Trade Union Bill (Sixth sitting)
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 11, in clause 3, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
‘(2G) None of the provisions of this section shall apply to services the provision of which is devolved wholly or partially to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive.’
The amendment would ensure that the provisions of the Bill requiring 40% support for industrial action in certain public services would not apply to services devolved to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
Amendment 12, in clause 3, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
‘(2H) None of the provisions of this section shall apply to services provided by the Mayor of London or local authorities in England.’
The amendment would ensure that the provisions of the Bill requiring 40% support for industrial action in certain public services would not apply to services devolved to the Mayor of London or local authorities in England.
Amendment 77, in clause 3, page 2, line 28, at end insert—
‘(4) This section shall not apply to trade disputes in Scotland.’
Amendment 78, in clause 4, page 3, line 2, at end insert—
‘(3) This section shall not apply to trade disputes in Scotland.’
Amendment 79, in clause 5, page 3, line 25, at end insert—
‘(3) This section shall not apply to trade disputes in Scotland.’
Amendment 80, in clause 6, page 3, line 44, at end insert—
‘(3) This section does not apply in relation to industrial action in Scotland.’
Amendment 81, in clause 7, page 4, line 9, at end insert—
‘(3) This section shall not apply to trade disputes in Scotland.’
Amendment 82, in clause 8, page 4, line 24, at end insert—
‘(3) This section shall not apply to disputes in Scotland.’
Amendment 42, in clause 10, page 7, line 10, at end insert—
‘(5) None of the provisions of sections 84 and 85 shall apply to public sector employees in sectors or providing services which are wholly or partially devolved to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive.’
The amendment would ensure that the provisions on contributions to political funds would not apply to employees in public services providing services which are devolved to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive.
Amendment 72, in clause 10, page 7, line 10, at end insert—
‘(6) None of the provisions of this section shall apply to employees of the Mayor of London or local authorities in England.’
The amendment would ensure that the provisions on contributions to political funds would not apply to employees in public services providing services which are devolved to the Mayor of London or local authorities in England.
Amendment 51, in clause 12, page 9, line 20, at end insert?
‘(13) None of the provisions of this section shall apply to facility time of the employees of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive, or to public sector employers working for or providing services that are wholly or partially devolved to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive.’
The amendment would ensure that the provisions on facility time would not apply to employees working for or providing public services which are devolved to the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive.
Amendment 73, in clause 12, page 9, line 20, at end insert?
‘(14) None of the provisions of this section shall apply to facility time of the employees of the Mayor of London or local authorities in England.’
The amendment would ensure that the provisions on facility time would not apply to employees working for or providing public services which are devolved to employees of the Mayor of London or local authorities in England.
Amendment 84, in clause 12, page 9, line 20, at end insert—
‘(13) The provisions in this section shall only apply with the consent of the Scottish Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Executive, the Mayor of London and Local Authorities in England in their areas of responsibility.’
Amendment 85, in clause 13, page 10, line 44, at end insert—
‘(14) For the avoidance of doubt, the powers in this section shall only apply with the consent of the Scottish Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Executive, the Mayor of London and Local Authorities in England in their areas of responsibility.’
Amendment 86, in clause 14, page 11, line 11, at end insert—
‘(4) This section and the Schedules it inserts shall not apply in Scotland.’
Amendment 87, in clause 15, page 12, line 23, at end insert—
‘(4) This section shall not apply in Scotland.’
Amendment 88, in clause 16, page 13, line 26, at end insert—
‘(5) This section and the Schedule it inserts shall not apply in Scotland.’
Amendment 89, in clause 17, page 14, line 43, at end insert—
‘(11) Trade union members resident in Scotland shall not be required through their union to contribute to a levy imposed by this section.’
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, as we return to line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. When we left, we were discussing the group of amendments about devolution and I was about to set out my case on amendment 11.
By setting balloting thresholds for the range of important services defined by the Bill, we need to be clear that this will impact on public policy areas that are wholly devolved. As a Welsh Member of Parliament, I am concerned that the Bill could breach the devolution settlement in Wales and in Scotland, as well as with regard to the increasing powers of local authorities in England, Mayors and the Mayor of London.
Health services, education of those aged under 17 and fire services are already clearly devolved to Wales, and the Welsh First Minister stated in a recent letter to the Prime Minister:
“It is clear…that significant elements of the Bill relate specifically to public services which in Wales are unambiguously devolved responsibilities. I therefore do not accept the suggestion that the Bill must be regarded as concerned exclusively with non-devolved issues…Policy on how to support, or ‘protect’, the delivery of devolved public services such as health, education and fire is…for the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales. This includes the way the public sector bodies in such devolved services work with trade unions to ensure effective delivery of services to the public.”
That is very important because we regularly hear examples from the Government about services. Most of them seem to relate to London—though, as I have said, we should give the Mayor of London the choice of how to handle these relationships. These examples do not relate to services in Wales, Scotland or elsewhere. I wonder why that is. Given that the devolved Governments have raised a series of concerns in their oral and written evidence, in letters and so on, will the Minister inform the Committee what discussions he and other Ministers in the Department and the Minister for the Cabinet Office have had with Ministers and officials in the devolved Administrations before the Bill was published and subsequent to their concerns being raised?
This is particularly important because the First Minister of Wales specifically pointed out the positive social partnerships that exist in Wales—we have heard similar evidence from Scotland—and the impact that that can have on the positive delivery of public services. The Minister need not accept just the word of the Welsh Government for this, welcome though that would be, as we also have research published by the Royal College of Nursing, which witnesses touched on in oral evidence. The research highlights the benefits of high-trust working relationships between managers and unions in the public sector. In that case, it was related to health in particular. I believe that the Bill and this clause seek to drive a false wedge between them.
We have already heard how Scottish Labour and local authorities run by Scottish Labour have made it very clear that they do not intend to implement the Bill. I have been made aware during the lunch break of a statement released by one of the Welsh councils, and I know that many share this position. I have a statement from Torfaen, a Labour-run authority. Councillor Anthony Hunt has tabled a resolution there, endorsed by the council, which says that the council
“resolves to oppose the introduction of the Trade Union Bill 2015, urges the Government to abandon the Bill and instead make a commitment to work in partnership with the trade union movement”.
There is dissension at many levels.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I refer the Committee to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. We also heard evidence from the Welsh Minister for Public Services about the firefighters’ dispute over pensions, in which a solution was reached and the Fire Brigades Union put off strike action in Wales. Is that not a good example of where Wales is doing things differently?
Stephen Doughty
That is a perfect example, which exposes the different industrial relations policies that different Governments across these islands are pursuing and the benefits to the public of avoiding strike action, which is what the Government say that they want to do with the Bill. The example that my hon. Friend just gave stands in stark contrast to the testy relationship that appears to exist, as we heard in oral evidence, between the London fire brigade and the Fire Brigades Union, and the wider context of industrial relations in that city. Surely if the Government’s aim, as they keep repeating, is to reduce industrial action and disruption, particularly in crucial services such as fire, we want to do everything we can to build positive partnerships and come to resolutions, as was the case in Wales.
Amendment 12, in a similar vein to amendment 11, seeks to ensure that the Bill does not interfere with the ability of directly elected Mayors and local authorities in England to manage such services and decide how to manage their relationships with trade unions. It is consistent with the Government’s localism agenda. Amendments 42 and 72 relate to clause 10, on political party fund opt-ins, which we will discuss in due course. Briefly, amendment 42 would ensure that the opt-in requirements for trade union political funds would not apply to public sector employees working in sectors or providing services that are devolved to the Scottish and Welsh Governments. Amendment 72 would ensure that the proposed new opt-in requirements for union political funds did not apply to employees of the Mayor of London or local authorities in England. Again, as a point of principle, we believe that those bodies should be able to make their own decisions about how to manage their relationships with trade unions in those sectors and how those trade unions use their money.
