Trade Union Bill

Debate between James Cartlidge and Chris Stephens

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

I agree with that. Seasoned veterans of the House will know what I mean when I say that this is Keith Joseph, phase 3. This is an ideological attack on the largest group in civic society that stands up against exploitation.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to serve on the Bill Committee and the hon. Gentleman was a wily performer. He talks about Keith Joseph and says that we are not in the real world. I remind him that we heard evidence right at the beginning of our consideration from the chief executive of Arriva buses, who said that on a vote of 17% of the staff of his firm, 50% of all buses in London were stopped. Think of the disruption that that caused for real people out there in the real world.

[Chris Stephens]

The key issue was not the number of people who were balloted, but the number of fellow workers who then came out to support them. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there was other evidence of employee intimidation and blacklisting, and the Government need to answer that point later in our debate.

Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Chris Stephens

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Stephens]

I am happy.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Q 250 Thank you for coming in today. I want to focus on the point about identification. Mr Hall, you said that it may be of benefit to be able to identify who to speak to and know who is the organiser. Is that not currently the case, in your experience of dealing with disputes?

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I think it is generally the case that you can find out that detail, but I would not say it is always the case. Certainly, when we attend, our ability to find who is supervising the picket line and discuss and negotiate with them about the way the picket is conducted enables people to continue to cross the picket line if they wish to do so and enables those on the picket to approach vehicles or individuals trying to cross the picket line. It is always helpful if we can fairly quickly identify who that supervision is. Generally we can do it, but that is not always the case.

Trade Union Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Chris Stephens

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Stephens]

Q 143 I just have one question for the organisations. If for any reason existing staff, in this case train drivers or bus drivers, were replaced by agency workers, who would be inadequately trained, that would cause both your organisations concern for passenger safety.

David Sidebottom: If that manifested itself to us through representations from passengers, it would of course, yes.

Janet Cooke: Whether they were staff employed by the operator or agency staff, if they were not properly trained, it would be inappropriate for them to work.

[James Cartlidge]

Q 144 I want to focus on the point about timing of ballots. You may be aware that the Bill introduces a four-month time limit. You are talking about the uncertainty caused by striking. It seems that it is on the transport network that these long-standing ballots have been used. What is your view? Do you support that time limit, so that there is greater certainty for yourselves and your passengers?

David Sidebottom: The message that we get loud and clear from passengers whenever there is any disruption, whether it be industrial action, bad weather, or engineering works is, “Get me out of the mess that you are putting me into. Give me the options, give me the information on which I can make choices. When I get up in the morning, is my train going to run, because there are three inches of snow outside and the wind has been blowing, or is there a threat of industrial action?” The requirement for quality information comes across loud and clear.

Trade Union Bill (First sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Chris Stephens

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Stephens]

Q 8 Part of the difficulty, though, is that the notice for compulsory redundancy is now 45 days. The danger of the Bill—I am curious to hear your views on this—is that trade unions will have to ballot right away when an employer issues a statutory redundancy notice, because it is now 45 days. Given the timescale, does it not worry you that there will actually be more balloting, rather than less?

John Cridland: For employers, we are trying to get the principle of clear consent. If a trade union and its members are going to withdraw their labour, which is clearly their right, we want to see evidence of consent in those situations. The difficulty with the current legislation is that it can leave employers faced with a situation where there is a low turnout—we have already heard the situation that Dr Marshall described of a ballot, prior to a situation where the ballot was some period before. These are not giving clear signals to the employer. So the spirit of our evidence is, “Can we have a system that both in time and in signalling makes it much clearer to the employers the nature of the dispute, and allows the employer to deal with that?” That is what we are after.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Q 9It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Dr Marshall, you raised the point about productivity, and I just want to ask about some of the wider economic impact of the Bill, if it is passed—in particular, the impact on investment, including inward investment, and on making the UK an attractive place to invest, and perhaps, Mr Martin, in terms of your industry, on whether having greater confidence about industrial relations will enable you to have stronger management and therefore attract more investment into it.

Dr Adam Marshall: Many thanks for the question. Undoubtedly, businesses that believe that the framework for industrial relations is modern and secure will be more confident when it becomes time to invest, particularly in those industries, such as the one represented by Mr Martin, that are affected by some of the enhanced thresholds that this Bill puts in place.

We have been very supportive of the definition of which areas should fall under those enhanced thresholds, in part because those businesses are extremely capital-intensive and do things that are extremely important to the functioning of the broader business community. So whether we are talking about transport, the delivery of energy supplies and indeed—vis-à-vis the supply of future skills—whether we are talking about the education sector, these are things that have a huge knock-on effect on the rest of the economy. So we believe that these measures are proportionate to help with that particular challenge.

Vis-à-vis our attractiveness to overseas businesses, one only needs to look at the media impact of transport strikes in London—how they are reported—and what you see are the knock-on effects on the economy of this particular area, and of course we have seen that played out in other cities as well, right across the UK. That has a deterrent effect on would-be investors, and I think that we would see that deterrent effect being lessened with a modernised system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

Q 85 I have several questions. First, do you agree that there is a danger in introducing thresholds—the impact that it will have on some gender equality issues, for example? Shift changes impact workers trying to pursue equal pay issues and the like. Secondly, is there a new danger of public bodies having to reissue new, individual contracts on the basis of opportunities to check-off and those sorts of issues? Do you see any impact on the devolved Administrations given that your organisation has offices across the UK?

Stephen Cavalier: First, on the equality point, the TUC has already submitted evidence. There is a disproportionate impact of thresholds on women workers; it is absolutely clear that there is a discriminatory impact. On the question of check-off and facility time, we are also a large employer. We have check-off and facility time and we are pleased to do so. It is something that we have agreed with our workforce and it works very well for us. I very much endorse the comments made in a 2012 paper by called “Stop the Union-Bashing” by Robert Halfon MP, who says that Whitehall should not dictate to employers and that it should be a matter for employers to agree facility time. I commend that paper to the Committee. It is certainly right that employers should agree facility time and check-off. It is a matter for them.

There are serious issues here associated with the devolved Administrations. As I understand it, they have the right to determine these arrangements within their own spheres. This does cut across that, and it does so in a very negative way. It is very concerning that the impact assessment itself—in fact, I think the European convention assessment that the Government have produced says specifically that this removal of existing contractual arrangements and collective agreements may have retrospective effect. That is a serious potential breach of article 1, protocol 1 of the European convention.

[James Cartlidge]

Q 86 Thank you both for coming. You have both spoken about thresholds and their potential impact, but neither of you seem to have focused on the key point that matters to the country at large, which is that it is so unfair to our commuters, our parents and so on that their public services can be brought down for days on low turnouts. We heard earlier from Arriva that on a 17% ballot, 50% of their buses were out for a day, causing massive disruption to its passengers. Do you not accept, in principle, that it is right to deal with that?

Mike Emmott: Our view is that although it is conceivable that the increased threshold will influence the outcome in some cases, it is quite unclear whether it is going to make striking more or less likely. There are lots of way of causing problems. We do not have a view on whether or not the thresholds are right in principle. We simply take the view that they are just as likely to cause more trouble as they are to reduce it.