Lord Tyler
Main Page: Lord Tyler (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I start with a text:
“It has become a well-established custom that matters affecting the interests of rival parties should not be settled by the imposition of the will of one side over the other but by an agreement reached either between the leaders of the main parties or by conferences under the impartial guidance of Mr. Speaker”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/2/1948; col. 859.]
That was Mr Winston Churchill, leader of the Conservative Opposition, speaking in the Commons on 16 February 1948. I agree with him. That is why there is a Motion in my name on the Order Paper relating to the Commitment Motion today.
It was one of the great disappointments of the coalition period that more progress was not made in this area because funding scandals are a running sore in British politics for all parties. In 2011, the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life offered the political system a way out of its own mess through a carefully considered, well-balanced package sitting fairly on the foundations of the recommendations in the Hayden Phillips review set up by Labour in 2006. The committee’s proposals were so helpful that, alongside Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie and Labour MP Alan Whitehead, I had them turned into a draft Bill for consultation. That is still available and I commend it to the Minister for her reading before we reach Committee.
In proffering its recommendations, the committee said that,
“this situation is unsustainable, damaging to confidence in democracy and in serious need of reform. This was also the view expressed by the three major parties at the last election. All three made commitments in their manifestos to reform the big donor culture. They now need to deliver those commitments”.
It continued:
“It is critical too that the proposed reforms command the support of all parties. They will not otherwise prove to be sustainable. It would be unfortunate if the parties looked at them only in terms of political party advantage. It would also be a lost opportunity. All share a common interest in public confidence in the integrity of the democratic system. Their manifestos for the last General Election recognised that fact. Implementation of our proposals will, however, require political courage”.
What we have before us today in Clauses 10 and 11 is not so much an example of political courage but of naked political opportunism.
It is worth recalling precisely what the recommendations of the CSPL were. First, that there should be a cap on individual and corporate donations of £10,000; secondly, a 15% reduction in campaign spending limits; thirdly, a new system of public support to political parties to be introduced, relating to support at the ballot box; and, fourthly, changes to ensure that donations through trade union political funds by individual trade union members are all on an “opt-in”, transparent basis. This Conservative Government are taking just the fourth of the recommendations and ignoring the other three. Instead of taking the comprehensive, balanced package, and seeking to implement this without paying any attention to the others, they are being selective; they are cherry picking.
Ministers are also taking only one of their own manifesto promises on this subject, which read clearly in two consecutive sentences as an even-handed objective as follows,
“we will legislate to ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for subscriptions to political parties. We will continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform”.
Are they? It is the first I have heard of it. The question of opting into or out of political fund levies is absolutely central to the overall balance of rules on party political funding. It cannot, with an even hand, be extricated from the other questions of a donation cap, reduced spending limits and some measure of public funding to make up the difference. To try to do so represents a nakedly partisan attempt to rig the system against one party—the Labour Party—and, by extension, in favour of the other. It is exactly the kind of unilateralism that Winston Churchill warned us against.
For all that, the need for comprehensive funding reform has become a great deal bigger since the report in 2011. Jim Messina, who was a key adviser to the Conservatives in their 2015 election campaign, recently told the Spectator that the party spent £30 million on the campaign. That is quite an admission since the legal limit for parties contesting all GB seats is just under £19 million. We do not yet know whether the figures are correct because we have not seen the Electoral Commission’s report, but I suspect that it will be a lesser sum than his boast. However, what we do know is that the scale of donations to each party—the ammunition in the arms race—during the four quarters running up to and including the 2015 election, shows that the Conservative Party raised £38.1 million. That is about 60% more than Labour, which was on £23.8 million, including all the trade union donations which this part of the Bill attempts to undermine. So there is already a huge disproportion of advantage between the two major parties. The Bill would make it eye-wateringly worse, and no fair-minded person could think that that is reasonable.
Before concluding, I want to make it clear that my party and I agree with the Government that it is right in principle for trade union funding of political parties to be made transparent. That is not what my amendment is concerned with. Indeed, we should know who is donating through a political levy, how much represents block donations and so on. But we should not impose such rules without some balancing provisions in the form of a donation cap, which would affect all parties, including my own. To accept the Government’s partisan proposals is to give in to the tendency that the CSPL specifically warned us against in its 2011 report. How prescient the committee was when it said:
“It is important that proposals are regarded as a package. Failure to resist the temptation to implement some parts, while rejecting others, would upset the balance we have sought to achieve”.
That is precisely the temptation that motivated the authors of this Bill.
Your Lordships will recall that the CSPL was set up by the last majority Conservative Government and it was given seven key principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. The committee has served the nation and this Parliament well, but this legislation in its present form offends just about all those seven guiding principles. It is difficult to imagine a proposal that is more clearly selfish and subjective, or one for which the case has been made with more opacity and dishonesty.
