Trade Union Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has just said. The Minister has repeated today that the Government are not opposed to electronic balloting in principle; they are concerned about the technicalities. I therefore hope that the Minister can tell the House that, if the independent review produces a positive response on the technicalities and the detail, the Government will be eager to implement the findings.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister, as I do Mr Nick Boles for the very constructive part he played in another place. I just ask my noble friend to say something about the timescale.

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, perhaps I may add to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, but, first, I also add my apologies for not being here when the Minister made her contribution. However, I think that some of us are entitled to an apology from whoever set out the business for today, as it has been taken in an order different from what we were previously advised.

I obviously apologise if my noble friend has already covered this matter clearly but I was very struck by the statement from the Minister, Mr Nick Boles, in response to a contribution from Mr David Davis, who has taken a keen interest in this matter. Mr Davis asked what assurance could be given about the outcome of a positive review. The Minister replied:

“I have made it clear that we have no objection in principle to e-balloting. If the research suggests that it is safe to embrace, we will proceed with it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/4/16; col. 1476.]

Interestingly, there was then considerable discussion about the Minister’s career prospects—whether it meant anything or whether it was merely the reflection of a Minister who was here today and gone tomorrow. He made it quite clear that he had made that statement on behalf of the Government and, regardless of who succeeded him, it was the Government’s position. It is to the Government’s credit that they recognise the validity of this argument. It is sensible to have a review and if it is positive, obviously there will be benefits in introducing it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, we discussed e-balloting in this House in Committee and at Report. There was a very widespread view that we should try to find a way forward on e-balloting. It is fair to say that we have been working since then to try to do just that. The Bill went back to the other place with amendments made by this House, most of which were accepted, and it was decided by the Government that we should bring forward a review of e-balloting in exactly the form that I have described today. I welcome that and welcome the progress that that has meant we are able to make on this Bill.

I shall not delay your Lordships long on this issue. I am very interested in all aspects of the advance of digitalisation—my friends know that—so I look forward to seeing the results of the review of e-balloting that we are agreeing today.

[Lord Cormack]

Could my noble friend please answer the question that I asked about timescale? She used the expression “in due course” et cetera, but it would be helpful to know when this review will commence, how long it will last and when we will therefore be in a position to draw conclusions from it.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I can repeat that we will act in due course and without delay. Those words were advised. Of course, I am not able to answer in detail on the exact timetable today, but I hope that noble Lords will feel that the direction of travel is right and that this amendment, which builds largely on the amendment passed in this House, is what we need and will agree that we should proceed with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to participate in the debate. I thought that it was going to go through smoothly and that a rather unfortunate period of legislation would have passed relatively quietly before the end of this parliamentary session. However, my former colleagues on the Select Committee have provoked me to intervene.

As the Minister pointed out, this is a compromise. All compromises are, by their nature, difficult for the parties. It is clear from the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Robathan and Lord Callanan, that it is difficult for the hawks in the Conservative Party, who landed us with this proposition in the first place—but it is also difficult for the trade unions. There is more administration and considerable cost involved in this, and it is a difficult situation in the long run. But it is also a difficult compromise for the body politic because of the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—one of my other colleagues on the Select Committee—put forward.

I remind the House that we have spent hours on the issue of how trade unions deal with political contributions, but other organisations and extremely rich individuals make contributions. None of those organisations is required, like the Bill still requires trade unions, to have a separate political fund in the first place; to report precisely on how it uses and expends its political money; to give each of its members the possibility of an opt-out; and now to require future members to opt in rather than to opt out. In no other organisation in this land are those restraints put on political expenditure or involvement.

As was revealed in the Select Committee report, on the basis of figures given to us by the Electoral Commission, in the five years to 2015 the trade unions gave £64 million, the vast majority of it to the Labour Party. However, other organisations in this land gave £80 million—to, admittedly, a variety of parties, but predominantly and overwhelmingly to the Conservative Party. Yet none of those organisations was affected by previous legislation requiring separate political funds or opting out, or by new legislation requiring more detailed controls and more detailed reporting.

