Elections Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 52 in the name of my noble friend Lord Collins. He eloquently explained the pernicious threat posed by this legislation to our democracy. As a former leader of Unite the Union, I do not need anyone to tell me how dangerous this Bill, and Clause 27 in particular, will be to trade unions and their ability to campaign on the issues that matter to their members.

My noble friend Lord Collins said that it has not been thought through. Far from it: it has been well and truly thought through. This is yet another ideological assault on the trade union movement by this Government. It is nothing less than an attempt to gag the trade union voice once and for all, coming so soon after we debated the tax on trade unions to fund their own regulator, and a police and crime Bill which, as my noble friend Lord Hendy warned on Report, could see the end of the right to picket during lawful industrial action. It is clear that the Government’s agenda is nothing more than trying to stop us getting involved in talking with our members. It is certainly not “levelling up”, or “building back better”.

It is a shame, because there is no doubt that, as my noble friend said, trade unions are a working-class group of people who look after their members and those who struggle to look after themselves. They balance the bad bosses and a system that is sometimes rigged against them. We should always remember that union members earn higher wages than non-members. They have more paid holiday, better sick pay and safer workplaces. This is crucial, particularly at a time such as this when there is rampant inflation.

It is quite simple. Trade unions demand the right to campaign on any issue that matters to trade unionists, regardless, as has been said, of the Labour Party’s own priorities. For example, if I want to ask for more doctors for the NHS or to campaign against the far right in this country or on other serious industrial issues such as the shameful practice of fire and rehire, as a trade unionist, I must surely have the right to do so through the democratic structures of my union. Just because a trade union is affiliated to the Labour Party, it does not mean that we always share the same political priorities: far from it. Why should money be spent by Labour on an election campaign count against the limit allowed by, for example, my union, Unite? With the greatest respect, it makes absolutely no sense, unless the objective is to silence the trade unions.

Another clear danger with Clause 27 is the chilling effect it will have on unions because they will be afraid to break the rules. The rules themselves are unclear and could change at the whim of Ministers. It will also actively discourage unions and other groups from campaigning together as a coalition—a totally legitimate activity that should be welcomed in any democratic society.

Clause 27 could even lead to Labour-affiliated unions being held accountable for the entire election campaign expenditure of the Labour Party. This would be a completely crazy state of affairs. Because “joint campaigning” is not properly defined in the Bill, affiliated unions could discover that they had exceeded their own expenditure limits many times over. They could even be breaking the law before they had had a chance to begin to campaign on their own priorities. Surely this is absurd. It is almost surreal. This situation must not be allowed to happen.

Let us not kid ourselves: this is an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack on the Labour Party and on the affiliated trade unions that founded it. It completely undermines the most basic principles of democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of association. Again, as has been said, this Bill breaches the long-standing convention on cross-party support for any fundamental changes to the democratic process. Unfortunately, the Government are riding roughshod over this convention. They are attempting a power grab of epic proportions. For the sake of our democracy and for the freedoms we all take for granted, this draconian legislation—and this clause in particular—must be defeated before it ever reaches the statute book. Amendment 52 is a critical step in this fightback. I urge all those who wish to defend our democracy and freedoms to support it.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, when dealing with election law, it is always worth looking at unintended consequences. I could speak at length about trade unions, the Labour Party and funding arrangements. During the 1997 election, I was described by the Sunday Times as the “bag man”.

That has been covered. I shall restrict myself to two unintended consequences which the Government would not have expected and which I think will emerge. The first is the so-called dining clubs. Some years ago, I did quite a lot of work on stopping them meeting in here. The dining clubs are primarily a Conservative Party-supporting concept and institution. Occasionally, there are some in other parties. This is a long-standing way in which the Conservative Party has raised money— in my view, perfectly legitimately. The unintended consequence that I read in the legislation as framed is that, at the moment, electoral law requires only the net income to be considered. If £30,000 is spent on a dinner and £10,000 or £20,000 is raised, there is a specific legal requirement as to how this is accounted for. It is well and adequately covered in the law. However, this clause seems to say that the entire expenditure will have to be accounted for. This is not a problem for national parties, but it is a problem for individual candidates.

Until the last five years it was possible to know when a general election would be. I am in a minority in thinking that it is not a good idea to move away from fixed-term Parliaments. If an election is called at the whim of the Prime Minister of the day, the candidate will not know where this expenditure will fit with candidate expenses. I predict the unintended consequence of the possibility of a legal case which could lead to a duly elected Member of Parliament no longer being a Member of Parliament. I urge caution on this.

