Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Prentis]

I am going to put you with Mr McCluskey in my head.

Dave Prentis: It is a no to the two thresholds.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Q 399 The ILO definition of public services talks about “essential”. The Bill talks about “important”. Are you clear from the Government so far how important public services will be defined and, crucially, which workers will be covered?

Frances O'Grady: No, and I do not think the Government are clear either. In particular, the proposal that so-called ancillary roles could be included is extremely interesting but has yet to be defined. It makes it very difficult to have an intelligent discussion about this aspect of the Bill when we do not even know what jobs and functions could be covered.

To give a practical example, if a call centre is providing public services as part of its work and for parts of those call centre workers’ jobs, but it is based in the private sector, does it fall under the 50% threshold or the 40% threshold? Quite genuinely, how are unions supposed to run a lawful ballot when it is simply not clear how that would work in the real world? So far, we have not had an answer to those questions. It could be cleaners, call centre workers, ancillary staff—all sorts of job could be covered—but I am not sure how the Government’s proposals are supposed to work in the private sector that is providing public services.

Dave Prentis: It will be a nightmare, and it will be a goldmine for solicitors because for every work group we try to define, it will be fought out in the courts. None of us want that, surely. It is so ambiguous and so badly worded that it is difficult to find out how essential these people who are caught are. At the moment, it catches teaching assistants, who work in our schools at different levels, may only work at term time and, in many cases, are abused in the way they are treated, yet they may find themselves caught by this idea of important public services. It is ill defined and will lead to litigation going on for many, many months around disputes. Instead of trying to solve the disputes, we will be involved in fighting out in the courts whether or not we should be balloting, or whether we need an 80% majority or half of the members actually voting. It is going to be an absolute nightmare for industrial relations in public services.

Frances O'Grady: What is clear is that the Government are going way beyond any international definition of an essential service. International bodies are very clear that it is not enough to say you are further restricting strike action purely because of—however bad it is, however inconvenient and however disruptive to other businesses, that in itself cannot constitute a reason for further restrictions on the right to strike in certain sectors. In any case, the Government’s definition—carefully worded, I think—of important services goes way beyond any international definition of “essential”.

[The Chair]

We are moving into an area that we should be wrapping up. We should finish in about one minute, but I have leeway of up to five minutes. I will call Julie Elliott as the final speaker, but before I do, we may have a brief response from Stephen Doughty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nusrat Ghani]

Q 425 The Bill aims to modernise trade unions in just the way that work is modernised. Very few people now get a pay packet; the salary goes into your bank account. Surely, in that way, any worker should be able to choose whether they want to subscribe to a union or which union they want to subscribe to. That is why there needs to be a change in check-off.

Matthew Hancock: I agree with that and I will add something to it. It improves public protection because it ensures that it is an active choice of the member to be a member of the union, rather than getting the form in a pile of paperwork on day one, signing it off and the money always going out of your pay cheque before you receive it.

On check-off, I reassure Members about how sensible this change is by quoting the PCS union, which is the biggest union in the civil service. As of this morning, its website said:

“It’s quick and easy to sign up for direct debit—you can do it online in a couple of minutes… We are asking all members to do something very simple but very important—get ready to switch payment of your subs to direct debit. It only takes a few minutes”.

That demonstrates that this is not something that people should overreact to. Rather, it is a perfectly sensible change that has taken place largely already within the civil service. The PCS, which is the union that is mostly affected, confirms on its website that it is very simple and only takes a few minutes.

[Jessica Morden]

Q 426 In the previous session, we discussed the definition of important public services. From talking with Frances O’Grady, it seems that trade unions obviously are not clear who is going to be affected. Dave Prentis said he thought it was a “nightmare”, “ill defined” and would “lead to litigation”. Will we have a chance to debate these regulations and why have they had no consultation with you about what this will mean to them in practice?

Nick Boles: To correct you, we have had consultation, which is why it is not yet clear. The consultation only closed as the other consultations did. It is one of those funny things in government: you either get into trouble for not being specific, or you get into trouble for not having consulted. We wanted to say that we are clear about the sectors that this should apply to—health, education, transport, fire, nuclear decommissioning and border control. Then the question is, is it right that it should apply to anybody and everybody working within those sectors, whether in the private sectors, ancillary jobs or core jobs? Is there a practical way of narrowing down? We consulted on this point. We have had a lot of responses to the consultation. We will bring forward specific proposals before the legislation has received Royal Assent.

[Jessica Morden]

Q 427 It is just me, then. Why, then, have we not seen the draft regulations before now?

Nick Boles: Because we were waiting to analyse the very, very substantial response to the consultation that finished, I think, only at the beginning of September.

[Edward Argar]

Q 428 I have two very brief questions, the first of which is for the Minister for Skills. Minister, you have been very clear that you respect the right to strike, as we all do, and that this Bill does not, despite some alarmist suggestions, remove that right. The NASUWT actually acknowledged in its evidence that strikes would continue. Would it be a fair characterisation to say that it ensures that all the people and families currently at risk of having their daily and working lives significantly disrupted by strike action on a very low turnout will have a slightly more balanced set of protections to ensure that strikes have genuine support?

Nick Boles: Yes, exactly. The NASUWT should know well, because there have been strikes in the teaching profession on a very low turnout and on ancient ballots. Ultimately, that just really irritates people. They accept that they are going to be disrupted in a legitimate strike; they just want to know that it is at least recent and that enough people supported it.