On amendment 51 and 73, I draw the Committee’s attention to a letter dated 10 September 2015 from Carwyn Jones, the Welsh First Minister, to the Prime Minister, expressing his concerns about the Trade Union Bill. In the letter, the First Minister says:
“Similarly, it cannot be right for the UK Government—blind to policy priorities and devolved service delivery reforms in Wales—to specify how much union ‘facility time’ devolved public sector employers should allow. Nor am I convinced that the intention to end ‘check off’ arrangements for trade union subscriptions in the public sector is necessary or appropriate. The Welsh Government operates these arrangements as part of its approach to effective social partnership and is not seeking to change this.”
I know that the Scottish Government are similarly concerned about this matter, and I am sure that my colleagues from the Scottish National party would agree.
These are important policy decisions about relationships and the balance of responsibilities and rights. They are part of the crucial relationship between the Government and public bodies, and those who work in them. Frankly, the Welsh and Scottish Governments have a different approach, and they want to ensure that it is positive.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
My hon. Friend outlines a coherent case. Although the Government maintain that they have the power to enact the Bill across the United Kingdom, it could in practice be enacted in very different ways in different parts of the United Kingdom. English citizens could end up with many fewer rights than their counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Do we want English men and women to have fewer rights than their Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts?
Stephen Doughty
That is a very important point. As I made clear when introducing our amendments, the Labour party believes in exempting all parts of the United Kingdom from the Bill and its provisions. It would be hugely problematic for there to be areas of complete disagreement and an imbalance among the different parts of the UK. That prompts a series of questions, and I hope the Minister can explain how the measure will work in practice, given that the devolved Governments and local authorities are already indicating that they do not wish to implement it.
Amendment 51 would ensure that the new requirements to report on facility time would not apply to employees of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive or public sector employers working for or providing services that are partially or wholly devolved to those bodies. It would ensure that the Bill does not interfere with the ability of those Governments to manage those services and decide how they engage with their staff and determine their relationships with trade unions.
In the same vein, amendment 73 would ensure that the new reporting requirements did not apply to the facility time of employees of the Mayor of London or local authorities in England. Again, that is consistent with the Government’s localism agenda.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
May I remind the shadow Minister of Dave Prentis’s evidence last week? I thought it was peculiar—perhaps the shadow Minister can enlighten us—that he said that, when it comes to check-off, it is not just about the devolved nations, but the new combined authorities. They will be allowed to do everything, but not talk to staff and trade unions about having check-off or not.
Stephen Doughty
That is a very important point. I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing our attention to what the general secretary of Unison had to say on that matter. Unison represents a significant number of employees in local government across the UK and has exposed a very serious problem.
I want to ask the Minister some specific questions that I hope he will answer in his response to this part of the debate. I pressed him in the oral evidence session about the legal assessments that had been made in developing the Bill. Clearly, I do not expect him to share the detail of Government legal advice, but I would like to know, given the apparent paucity of consultation with devolved Governments across the UK and, it appears, with local government, what conversations took place. I am not asking the Minister to share the contents of the conversations, but can he tell us what conversations took place, given the huge implications of the Bill and the legal precedent for cases such as this ending up in the Supreme Court? What conversations took place? Did any take place? I sincerely hope that they did. Anything the Minister can share with the Committee would be very helpful.
I pushed the Minister on my second point in the oral evidence session. As we have heard from a vast number of legal experts, there is a serious risk of legal challenge to the Bill. One legal opinion can be challenged by another, but the reality is that that might be exactly where the Bill ends up: in the courts. Have the Government set aside funds to deal with legal proceedings that might result—it is inevitable, I believe—from the Bill’s proceeding in its present form?
Thirdly, I would like to know the Minister’s response to the apparent concerns of the Welsh and Scottish Governments, local government across England and local government in Wales and Scotland, and his response should they choose not to implement the Bill, because they believe that it breaches their settlement. Will he take legal proceedings against them to enforce the Bill? How much does he think that that will cost the taxpayer? Or will he just let them carry on? I am sure that he wants to enforce his Bill, but there will be a cost if there is resistance to it from the public bodies to which he is trying to apply it. Keith Ewing said very clearly that he thought that we were walking blindfold into a major constitutional crisis. I have great sympathy with that position.
Fourthly, given the nature of existing contractual arrangements in a whole series of public bodies that receive public funding, which refer to check-off, facility time, and to many other matters that are pertinent to the Bill, does the Minister propose that the measure will apply retrospectively, and that we would therefore have to unwind hundreds of thousands of contractual arrangements, particularly in the public sector across the UK? Will the Bill apply retrospectively? How does the Minister think that will impact? What estimate has he made of the cost, should any individual challenge that through the courts? I imagine that quite a significant number of individuals would want to challenge that if they believed that they had signed a contract in good faith with a public body that gave them certain rights. What estimate have the Minister and the Department made of the cost of that? How does he see the Bill being implemented?
Will he have a hit squad, which the Minister for the Cabinet Office talked about, going round local authorities and devolved Governments to check the texts of the contractual arrangements that they enter into? Will he go through every piece of paper signed by every public sector employee or by anyone who could vaguely be determined to have enjoyed some sort of public sector funding in their role? Will he interfere with every single one of those contracts? This is an extraordinarily heavy-handed approach from a Government who claim that they want to avoid regulation and interference—and that they are the Government of devolution and localism.
I have a final question for the Minister. We heard from the Scottish and Welsh Governments that they are reserving their position on whether a legislative consent motion is required for the Bill. Perhaps not all members of the Committee are familiar with legislative consent motions—LCMs—but they can be seen regularly on the Table in the House when the UK Government seek to legislate for matters that are partially or fully devolved for some practical reason. If the legislation makes sense, the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive can give permission to the UK Government to do that. There are many circumstances in which that is appropriate. However, on this occasion they clearly do not believe there is a clear case for that. I would like to know what the Minister would do, should the Welsh and Scottish Governments withhold legislative consent. What discussion has the Minister had with UK Government Law Officers about the Government’s approach and, again, what would be the costs to the public purse? I suggest that the Minister makes ready a tidy little pot of money to deal with all the legal proceedings that will emanate from the Bill if it goes ahead in its current form. That will really put paid to the suggestion that the Bill will benefit the taxpayer. It will cost the taxpayer a lot of money.
The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Alan. As we have heard in eloquent speeches from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, amendment 90 and the rest of the amendments in this group aim to limit the geographical extent of the Bill. In the oral evidence sessions last week, we heard evidence from Roseanna Cunningham, the Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training in the Scottish Government, and Leighton Andrews, the Minister for Public Services in the Welsh Government, about the collaborative relationship that these Administrations have with trade unions. That is, of course, laudable. There is absolutely nothing in the Bill that need cut across the positive relationships—the partnerships, as they describe them—between unions and Government in Scotland and Wales, any more than it will cut across the partnership and the positive relationship that we have with unions in relation to English matters.
The Bill is about ensuring that industrial action can go ahead only with a strong, democratic and recent mandate. It is about increasing transparency and accountability, both in strike ballots and in political funds. It is about protecting non-striking workers from intimidation and ensuring that unions take proper responsibility for picket lines. It is about securing transparency and value for money for the taxpayer. It is about creating an appropriate regulatory environment for unions. To me, these all seem to be reasonable objectives. How can we not want to apply these benefits uniformly across Great Britain?
Mike Emmott, senior policy adviser at the CIPD, who in general does not support the measures in the Bill, nevertheless put it eloquently when he told this Committee last week that it was appropriate for the Bill measures to be dealt with on a Great Britain-wide basis. He said:
“It is going to be quite odd for employers dealing with different rules applying in different jurisdictions, where there may be issues that go across the whole of the UK.”––[Official Report, Trade Union Public Bill Committee, 13 October 2015; c. 36, Q90.]