A second unintended consequence could be much more widespread. It concerns the use of Labour, Liberal and Conservative clubs for political campaigning—otherwise known as elections. I understand the law and, as I have worked in this area for a long time, I am pretty sure that I am right. At the moment, the law is fairly loose in that a Conservative Party campaign can be based in a Conservative club. Many are. This seems reasonable. There is probably a slight advantage in that there are more Conservative clubs these days than Labour or Liberal clubs. This does not seem to impact on our democracy in any undue way. However, this clause would make it necessary to account for this as joint campaigning and therefore election expenditure. It would become a nightmare of defining what is expenditure, when it is clearly joint campaigning for the officers of an independent Conservative, Labour or Liberal club, to agree to have a campaign base inside their club. As everyone knows, this is common across all three parties. One could easily cite scores of examples—sometimes there is more than one in the same election in one constituency.

That does not seem very clever. Again, people will have a field day with picking holes in it. When one looks at what I think are the appropriate, minimal amounts of spending in any one constituency, this is pretty major for our democracy. It is obviously not the Government’s intent. As ever, with electoral law, unintended consequences are the problem. There is a big problem with this clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches hope that the Government will be willing not only to listen but to accept both of these amendments, either in their current form or in some reshaped form. They would be constructive and non-partisan additions to the Bill.

I recall that the review undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, came about as a result of what some people felt were the botched efforts of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act, which was rushed through Parliament. Of course, if this Bill becomes law in anything like its current form, I should warn the noble Lord that he—and perhaps not only he but other Members of the House too—will be called on several more times to do post-legislative scrutiny on various aspects of it.

We differ from the noble Lord in one or two respects. We would have fought for Parliament against the executive prerogative of the monarchy in the Civil War; that is where my party comes from. We are therefore in favour of the Electoral Commission being responsible to the Speaker’s Committee much more than to the Secretary of State. We will want to consider and discuss between now and Report whether the Speaker’s Committee too needs to be further reinforced, and perhaps slightly reshaped. Apart from that, we strongly support where both amendments come from, and we hope that the Government will be willing to incorporate them in further discussions on the Bill.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made a distinguished contribution, based on his great experience—although I fear that in identifying Conservative clubs he was thinking of Walsall North Conservative Club, which defines itself online as a pub that has gone out of business, rather than the neighbouring Aldridge Conservative & Unionist Club, which defines itself online both as a social club, which it is, and also as “community and government”. That rather makes my point about some clubs—not only Conservative clubs but also Labour and Liberal clubs.

I want to make one brief comment on Amendment 54B and what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, and will requote one of the principles he identified, which is clarity. In 1995 I was tasked with ensuring that the Labour Party and the trade unions stayed within the law, as it was emerging under the Nolan committee, to which I presented evidence with my noble and learned friend Lord Morris on behalf of all trade unions. Before the law changed, my experience was that clarity was critical. I was able to go to senior politicians—my noble friend Lord Blunkett was an exception because he was always exemplary on all financial matters, but not everyone was because politicians are often more enthused about their political campaigns than by exactly how they are funded—and one of my roles was to ensure that everything was within the spirit of the law and within the law we already had on trade union funds. Clarity was critical.

It would probably be a best seller if I cited some of the spectacular examples, but there were some ferocious rows. I explained to people that they were not having that money because the way they were trying to get it was not technically legal, despite the fact that the way they wished to spend it was clearly for social good. Politicians have a weakness when it comes to money, especially when it is to do with elections. Clarity is critical.

When the law changed, and treasurers were about to be elected in my local party, when I was a Member of the other place, I always used to say, “You’ll go to prison if you get this wrong.” That quickly weeded out those who wanted the position of treasurer for some kind of political enhancement and left a tiny number who were prepared to ensure that the finances were in order. They were awkward to me, because I kept saying “That’s perfectly legitimate”, and they would delay income or expenditure because they wanted to be absolutely certain.

That is the beauty of what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is suggesting: a designated treasurer with a duty that they will apply with draconian consequences for breaching the law. I strongly commend this approach and this principle as one of the levers to ensure that transparency is delivered. I think this is rather a good proposal.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not an expert on dining clubs, working men’s club or gentlemen’s clubs. Sadly, in these days of the pandemic, even nightclubs are a distant memory.