Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

I am not voting for duplication. I am going to vote for this part of the Bill. I am being informed that legislation is already in place, but I was probably at school at that time. I would love to accept what the hon. Gentleman and Opposition Members say, but I am not able to trust them. That is why I am going to vote for this part of the Bill. It is nothing personal. It is just that there has been a lot of discussion going back and forth across the Committee, but I like to vote on the facts, and the facts before me today relate to this part of Bill.

I am sure that the Chairman will be grateful to know that I am about to bring my remarks to a close. We should try to reduce some of the rhetoric. This is not an ideological argument and the provisions are not a massive attack on the trade union movement—nobody wants to see that. Trade union members are fantastic members of our society, and the trade unions have been a fantastic vehicle for societal change throughout the ages. I am happy to work with them on a variety of occasions— working alongside them, for example, at charity events in my constituency or when the national unions work on issues that are important to their members such as fair pay, tax transparency or a range of other issues.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

It is pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). He declared himself an optimist about the purposes of this part of the Bill and clause 36 in particular. The problem with the Bill, as well as with this particular provision, is the gap between the declared purposes and the provisions themselves. In clause 36, the problem is that the purposes are not clear at all.

In its confused content and its incompetent and chaotic handling, this whole Bill reminds me of a previous piece of legislation that the Leader of the House introduced—the Health and Social Care Bill. I led the opposition to that Bill. It was a Bill without allies and with a remarkable range of critics that saw Lord Tebbit and the trade unions finding common ground. The Leader of House, when he was Health Secretary, was forced to pause, review and reflect upon that Bill. The same problems with this Bill surely call for the same solution.

Let me now deal specifically with clause 36 and the amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, told us that his Committee had considered the White Paper, the forerunner of the Bill, and that there had been no mention of part 3 or of trade unions. He said that, according to his calculations, this part of the Bill—including clause 36—had been published the day before the summer recess, eight working days before we were required to consider it in Committee today, and he rightly pointed out that the task of scrutinising these provisions would therefore fall to the other House.

I am not prepared to accept that, and the Committee should not be prepared to accept it either. It is part of our duty in a Committee stage such as this to exercise scrutiny in the House of Commons, but we have been unable to do so. We have been unable to do so because of the time scale, because of the lack of any wider consultation, and indeed, as we have heard this afternoon, because of the Government’s failure to provide the Committee even with some of the most basic documentation before asking it to consider the Bill. Such a degree of confusion and incompetence on the part of Ministers is unacceptable.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend’s critique of the Bill and, in particular, with what he is saying about clause 36, but is not the position even worse than he is suggesting? The Government have failed to explain to the House why the changes are necessary in the first place. We have not got a clue what problem they are trying to solve.

[John Healey]

I shall respond to my hon. Friend’s intervention in a moment. I want my speech to reflect what has been said in the debate so far, and the point that he has made has already begun to emerge during our discussion of clause 36 and the amendments.

Another point has emerged as well, and it constitutes a direct challenge to Ministers. The face of the Bill bears the following declaration from the Leader of the House:

“In my view the provisions of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights.”

Members of Parliament and legal experts outside the House have rightly asked whether article 8 of the convention, in particular, is not confounded by the provisions of clause 36. The clause gives the certification officer, or any investigator whom he may appoint, sweeping powers of access to very personal individual information about trade union members, which could contravene article 8 and the right to privacy. As I think the Committee will appreciate, union members are rightly concerned and sensitive about the issue, given the recent history of blacklisting and discrimination on the basis of trade union membership or activity. What I should like the Minister to do when he responds to the debate—

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

She.

[John Healey]

What I should like the Minister to do when she responds to the debate is give the Committee a commitment that she will publish, or place in the Library of the House, the legal advice on which the Leader of the House’s statement on the front of the Bill is based, so that we can lay that concern to rest.

Let me now turn to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). In his excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) asked what was the problem with which clause 36, and part 3 as a whole, had been designed to deal. Even the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) rightly asked the same question, albeit in different terms. He asked what intention was behind the provisions in clause 36. Our debate so far has clearly shown that there is no evidence of a problem, that there is no public call for these changes, and that there is no principled case for them. We can only conclude that the intention, or the purpose, of the clause is to tighten the legislative leash on trade unions and their ability to take proper, lawful industrial action.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. I hope the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) will not stray too far down that road, and will return to the subject of the clause and amendments. He has performed very skilfully so far.