The Bill seeks to ensure that when the lives of commuters or patients or parents of school-age children are disrupted by strike action, that action is supported by a significant proportion of union members. In particular, we are seeking to protect the users of important public services from highly disruptive strike action that is driven by a small minority on the basis of an outdated ballot. The provisions of the Bill apply to the whole of Great Britain: to England, Scotland and Wales, to London, and to English local authorities. This is because all the provisions in the Bill relate to employment and industrial relations law, all of which are clearly reserved matters under the devolution settlements with Scotland and Wales. In Northern Ireland, on the other hand, employment and industrial relations are transferred matters; therefore, respecting the agreement that was properly reached with Northern Ireland, the Bill’s provisions do not apply there.
On that basis—that this is indeed a reserved matter—it is entirely in order for the Government to propose that the Bill applies to the whole of Great Britain. There are strong, practical reasons why employment law should apply across the whole of Great Britain. Under the devolution settlements with Scotland and Wales, Parliament devolved some responsibilities, while some remain reserved. Again, certain responsibilities are being devolved to local authorities in England and to the Mayor of London. None of the responsibilities that are devolved include employment law or industrial relations, so devolved matters are simply not at play.
The shadow Minister asked a number of detailed questions, which I will try to answer as best I can. Obviously contacts take place between officials in every Department here in London and officials in the devolved Administrations. I am not going to provide a running commentary or a list of them, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that, in response to letters that the First Minister of Wales wrote to the Prime Minister on 9 September, the Prime Minister replied on 2 October. In response to letters from Roseanna Cunningham on 7 August and 9 September, she and I had a reasonably lengthy phone conversation on 8 October. I am always happy to speak to them and to discuss any concerns they may have.
The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth said that there had been suggestions by members of the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and other local authorities that they might refuse to comply with the provisions in the Bill should it become law. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that it is quite remarkable to compare the number of times you hear people threatening not to obey a law in prospect—when it is being considered by Parliament and when there is some chance of affecting the outcome of Parliament’s deliberations—and the number of times when those duly constituted public authorities actually refuse to obey the law of the land and put themselves in breach. Let us cross that bridge when we come to it. I do not anticipate those rather wild and lurid threats being carried out—they are, after all, being made by institutions and individuals who oppose the Government politically and oppose the measures. They are, of course, entitled to use, in rhetoric, whatever arguments they like, but ultimately what they do is what will count.
Similarly, the number of times when it might be claimed that a legislative consent motion is required is very different from the number of times when it is actually required. When it is required is determined by the devolution settlement and by whether a matter is reserved or not. As Ms Cunningham herself has admitted, it is absolutely clear that, currently, employment law and industrial relations a reserved matters. There is absolutely no question about the full right of the UK Parliament to make laws that affect the whole of Great Britain on those matters.
Stephen Doughty
I appreciate that the Minister would not do anything other than defend the Bill as an entirely reserved matter, but does he accept that its provisions will have significant consequences for matters that are wholly or partially devolved to a series of Administrations around the UK? Yes or no?
Nick Boles
No, I do not accept that. The hon. Gentleman seems to suggest that minor changes in how individual employees pay a subscription to a particular membership organisation is a challenge to the ability of the devolved Administrations—the Scottish or Welsh Governments—to run their national health service or their schools. That seems ludicrous to me. It is, of course, a matter of employment law and it will, therefore, apply to people who work in public services that are, themselves, devolved, but the idea that it will prevent or interrupt the policies of those Governments towards their public services is to overstate the case.
Nick Boles
We respect mandates, as I hope the hon. Gentleman will respect ours. I draw his attention to another example. The national minimum wage affects every single person who works anywhere in the United Kingdom. It is a reserved matter. It is something that this Parliament sets. I have not heard objections from the Scottish Minister—the very same Scottish Minister—saying that this is an egregious intrusion into Scottish matters and that somehow it is appalling that there is a national minimum wage. It is simply the case that we live in a system where some matters are reserved to the national—the United Kingdom—Parliament and other matters are devolved. The content of employment law and industrial relations is a reserved matter.
Nick Boles
I think we have had enough, Sir Alan. I will give way one last time, because we are making incredibly slow process.
Stephen Doughty
To be fair, Sir Alan, I asked the Minister a number of questions. He has not answered the major question about whether the legislation applies retrospectively to contractual arrangements in the public sector in the devolved Administrations and across local government in England and elsewhere, and about what he believes the consequences will be. He makes out that this is all some slightly trifling matter that is not going to cause problems. Often, facility time, check-off and whatever else are written into contractual provisions and exist in arrangements that are made by devolved Administrations with their employees about their contracts. Will the legislation apply retrospectively, and what does the Minister believe will be the impact on the ability of Administrations to make contractual arrangements, as they have done before? Or is he admitting that the Bill interferes with their ability to do that?
Nick Boles
On the effect of the provisions on existing contracts, we have asked whether they are acceptable by international obligations and we are absolutely assured that they are. Again, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the national minimum wage. Its introduction had an impact on existing contracts, some of which therefore had to be revised to reflect it. This legislation will have no greater impact—in fact, rather less so—on existing contracts. We are confident that any effect it will have is entirely consistent with all the relevant legal framework.
Jo Stevens
I absolutely agree, and that is a risk that the Government are taking. The Bill has significant equality implications, despite the suggestion otherwise in the equality impact assessment—which reads, frankly, as though it was written on the back of a fag packet. The Bill presents a real danger that decades of progress on equality in the workplace will be undermined through the erosion of trade union rights. We know that trade unions are one of the best protections from discriminatory treatment in the workplace, with trained officers and representatives who deal with a range of workplace issues, protecting equality of treatment and, in the process, saving employers from reputational damage and litigation. It is simply not acceptable or legitimate for the UK Government to impose the Bill on Wales.
We have heard that the First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister to set out his position and his concerns clearly and constructively. The Prime Minister’s response has been described by the Minister for Public Services as disappointing. I think he was being too polite. I would go further and describe it as inadequate. It failed to acknowledge any devolved interest whatever. We have heard from the Minister for Public Services that the Welsh Government are considering how they would seek to protect legitimate, devolved interests, including devolved public services, from the Bill, including tabling a legislative consent motion.
I go back to the comments of Professor Ewing from the beginning of my contribution. Do the Government really want to mire themselves in expensive, lengthy litigation with the Welsh Government over the Bill, played out in Supreme Court? Do the Government really want to suffer another embarrassing defeat as they did over the Agricultural Wages Board litigation with the Welsh Government?
The Bill was the subject of a debate in the Welsh Assembly last week. The Assembly Member for Pontypridd summed up the view of the Welsh Government by saying:
“We do not need this law in Wales and we do not want this law in Wales”—
it sounds a bit like Dr Seuss, this—
“And I know that we will do all that we can to support all those who oppose this Bill and, if necessary, to challenge its legitimacy in the Supreme Court.”
The Government have been given a clear warning. By accepting our amendments to clause 3, the Government have the opportunity to save time, save face and save taxpayers’ money. Will they take it?
Stephen Doughty
I want to respond briefly to a number of comments made by the Minister. Obviously, he maintained his position that this is a wholly reserved matter and claimed—shamefully—that this was about extending devolution by the back door. We on this side would contend that this is attempting to extinguish part of devolution by the back door. The Government have made that very clear.
The Minister is essentially saying to the Committee and to the public, “Trust me, it’s not devolved in any way: it’s all fine,” but we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central that the Government’s record on this is wobbly at best. They have already suffered serious defeats in the Supreme Court at great cost to the taxpayer. I would expect, at the very least, the Government to have taken the most precautionary and consultative approach before proceeding with matters of this seriousness. The Minister did not want to detail all the different meetings or give a running commentary. I gently suggest to the Committee that that was because not many meetings, if any, took place before the Bill was published. That is certainly the impression we have been left with by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, let alone local government in England.
The Minister was very hazy on his expectations of the impact of the Bill on existing contractual arrangements, either retrospectively or going forward. I hope that he and the Government have very deep pockets, because I sense that this is not an idle threat; there are real, serious legal objections to the Bill and its implications and I imagine that a number of the bodies that are raising these concerns will take action over this. It is for that reason that I give the Minister a chance to exempt himself from that cost and trouble to the taxpayer, by pressing amendments 11 and 12 to a vote.
