Climate Change: Fracking
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Neville-Rolfe(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think the key thing is to have a proper regulatory system of controls. We have learned from US experience in setting up our system. We are also focused on all the Kyoto basket of gases, which includes methane. I assure the noble Baroness that that is an important part of our thinking. But I return to my first point, which is that we need a mix of energy in the transition to 2050.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness try again to answer the question of my noble friend Lady Royall: what amount of leakage is acceptable?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think this is a matter for the experts concerned in the particular circumstances. Our regulatory system is site specific. You go to the particular site and work it out. Clearly, you want to minimise the emissions of all six of the Kyoto basket of gases. I think that would be an agreed objective.
Consumer Protection: Online Ticketing
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think my noble friend’s comment shows how careful people have to be. Of course, the Euro 2016 tickets are not covered by this legislation. One of the good things in Professor Waterson’s report is a list of hints and tips to help consumers. I should not anticipate our response but I hope that the project group will move forward in that area.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
Might the Minister look into whether we can learn from practice in other countries—Iceland, for example?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The ticketing system underpins the success of our events and our tourist events, in music as well as in sport, and I am sure the secondary sites will be a good source of tickets for Icelanders as they progress through the tournament.
Nuisance Callers
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Caller identification can work, and more and more phones now have that option. We have allocated £500,000 of the fund set up by the Chancellor to the National Trading Standards scams team to provide call-blocking devices to vulnerable people. Generally, we are putting more money into awareness campaigns. Nuisance calls are a blight for the elderly, and this is an area where we all need to work together to try to do something about it.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, on her clairvoyance in putting down this Question so timeously, but I say to the Minister that it is not just a matter of calls from unscrupulous people and criminals, nor just a matter of calls to the elderly and vulnerable people. All of us are getting call after call, day after day, week after week, and we are getting fed up with it. What is the Minister going to do about it?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
As the Minister, I share the noble Lord’s frustration and am gradually trying to do something about it. We have raised the fines and are changing the regulations, and the evidence from Ofcom is that the volume of unsolicited marketing calls has fallen as a result. But of course there is more that we have to do.
Intellectual Property
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I have no wish to adopt the US system here. We are working hard to improve the arrangements on a worldwide basis. Copyright is 70 years —that has been agreed internationally. People have different views as to whether that is right or wrong but it helps our creative sector enormously.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, with no disrespect to small businesses which suffer from losing intellectual property rights, does the Minister agree that it is even more worrying and tragic when employees lose their pension rights because of the actions of a magnate—an entrepreneur—with no concern for the rights of their workers, such as Sir Philip Green?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Obviously, I share the noble Lord’s concern about pension rights. There was a lively debate in the other place on this issue yesterday which merits reading.
Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think the arrangements on nuclear decommissioning are still under consideration. I can certainly come back to the noble Lord on the question of past disruption. It is clearly an area where it does seem important that strikes should not be entered into lightly. As I have said, there will be regulations, they will be subject to the affirmative procedure and this is on the list with good reason. The noble Lord will understand that we are looking very carefully at the arrangements and we have not come to a final view. I am sorry that on the question of timing I cannot give a firm answer, but I can say that we will be bringing an affirmative resolution forward.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
But surely all the private schools—or as you call them in England, public schools—are even more important. If the teachers go on strike in them, where are we going to get our Prime Ministers or our Chancellors of the Exchequer from? It would be an absolute disaster for this country if the teachers in those schools, a lot of whom are untrained, did so. The Minister has misrepresented and misunderstood the dangers that we would face.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am very sorry to disappoint the noble Lord but there is no evidence of strike action in those institutions having a major impact or, I think, of strike action at all. I am seeking to explain the difficult decisions that we have taken and set out in our consultation paper for the benefit of the House this evening. Perhaps I may continue, as it is getting late.
I believe members of the public would agree that strikes in the crucial services that I have outlined should take place only when there is a reasonable level of support. Restrictions on Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights are permitted where they are justified by a legitimate aim and are proportionate. The courts have made it clear that they will respect the margin of appreciation accorded to each national Government to decide on industrial relations policy. I hope I have assured noble Lords that we have thought carefully about where the threshold should apply, and that the specified services are justified.
