Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)
Seema Kennedy Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Chair
May I pause you for a second? We have 10 minutes remaining and four Members want to ask questions, so we need to speed up the replies and the questions.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
Q 369 Dr Roach, when your members go on strike, the people affected will all have to arrange alternative childcare because of the nature of your members’ profession. In relation to clause 7, which is on the notice period, do you not recognise that giving parents 14 days, rather than seven, would give them more scope to organise alternative arrangements?
Dr Roach: We do not agree with the proposed measure to increase the notification period for industrial action. It has to be borne in mind that, as a trade union, we are engaged in industrial action that does not always include strike action. In fact, by and large, our industrial action is pupil and parent-friendly. It includes action short of strike action, which is to say working to an idea about what the teacher’s contract should be in order to raise educational standards, so that children’s education is not disrupted.
Seema Kennedy
Q 370 But when there is strike action and there is disruption to children’s education and their parents’ ability to go to work, would you not recognise that giving them 14 days’ notice would give them more ample opportunity to re-arrange their lives, so that they can contribute to the economy by going to work?
Dr Roach: I am not going to challenge the logic of what you are saying. What I would argue is—
Seema Kennedy
Q 371 So you accept it then.
Dr Roach: I am not going to challenge the logic of the argument you have put forward. The best way to minimise disruption to parents up and down the country is through sensible dialogue, genuine negotiation and a will to resolve industrial disputes before disruption becomes necessary. I would take you back to a point I made at the outset: by and large, our industrial action features action short of strike action, which does not disrupt the rights and ability of parents one jot. At the moment, we have in the Bill a blanket or universal provision affecting all forms of industrial action. That seems to us to be unnecessary and disproportionate.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
Q 372 I have a question for Mr Skewes. Earlier this week, we heard from a Government witness from 2020 Health who seemed unaware that trade unions already have life and limb cover in hospitals when industrial action is taken. Do you believe that the Government’s wider proposals on the use of agency workers during strike action are required?
Jon Skewes: No, not at all. The last thing the English NHS in particular needs is more agency workers, the cost of which has gone up by a factor of 11 over the past two years. If there were proposals to bring in agency workers instead of, for example, midwives, first of all, someone attending a woman giving birth has to be, by law, a midwife or a doctor. We think it would undermine quality and safety. Frankly, in our last industrial action, we ensured that every women in this country had the service that would normally be available to them. Most of our members were not on strike—I would say that 90% of our members were providing that cover and 10% were on what were essentially protests. I think that that was hugely supported by the British public.
There are a number of other things. First, there are not that many of those people. If we look at the figures—I think this is in our written evidence—most agency workers are already working in the NHS at the moment. They are probably also our members, so the agency workers themselves would be on strike.
Secondly, I think it would have a really bad effect on team morale and the way in which safety is underpinned. Those people do not have the knowledge of trust safety protocols, quality protocols and so on. We resent the fact that, given the way we absolutely went out of our way with trusts and NHS England to underpin safety during that dispute, we would be faced with a dilemma in the future. Do we allow them to just replace our members with agency workers, which would be much more costly but we know would not be as safe? I do not think we would do that. It is a dilemma that we resent.
The Chair
Mr McCluskey, when Nusrat Ghani asked you a question a bit earlier on, you referred to a case that she raised and you alluded to evidence of the case and that there was no action by the police, who noted that no action was needed. Could you send the Committee a note about that? It would be quite useful to Members on both sides when they come to judge the evidence that has been given.
Len McCluskey: Yes.
Seema Kennedy
Q 394 I think it was you, Mr Prentis, who mentioned productivity earlier on. I accept that your organisations often prevent strikes, but they do happen. Do you accept that when millions of people are out of the workplace because of a strike or when a strike is threatened—we have heard a lot about the threat of strikes being disruptive to lives and businesses—it will inevitably have an impact on productivity?
Dave Prentis: It will inevitably have an impact, otherwise why would the workers be doing it? The issue is when you take the action. You take it as a final resort. We represent low-paid women, nearly 1 million of them, and they cannot afford to miss a day’s pay. It must take something drastically wrong and unfair. They are not motivated by aggrandisement. Something happening to them that is unfair will motivate a low-paid woman public service worker to vote for industrial action.
