Deregulation Bill

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Cryer

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

That worries me even more. I make this not as a party political point, but as a practical governmental point: that means that the legislation is a leap in the dark, before we know in any detail the consequences of what we are doing.

The Government have been looking at the matter for three years now. I met Lord—I have forgotten his name. He got the sack after having a few drinks too many at a reception. I met the original Lord who was consulting on this. He turned up with an individual who I thought was his butler. It was an adviser. He eventually got the push because he had a few drinks too many and said some unwise words. He was so impressive that I cannot remember his name. I met him three years ago when the measure was first mooted. We went through examples of what he thought was unnecessary health and safety legislation in certain areas. One of the areas he was looking at was shops, so I introduced him to the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, which explained to him that health and safety matters were a worry in shops where its workers were.

From that original prejudicial approach, I thought the Government were going to lay out in detail how the duties would be implemented. To introduce the legislation without such detail in such an important area will render the legislation ineffective and put people at risk.

[John Cryer]

What my hon. Friend says about risk is right. In Committee, we asked time and again for a definitive list. The Government kept amending the list. I do not know which version we are on now, but we are almost at the end of the parliamentary process on the Bill, and the Government are now saying that they will consult. That should have been done right at the start of the process; if it had, we would now know what we were dealing with.

[John McDonnell]

There are times when one legislates on the principle and then rolls out the practical implications, but I agree with my hon. Friend that in this instance, because of the legislation’s significance and because the detail is so important to whether it is viable, in the three years when the consultation was supposed to be going on we could have drilled down into the detail and then come back with effective legislation, which would have achieved some element of consensus. Instead we have absolute confusion, and in health and safety matters that means risk. I will vote for the amendment, but I deeply regret the way in which the legislation has been brought forward. The risks that will be incurred will affect many of us, throughout all these different industries, but more broadly, as self-employment now grows, not only will self-employed workers be put at risk, but the general public as well. That is why the Minister needs to think again very seriously.

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[John Cryer]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I do not remember any specific discussion about whether maritime occupations should be on the list. Perhaps that was partly because we had a separate, lengthy and passionate discussion about maritime investigations. The RMT represents not all but most seafarers, and that discussion took place, oddly enough, just after it was announced that Bob Crow had passed away, and I think that added to the passion in the debate.

[John McDonnell]

There is a reason for the concern. It has been argued that there is not an awful lot of self-employment in the maritime sector, but there is. My hon. Friend knows as well as I do, because he was involved in this, the issues with the Thames cruises, where there is self-employment: individual families own their own boats and there is a licensing regime. Health and safety still needs to be applied to them, but they do not seem to be anywhere near the list.

[John Cryer]

I do not have the list in front of me, but I accept what my hon. Friend says. One of the things that has changed in the past few years—this has happened relatively recently—is that an awful lot of industries now have extensive groups of self-employed people. My hon. Friend mentioned that earlier in his career he worked for the National Union of Mineworkers. It is not particularly widely recognised that most miners—there are not many of them around nowadays, because successive Conservative Governments massacred the deep-mining industry—are self-employed or agency workers, and many of them are on virtually zero-hours contracts.

I think there is a view that anyone working at a deep mine in Hatfield or any of the others that still exist does so for an employer on a normal pay-as-you-earn basis. The reality is that most people who work in mines are self-employed in a very dangerous industry, and some of them—probably those who work on the surface, rather than those who work underground—will be removed from health and safety cover as a result of this Bill. At the very least, confusion will reign, because nobody is quite sure whom the Bill covers and whom it does not.

One of the many bases of this Bill is the idea that there is still a hard and fast division between those who are employed and those who are self-employed. That traditional view of the workplace was accurate 30, 40 or 50 years ago, but it does not apply now, because increasing numbers of people are self-employed and increasing numbers of people come under what Labour Members would call bogus self-employment. These are people who have been shifted to a self-employed status, sometimes against their will. There are examples of work forces who wake up one morning to discover that they are suddenly self-employed, having not been consulted. Before the Solicitor-General is moved to intervene, I know that that is illegal, but I think it is indicative of the world of work that we have today.