[John Healey]

Indeed so, Sir Edward.

As a former member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the steps, linked to the clause, that any union needs to take before contemplating industrial action are already highly complex. They are legally specified, and they set a number of very high hurdles for any group of trade union members who wish to consider industrial action. As for his general point, it is often the determination of union members to take industrial action if necessary, and as a last resort, that causes employers to see sense, negotiate properly and, in many cases, solve the problems at hand.

Let me sum up the position. The number of days lost to strike action is at a near all-time low. Industrial action is always a last resort. The series of legislative steps that any group of trade union members must take before engaging in lawful industrial action are already highly complex, lengthy and tightly specified in law, but clause 36 will make that specification much tighter, and will make it much more difficult for unions to take such action. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) pointed out, there is no legal right to strike in this country, and any industrial action lays a trade union open to being sued for inducing and encouraging members to breach their employment contracts. It is only the immunity from being sued, which comes from following all the steps specified in existing legislation, that will be made more difficult by the provisions in clause 36.

Too often in recent years, employers—not just large employers such as Balfour Beatty, Serco and London Midland—instead of dealing with the grievance at hand, and instead of consulting, negotiating and discussing the problems that they face with their own employees and dealing with the dispute, have looked for legal ground to try to prevent any industrial action through the law courts. The duty in clause 36 to provide the membership audits and certificates, and the potential investigations on the back of any complaints under the auspices of the certification officer, are likely to make it much easier for employers to find legal grounds and to take legal action to prevent union members from taking proper, legitimate industrial action. Clause 36 will create a mountain of data and paperwork which will be at the fingertips of employers well in advance of any particular risk of industrial action or dispute.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Is that not exactly what the Government intend, so that, apart from causing financial difficulties, this Bill can be used by employers to hit out at employees?

[John Healey]

I think my hon. Friend is right, but our problem is that we are having to intuit the intention behind these provisions and this clause because the Government have not supplied evidence of a problem, have not supplied a purpose for these provisions, and have not supplied any reason for this unreasonable tightening of the legislation.

[John Cryer]

My right hon. Friend talked about legal action being taken against trade unions. The other problem is that an employer has six years in which to take that legal action. I can remember dealing with cases where a legal firm said, “Let the ballot and industrial action go ahead because we then have six years during which, at any point, we can take legal action against the union.”

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend has more experience in this area than I have, and he is right to point that out, and he might have gone on to say, “And what a stark disparity with the legal requirements on trade unions to take any industrial action they may have balloted upon within days, not years, and then to give further fresh notice to the employer before the start of that industrial action.” The legislation is already hugely unbalanced and is, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) argued, ripe for reform—although I think he and I would disagree on the nature of the reform that is required.

The Opposition’s arguments against this clause and my particular objections are clear, and our amendments highlight them. Regardless of what the Government are prepared to say about its purpose now, it is designed to tighten the current legislation binding trade unions. It is designed to make it more difficult for trade unions to take proper legal, legitimate industrial action and in particular for members facing problems in their workplace to stand up to an employer as a last resort and say, “You’re treating us in such an unfair, discriminatory and unacceptable way that we are prepared to take industrial action as a last resort.” If we allow this provision and this part of the Bill to proceed unamended it will become much more difficult for ordinary people as union members in the workplace to stand up for themselves through their union against their employer.

[Mr McKenzie]

I will restrict my remarks to clause 36 and to supporting our amendments. As we have heard over the past few days, this is a bad Bill and it would be poor legislation. Part 3 and clause 36 have clearly been ill thought out and ill conceived by the Government—but they have clearly thought through what they want to achieve. These measures would achieve their goals, but, unfortunately, they are not the goals a lobbying Bill should set out to achieve.

To compound things, this Bill is being rushed through Parliament at a speed that would make Usain Bolt envious. Opposition Members repeatedly ask, “Why the hurry? Why can’t we take a bit of time to scrutinise this Bill and get it right?” There has been no consultation on the Bill either, which has been highlighted.