Trade Union Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I concur completely with the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Balfe. I personally see this as a cynical attempt on the part of the Government to cause maximum damage, difficulty and disruption to trade unions. They are seeking to take away powers from public bodies when they should be devolving more of them, and to make Great Britain a less harmonious place in which to live and work. Every ostensible reason for restricting check-off, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has already indicated, cannot be substantiated.

The issue of cost has been mooted, but as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said, many trade unions already cover the administrative costs of check-off. His Amendment 93 would resolve the situation as regards any which do not at the moment, certainly with regard to cost. In any case, many deductions are used as bargaining chips in negotiations between employers and employees within the whole package of benefits. It is part of the fabric of the relationship between employer, employee and trade union. So we have the irony whereby employers make deductions at source for any number of things, and we have heard about many of them already—they include charity subscriptions, bike schemes, season tickets and so on—but they will not be able to make a deduction for the most central thing in the working life of an employee.

The other fig leaf being used by the Government as an excuse is modernisation. Of course we can sign standing orders and direct debits, but is the removal of this benefit justifiable in terms of forcing trade union members to be modern? I suggest that there is a whole other reason. It stands up to scrutiny about as well as not allowing electronic voting in respect of industrial action, which is hardly an ethos of embracing modernity. It seems that we can be modern as long as it suits the Government’s purposes and damages the trade union.

Then there are the administration costs. The Government are supposed to be committed to reducing administrative costs for organisations—unless, of course, you are a trade union, when you will have to spend a huge amount of time re-signing up your members and changing the payments system all over again. As I said at Second Reading, the TaxPayers’ Alliance—not normally renowned for defending trade unions—has estimated the cost to trade unions of removing check-off at £6 million. Clearly, this will weaken trade unions and the Labour Party in their pockets. If there is one thing that the Conservative Party knows about, it is the importance of having money to spend on campaigning. Indeed, I am testament to how effective Conservative spending is, otherwise I might have been delivering this speech from green Benches, instead of red ones. I am sure that we on this side of the Chamber await with great interest the Select Committee report examining the financial implications of the Bill for democracy in this country.

Then there is the huge number of complaints that I and many colleagues from across the House have received from local authorities that are furious at having this power taken away from them. Public bodies of all kinds rely on the ability to be flexible in their negotiations with trade unions. It is part of building up good industrial relations, which are vital for the avoidance of industrial action when things get sticky. The Bill will harm good industrial relations and enhance the likelihood of industrial action. Indeed, if they were trying actively to provoke industrial action, the Government could not be doing a better job in the Bill. What happened to commitments to devolution? I thought that the idea was to give more power to local areas to run themselves, rather than take it away.

To try to see the other side of the argument, I believe that it is reasonable that members of trade unions should opt in to paying a political levy, but, with their having opted in, there is no excuse for any employer who chooses to not to be able to make deductions for their employees on anything they both mutually agree on. This is a cynical, vindictive clause, and I and my colleagues on these Benches will oppose it at the appropriate time.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, before I come to the specifics of Amendment 94, it is fair to say that these Benches echo the basic analysis of the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Kerslake, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, echoing, as they do in turn, the basic analysis of my noble friend Lady Wheeler. That is what we have heard in the last three-quarters of an hour.

We are reaching a position where we can only express amazement at the sudden rush to the head of some people in the Conservative Party of an ideological position that this whole tradition, which I thought in my generation of trade unionism had become mainstream in this country, summed up in the term “social partnership”, has gone out of fashion big time. Perhaps it is not held by all members of the Conservative Party—we have heard a very distinguished exception—but it is the controlling ideology of the Conservative Party.

The Government seem to want to do everything they can to reduce trade union membership per se—thereby cutting the legs off part of the social partnership structure—by reducing their income and making their role in the workplace next to invisible, even on such questions as health and safety and training and pensions, let alone collective bargaining on pay and conditions, grievance procedures, disputes procedures and all the rest of it; in other words, everything that makes up the quality of the contract of employment. For the last 30 years we have worked to improve not just pay but the quality of the contract of employment. I put on record our thanks to the Government for stopping just short of describing us as enemies of the people.