This relates to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, raised. If we are to come up with a democratic balance that is acceptable for a long-running constitutional settlement of this issue, we have to look at political funding in the round. As he said, the drafters of the Conservative Party manifesto recognised that and made a commitment that way. That has conveniently been dropped. Whatever the motivation for the compromise here—I do not particularly wish to go into that; it is possibly a matter for private grief within the Conservative Party—there is no reason now for the Conservative Government not to open those talks on political funding in the long run by organisations, individuals and the political parties themselves. That way we may get a balance in political funding that accords with democratic principles and is acceptable to the majority of the people. Without that, and despite this compromise, which I support, we will still have a seriously unbalanced situation once the Bill passes.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I think we have to reflect, briefly, upon what has happened. We had a Motion, carried by a large majority, that the Select Committee should be established. I did not support it. I explained during the debate that I felt that the Bill was seriously impaired and that there was much unfairness in it, but I questioned whether a committee could, in the very short timescale that my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has referred to today, produce a really good, definitive report. Thanks to the hard work of colleagues from all parts of the House and expert chairmanship, to which they all testified, by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, the deadline was met and a report was produced. It was signed up to by all the members of the committee—although, in the final, conclusive paragraph, there was, it was explained, a divergence of opinion.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, decided to encapsulate that recommendation in the amendment which he moved on Report in your Lordships’ House. He moved the amendment with great skill and was supported by Members from other political parties as well as Members on the Cross Benches. My noble friend Lord Balfe and I voted enthusiastically for him. The names of a number of leading members of the Conservative Party will not be found in the Division list—I went through it carefully—because they felt that they could not oppose the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. It was carried by a large majority. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, explained that when he came to the negotiations at the beginning of last week, what was on offer not only did not meet his amendment but did not even meet the amendment to which my Conservative friends had signed up—in paragraph B, I think it was—so further negotiations were held.

What happened was very simply this. The parliamentary Session is coming to an end. The State Opening of Parliament has already been designated for 18 May—a fortnight tomorrow. So what was to happen? My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and Mr Boles in another place decided that half a loaf was indeed better than no bread: that it would be far better to have a Bill that had widespread support—albeit that some of it is reluctant support. I myself do not think that this is the greatest Bill that the Government have placed before this House. Nevertheless, it is now, as far as one-nation Conservatives are concerned, a fairer, more decent and more equitable Bill, and one that has within it some recognition of the underlying dichotomy of party funding, because the Bill in its original state—and I used the words “unfairness” and “choice” many times in contributing to earlier debates—whether by accident or design, was penalising one of the great parties of state and not the others.

I believe that it is important that the second recommendation in the manifesto, which has already been alluded to two or three times in this debate, should be followed up. I hope that there will be something in the Queen’s Speech about it, because I do not like the way in which party politics is funded in this country—and I know that that view is widely shared in all parts of your Lordships’ House and in all parts of the country. But what we now have is a Bill that can go on to the statute book and which honours a number of the important pledges in last year’s manifesto. I accept that a manifesto Bill is different from another sort of Bill. Therefore, we have something in which the Government can take a degree of quiet satisfaction—and those of us who were concerned about the underlying unfairness of the original Bill can also feel that it has been improved.

I was only too glad to put my name—alongside that of my noble friend Lord Balfe—to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, also signed it. Your Lordships’ House gave that a very large majority, as I said. So the Government’s choice was a very simple one: should they go along with the will of your Lordships’ House as expressed in the Division Lobbies or should they invite further defeat, which could have jeopardised every particular of the Bill?

I think that the Government have made a wise, moderate and sensible decision. I pay unreserved tribute to the unfailing courtesy and diligence of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and to Mr Boles in another place. I hope that we can now move on. Last week, when we had the Third Reading, I said I hoped that the spirit of euphoria was not premature. I hope that it will not prove to have been premature and that we can now accept what is before us and get something on the statute book that is much more acceptable to those who have genuine concerns.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, we in this House often complain that the other place has ignored our views. It is unusual, and perhaps regrettable, that some noble Lords complained today that the other place listened attentively to the views of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and to the vote in this House, which was supported all around the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, including on the government Benches. I do not know whether there was a deal, but whether or not there was, an act of political wisdom has occurred and we should welcome it.