Your Lordships’ House has a special role in identifying power grabs by the Executive and, in this case, by one party for its own interest against that of its rivals. In this House, we have the benefit of independent Cross-Benchers to act as honest brokers. I feel sure that colleagues on those Benches will see the partisan nature of these proposals for what they are. We have a responsibility to ensure that the motives behind and the consequences of legislation such as this are properly scrutinised. I can think of no better place than a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House to ensure that that scrutiny happens. I hope therefore that the House will join me in referring these controversial sections of the Bill to a special Select Committee of your Lordships’ House and that the Government will then deliver on their full manifesto promise for a comprehensive package of party funding reform.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, this has been a wide-ranging debate. I was confident that your Lordships would take a keen and knowledgeable interest in the Bill, and that has been amply confirmed this evening.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, on his first speech in our House. He brings with him both notable experience of how government works and strong business experience. I agree with him about the power of business as a vehicle of social mobility and of unions’ role in training and development. I was pleased to hear the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Primarolo. I commend in particular her experience in the other place of helping children and families, which will be very important in this House. Finally, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Watts, and I look forward to his further input in the continuing debate on the Bill.
Given the impressive number of noble Lords who have spoken, I am not able to reply to them all, but fortunately there will be plenty of time for further debate in Committee, and of course, my door is always open. Indeed, we need to scrutinise the Bill together, as the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, said; we may want to make measured and sensible improvements. In that regard, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Monks, with whom I worked in a prior life, for reminding us all to bring our experience and expertise to the Bill. I welcome that.
We also benefited from the vast experience of my noble friends Lord King and Lord Mawhinney, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, who were involved in different aspects of the history of trade unionism. On a different note of history, I am delighted that the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Lennie, took the opportunity to mention David Bowie, whose death was so sadly announced today. We all enjoyed the summary by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, of the early use of videos in political campaigning.
To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, I agree that the trade unions have a strong future as well as a distinguished history. I know this from my own experience in both the public and private sectors, which a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, were kind enough to mention. I should pay tribute to his experience in this area, as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, also reminded us of the role that trade unions play in society. My noble friend Lord Balfe revealed the little-known fact that 30% of union members vote Conservative.
Given some of the remarks made, including the suggestion that the legislation is vindictive or even dangerous, I need to be absolutely clear that this Bill is not an attack on trade unions or workers’ rights; nor is it an attempt to ban strikes, or to make it harder for people to join unions or for unions to go about their legitimate business. The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, questioned whether businesses support the reforms. When we introduced the Bill, the deputy director-general of the CBI said:
“We’re glad the Government has brought forward this Bill, as the CBI has long called for modernisation of our outdated industrial relations laws to better reflect today’s workforce and current workplace practices”.
We are seeking through this Bill to modernise the relationship between trade unions and their members. I agree with my noble friend Lord Dobbs, who gave the compelling example of the London Tube strikes. We need to address the balance between the rights of trade unions and the rights of the rest of us—the general public—in trying to get about our working lives. This is a strong point, and we must not forget it. These are moderate, necessary and welcome reforms.
Nor is there a lack of evidence. As many have said, things are better than they were in the 1960s and 1970s, but strikes today, triggered by a small minority, can cause a huge amount of disruption to everyone, as we have heard and as my noble friend Lord Callanan said. As my noble friend Lord Flight argued, the public are fed up with public sector strikes. Strikes in schools cause major disruption to the lives of many, especially working parents. As my noble friend Lord De Mauley said, the NUT strike in 2014 led to the full or partial closure of almost 1,500 schools, nurseries and colleges across England, on a ballot that was almost two years old, for which there was an alleged voting turnout of just 27%.
I was glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, touched on the place of women. However, I disagree with her suggestion, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, that women are disproportionately adversely affected by this Bill. Indeed, I would argue that they can often be more affected by strikes and will therefore potentially benefit most from this Bill. For example, working mothers may have to give up a day’s work or try to find alternative care for their children. This makes their busy lives even harder. The British Chambers of Commerce has estimated that the 2008 teachers’ strike alone cost businesses some £68 million in lost working hours.
Those figures are regrettable and dispiriting, especially because, as my noble friend Lord Leigh said, the vast majority of days lost to strikes are in the public sector. Any responsible Government would try to do something to lessen the incidence of such events. However, I am not convinced of the case he made for extending the 40% balloting requirement to additional sectors.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, for bringing the Oxford University research to the House’s attention. People affected by Tube strikes might not just face delays in travelling or need to find new routes; they may be forced to miss out on a day of work or miss important appointments. Our proposals consider this wider context.
The noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Collins, and other noble Lords raised the important issue of productivity. I was sorry to miss some of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Young. The Government’s productivity plan outlines an ambitious vision for where we want to be by 2020 and the pro-productivity agenda that we need to deliver that. This is not in the Bill of course but we are taking action, and I agree with the noble Lord about the vital importance of skills.
In response to my noble friend Lord Borwick, who spoke about the junior doctors, none of the changes in the Bill is about stopping strikes. The new thresholds are intended to ensure that strikes can happen only as a result of a clear, positive decision by those entitled to vote. The recent BMA ballot achieved that, although it is very disappointing that the doctors decided to strike rather than return to the negotiating table.