The Government’s impact assessment implies that there is no cost to the unions in removing check-off. It is not obvious to the Government that there will be any impact on trade union income and membership. I do not know who they have talked to. Perhaps the Minister can tell us that. They do not seem to have made any inquiries. We have heard that they do not seem to have made inquiries of local authorities, much less publish them. They do not seem to have made any inquiries of any employers—not that I can find—or of trade unionists. From my own inquiries, I conclude that one might expect in the sector affected a 20% reduction—that order of magnitude—in trade union membership, and a 20% reduction in trade union income as a consequence. As has been said, this will result from all the extra administrative hurdles over which trade unions will have to jump. Trade union members will receive a form through the post. There are few things more irritating than postal forms asking you to provide bank details and so on.

I should spell out what a 20% hit will mean in figures because we have been talking about peanuts for much of the discussion on the Trade Union Bill. You do not need to be Einstein to figure out that a 20% hit will mean that a union in this sector with 100,000 members will wind up with 80,000 members. If today it has an income of £10 million a year, it will be left with one of £8 million a year. Perhaps some of the Minister’s colleagues in the Government will shed crocodile tears on hearing that, but no doubt will also greet with a look of glee this further tearing up of the social fabric. I do not know too much about crocodiles, but some other animals have long memories.

The Government are struggling to find a justification for their claim that the impact on trade unions will be minimal. They have found and incorporated into the impact assessment—no doubt after some searching—a somewhat quixotic quote from a PCS spokesman, saying that the union could end up stronger as a result of this measure. However, if you look at the PCS website, you will find that this is among scores of other quotes saying pretty much the exact opposite.

The Government claim that the check-off arrangements are an outdated practice. I will not repeat everything that has been said, but it perhaps needs underlining in a couple of sentences. As the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and my noble friend Lady Wheeler pointed out—independent observers will surely acknowledge its validity—deductions from the payroll are an increasingly common way by which employers help their employees manage their finances. Payments for childcare, travel, charity donations, computers, the rent of bicycles—or whatever—are often made through payroll deductions.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

Where does the noble Lord get his 20% figure from? What surveys has he done? Why does he think that 20%—one in five—of trade unionists would think, “Oh well, I’m not going to bother carrying on paying into the union”, if the union is giving them a valuable service?

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I have talked to many unions in the public sector, and that is the sort of feedback I get. It is for the two reasons I have given, but perhaps the noble Lord needs to be reminded of what I have only just said. The first reason is the extra administrative hurdles over which the trade unions would have to jump. It does not happen by magic. It will place a huge administrative burden and cost on trade union officials, who have other things to do, such as helping with day-to-day issues. To crank all this into action, whether in the Civil Service or elsewhere, will be a huge administrative burden. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, pointed out, people within the system see this as a ridiculous extra administrative burden. Secondly, people are not too keen on forms and might even blame the union for troubling them with another piece of paper or form to fill in. If I am wrong, I will naturally be relieved, but I might be wrong the wrong way round: it might be a bigger hit than 20%.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I might be able to help the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. If he checks with the Prison Officers’ Association, he will find that it had facilities withdrawn from check-off, and it has real troubles, as I mentioned on Second Reading.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

The Government imply, without ever spelling out anybody specifically, that they have support for this radical change, but the Financial Times—hardly a Labour newspaper—has reported that,

“human resources directors in the National Health Service”—

the largest employer in the country, as we know—

“including those in some of the biggest hospitals, have written to Matthew Hancock, cabinet office minister, questioning … plans to scrap the … system”.

Another letter from human resources directors reported on in the Financial Times is to the effect that the five-year plan to improve performance would actually be set back by the changes set out, on the basis that close working between managers and union representatives had been,

“recognised by health ministers as fundamental”,

to its delivery. So why go around stirring up trouble? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, has a good answer.

As Dave Prentis from UNISON pointed out in oral evidence to the Commons Public Bill Committee, the unions often pay for check-off deductions by arrangement. As has been said by everyone who has touched on this topic so far, it is perhaps peanuts in the bigger scheme of things, but if that is an issue at all, the amendment which could deal with that would be one that the Government, I am sure, would now wish to support. In summarising this financial question, on the one hand we have huge costs to the trade unions, relatively speaking, both in gross loss of income and through loss of members; on the other hand, there is the huge administrative burden. If unions are offering to make payments, this is the right time to reach a consensus on that point at least. However, I might add that it is monumentally unhelpful, given the time constraints on the requirement to sign up to direct debit payments, to be faced simultaneously—and we were discussing this two days ago—with the loss of facility time at the very point of explaining these untoward changes. Inside the Government, does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

In response, therefore, either today or in the next couple of weeks, will the Government take the opportunity to meet the employers which have a degree of independence? There is a whole range of bodies, including those whose reputation suggests that they have a considerable degree of independence—the BBC, the British Museum and so on are listed. They are not organisations, I am sure, that the Minister would wish to say should be subject to any degree of intimidation to fall into line.

