Elections Bill

Lord Monks Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moore, on his entertaining and reflective maiden speech. I look forward to his future contributions, especially if he continues to reference approvingly The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists of Hastings, a book which is essential reading on both sides of this House.

As a former general secretary of the TUC, I approach this Bill with a combination of weariness and anger—weary because those provisions on campaigning will without good reason curb and further complicate the role of trade unions, which are already heavily regulated, particularly since the Acts of 2014 and 2016; and angry because it seems a rite of passage for every Conservative Government to ladle another dollop of expensive red tape on trade unions. Meantime, we read regularly of huge donations being solicited by the party opposite, including through cash for access schemes, a subject which predictably does not get a mention in the Bill. My conclusion, shared with many noble Lords in the debate, is that the Bill is irredeemably partisan in its present form. What happened to the traditional efforts to find cross-party agreement on these matters? Even the Committee on Standards in Public Life is getting sidelined. Partisanship, not democratic fair play, is driving government action.

I want to briefly draw the attention of the House to two problems with the Bill. There are more but, in view of the time, I will select just two. The first is of major concern to many noble Lords in this debate. It is the clause providing the Secretary of State with the power to “direct” the Electoral Commission. There is no doubt about what that means. It ends the commission’s independence. This is an anti-democratic move which this House should, and I believe will, oppose.

My next concern has not got so much attention but was certainly raised by my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock. It concerns the provisions of the Bill on joint campaigning. In effect, our concern is that this could affect the right of organisations affiliated to the Labour Party—predominantly trade unions—to campaign in their own right without expenditure falling within the Labour Party’s expenditure limits. This ignores that unions are independent organisations. They choose whether to affiliate to Labour and, whether they do or not, they keep their independence. They are not departments or agents of the party. They retain freedom of action. Individuals are not pressured to pay the political levy. Indeed, they now have to contract in to do so. I am pleased to note, by the way, that 4 million people do so, although obviously some do not. The idea that their organisations should become harnessed in an operation with the Labour Party on all campaigning matters completely rewrites the relationship and is unacceptable to all of us in the union world.

A further worry is that if the affiliated unions and party come to be regarded in effect as one campaigning organisation, expenditure on campaigns incurred by the party, currently classified as Labour Party spending, could be redefined as joint campaigning. This could make unions liable for substantial expenditure by the party merely by dint of their constitutional relationship. As I understand it, the Electoral Commission would be expected to define and adjudicate on what is and is not joint campaigning—and remember that this is an Electoral Commission which could, if the Bill goes through in its present form, become subservient to government direction.

There is no problem here that needs fixing. There is already a great deal of regulation, with strict spending limits and transparency already in place. For example, there is a high bar on transparency on the specific issue of trade unions campaigning for Labour. The Committee on Standards in Public Life thought that there was no problem, provided there was transparency. Therefore, I appeal tonight for the Government to take a leaf out of the book of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and be persuaded to take a much less partisan approach and look again at the Bill on a cross-party basis. There are real concerns here and they need addressing.