Stephen Doughty
I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 5, after “engaged” insert “solely”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 5, in clause 3, page 2, leave out lines 6 to 8 insert—
“the provision of essential public services.”
Amendment 6, in clause 3, page 2, leave out lines 7 and 8.
Amendment 9, in clause 3, page 2, leave out lines 11 and 12 and insert—
‘(2D) In subsection (2B) “essential public services” means those services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.”
The amendment would define “essential public services” in accordance with the International Labour Organisation’s definition.
Amendment 10, in clause 3, page 2, leave out lines 13 to 21.
Stephen Doughty
We have already touched on aspects of clause 3, but there is a more substantive debate to be had on it. As Committee members will know, the clause seeks to introduce a requirement that in “important public services”, 40% of those entitled to vote must vote in favour of industrial action, and that there must be a 50% turnout. In certain important public services, that will mean that if 50% of members participate in the ballot, 80% of those voting must vote in favour in order for a strike to take place. For example, if 500 members are balloted, at least 250 members must vote in the ballot and 200 must vote yes for industrial action to go ahead.
As I have said, if the Government were serious about increasing participation, whether in important public services or anywhere else, they would be taking the measures that we are proposing. I certainly believe, and I am sure my fellow Opposition Members would agree, that the Government’s real agenda is to prevent public sector workers in particular, on whom the legislation will have a significantly greater impact, from raising legitimate grievances and opposing changes to their pay, pensions and rights at work planned in this Parliament. One might even suspect that the Government had such plans in their agenda for the months ahead.
While politics are clearly at the heart of the Bill and this clause in particular, the Government have other legal obstacles to manoeuvre. As I outlined in the debate on the last clause, many legal experts believe that treating abstentions as “no” votes for industrial action is undemocratic and potentially illegal, and conflicts with international standards. International supervisory bodies such as the International Labour Organisation state that only votes cast should be taken into account.
The next hurdle for the Government will be of particular interest to noble Friends and Members in the other place when they read the debates we have had on the Floor of the House and in Committee. The Conservative manifesto in the 2015 general election referred to making provisions regarding only “essential public services”. That was also the specific term used in Her Majesty’s most Gracious Speech, delivered on 27 May 2015:
“My Government will bring forward legislation to reform trade unions and to protect essential public services against strikes.”
In a previous life, I was involved in drafting a line in Her Majesty’s speech. Obviously, it was subject to Her Majesty’s approval, and I am glad she delivered it. A great degree of rigour and attention is paid to the specific wording, so that Her Majesty feels confident with it and it reflects the Government’s intent very clearly. That is an important point.
“Essential” is the word used in International Labour Organisation conventions, and it has a very narrow legal definition. To quote an ILO general survey, the definition is restricted to services
“the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population”.
Transport services, public transport, public education, port authorities, postal services and others all fall outside that category. Given that, I very much suspect—perhaps the Minister can enlighten us when he gets to his feet—that the Government realised that the legislation was poorly drafted and that using those words would leave it vulnerable to serious legal challenge, so they sought to row back, instead changing the wording to “important” public services, as we now see in the Bill. Disturbingly, those public services are to be defined by the Secretary of State in as yet unseen secondary legislation.
A number of categories of services are referred to in the clause using very broad terms, such as “health services”. There is
“education of those aged 17 and under”,
which we discussed in the devolution debate; I do not want to go over old ground, but that causes particular issues for differing education systems across the UK. “Fire services” are referred to, as are “transport services”—in a very general sense, and we have already heard how those are excluded from the ILO definition. There is
“the decommissioning of nuclear installations and management of radioactive waste and spent fuel”,
and “border security”.
Those provisions, alongside the consultation document, are so wide that they could apply to nearly every area of publicly funded activity. One might think that the Government have taken their chance not only to ensure that they can potentially avoid legal challenges—although I think this could still be subject to one—but to draw the definition as wide as possible so that everybody would be forced into the 40% threshold. What assessment has the Minister made of whether it is predicted that the other place will still feel bound by the Salisbury convention, given that the clause clearly breaches a Conservative manifesto commitment, let alone the specific text that was in the Gracious Speech?
What assessment has the Minister made of the effect that the proposals will have on women? We have discussed that at length already, but TUC research suggests that nearly three quarters—73%—of trade union members working in important public services, as defined by the Government, are women. I imagine that Committee members will vote on the proposals shortly; does the Minister think it is appropriate that they do not yet know for certain to whom they will apply? We have to take our responsibilities as legislators in this place very seriously. We do not know what this secondary legislation is, but the Government are again saying, “Trust us, trust us. We’ll be all right. We’re going to put this stuff down and you’ll be fine with it.” That is not acceptable. The Bill has been scheduled for some time; the Government have had plenty of time to introduce the regulations and they have not. What we know for certain, as I said, is that the proposals will impact on public policy areas that are wholly devolved, and that will have the implications we have discussed.
At this stage, it is also important to challenge one particular myth that is being peddled by those in favour of the Bill. It is a particular favourite of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) who, on Second Reading, suggested that unions are required to meet a 75% threshold in Germany. For the record, that is not accurate. Some German trade unions have adopted rules requiring 75% support for industrial action among members, but those are decisions taken by the union within its own democratic structures, not imposed by the state.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that many trade unions in this country also have internal procedures whereby they will ask for a higher threshold on certain ballots for strike action in order to make sure that the result is overwhelming, and well beyond what is legally required?
Stephen Doughty
I agree absolutely. I think that sits alongside the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West that the unions want to have a high turnout and that they want to be able to have as much confidence as possible among their members, because of the fact they cannot sanction members for not taking part in the industrial action as agreed. It is important to look at the German example, because statutory thresholds, as proposed by the UK Government, would actually be unconstitutional in Germany. We heard about international comparisons in the oral evidence, and the Bill, in so many respects—this is yet another one—puts us in a very serious place in terms of the international league of whether these measures restrict or infringe on long-established rights. Therefore, we will oppose the clause, because we think it is ill thought out, partisan, open to serious legal challenge, breaches the devolution settlement and will not do anything to better industrial relations.
Amendment 4 is a probing amendment that provides that the 40% threshold should only apply to those who are normally engaged “solely” in the provision of important public services or ancillary activities. We need to discuss this very important issue, and I hope that the Minister can enlighten us on it. The amendment is designed to highlight the problems that unions will face when trying to determine whether the 40% threshold applies. It is not clear whether individuals who spend only part of their time providing important public services will be covered by the 40% yes vote requirement.
Let us take, for example, education unions planning to ballot staff in a school with a sixth form, where they might be involved in the provision of education to young people of different ages. Trade union officials will find it very difficult to assess whether staff who teach both pupils aged under 17 and those in years 12 and 13 are “normally engaged” in providing “important public services”. That will be particularly problematic where teachers’ work schedules vary during the academic year. It is just one of the many implementation problems that I do not think the Government can have seriously thought through if they intend to proceed with the Bill as drafted.
Amendment 5 is also designed to encourage debate. It provides that the 40% yes vote requirement should apply to those employed in the provision of “essential public services” rather than “important public services”. As I have said, the Government’s proposed restrictions extend well beyond the definition of “essential services” recognised by the ILO. The Government claim that the proposed thresholds are justifiable because they do not introduce a complete ban—some would beg to differ—on the right to strike in “important public services”. They therefore argue that the ILO standards do not apply.
However, the Employment Lawyers Association warned the Government against introducing thresholds to services not covered by the ILO definition of “essential services” in its response to the BIS consultation on balloting thresholds. The response continued:
“ELA cautions that if the provisions”—
in the Bill and any accompanying regulations—
“are not drawn as narrowly as possible then the Government runs the risk of a challenge on the basis that the imposition of the raised thresholds infringes Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Any restrictions on the right to strike must not be greater than necessary to pursue a legitimate aim and…necessary in a democratic society.”
