new legislation? What will happen if they do not?
Ian Murray
As always, my hon. Friend is making a fantastic contribution, but if he reads several of the qualifications in the impact assessment, he will see that the strange thing is that the vast majority of the unions— 120 or more—will self-certify their membership audit certificates because they are so small.
Ian Lavery
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, but it makes us ask why on earth the clauses are being proposed in the first place.
Why are we having assurers and who are they likely to be? With their position layered between the trade union movement and the certification officer, will they be legally qualified? Will they be lawyers or, as is likely, accountants, or will they just be thoroughly decent people? Will they simply be independent people? Could they be people in this House? We need to examine this extra layer of bureaucracy. There is no need for it whatsoever, but if we must have these assurers, who on earth will they be?
Julie Elliott
My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that not a single person has said that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck said, what does “assurer” even mean? It is such a nonsense of a description. As I said, we have to work in the real world. Good legislation needs to understand and relate to the real world, but nothing in clause 37 does, according to my knowledge and experience.
On amendment 112, let us look at the real world—the practicalities. This is about employers sharing information and accurate details with trade unions. Where there is a good relationship and a good recognition agreement, the unions work hand in hand with employers because if businesses do well, union members do well, and there is therefore complete transparency, openness and sharing of information. However, if that situation does not exist, that is not the case. The TULR regulations already set the requirements on the maintenance of the membership system. Various rulings have said that reasonable steps have to be taken to make sure that the membership records are accurate.
In my personal experience—that is where we can all draw our information from—bad employers will do anything to make trade union records wrong. That does not happen only in relation to membership checks for industrial action ballots, which are the most onerous and time-consuming things a trade union official will ever do. In can be a case of trying to get recognition in a company where members have been recruited. Usually it is when members in an unrecognised work force have problems that they go to a trade union. Time, energy and effort will have been spent recruiting the number of members to hit the threshold required to be able to apply for recognition. It is unbelievable the steps that employers will take to try to scupper those numbers. They will suddenly take on temporary workers. If the union is applying for recognition for a particular part of the work force, they will move people from one part of the company to another suddenly to boost the numbers so that the required percentage is not reached. The idea that employers of that mindset will share information about our members is ridiculous.
I would like to run through some of the things that we did when I was a trade union official to try to ensure that our membership records were as up to date as possible. A couple of times a year we sent out magazines to every single member of the trade union, and there was always a big advert saying, “If you move house, change jobs or change your telephone number, let us know.” It has become increasingly hard to keep membership records accurate. Historically people had land lines and did not change their telephone number; nowadays, a lot of people do not have land lines and mobile phone numbers can change quite frequently. There are an enormous number of inaccurate phone numbers in the records of trade unions, as there will be, I suggest, in any organisation. The situation is incredibly difficult. Any other mailing to members would have another advert or a paragraph saying, “If any of your details have changed please let us know.” We had branch audits where it would be a specific task in a certain branch to go through the membership records and physically talk to people about them. I do not think that trade unions could do any more to keep track of their members.
Another issue is that the world has changed. This goes back to my point about having to be practical; in my view, nothing in this clause is practical. Trade union workplace branches, which historically the unions were built on, virtually do not exist any more because the world of work has changed. People do not start work when they leave school and stay there until they retire. We do not have mass employers of thousands of people where people remain in their jobs and can gain promotion and go through the ranks in one company. That is not today’s world of work. In those days, it was quite straightforward to keep track of the membership.
All those things have made the situation more difficult. I hate the idea of what the clause proposes. It is saying that some random person on the street—the assurer, whoever this person is and from whatever background—could challenge what is happening and say, “You haven’t kept your membership records correct.” What is the level of leeway going to be? Where will reasonableness come into this?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case against the Bill. Given her vast experience of involvement in the trade union movement, is she able to think of any circumstances in which a trade union would think it was in its own interests not to keep accurate membership records?
Julie Elliott
No, absolutely not. Trade unions would welcome anything to help them keep more accurate records, because of the amount of time they spend trying to communicate with their members. That argument is a misnomer—it is ridiculous.
Jo Swinson
That was discussed at length in the debate on the previous group of amendments and I refer the hon. Gentleman to my remarks in that debate. Clearly, we want to ensure that there is confidence in the names and addresses that trade unions use for the membership lists. There is agreement on both sides of the Committee that it is important that membership lists are accurate and up to date. That is an existing responsibility and duty on unions. The membership audit certificate will provide confidence in the list. It is much more proportionate for smaller unions, for which it is much easier to keep details up to date—smaller unions have fewer than 10,000 members, whereas some of the larger unions have more than 1 million members—to provide an assurance themselves. However, to have the credibility required for the larger unions, we must have that independence, which is where the assurer comes in.