Disreputable employers already have several incentives for moving people to self-employed status, including the ability to abandon many of their normal responsibilities—the duty to pay national insurance, sick pay, holiday pay and so forth. More and more companies are now offering different routes for shifting work forces to self-employment. In Committee, I gave the example of the role of payroll companies, which go to normal construction companies—this happens a lot in construction—and say, “Give us your payroll responsibilities. We’ll look after paying the work force. We’ll shift them all to self-employed. As a result, you will escape responsibility for paying NI, holiday pay, sick pay and all the rest of it.” Another impetus is the fact that, because of the cuts to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, it does far fewer compliance inspections than it did five or six—or even two—years ago. The idea that employers will be caught out shifting people to bogus self-employment by HMRC is less likely; it is more likely that they will get away with it.

The Bill provides another incentive to companies—not just those in construction, but in other industries as well—to move people to self-employment so that they can escape their responsibilities. If someone running a construction company who does not particularly care about his or her employees is told, “Well, if they’re not self-employed, they’re not covered by health and safety”, that is another incentive, encouragement or green light to employers to engage in such processes. Some of the processes are legal or on the fringe of legality, but many employers are still getting away with it. The irony is that many of the most dangerous industries, such as construction and agriculture, already have a very high level of self-employment. In some industries, we are moving to a position in which we are seeing the virtual abolition of regular full-time employment.

The TUC issued a briefing earlier today. Many Government Members think that the TUC is populated by blokes who are blood-soaked lefties and all about 8 ft tall, with biceps the size of Bournemouth.

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

Debate between John McDonnell and Lord Cryer

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[John Cryer]

First, let me say what a compelling speech my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) just made. He made some strong points—this is about the evisceration of the industrial and political opposition over the next few months because the Government can see some serious problems on the horizon emanating from the policies they are pursuing. They want to neutralise any resistance to those policies and their consequences through the Bill and other measures.

I have a series of questions on this clause that I would like the Minister to deal with. My first question has been asked before, but it is specific. What specific complaints about union record keeping have been made and by whom over the last, say, three years? Secondly, as an addendum to that, what evidence is there that unions are not keeping accurate records? As we have heard before, under the 1992 legislation there is already a duty on trade unions to keep their records up to date. What has changed since then? What enormous problems are associated with trade union record keeping that have led the Government to their current position and to change things in such a radical way?

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[John Cryer]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. There is also the situation involving payroll companies. If such a company offers to take over an employer’s payroll responsibilities, the duties to pay pensions, national insurance and sick pay are divested to that payroll company, meaning that that semi-detached element in the workplace is responsible for maintaining many records, which makes keeping everything up to date even more complicated and difficult. Another aspect is the casualisation of the workplace, because there are some sectors of the economy in which full-time permanent employment is almost being abolished. Again, that situation will make it more difficult to comply with the Bill’s strictures.

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point about the difficulty of communicating with trade union members. I have been a branch secretary, so I know that it is difficult enough to communicate with just a branch. The key aspect of the Government’s motivation in previous legislation has been to address balloting procedures, which I understand to a certain extent, because there is a need to ensure that there is an accurate record of membership when taking a ballot. However, what is sinister about the Bill’s proposals, with reference to the Government’s assessment, is that they are about ensuring that the general public and employers are

“confident that voting papers and other communications are reaching union members”.

The Bill therefore covers a wider range of activities than just balloting, so there could be challenges from employers and others about just whether a trade union had adequately communicated with its members, by post or other means, about any matter.

[John Cryer]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether any other section of civil society is as heavily regulated as trade unions. Unions will be subject to even more regulation because every piece of communication with members will be covered by statute, which represents an extraordinary intervention into people’s lives.

Will the Minister tell us how the 1992 Act relates to the Bill, and especially to clause 36, because that Act makes provision for keeping accurate and up-to-date records? Will she tell us what has specifically changed since the implementation of that consolidation Act that has brought about an enormous problem that now must be dealt with?