That is why it is important that we look at the ILO definition. It is very tightly defined, referring to public safety and so on. It is very clearly defined in terms of where things would be problematic. The Government are going well beyond that boundary. The ILO has criticised Governments who have introduced thresholds for industrial action ballots. The ILO committee on freedom of association has concluded:
“The requirement of a decision by over half of all the workers involved in order to declare a strike is excessive and could excessively hinder the possibility of carrying out a strike, particularly in large enterprises.”
The ILO has called on Governments who have imposed statutory thresholds to amend their national laws to bring them into closer conformity with the principles of freedom of association. Dare I make some international comparisons? The countries that it has gone after include Bulgaria, Honduras and Nigeria. Does this country really want to be in that territory? Not only are we going well beyond what a near neighbour in the EU—Germany—believes would be unconstitutional, but we will be putting ourselves in the league of countries that are being criticised by the ILO, such as Bulgaria, Honduras and Nigeria. That simply is not good enough.
I come now to amendment 6. The 40% yes vote requirement will apply not only to individuals directly involved in the delivery of important public services, but to individuals normally engaged in
“activities that are ancillary to the provision of important public services.”
As a result, hundreds of thousands of union members working in large parts of the private services sector are likely to be caught by the 40% threshold. The amendment would therefore delete the reference to ancillary activities. Again, it will be very hard to define and identify who is involved in such activities. The Government are clearly trying to apply the provision as widely as possible and certainly well beyond what the ILO would expect.
Further to amendment 5, amendment 9 would define essential public services in line with the ILO definition. We want the wording to mean
“services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population”.
We have some very serious issues for the Minister to explain. He needs to explain how these passages will be implemented. When we look at international legal comparisons, the potential impact of the measure, the breach that I referred to and the risk of legal challenge, we are experiencing many of the same challenges as we discussed under the last clause, and I hope that the Minister can explain his position.
Jo Stevens
We have heard numerous submissions in evidence to the Committee, both oral and in writing, that the Government’s definition of “important public services” is at odds with the definition of essential services used in international law, but if we go outside the legal technicality of this broad definition, there are many practical considerations to assess when it comes to important public services and I do not see that the Government have put any thought into those practicalities on the basis of the Bill as drafted.
Nick Boles
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. The amendments strike at the very heart of the Government’s objective in introducing a 40% threshold for strikes in important public services. I remind the Committee why we are introducing this measure. Nowhere is the impact of strike action more severe than when it takes place in important public services. The reason for that, and it is a thread that runs through all of the sectors listed as important public services, is that broadly—I accept it is not the case in every single detail—each of those services, as public services, operates as a monopoly in the lives of those who rely on it as users. That is not to say that, in time, people cannot put their children into a different school, secure an appointment with a consultant in a hospital trust outside the area in which they live, or find other ways to make the journey that they do every single morning and evening to and from work. It does mean, however, that when strikes happen, it is impossible for the vast majority of the British public who rely on those services to secure that alternative provision within public services. It goes without saying that the Border Force is itself a public monopoly—quite rightly so—and although nuclear decommissioning may involve contractors, thankfully we do not have competing nuclear commissioning regimes.
Where people and businesses rely on the services every day and where they have no choice of an alternative service provider, we believe that those services represent the important service sectors where the additional requirement of the 40% threshold is justified. That threshold ensures that strikes affecting services in those sectors can go ahead only when a reasonable level of support has been secured by the trade union. We are not banning strikes; the legislation is about making sure that enough members support the proposed action before it can go ahead.
The six sectors set out in the Bill as being subject to the 40% threshold have been chosen precisely because they are those where strike action has the potential to have the most far-reaching consequences for a significant number of people. Opposition Members discussed the difference between important services versus essential services. They are right that the ILO defines “essential services” and that that is an accepted definition, but it does so for the purposes of making it clear that it is therefore allowable to prohibit the right to strike in those services. The right to strike can be entirely prohibited in the sectors that the ILO has deemed to be essential, which include some but not all of the same sectors that we have listed—for example, firefighting services, the hospital sector, air traffic control, public or private prison services, electricity services, water supply services and telephone services.
Nick Boles
No, not at the moment. I will make my argument, and then I will be happy to take as many interventions as hon. Members wish to make.
Because of the ILO’s definition of essential public services as those where it is permissible to prohibit the right to strike we decided to clarify that clause 3 proposes not a prohibition or a strike ban but simply a threshold of support for a strike. That was intended to clarify that the services listed are not the same as those covered in ILO definition, but are important public services. To be clear, our manifesto named the four most important of those services to which clause 3 applies. We have an absolute manifesto mandate for the inclusion of fire, health, education and transport services. Since then, based on cross-government consultation, we have added border security and nuclear decommissioning. If Opposition Members want to argue that those two sectors are not important public services on which the public have good reason to rely, they are welcome to have a go. I accept that the sectors were not listed in our manifesto, but I feel pretty sure of what the public’s view will be of whether they should be included in the definition of “important public services”.
Nick Boles
I have consistently made it clear that it will be before the Bill receives Royal Assent. I cannot give the hon. Lady the precise timing. We do not know the precise timing of the Bill’s further parliamentary stages, because that is not entirely within our gift, but the regulations will come forward before the Bill receives Royal Assent.
Stephen Doughty
The Minister has given a very convoluted explanation of why the wording was changed from “essential” to “important” public services, which does not bear scrutiny. Was it because he was worried that if he used the phrase “essential services”, it would be subject to legal challenge? On the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central has just made, will the Minister commit to publishing the regulations before the Bill leaves the Commons and goes to the other place? It is important that the public see them.
Nick Boles
It is always interesting to describe an argument one disagrees with as “convoluted”. My argument was not convoluted; the hon. Gentleman just disagrees with it. His argument was not convoluted either; I just disagree with him. I have made clear when the regulations will be brought forward—before Royal Assent—and I do not think I need to say any more than that.
I turn to amendment 4. In the modern economy, many people work in roles that encompass several different tasks and responsibilities, so it is likely that some workers who contribute to the delivery of important public services do not do so for 100% of their time. None the less, if such workers were absent during strike action, their absence would undermine the service. For example, a deputy headteacher might teach for only part of their time, spending the rest of the time on planning and management. That is why the Government propose to include all those “normally engaged” in important public services within the scope of the 40% threshold. We believe that that phrase is easy to understand and correctly encompasses those whose absence would adversely impact the public service.
On amendment 6, we have included so-called ancillary workers in the scope of the 40% threshold because they are often central to the operation of the important public services cited. For example, while hospital cleaners and rescue centre call staff are not front-line surgeons or firefighters, their work is critical to ensuring that front-line staff can deliver the service. Their absence can make the difference between the ability to run a service and it shutting down during the period of strike.
As I said, the Government consulted on these issues over the summer, and we are currently analysing the responses. That will help us in preparing the regulations, and I will take all views into account as we develop the secondary legislation to implement the detail of the threshold. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw amendment 4.
Stephen Doughty
Although the Minister gave his explanation in funny terms, I find it unbelievable, quite frankly. It is a very convoluted reasoning. The reality is that the ILO defines essential services in a very restrictive way because the international legal consensus, and indeed the international human rights consensus, is that the right to strike and to freedom of association should be restricted only in very narrow cases. That is why it is a tight definition. It is intriguing that the Government have chosen to move away from that. They clearly want to expand the restrictions much more widely. I have already given the example of Germany, where such provisions would be unconstitutional.
I must take issue with the Minister’s unwillingness to give us a commitment on the publication of the regulations. He said that there was a consultation. Like all consultations on the Bill, it took only eight weeks rather than the usual 12. All the consultations were done over the summer to frustrate the input from sectors such as teaching, as many of the profession’s union members are away from school at that time. It is an odd situation, and a serious one for Parliament, that we are discussing severe restrictions on the exercise of people’s democratic rights, yet the Minister is saying, “Trust me. We’ll publish them. They’ll be all right. It’ll be fine.” The regulations should have been published alongside the Bill so that we could see what the Government intend. Is the Minister going to publish them 20 minutes before the Bill gets Royal Assent, if we ever get that far? That is simply not good enough, and I would like the Minister to consider publishing the draft regulations. We need to get some clearer intent before the Bill leaves the Commons, and certainly before it gets into the other place. For that reason I am keen to test the will of the Committee on amendment 5.