“Essential services” of course means something very different. They are referred to by some of the reports of the ILO supervisory bodies in respect of services where it may be legitimate in certain situations to limit or prohibit strike action. Amendments 5, 10, 12 and 13 would wrongly align the 40% threshold with the ILO’s interpretation of “essential services”. The threshold is about ensuring that strikes can go ahead if they have a strong democratic mandate; it does not prohibit strikes. The Government have therefore deliberately chosen the term “important public services” to describe the services covered by the 40% threshold.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the debate and note the passion that has been expressed. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for the useful meeting we had last week and for the trouble that they took in taking me through how they see the impact of this Bill applying to devolved public services and public bodies in Wales. I thank the noble Baroness for explaining the legislative consent Motion debate in the Welsh Assembly that took place two weeks ago, for giving her views of the implications this evening, and for reminding us of the forthcoming elections in Wales, where, last year, this party made good progress. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, for doing the same service this evening for Scotland.
The Bill will ensure that strike action can go ahead only with a strong and recent mandate from union members. It will increase protections for non-striking workers against intimidation, and increase transparency for union members and taxpayers. It will create an appropriate regulatory environment for unions. It is clear that the benefits this will bring to the wider public should apply consistently across the whole of Britain.
Employment and industrial relations law are clearly reserved matters, as has been said, under the devolution settlements with Scotland and not conferred in Wales. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, referred to the Supreme Court judgment in the Agricultural Sector (Wales) Bill, where the court held that the case relates to multiple subjects and thus fell within the competence of the Welsh Assembly. The Supreme Court ruling concerned a completely different situation, where the devolved subject of agriculture was specifically in play. By contrast, this Bill has nothing to do with the regulation of public services. It is squarely concerned with industrial relations and how trade unions are regulated.
The issue of competence is a fact-specific question that can be answered only by careful analysis of the statutory and factual context. In another Supreme Court case in the area of deciding the competence of the Welsh Government—re recovery of medical costs—the Supreme Court followed the same approach as in the agricultural sector case, but came to a completely different conclusion. It decided that the area in play was not devolved.
It would be unworkable to have different employment laws applying in the different jurisdictions in Great Britain. This was recently considered by the Smith commission for Scotland, and it concluded that employment and industrial relations law should remain reserved.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, asked about legal advice. As noble Lords would expect, the Government have taken legal advice on the measures in the Bill relating to a number of areas. The Government do not, as she probably knows, disclose such advice; nor do we comment on leaked documents. The Government are committed, in implementing the Trade Union Bill, to fairly balance the right to strike with the rights of millions of people to go about their normal lives. Having said that, it will come as no surprise to noble Lords that I am always keen to explore areas of potential agreement, but the measures before us do reflect our manifesto and were supported by a clear majority in the elected Chamber.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, said that he was less interested in the substance of the Bill than in the constitutional issues. As it is late, I will not go through the amendments clause by clause—although I can respond if that is wanted. I just point out that many employers will have staff across some or all of these regions. Business leaders have rightly raised concerns that this could create administrative complexities and could result in differential treatment of different groups of employees. This is not a matter of minute detail. The Government’s objective is to drive productivity and growth across the United Kingdom. These amendments could generate a lot of confusion and additional costs for both employers and unions and make it more complex for businesses to expand into other regions.
The Trade Union Bill is not the right forum for pushing forward the frontiers of the devolution settlements. Employment and industrial relations are reserved matters and the Bill, which deals with employment and industrial relations law, should respect that.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Before the Minister closes the debate, she has not dealt with my suggestion, which comes from the Scottish Executive, that, at the very least, regulation-making powers for check-off and facility time might be given to Scottish and Welsh Ministers. That does not take away our powers here in the United Kingdom Parliament over employment law. We are still making the law; all that we are saying is that these regulation-making powers for those two areas should be given to Scottish and Welsh Ministers. If the Minister really is in listening mode, she does not need to agree to that today; all she needs to say is that she will look at it, discuss it with her colleagues and come back on Report.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, in the tradition of this House, I do not want to close the debate without saying that we are open to further discussion. We are, of course, open to discussing implementation of the Trade Union Bill in Wales and Scotland. To answer, as far as I can, the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, my colleague Nick Boles spoke only last week to Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work in the Scottish Government, and to Leighton Andrews, Minister for Public Services in the Welsh Government; both “stars” who have already featured in this evening’s debate. Of course, discussions are still going on in the context of the Scotland Bill, which is being scrutinised by a Committee of this House, and the draft Wales Bill, which the Government published in October. They are also part of a complex picture and need to be taken into account.
My Lords, it is late, we have discussed this at length and I ask noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.