Ian Murray
Regarding the example we heard earlier, would it be helpful for the Minister to tell the Committee categorically whether my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) could or could not be an assurer?
Jo Swinson
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman and I want to make some progress.
Amendment 110 would mean that unions do not have to set out in their rules how they will appoint and remove an assurer. Not only is the amendment unnecessary, but it is more prescriptive than what we have set out in the Bill. Our intention is to allow unions more discretion over when they remove or appoint an assurer.
Amendment 109 would prevent the appointment or reappointment of an assurer when there was a breach of confidentiality or a breach of their statutory duties or terms of appointment, or when there were reasonable circumstances not to reappoint. Of course it is important that the assurer should take their duty of confidentiality seriously, but the amendments are not necessary to achieve that aim. We can trust the unions to do this, and they will be able to pass a resolution to get rid of an assurer for any reason. It will be up to the unions to decide. The relationship between the assurer and the union is rightly one for the union to define. We have added a minimum level of protection in the Bill to ensure that an assurer is not reappointed if they are not qualified, are incapacitated or have decided that they do not wish to be reappointed. In general, however, it is better that the union should be responsible for the terms of the relationship with the assurer. That will allow much more flexibility to deal with the individual circumstances of each union.
Amendment 111 would expect the assurer to give an opinion as to whether the union had complied with the duty to keep its membership register accurate and up to date. This would replace the current proposal to give an opinion on whether the union’s system for compiling the register was satisfactory for that purpose. What is being proposed in the amendment would be far more costly and onerous to the union. In some cases, the assurer might conclude that they needed to carry out a thorough audit of all the content of the register. We believe that a systems check is more proportionate, and that is what we are setting out.
Amendment 112 has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) and others. It would add an additional requirement to the membership audit certificate. This would be to include the assurer’s opinion as to whether the employer had shared “timely and accurate details” with the union. The hon. Lady took the view that bad employers would try to prevent unions from having the right information. As I mentioned earlier, there is already statutory protection to ensure that unions cannot be held accountable for information that they do not possess, or for inaccuracies that are beyond their control. It is also important to note that we will produce guidance for employers, to help them to assist unions to comply. It is important that employers should comply with their requirement to provide information to unions, and we believe that that additional guidance will be helpful in that regard.
Amendment 166 seeks to assist the assurer by requiring the Secretary of State to produce guidance and define in statute what is “satisfactory” and “not satisfactory”. The amendment is either necessary or desirable. What is satisfactory or not will vary from one union to another, and a one-size-fits-all definition would be onerous for some and ineffective for others. Our approach is to retain flexibility. Assurers will be professionals, and it is reasonable to rely on their professional judgment and ability to apply these phrases appropriately. Ultimately, the membership audit certificate represents only the opinion of the assurer. It is only the certification officer who has the power to make a determination.
Amendment 116 would mean that the union’s assurer was entitled to require only the union’s data controller to provide the necessary information. This would be instead of being able to approach
“the union’s officers, or the officers of any of its branches or sections”,
as set out in the Bill. That could result in the assurer being unable to ask questions of the right people. They should obviously be able to question those who handle sensitive membership data, but they should also be able to question others who understand how those data are kept up to date. In some cases, that might be one and the same individual, but in others it might not be. So the form of words that we have used in the Bill, which is also used throughout the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, is much better.
Amendment 115 seems to suggest that a union should not be penalised for errors when the correct details are held by the employer. I have already set out why existing legislation renders such an amendment unnecessary. There is already a “reasonably practicable” test, and we will be issuing improved guidance. Amendment 117 would mean that the union could supply information to the assurer to help them to carry out their role only if it did not conflict with the union’s responsibility to comply with data protection requirements. I have already outlined the safeguards relating to data protection. The assurer will have to be able to see the register if they are to carry out their responsibilities effectively, and the amendment could prevent that from happening.
Amendment 119 also seeks further reassurance on the Data Protection Act, but that is unnecessary because it will already apply. Amendments 118 and 128 propose replacing the words “all reasonable steps” with “all steps necessary”. I must ask the hon. Member for Edinburgh South what steps he can imagine that are necessary yet unreasonable. Is he really suggesting that we want necessary and unreasonable steps to be taken?
Amendment 120 would change the disclosure requirements, but I have already set out the safeguards, so the amendment is unnecessary.
I hope that I have been able to reassure the Committee on a few points of concern. These measures will not present an unreasonable burden on unions and the safeguards in place against the misuse of data are more than adequate. This clause is necessary to provide independent assurance of the maintenance of large and complex registers. Clause 37 should stand part of the Bill, and I urge the hon. Member for Edinburgh South not to press his amendments.