We cannot just talk about the effect on the public and ignore the effect on the individual striker, because they are doing it for a real reason: they feel very aggrieved about how they have been treated. They have to have the ability to seek a settlement. If we cannot get settlements, the right for workers to withdraw their labour is obviously a final resort that is allowed in the ILO conventions, which Frances has been talking about. It is impossible to take industrial action that does not have some effect on people, otherwise why take it?
If you are talking about productivity, productivity is everything that happens during the course of a year. For our members, on average, a member will take action every 15 years, yet we are obsessing over productivity. The issue with productivity is getting more skilled, higher-paid workers within our environments and ensuring that people are well treated and can contribute. It is about having the investment to increase productivity—that is not necessarily coming through—and having a fairer society where people want to contribute. You cannot connect productivity with the small number of days that are lost.
Seema Kennedy
Q 395 Can I just bring it back to women? You say that you represent a lot of women who are low-paid.
Dave Prentis: A million.
Seema Kennedy
Q 396 Many of whom will be mothers or have other caring responsibilities, perhaps for other family members. In the TUC submission, where you are talking about the notice period, you say that it will needlessly delay the start of industrial action. Do you not recognise that for those women, they might need those 14 days to arrange extra care for their dependants? Extending the period from seven days to 14 days might be useful for them, because of the disruption.
Frances O'Grady: I am not aware that the Bill is only targeting the 14-day notice period in areas where mothers will be affected by the strike. It is a false prospectus. Let us be clear about this: the extension of the notice period is designed to reduce momentum and participation in the strike and weaken the union’s hand.
With your agreement, I will make a very small point on productivity, on which I can give you some hard evidence. The number of days lost through industrial action during the past year adds up to just one half of one ten-thousandth of a percent of all working days. To put that in perspective, the number of days lost through issues around health, safety and wellbeing is 450 times that—
Seema Kennedy
I would not dispute that, but we want to increase productivity in everything.
The Chair
Order.
Frances O'Grady: I just wanted to make the point that our union representatives play an absolutely critical role in delivering higher productivity in the workplace, including through health and safety. A number of those strikes are directly relevant to issues, such as health and safety, that in the long run are important for business and the economy, as well as for working people. Again, I think you have to understand that trade union activity and strength actually improves Britain’s productivity by creating safer, healthier and better trained workforces.
Trade Union Bill (First sitting)
Seema Kennedy Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop
Q 39 So to reiterate, still no objective evidence yet?
John Cridland: I stand by the CBI’s evidence. That is my evidence. That is what I am presenting to you.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
Q 40 It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Thank you to the witnesses. We have spoken about certainty and clarity in business. Of course, the most essential component of any business is the employees. Will the clear description of the trade dispute and the planned industrial action, which will now appear on the ballot papers, provide more clarity for union members and help them to know what they are or are not voting for?
Dr Adam Marshall: I am happy to begin on that. We support clauses 4 to 6 of the Bill and the requirement for greater information so that everyone can have that information. The point has been made very well through the course of this process that a very small proportion of the private sector workforce are unionised, so this impacts only a small minority of my membership but the point has been expressed to us that they want employees who are being balloted on the possibility of strike action to have maximum information available to them in order to take a decision on the way that they choose to vote.
David Martin: I have nothing to add. Speaking on behalf of my organisation, I do not know the exact percentage. Recognition reflects about 98% of my workforce, I would think. It is not something that I have delved into.
Seema Kennedy
Q 41 I do not understand what you mean.
David Martin: I mean that 98% of my employees are members of trade unions.
Seema Kennedy
Q 42 So you think that it is better for them to understand exactly what they are voting for—to give everybody in a business clarity. That would help to cement better relations between employers and employees.
David Martin: Absolutely. Communication with the workforce is fundamental, from an employer viewpoint and a trade union viewpoint.
Jessica Morden
Q 43 Can I ask the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, are your members concerned about the proposals in the Bill that mean that details of disputes between employers and unions will be posted on the certification officer’s website?
John Cridland: No, we believe that transparency would be helpful in providing the clarity that I gave in my previous answer.
Dr Adam Marshall: Our members have expressed opinions on clauses 2 to 8 rather than clauses 9 to 17—the clauses that reflect directly to the duties of the certification officer in that respect.
Seema Kennedy
Q 66 Mr Rickhuss, in your written submission you bring out the point that you think that the Bill is going to put too much power in the hands of employers, but would you not agree that those affected by strikes in education and transport have no power at all? Also, when we have very low turnouts, those people are disproportionately powerful, because they can still bring a city to a standstill or close down an entire education system.
