Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

Yes—“Come into my parlour”.

I attended the Wales TUC and the Scottish TUC for well over a decade—some might say I do not have a home to go to. That helped me to understand the completely different cultures of those countries and the completely different relationship that the workforce, the trade unions, employers, Governments and successive Administrations had with each other, and the respect that successive Governments had with the trade unions. It is not just that this is a damaging Bill; it is an affront to those countries that there should be some imposition of power. That is what we are talking about, not whether employers should be forced to issue a work notice but that there will be an overall power, the details of which are not known, which the Welsh and Scottish Administrations will have to accept.

We are talking here about the tone of employment relations, which has always been completely different. It has been conducted in a non-legalistic way. There have been as many strikes, and I am not saying that the services are particularly better in Wales or Scotland, but the tone of the relationship is what could be so badly damaged.

It was most interesting at Question Time today for those noble Lords who were here to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, talking about the distinction between the workforce and the trade unions. I have been trying to make the point all along that this Government are doing their best to separate trade unions from their workforce. The noble Baroness was very keen to assure the House that she was not blaming the workforce for people not doing non-contractual rest-day work; she was blaming the trade unions for those members not doing non-contractual rest-day work. That in any case is a bad practice that has grown up over the years, which has really been because members have wanted a better standard of living, but are we really saying that a minimum service level will have to include this non-contractual rest-day working, or will it not include it? Or will it not be mentioned at all in any document?

The Minister is shaking his head and smiling. I realise that he must be getting very fed up of listening to all of this. Maybe that will help the Government next time to bring forward a Bill that actually has some content in, and then he will not be so bored.

I do not know how many people here watched “Boys from the Blackstuff”—some Members are certainly too young for that—but I am reminded of the character called Yosser Hughes, who went around saying “Gis a job”. In this case it is the Government saying, “Gis a power. We don’t know what we’re going to do with it, we can’t tell you yet, we promise to consult you, but gis a power.” I think the Government are hoping that, if they carry on repeating that for long enough, everyone will sit back and say, “Oh all right, let’s see what they do with it”. As far as I am concerned, that is the main principle: the Government are asking us to give them a power and not telling us how they will use it.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, there is a feeling growing up or being put around this House that somehow the Conservative Benches are historically against trade unions. These Benches are not historically against them. I spent 25 years in the European Parliament, and my noble friend the Minister spent some years there. I spent some time on the European Economic and Social Committee, which, as with Scotland and Wales, bases itself on trying to get a consensual view of industrial relations. If you want to improve the wealth of the country, that is the way forward. That is what made the German economy as successful as it is today: the works councils and the compulsory consultation. We seem to be in danger of drifting in the opposite direction, but I remind the Minister that the great tradition of Christian democracy in Europe, which has a much wider following than conservatism, is based on working between social partners.

This legislation is, let us say, imperfect. It has great difficulties and is almost unworkable, and I do not know why the Government are pursuing it. I hope that maybe at the end of this series of debates they will decide to pause it and not go forward. As these amendments show, it is going to be very difficult to implement, even if the Government wanted to. Set aside the local mayors, which I think are impractical; railway trains run between our countries and planes fly between them, while I am told that some services, such as organs and blood in the health service, are organised on a national basis so that people can get the best service wherever they live. We are after all in a United Kingdom, as this party often says.

I ask the Minister to look at hitting the pause button on this piece of legislation because even if it is passed it will not work, and it is not good government to pass legislation that just will not work.

--- Later in debate ---

If Ministers will not listen to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who is very experienced in this area—by the way, I agree with his assessment that, historically, Conservative leaders and Ministers have not always been so anti-trade union; I will not bore noble Lords again with references to Disraeli and Churchill, but they are all over the history books, so it is a shame that the Government are going down this path—and if the Government insist on the Bill and will not pause it, surely they should welcome pretty much every amendment in this group, or some version of them.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I say to the noble Baroness that, early in my career, I asked a senior trade unionist who had been the best Minister of Labour, and he said Walter Monckton followed by Iain Macleod.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

That is even more wisdom from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.

That concludes what I wanted to say about this group of amendments, and I look forward to hearing later, I hope, a word of consensus from the Minister in response.