We have heard much today from all sides of the House about electronic balloting. We have been very clear that we have no objection in principle to electronic balloting, but it is imperative that everyone—unions, businesses and the public—has complete confidence in the ballot process. A decision on strike action has much wider implications for the public than some other ballots; it is not just a workplace matter. That is why a postal ballot is required for industrial action, union election and political fund ballots. There are significant challenges for e-balloting, including potential hacking, mentioned by my noble friend Lord King, vote selling and voter intimidation, as recognised by the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy in 2015. I am sure that we will return to this issue in Committee.
I turn to the points made on human rights. I was delighted to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and was grateful for the work that we did together on the Enterprise Bill. This Government recognise that the freedom of assembly guaranteed by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights affords the right to join trade unions and the right to take industrial action. However, it is well established under the convention that it is perfectly legitimate to legislate in ways that may place limits on strike action and other trade union activities where those limits are justified and proportionate.
We are also comfortable with the measures on picketing, which are designed to make it clear to the police and the employer both where a picket is taking place and whom the police or an employer should contact. These are reasonable steps to ensure that pickets pass off peacefully.
I would not have signed the statement on human rights on the face of the Bill if I had not been satisfied that the provisions were justified, proportionate and compatible with our international obligations—in particular, obligations under the UN and ILO treaties, as well as obligations under the European Social Charter. However, in view of the points raised, I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, responding to the points that she made.
Our door is always open on the reform of party funding but this Bill is not about party funding; it is about ensuring that the relationship between trade union members and trade unions is as transparent as possible. The pledge to legislate to ensure a transparent opt-in process for union subscriptions can be found at paragraph 19 of the Conservative Party manifesto.
Lord Tyler
The Minister refers to the Conservative Party manifesto. Does she also recall it said that a Conservative Government would continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform? They have had eight months to fulfil that promise. What have they done?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I will just finish this point and then come back to that, if I may.
Union members already have the statutory right to decide whether or not to contribute to political funds, but currently the default position is that members contribute. In practice, the choice is not always clear. We believe that we need to make it clearer. Indeed, as I heard the leader of the Labour Party say this morning on the “Today” programme when I woke up rather late, people are entitled to have their individual say in the party; as my noble friend Lord Balfe said, whichever party that may be.
We heard from the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Bew, among others, about recommendations by the Committee on Standards in Public Life for reform of party funding and the ending of the culture of big donor funding. In my view, these issues, and matters relating to them, are separate from the provisions in Clause 10 to require union members to make an active choice to contribute to political funds. I add in my response to noble Lords, and to my noble friend Lord Leigh, that the Labour Government changed the law to require shareholder approval for a political donation of more than £5,000.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, asked why check-off was not mentioned in the manifesto. Our manifesto was clear about the case for modernising industrial relations, including tightening the rules around taxpayer-funded arrangements. This is part of our pledge to tackle facility time. DCLG guidance on facility time issued to local government in the last Parliament, for example, included advice on removing check-off. As my noble friend Lord Suri said, direct debits are very easy nowadays, and that should be the direction of travel.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, spoke about facility time. This Bill introduces a reporting requirement for the wider public sector to report on such time because the Government are concerned about transparency. The noble Lord, Lord Monks, said that private businesses regard facility time as useful, and we do not want to take away from the good work that unions do. We recognise the constructive role that unions can play, as I have already said, which is why in 2015-16 we have provided a grant of £14 million to the TUC to fund Unionlearn and TUC Education. However, we want to shine a light on the amount of time and money that is spent on facility time in the public sector; taxpayers deserve this.
An enhanced Certification Officer with more robust regulatory and enforcement powers will contribute to our objective of making unions and employer associations more accountable to their members and the wider public. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, that the Certification Officer will not be able to use his or her powers inappropriately or vexatiously. Should the CO act unlawfully or unfairly in making enforcement decisions, the persons affected have the right of appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, I can confirm that there could be no provision in the Bill to levy fees on the central activities of ACAS.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about implementation in Wales. These changes in the Bill are to employment and industrial relations legislation, which continue to be reserved matters. The Government are determined to protect the public from disruptive and undemocratic strike action across the whole of Great Britain, and that is just as important in Scotland and Wales as it is in England.
This Bill is not the massive change that some have made out today. It is a Bill in favour of the public. It seeks to balance the interests of the unions with the interests of the public. We stand ready, of course, to discuss the Bill, our various consultation papers and our impact assessment in Committee—and, indeed, to return to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, on check-off, where we have agreed to give 12 months’ grace before the ban will come into effect.
The Bill introduces greater accountability through provisions on ballot thresholds, supervision of picketing and the Certification Officer reforms. It introduces greater transparency through political funds, facility time and check-off provisions. It offers the right level of incremental change for the 21st century in Britain. I commend the Bill to the House.
Lord Tyler
As an amendment to the above Motion, leave out “Committee of the Whole House” and insert “Select Committee in respect of clauses 10 and 11, in the light of the failure to take steps to implement the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in their report Political party finance: ending the big donor culture”.