Roy Rickhuss: Again, you are talking about the public sector. I do not believe that anyone should be inconvenienced by strikes—that is not my position and I would not say that. What I do say is—back fully agreeing with John—it is about having proper industrial relations and having a partnership approach. I do believe a threshold of 50% plus one is fair and reasonable, because that is what we have—that is our democracy.
It works both ways. If we have a proposal from the company or the management to change a particular working practice, which we deal with almost daily, that is the threshold for whether that working practice or change in terms and conditions is accepted or not. We do not say to our members, “We are going to have an onerous condition that says you have to vote by 60% or whatever to accept a change in your working practices.” The companies are quite happy with that. When they want to change a working practice, introduce some flexibilities and so on, they are quite happy for the union to consult its members, and come back and say, “Yes, that has been accepted by the members.”
The Chair
Okay. I have to stop you there—I think the Minister wants to have the last shout.
Trade Union Bill (Second sitting)
Seema Kennedy Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Stephen Doughty
Q 133 I assume you both also deal with complaints about passenger fares, increases and issues around ticketing and so on. Would you be able to comment on the role that trade unions have played in highlighting passenger concerns similar to those you are representing on the rise in fare complexity and so on?
David Sidebottom: Particularly through the research that we have done, we know that value-for-money ratings on Britain’s railway are a lot lower than overall satisfaction with rail journeys among passengers. As we get around to January, the time of year when regulated fares increase, we will see the unions do what they do and be quite vocal about the need for reinvestment in the railway. What we articulate is the view of the passenger, particularly through poor value-for-money ratings. That is something we challenge the Department on, in terms of franchising, individual operators and improving the lot for passengers.
Janet Cooke: In terms of the unions, we do not formally engage with them, but the unions have done good work over the years in essentially being proxy passengers if you cannot talk to passengers themselves. Our board has never called them to give evidence or to speak to the board formally, but if there is a board meeting—particularly one where we are looking at such things as applications to change ticket office opening hours or, more recently, TfL’s proposals to close ticket offices—it is usual for the unions to attend and be in the public gallery. At the chair’s discretion, they might be invited to say something giving the passenger perspective through the unions’ eyes, and our chairs have usually allowed them to do that. It has probably been helpful.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
Q 134 It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. This is a question for both witnesses. You have spoken about the threat of action on the railways in particular. Do you have experience of people saying to you, “I am worried about the strike”, and perhaps changing their travel patterns and pushing traffic on to the roads and off the railways and the underground—all parts of TfL and the commuter lines—because of the threat of action?
David Sidebottom: On the slightly broader subject of disruption generally, we know that passengers crave timely information that is targeted at them specifically. In the early part of the summer, with the potential strike by Network Rail, both sides were able to negotiate right to the wire. The railway planning system is not sophisticated or agile enough to get emergency timetables up on the system and taken off again at short notice.
People are trying to make decisions about whether to take a journey. I have no evidence of people shifting on to the road, although I suspect that they probably did. They were thinking, “I need to be somewhere in two weeks’ time and there is a threat of a strike on that day.” That is the slight difference with the threat of strike action—bargaining seems to go right to the wire, which is probably inevitable in the game that is played, but for passengers that creates more uncertainty than engineering works on a bank holiday weekend. At least with engineering works, passengers know that it will happen, although they may not like it, and information can be put out to help them.
Seema Kennedy
Q 135 So you think overall that the threat of strikes can have a much broader effect that is perhaps difficult to quantify.
David Sidebottom: Passengers may innocently go on to websites to book a train ticket, unaware that there will be a strike. They may buy their ticket in advance for a day when there might be strike action. They can get their money back and that is sorted out, but if you are aware of the strike, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I am not speaking on behalf of the train industry, but it is equally difficult for them. They can put all the emergency planning in place, but at what point do they allow it on to the systems to give passengers a definitive answer as to whether they can make a journey?
Janet Cooke: In outer London people are able to use their cars—certainly, looking at the BBC reports, there was a big increase in congestion—but for most commuters travelling into central London the car is not a realistic option because there is too much congestion. So there is crowding onto other modes. You made comments earlier about being packed in like sardines; that is the London commuter experience already. So if during peak times you have further congestion because one mode is unavailable that makes things very difficult. The threat of strikes is almost as disruptive, because people change their plans for the day.