I now turn to the widening of the ban to privatised companies, which is the subject of the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Monks and others. As with facility time, with the banning of check-off the Government are again giving us the spectacle of extending the net to enterprises that are not in the public sector. I draw attention to the extraordinary scope of subsection (3) of Clause 14, which inserts new Section 116B into the 1992 Act. It is there on page 11 of the Bill. You can hardly believe it, but there it is. It allows a Minister to provide by regulation that a private sector employer can be deemed to be carrying out,

“functions of a public nature”—

I do not know what the Supreme Court lawyers would make of that—and it can be caught by Clause 14. What sort of legal drafting is that? Many distinguished jurists must be turning in their graves. One is inescapably reminded of the dictum, well known to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, of Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.

That is the only way I can describe this extraordinary interpretation that public sector means private sector where the Government say it does.

As regards which companies this will apply to, by the way, we do not have a complete list. It may be wishful thinking to think that the ones we have heard specified are it. We do not know. Ministers may be having second thoughts. We do not know. Perhaps they just want to leave it all dangling there, blowing in the wind. We could be talking about air traffic control or about any of these companies. I repeat: why go about stirring up trouble and uncertainty? We could be talking about the field of nuclear decommissioning and companies such as Magnox Ltd and Sellafield Ltd. The letter from the Minister dated 22 February is not clear as to its scope: whether it is the definitive list or only a list of people within the public sector. One can only therefore assume that the examples given are not exhaustive. How do we find this out? Where can workers and unions find clarity—by guesswork? It is not exactly a model of transparency, and employers would have to err on the side of caution.

To take the example of nuclear decommissioning one stage further, this sector may have a bigger hit—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Does the noble Lord realise that he has now spoken for 18 minutes and we are still waiting for him to come to the point?

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I think that many of my colleagues will think that I have made some very pertinent points. I am now on my final two or three sentences.

In the case of the nuclear decommissioning industry, because of the extra difficulty of trying to get to the members—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, could pay some attention to this point—they are inhibited further than normal by the fact that nuclear sites are licensed with restricted access. When the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, finishes his private conversation, he might be interested in this, but he does not tend to listen to what people are saying, and that is not new. Has that extra difficulty been thought out of adding access to people on nuclear sites, which are licensed with restricted access?

There may be agreement that my final sentence is a good point to finish this on. I hope that the Minister will comment separately on this whole exercise of defining parts of the private sector as being in the public sector, as otherwise I can describe it only as the most outlandish idea, which seems to have won first prize—as the daftest one of all—at some well-lubricated jamboree organised by the Young Conservatives equivalent of the Militant Tendency.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I could be allowed a brief intervention—I was not making a particular point about being brief; I mean it will be brief for me. I apologise that I have not been able to take part either at Second Reading or in Committee. The Scotland Bill and the Economic Affairs Finance Bill Sub-Committee have taken me away. I wanted to make a contribution and am sorry that I was not able to in respect of Clause 10, but I support Amendment 92, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, as it seems to provide a perfectly sensible way forward for the Government.

If we had a Labour Government who brought forward a Bill suggesting that employers should no longer be able to deduct private health insurance payments from people’s salaries, I wonder how we would react on these Benches. We would go absolutely mental. We would say that it was a gross intrusion and a politically motivated thing, which interfered in the relationship between employers and their employees.

The noble Lord, Lord Lea, seemed to think that there was some ideology here. I can probably be identified with ideology in the Conservative Party more closely than most. I am a strong Thatcherite and very much supported my noble friend Lord Tebbit, who is no longer in his place, in his trade union reforms, which have stood the test of time. Those reforms were about ending the closed shop, giving the trade unions back to their members and taking the trade union movement away from the extremist militants within it who had led that movement, with its very proud history, into an abyss. That is what they were about.

Although I understand the main purpose of the Bill is to ensure that minorities do not dominate the decisions of trade unions, and support that core purpose, on both check-off and the question of opting in and out of the political levy I believe the Government are going far too far.