Chris Stephens
Is the hon. Gentleman as confused as I am? The hon. Member for Cardiff Central made a similar point about some of the services being covered under existing legislation, such as life and limb cover. I am beginning to wonder whether it is not just the Government witnesses who do not know about life and limb cover but the Government too.
In addition, does the hon. Gentleman not think that the 40% threshold is dangerous? The last time a Government introduced such a threshold they had a small majority and ended up out of power for 18 years. That might happen again.
Stephen Doughty
That is an intriguing historical example. The hon. Gentleman’s point is a good one. Large parts of the legislation have not been thought through and appear to have been drafted by people who simply do not understand how trade unions operate in the modern workforce. The witnesses the Government called forward certainly did not know that. As my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff Central and for Sunderland Central have made clear, there are serious practical implications. I would therefore like to press amendment 5 to a vote, with the clear message that we believe the Government should stick to their manifesto and to their own Queen’s Speech, and stick to the definition of essential services laid out by the ILO.
In the case of amendment 4, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 5, in clause 3, page 2, leave out lines 6 to 8 and insert—
“the provision of essential public services.”—(Stephen Doughty.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stephen Doughty
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 4, page 2, leave out lines 32 to 34 and insert—
“(2B) The voting paper must state the trade dispute to which the proposed industrial action relates.”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 15, in clause 4, page 2, line 32, leave out
“reasonably detailed indication of the matter or matters in issue in the”
and insert “description of the”.
Amendment 16, in clause 4, page 2, leave out lines to 38.
Amendment 17, in clause 4, page 2, leave out lines 39 to 41 and insert?
“(2D) The voting paper must state whether the industrial action is intended to be continuous or discontinuous.”.
Amendment 18, in clause 4, page 2, leave out lines 39 to 41 and insert?
“(2D) The voting paper must state whether the industrial action is intended to be continuous, and if so the intended date for any of the affected employees to begin to take part in the action or, if discontinuous, the intended dates during which any of the affected employees are to take part in the action.”.
Amendment 19, in clause 4, page 2, leave out lines 39 to 41.
Stephen Doughty
We now come to another area of the Bill where I believe that the Government’s true intent is to frustrate the rights of trade unions to take action, to provide grounds for vexatious legal challenges and essentially, in the words of Sara Ogilvie from Liberty, to make their rights “illusory in practice”. While some aspects of the Bill are designed to stop industrial action going ahead in the first instance, others are there to frustrate the industrial action that does go ahead. This clause is very much in the latter vein.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West, who has briefly left the room, spoke powerfully in opposition to the Bill on Second Reading. He said that the Government were trying to tie up trade unions in blue tape, and I think he is right. Clause 4 will require trade unions to provide more information on the ballot paper, but unions are already required to ask members on the ballot about the type of industrial action they are willing to take—for example, strike action, action short of a strike, a work to rule and so on. Failure to comply with the clause would enable employers to apply for an injunction to stop the strike going ahead or for damages after industrial action has started. I am keen to see the burden and cost of Government regulation fall wherever possible, and the Government’s one-in, two-out rule is a good starting place. The Government’s own words in their statement online are:
“To reduce the number of new regulations for businesses, the government operates a ‘one-in, two-out’ rule. This helps prevent government policymakers from creating new regulations that increase costs for business and voluntary organisations.
Where policymakers do need to introduce a new regulation, and where there is a cost to business when complying with that regulation, departments have to remove or modify existing regulation(s) to the value of £2 of savings for every pound of cost imposed.”
As this is an example of a significant level of new regulation, I hope the Minister will rise to his feet and inform the Committee which two regulations applying to trade unions will now be removed. He does not want to do so at the moment; I hope he will come to that in his speech.
This additional blue tape and regulation risks making industrial relations in the UK worse, not better. With new regulation come additional risks of litigation, and to reduce that risk many unions are likely to include lengthy descriptions of the dispute on the ballot paper that go well beyond those defined in the clause. That will risk confusing members and confusing the issue when we should be having things as simple and straightforward as possible. It will also mean, in a similar vein to other parts of the Bill, that it is more difficult for unions and employers to resolve disputes and avoid the very strikes and industrial action that the Government say they want to avoid. Many unions may find it difficult to convince members that they should accept a settlement that does not deal with all the issues listed on the ballot paper. Unions may also be reluctant to reach an agreement on part of the dispute for fear that it will prevent future industrial action on other aspects of the dispute. Alongside the Government’s wider proposed changes—lifting the ban on the use of agency workers, for example—that will unbalance workplace relations, assisting employers to plan for future strike action by lining up agency staff.
I ask the Minister to explain why, if the Government’s stated intent to reduce regulation and avoid costs is as defined on their website, it is one rule for the business and voluntary sector and another for the trade unions. The effect of the clause will be to introduce a level of regulation that ties unions up in blue tape and causes a whole series of effects for them.
Ian Mearns
The principle that my hon. Friend is outlining is solid. The Government have a hard and fast “one in, two out” rule for business regulation. When organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses do consultations, their members say they would like less regulation but the organisations cannot put their finger on what they would like to get rid of. Things that would be difficult to get rid of normally come top of the list—VAT returns and health and safety regulations, which protect the employers as well as the employees in many respects. I am wondering whether my hon. Friend can tease out from the Minister what regulations on trade unions he would get rid of in order to impose this set of rules on them.
Stephen Doughty
I would be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say. The whole Bill seems to be about creating additional burdens, which will, quite frankly, make illusory a lot of the rights that trade unions and their members—ordinary workers up and down the country—enjoy at the moment and put those people at serious risk of not being able to execute those rights.
Let me turn to the amendments, which have been tabled to encourage debate. We will decide whether to press any to a Division when we have heard what the Minister says. Amendment 14 would require unions to state on the ballot paper
“the trade dispute to which the proposed industrial action relates”,
but they would no longer be required to provide a detailed description of “every aspect of the dispute”—that very amorphous term that the Government are using.
Amendment 15 would require unions to provide a description of the trade dispute, rather than a
“reasonably detailed indication of the matter or matters in issue”.
In general, reducing and simplifying the information about the dispute that unions are required to provide on the voting paper would assist in the earlier settlement of disputes. As a result, workers would return to work faster. Disputes would be less likely to escalate, and there would be fewer legal challenges, reducing costs for employers and unions. That is an important point.
The Bill is muddying the waters around straightforward and transparent processes that already exist. Essentially, we are providing a very big space for the lawyers’ hands to come in and for a lot of cost to be expended on behalf of business, the public sector and trade union members. We should avoid legal proceedings wherever we can and encourage arbitration, negotiation and the reasonable settlement of disputes without recourse to the courts. All the proposals in the Bill will increase costs for all the parties involved.
Amendment 16, approaching things in a different way, would remove the requirement to describe the types of action short of a strike on the ballot paper. Amendment 17 would remove the requirement on trade unions to specify the timetable for different forms of action. Instead, trade unions would be required simply to state whether the proposed action is continuous or intermittent, which is perfectly reasonable. That would clearly set out whether it would be one long piece of industrial action or one with numerous parts to it.
Amendment 18 would remove the requirement on trade unions to specify the timetable for different forms of action. Instead, trade unions would be required to state when the industrial action was scheduled to start—in principle, that is reasonable—and when any discontinuous industrial action would come to an end. If we are going to start requiring unions to set out detailed explanations and timetables on how they will conduct the action and so on, action may be stirred up at earlier stages in disputes and people will be encouraged not to seek arbitration and reconciliation. Instead, conflict will be encouraged. Amendment 19, taking a slightly different approach, would completely remove the requirement on unions to specify the timetable for different forms of action.
The amendments are intended to tease out of the Minister how he sees this part of the legislation operating in practice and make him justify why it is necessary. Balloting is already a straightforward process. It is already clear what people are voting on and what types of action are being proposed. This part of the Bill simply seeks to muddy the waters and may result in a lot of expensive litigation.