Seema Kennedy
Q 136 In what people submit to you, do they talk about crowding, the stress in terms of organising their lives, business things and childcare, and about travelling on very crowded buses?
Janet Cooke: Yes, we have never done any formal research, so I have no sound evidence that I can quote, but we do get feedback from passengers. I think that 25 people contacted us during the summer specifically about the threat of the tube strikes. That is a lot for us. It gets mentioned in other activities and, by and large, people are not happy about it, but they tend to put up with it. They see it as part of London perhaps—I do not know.
The Chair
May I stop you for a minute, Mr Smith? It is not really your duty to question the role of the Committee and Members of Parliament. We have decided and agreed to invite you in to give evidence to the Committee. You cannot then criticise the whole process of allowing you to do so.
Dave Smith: I do apologise. My point really was this question about why it is that the trade unions exercising a democratic right—a human right under the European convention on human rights—are penalised to such an extent, exactly as Sara said. Nobody else in any other circumstances in the country is being given this. If there is disruption because of strikes about asbestos or unpaid wages, the people responsible for it are the employers, not the trade unions.
Victoria Prentis
Q 167 And you feel that this is completely different from a code?
Sara Ogilvie: When people choose to do something, and when people are required to do something and there are very strong consequences because of that requirement, I think that is a difference, yes, and it is a significant one.
Seema Kennedy
Q 168 I want to go back to this picket supervisor code. If you have large public assemblies—even on things such as school trips, which I have supervised, I have to wear an orange tabard. Is it the actual armband that is causing the great objection? You might have thousands of people on the streets. Surely, just for public order, somebody needs to be able to identify who is in charge.
Sara Ogilvie: If we want to compare it, there are rules in place that govern marches and other kinds of protest. There are not rules about demonstrations; there are rules about marches. If you have a rule about a march, then the organiser must be known to the police. But that organiser could be, if you take the union example, Frances O’Grady; everybody knows who she is. If you have someone who is in a local trade union, they might not want to be known; as we have heard, there are really serious consequences. It is not so much about the organisation; it is about the identification, and the fact that that can then be used to void a whole strike.
Seema Kennedy
Q 169 Nobody wants to condone blacklisting—absolutely not—and it is very much to be welcomed that in the building industry we are moving away from that. [Interruption.] I sense some scepticism, looking at the Benches. But of course we want to move away from that; people should have the right to strike. I wonder whether there is an objection to the use of an armband particularly.
Dave Smith: What there is an objection to is that if you are on a school trip, you are not being asked by the police to provide your name, and if I am on a picket line, I am not breaking any laws. I have not done anything illegal, and without any suspicion, or due suspicion that I have broken laws, the police will come and take my name.
A number of people have mentioned the London underground during this debate. For the London underground, you might need a picket supervisor on every single station; on large stations, you might need a picket supervisor on different entrances. And for the RMT or whichever union, they would have to provide a list of possibly hundreds—literally—of picket supervisors to the police, and they have not committed any crime. That information will be collated and will be put on a police database, and we have fears where that goes. How can you stop it being given to special branch?
Seema Kennedy
Q 170 I understand that, but this is a side issue of blacklisting, which the Government are consulting on—[Interruption]—they are.
Just on the school trips issue, there are checks that one would have to go through; you need Disclosure and Barring Service checks, and things like that. Okay, perhaps it was not the best analogy. All I am saying is that in terms of public order—
Sara Ogilvie: In terms of public order, the usual rules that would apply to public demonstrations or public protests already apply. These are specific additional requirements that are being placed on pickets, and pickets tend to be pretty small as well, so the requirements seem disproportionate. As I say, the normal rules apply; these are additional ones.
Shane Enright: Can I add something, and I will do it in one sentence? I do not understand what problems this Bill is seeking to solve. I simply do not see the evidence before me of disruptive pickets, of intimidation or violence on picket lines; there is simply very little evidence of it. Twenty million days a year are lost through workplace injury or workplace illness; 0.8 million days a year are lost through strikes.
Seema Kennedy
Q 171 The thing is, we want to get rid of all days lost. Yes, of course it is a small proportion and getting smaller, and we want to tackle days lost through workplace injury and things like that as well, but even though it is a small proportion, it is still having an effect on our economy and it is still disrupting people’s lives, the way they organise their families and their travel. That and the idea of threshold is the whole thrust of the Bill. I know that Liberty has spoken about the balance between employers and employees, but we go back to the people whose lives are disrupted and who have not taken part in that ballot. They cannot say whether their schools or trains are not running on that day.