Ian Murray
Given the time, all I will say in summing up is that the Government cannot win the next general election on the arguments, so they will win it on—
Business of the House
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Mr Lansley
I know how important this issue can be for many constituents, particularly if they are frequent users of hospital services. A code of practice has been established through the NHS Confederation and that should ensure that those frequent users are able to access discounts and the like. I encourage my hon. Friend to talk to the Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust about that, while recognising that these are decisions for NHS organisations. As a Government we have not sought to impose a structure on hospitals. Indeed, we have not chosen to divert money that should be available to support patient care to the subsidising of car parking.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Several of my constituents who are small business owners came to see me on Saturday to tell me that the Clydesdale bank is refusing to renew their facilities, despite promises that it would do so. They are now on punitive interest rates of 29.9% APR and face the threat of losing their homes. May we have an urgent debate in the House on why the banks are telling us that they are doing all they can to support businesses and to ensure that people do not get thrown out of their homes, when in reality they are doing the opposite?
Mr Lansley
Many Members across the House share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration about the relationship between many small businesses and the banking system, but I bring him good news. Today, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has made a written statement, which may be followed up in today’s debate, about the operation of the new business bank and the support that it will give to stronger lending to small businesses. I am sure that when the hon. Gentleman has a further meeting with small businesses in his constituency, they will share with him their delight at the Budget measures, including the £2,000 per employer reduction in national insurance contributions.
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Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Yesterday we saw a leaked internal report by the Scottish Government showing that even Scottish National party Ministers have huge concerns about the stability of the Scottish economy should Scotland become independent. May we have an urgent debate on the report, which would show once and for all that Scotland is better together?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I must confess that I was unaware of the report to which he refers, but I will certainly seek an opportunity to read it. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but I think that, as we move towards to next year’s referendum, it is very important that we have the kind of debate he seeks in this House and across the country.
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Mr Lansley
I will, of course, as my hon. Friend requests, talk to my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, not least to ensure that we do everything we can to support workers in Harlow, Bolsover and elsewhere.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Media reports are suggesting that the Government are pushing ahead at great pace with the privatisation of Royal Mail. Given that the House has not debated the issue since the passing of the Postal Services Act 2011, may we have an urgent debate or a statement on the Government’s proposals for the privatisation of that much-cherished national institution?
Mr Lansley
As the hon. Gentleman suggests in his question, the House has resolved what should happen, and it is now a question of carrying that forward. He will of course have an opportunity to ask questions of Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shortly. I do not have the date—
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Mr Lansley
I cannot promise to investigate in detail myself, but I can undertake to be in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. The issue clearly relates to corporate governance so I will ask him to look into it and respond to my hon. Friend.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
May I add my thanks and best wishes to all the staff of the House, including all the staff of the Speaker’s Office?
Some 3,900 people in my constituency claim in-work benefits but will be worse off next year as a result of the autumn statement. May we have an urgent debate next year on the fairness of hitting the people who do the right thing while millionaires get a massive tax cut?
Mr Lansley
I remind the hon. Gentleman of the exchange that I had with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). One must take into account the fact that people are in work and are receiving in-work benefits. Those benefits will not necessarily rise by inflation but by 1%. The pay of many people in work is not rising or is rising by a very small amount indeed, but one must also take into account that in recognition of that and because we want those who are in work to feel that work really pays and that the more hours they work, the more benefit they get, this Government are reducing the tax on the lowest paid. The personal tax allowance is going up to £9,440. That will make a significant difference to the tax bill of lower paid workers.
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Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House was correct to mention the confusion at the heart of government with regard to the Cabinet Growth Implementation Committee. If that Committee has met twice, why have the Government refused to answer my parliamentary question about its membership? May we have an urgent statement on the membership of this Committee, when it has met and what will be on the agenda for its next meeting?
Mr Lansley
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman appears not to be aware that the document listing the members of Committees and Cabinet Committees was published on Tuesday. He could have seen it already.
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Sir George Young
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Government have made the position clear in so far as the civil service is concerned. As he will know, the BBC is an independent organisation, but I am sure that his question will have been heard by those at the BBC and that they will want to respond to the points that he made in the light of the FOI request that he has recently had answered.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
My constituents in Bruntsfield and Morningside are becoming increasingly concerned about the proliferation of mini-supermarkets, which are having a significant impact on local traders. May we have time allocated for a debate on the number of mini-supermarkets in our local communities and the detrimental effect that that is having on local traders?
Sir George Young
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising a key issue. I think that the Backbench Business Committee held a debate in January on the subject of the future of the high street and the Mary Portas inquiry. The Government have said that they will respond to that inquiry in the spring. I hope that it might be possible, perhaps with the assistance of the Backbench Business Committee, then to revisit this issue to see whether we can get the balance right between the supermarkets and the imperative to have a flourishing high street full of smaller shops.