Lord Rennard
Main Page: Lord Rennard (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, as I said, I have listened to the debate and we will all reflect further—as we do when we have important debates of this type—but I would like to conclude on this Motion.
Lord Rennard (LD)
Can the Minister tell us why these impact assessments could not have been published yesterday so that we could have considered them when considering this Motion?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I promised in a meeting that they would be published before Committee stage and I have delivered on that promise. I have arranged for them to be published tomorrow, which will give plenty of time before Committee starts on 8 February. I look forward to discussing them with noble Lords across the House.
In conclusion, this Bill seeks to modernise the relationship between trade unions and their members and to redress the balance between the rights of trade unions and the rights of the general public, whose lives, as I have said before, are often disrupted by strikes. Clauses 10 and 11 embrace the good democratic values of choice, transparency and responsibility. I look forward to full scrutiny of the Bill in this House.
This Bill is a package of measures and it is disappointing that the party opposite has chosen to misinterpret our intentions. As I have demonstrated, Clauses 10 and 11 are quite distinct from the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life mentioned in the Motion and relating to party-political funding. We would merely be adding confusion if we established a Select Committee.
Our reforms in the Bill look at how trade union members choose to contribute to trade union political funds. We are not looking at how trade unions fund political parties. Opt-ins and opt-outs for trade union political funds have always been a matter for trade union legislation. Party funding and its regulation have always been a matter for party funding legislation. Party funding is rightly outside the scope of the Bill and I call on the House to reject the Motion.