Shane Enright: I appreciate that there is disruption, but what is entirely absent from the Bill is any recognition or acknowledgement of the positive roles that trade unions play in the delivery of effective and efficient public and private services for the common good. I understand that the Royal College of Nursing has done an impact analysis of the role of trade unions in the health sector that comes to the conclusion that effective industrial relations involving trade unions has substantial positive impacts on safety, on the levels and quality of workplace training and across a range of key issues. So rather than talking about trade unions as necessarily being civil actors that have negative economic consequences—
The Chair
Sorry, can I stop you? We have very little time left and this is not the place for a conversation; it is a question and answer session for Members to ask questions of the witnesses. I am going to draw this section to a close and move on.
Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap
Seema Kennedy Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of course if a public body were found to be liable we would need to work out what the situation was and the context in which that had occurred, but I go back to a point that was made earlier. To be fair, the motion says, “Let’s have the transparency, and the regulations and the consultation, so we know exactly where there is a gender pay gap,” and therefore employers, before being taken to a tribunal, can address the issue for themselves, rather than—I say this as a former lawyer—providing more work for the lawyers and less immediate pay equality for people working in those organisations.
As a result of the actions this Government have taken, and as a result of having a strong economy, women are playing a greater role than ever before in the labour market. There are more women in work than ever before. There are also more women-led businesses than ever before, and critically, as the hon. Member for Ashfield said, the gender pay gap is the lowest on record—she obviously knew that I would point that out at some point. I am pleased to say that it has been virtually eliminated among full-time workers under 35.
The hon. Lady also talked about the full-time and part-time differences. That is interesting because the gender pay gap based on median hourly earnings, excluding overtime, has narrowed for full-time employees to 9.4% compared with 10% in 2013, and for part-time employees the higher rate of pay for women than men results in a negative gender pay gap. Although there is evidence that the part-time gap has widened in the long term, it has remained relatively stable in recent years, standing at minus 5.5% in April 2014. But the overall points remain: there is a gender pay gap and we would very much like to get rid of it.
While the fact that the gender pay gap has narrowed is something to celebrate, I am in no way complacent. That is why we pledged in our manifesto to go further. We will publish a consultation in the coming weeks to seek views on how best to implement our commitment to require employers to publish gender pay information.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
In my constituency the gender pay gap figures are worse than the national average, and I would like this to be stamped out. What steps will my right hon. Friend take to encourage businesses to report on the gender pay gap?
Nicky Morgan
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and welcome her to the House. I am about to come on to the regulations that will apply to companies with more than 250 employees. I say to those businesses and employers in her constituency who may not be paying the right amounts that I know she will be an active MP and will be asking them what they are going to do to ensure there is no gender pay gap in their businesses.
I can assure the Opposition that the consultation to which I just referred will consider the mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission may well play a role in monitoring, as is the case for the public sector equality duty, but as hon. Members will be aware the commission already has the ability to carry out the work envisaged in the motion. I must return to my earlier comments on the distinction between equal pay and the gender pay gap, which are unhelpfully conflated in the motion.
Oral Answers to Questions
Seema Kennedy Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Indeed. Nobody is lying to this House. That is clear and we are grateful.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
11. What plans she has to support working families by helping provide extra childcare.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
13. What plans she has to support working families by helping provide extra childcare.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)
We have many plans to support hard-working families with the cost of childcare. In addition to the 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds which we are introducing in this Parliament, we have legislated for free childcare to give parents 20% off the cost of their childcare up to £10,000, and the childcare element of universal credit will be going up from 70% to 85%.
Seema Kennedy
Quality is vital in early-years education. Will my hon. Friend set out the steps being taken to ensure that childcare provision in my constituency is of the highest possible quality?
Mr Gyimah
That is an excellent question, because the debate often focuses on affordability and availability of childcare, but obviously quality is vitally important, too. We are focusing on quality by ensuring that we raise the status of the early-years workforce. That is why we are raising the standards of literacy and numeracy of the level 3 people entering the profession, and we are also raising the early-years bar through the Ofsted accountability framework so that nurseries have to perform that bit better.