Jo Stevens
I rise to speak in opposition to clause 4 and in support of amendments 14 to 19. From reading the clause, the Government appear to think that trade union members are not capable of understanding what they are voting on in a ballot on industrial action. That is a patronising attitude to working people, who do not lightly take industrial action; they consider carefully what they are voting for. They understand the issues. There is not one single shred of evidence of union members saying that they did not understand what they were voting on or why.
The Government propose changes to the law that will turn an industrial ballot paper from a succinct statement with a yes or no question to something resembling a legal disclaimer. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has said that the proposals are “counterproductive”. Employers’ lawyers have said that the proposals are vague and unworkable and that they will lead to legal challenges and expensive litigation. No one wants that—apart from the Government, it would appear.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth said, the purpose of the proposals appears to be to encourage court cases by employers. Witnesses to the Committee have said that they are not about information for union members, but ammunition for employers. Looking at the detail, the ballot paper must include
“a reasonably detailed indication of the matter or matters in issue in the trade dispute”.
What does that mean? It has been criticised by lawyers across the spectrum for being so uncertain as to be meaningless. What is “reasonably detailed”? It is an oxymoron and it is contradictory. How will both sides of industry know whether something is detailed enough to be “reasonably” detailed or regarded as too detailed? Unions and employers will be in court every single time. What is “an indication”—a nod or a wink? This is not the language of statute, and I wonder whether it might come from the Prime Minister’s nudge unit. Anyone with any experience of industrial relations will know that the question of what is in issue in a dispute is often a matter of disagreement. This wording will further add to legal challenges.
The next requirement imposed by the Bill is to state
“the type or types of industrial action”.
What does that mean? We heard in evidence to the Committee that even Government lawyers themselves cannot explain it. The current definitions of “strike” and “action short of a strike” have been clarified by case law and amendments to statute over the years. They are now clear and well understood, so what are the “types” of action the Bill refers to? We are told that they include an overtime ban, for example, and work to rule, but those are not legal terms of art. Again, this will lead to expensive litigation and legal wrangling in the courts.
Finally, the union must state on the ballot paper
“the period or periods within which the industrial action or…each type of industrial action is expected to take place.”
Why should a union be required to state that information at the stage of the ballot, weeks before any action could lawfully take place, when they must in any event give notice of dates of action after the ballot is completed and before action takes place? The intention behind every single one of these provisions is to set legal traps for unions so that employers can run off to court and get injunctions to stop legitimate action.
Employers, however, do not want the provisions either. They fear the consequences. Employers’ lawyers have said they are concerned that unions will have to draw the descriptions on the ballot paper as widely as possible to give themselves legal protection. Unions will have to include every possible type of action they might take and set out every day on which they might take each type of action.
What is more, employers’ lawyers fear that to avoid legal challenges, unions will have to stick to every single detail spelled out in the ballot paper. They will not be able to resolve any issues in the dispute unless all issues are resolved, otherwise they will face legal challenge. They will have to take every type of action specified and on every single day specified, otherwise they will face legal challenge. How on earth is that supposed to reduce the number of disputes that take place? It will simply increase them.
Disputes will escalate. They will become more entrenched and more difficult to resolve, all because of these changes. That is why the CIPD says that the proposals are a “significant step back” that will “harden attitudes”. I invite the Minister to withdraw them, but if the Government persist with these counterproductive proposals that no one wants, they should be amended as we propose.
Nick Boles
I am not giving way again; I need to make some progress.
On the period for proposed industrial action, a union member may be fully supportive if he or she knows that it would take place in late November or early December, but not if it was to take place, say, over the Christmas period. Trade union members may want to consider the proposal in relation to their personal circumstances, as well as their work. Amendment 19 would simply not meet that objective, because it would preserve the current situation, in which there is no requirement whatever to provide any information in the voting paper to union members about the timing of industrial action.
I have similar concerns about amendment 17. Simply knowing whether industrial action is to be continuous or discontinuous, without any further information about timing, does not help a member to understand when such action might take place. Indeed, I doubt whether the words “continuous” and “discontinuous” in the context of industrial action mean very much to a lay person. Surely it is the time period that is the key to ensuring that members have clarity about when action is due to take place. Of course, it is also important that employers know whether the proposed action will be continuous or discontinuous. That is why the notice of industrial action, which a union must provide to an employer under section 234A(3)(b) of the 1992 Act before taking such action, must include a statement to that effect. Crucially, however, that notice must also contain details about the intended dates for such action. Indeed, that is its purpose: to tell the employer exactly when the action will happen. That is in contrast with proposed new section 229(2D), which requires a union only to provide an indication of when the expected industrial action would take place, not a specific date or set of dates.
That brings me to amendment 18. To require a union to state whether the industrial action is intended to be continuous and to state the intended dates would be to require it to specify a particular date on which the action is to start—for example, from 15 October. That would be very restrictive; indeed, it is much more prescriptive than the requirement under clause 4, which, in this example, would just be to indicate the period of industrial action as being in, say, October. That would give a union the flexibility to start such an action on, for example, 1 October, 15 October or 25 October, and for it to last for, say, one day, one week or longer—subject, of course, to the union providing 14 days’ notice to the employer and the action taking place within the four-month time limit of the mandate.
I have even more concern about a union’s ability to meet the proposed requirement to specify that the action is discontinuous, together with the intended date for such action. That combination of words would effectively require a union to state up front and before it has even secured a mandate for action the precise dates on which such action is planned or intended. It would be much more difficult for a union to predict such dates so far in advance, and they may well turn out to be unreliable. For example, if the union finds that it does not want to take action starting on or specifically on those precise dates because negotiations are ongoing, it would no longer have a ballot mandate. The dates would need to be reliable or the union would risk misinforming members. Making a union set out its plan in such detail, so early, means that the dates would be very likely to change.
Having said that, let me be clear: it is entirely reasonable to require a trade union to specify that the action is discontinuous, together with the intended date for such action, at the point when it is serving notice of intended action to the employer under section 234A(3)(b) of the 1992 Act, as is the current position. However, to suggest that a union should articulate the precise dates on which it will take particular action so much earlier in the process is an entirely different proposition, and one I cannot support for the reasons I have outlined. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Doughty
The debate has been interesting. As the Minister will appreciate, the role of the Opposition is to table amendments to expand on a series of issues, not necessarily to push them all to a vote. The debate has been helpful in eliciting from the Minister various responses about the intent behind clause 3.
I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central said about the concerns of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and employers’ lawyers relating to the clause. I agree with her that, in many respects, the clause, the Government’s intent and, I would gently say, some of the Minister’s comments can be seen as patronising to trade union members. The suggestion that there is widespread ignorance about the disputes on which members are balloted and that they are somehow under the Jedi powers of their union steward masters is a fantasy. If Members speak to any ordinary trade union member or person affected, they will find that people are very clear: they know what issues are affecting their pay and pensions.
Tom Blenkinsop
In most unions, by the time strike action is taken, a local dispute will usually have been taken to a regional level, and if the matter was not resolved at a regional level, it will have been taken to a national level. That is certainly what happens in large private industry, particularly the steel industry. I imagine that there are such cultural norms in most trade unions.
Stephen Doughty
I completely agree. It is important to recognise something that Government Members seem to have lost in this debate: the vast majority of trade union members and workers, whether in public services or the private sector, will seek to resolve disputes through very reasonable mechanisms, such as talking to line managers, colleagues and others in the management of a firm or public service, before they reach the stage of even contemplating industrial action or disputes. Most people act in a human way and want to resolve things as easily as they can. It is only when frustrations build up and concerns are not listened to—for example, on health and safety or fundamental disputes with the Government about restrictions on pay or pensions—that things reach the point where industrial action is considered. I say gently that the Government do not appear to understand how things operate in practice.
Chris Stephens
The hon. Gentleman will have heard me ask the Minister about an insertion that goes out with the ballot paper. Can he think of an example of any trade union that would not include with the ballot paper an insertion fully stating the trade dispute?
