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

Debate between John Healey and Stephen McPartland

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.