Stephen Doughty
Indeed, I can barely think of any possible examples in which a trade union would not explain the progress of negotiations and what might be going on and feed back to its members what is happening in a workplace.
Tom Blenkinsop
As a former trade union officer with the Community trade union, I was part of the National League of the Blind and the Disabled section, which deals with blind and disabled workers who work in Remploy factories—
Tom Blenkinsop
Sadly, that is right. My section also dealt with blind and disabled people working in sheltered workplaces, including at Ayresome Industries in Middlesbrough. As well as union officers, the unions brought in, over a prolonged period, signers and Braille writers to ensure that those employees were informed of the situation and the exact nature of any dispute.
Stephen Doughty
That is a very important example. The Minister selectively looking at a couple of ballot papers proffered to him by his officials is simply not reflective of the wide degree of communications and engagement that will go on when trade union members—workers in a firm or a public service—are considering industrial action. It goes back, again, to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West: why would trade unions want to be hoodwinking people into action? How would they then convince them to take part in it? It is just nonsense.
Ian Mearns
This is a very important point. Surely, in an industrial dispute there are people who will agree down the line with the union stance, others who are more ambivalent and some members who are against. When a union informs its members and updates them about what has been transpiring in the course of a dispute, members who are against taking industrial action will pass on any misinformation from their union to an employer and the employer will undoubtedly take legal action against the trade union for misinforming the workforce. Therefore, we are clearly seeing a measure here which is not necessary.
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead makes a very good point. Also, as I said, the amendments encourage some clarity from the Government on the issue of timetables. I think the Minister said that—surely, they have in mind a plan. Actually, most trade unions operating in a dispute are trying to find a resolution from the start: industrial action is a last resort. We have to say that again and again. I imagine that in many circumstances there is no plan—they are hoping that management or Government, whoever it might be, will come forward with a reasonable solution through means other than industrial action to solve a dispute.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the whole premise of the Government’s argument about this part of the Bill comes from a belief that the unions are very top-down, imposing what is going wrong in the workplace, or what workers have a problem with? Whereas actually, the reality of industrial disputes is that problems arise from the bottom, from something that union members are not happy with, which the union officials are trying to sort out and resolve. If that fails, it is the union members that pressure for industrial action, often as a result of consultative balloting in the first place.
Stephen Doughty
That is exactly the point. Indeed, as with many other parts of the Bill, it looks like it has been drafted by people who simply do not understand how trade unions operate in a modern industrial setting. It is based on assertions, ideas and myths that have been created, often by the Minister’s colleagues. I remember the Minister for the Cabinet Office using some very colourful language in this area. It does not reflect actual practice and I hope, given that the Minister is trying to set out the case for this, that he will explain whether the Department has received widespread, conclusive evidence of ignorance, with people writing in saying, “We don’t understand what’s going on, the Government must legislate”. Where is the demand for this legislation, other than in the theoretical towers of Victoria Street?
With that, I seek the Committee’s view on amendment 14 and the wording of disputes on a ballot paper. Also, in the spirit of wanting to encourage the Government to foster negotiation and allow the maximum time to achieve resolution of disputes, I wish to press amendment 19, which would remove the requirement for timetables altogether, to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stephen Doughty
I do not intend to detain the Committee long on the clause because we have discussed part of it, but I do want to raise a couple of points. Under section 231 of the 1992 Act, trade unions are already required to inform members and relevant employers about the results of ballots—how many votes were cast, how many members voted yes and no, and the number of spoilt votes. Clause 5, as we have said, would add to the information that trade unions are required to include. They would be required to inform members and employers of the number who were entitled to vote in the ballot, whether the number of votes cast reached the 50% turnout requirement, and, if the 40% threshold applies—although, of course, we have no idea where that will apply at the moment—whether that was met.
As with many measures in the Bill, and as I outlined in the debates on previous clauses, the Government are simply seeking to introduce additional administrative requirements, which are unnecessary and designed to disrupt and deter trade unions from effectively representing their members. We will oppose this clause, for it is another example of that blue tape which, if it were proposed for any other organisation, would rightly be regarded as needless bureaucracy, and I am sure the Government would be wanting to call it out as such.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Stephen Doughty
I am getting more and more tied up in the Government’s blue tape. Much like clauses 4 and 5, this clause is designed to deter and disrupt trade unions by burdening them with additional requirements.
I am sure that we will have at a later stage an extensive discussion of the role of the certification officer, given the clauses and provisions through which the Government are attempting to expand it. This clause also touches on that issue because it will require trade unions to report to the certification officer on whether industrial action has taken place in the last 12 months, the nature of the disputes, what action was taken and the turnout and ballot results. If trade unions fail to comply, they may face severe financial penalties. Not only does this measure create significant new administrative burdens for trade unions, which do not necessarily gather those data centrally, but many are rightly asking why this new duty is necessary and what purpose it will serve.
As I hope members of the Committee know, though I am sure they will be enlightened at later stages, the certification officer is an independent agency with responsibility for regulating trade unions and employers’ associations. I am concerned, as are others, including some who spoke to the Committee during the oral evidence stage, that the role of the independent certification officer risks being politicised in a wide range of ways through the Bill. This is just one of them. I would like some assurances from the Minister, even at this stage, that the Government are aware of those concerns. Will the Government seek to ensure the integrity and separation of the certification officer? We have already heard how the role will be blurred between investigator, manager of data, executioner of orders and many other things, blurring all the principles of natural justice. It would be good to hear some assurances from the Minister.
This comes down to whether the Government think it is appropriate that an agency of the state, albeit a currently independent one, should gather detailed information about private disputes between employers and unions. Although trade unions have been vocal in their opposition thus far, I believe that many businesses and employers, if they were aware of the full implications of this clause, would object to detailed information about their workplace operations being published online and a permanent record of disputes being retained. We all know about the media organisations that harvest as much information as they can from centrally published databases and so on. I suspect that quite a lot of mischief could be caused by attempting to portray certain employers in ways that I think they would feel uncomfortable with.
Ian Mearns
That is an important point. Many employers will reflect that this would not do them a great deal of good in the public gaze. Strikes are often—almost without exception—symptoms of poor industrial relations within the workplace. Many employers, where those industrial relations have broken down to such an extent, may be rather concerned to find that the Government are proposing that detailed information about their workplace operations will be open to public scrutiny. That may well not be good for the very people that the Government are trying to protect here: businesses.
Stephen Doughty
I thank my hon. Friend for that very important point. While we heard oral evidence from the CBI and the BCC on a range of issues, they did not seem to be as strident and as certain in their views as on other aspects of the Bill, despite this potentially having a significant impact on businesses and employers. It would appear, I have to say, that their formal consultation with their members was perhaps more limited than one would expect for organisations that seek to represent industry and businesses up and down the country. I find that quite surprising, given the impact that this could have on disclosing information.
Stephen Doughty
I completely agree. Many businesses and employers would have concerns if that were a consequence, unintended as it may be, of the legislation. There are some fundamental issues at stake in terms of the confidentiality of these types of dispute and the potential that this will prevent negotiations and concerns being dealt with in the most sensible, consensual and private way to come to a resolution.
Ian Mearns
We can imagine a situation where industrial relations have broken down to such an extent that, in order to embarrass an employer, the wording on the ballot paper and the information alongside it, given the detailed nature of many industrial disputes, could be written in such a way as to create commercial problems for a company. Would my hon. Friend agree? The role of the certification officer in publishing this information could also have a detrimental impact if confidential commercial information were directly related to an industrial dispute.
Stephen Doughty
Indeed, and it would be a strange situation were we to find a Minister in a future Committee sitting able to find many examples of ballot papers to read from, casting all sorts of aspersion on the conduct of businesses in industry and the public sector up and down the country.
Tom Blenkinsop
A potential example that we would certainly not want documented or in the public view is a trade union dispute between GCHQ and its employees. Would the Government really want that information published?
Stephen Doughty
I can think of all sorts of other examples. Again, the implications of this do not seem to have been properly thought through. Will the Minister briefly comment on who has requested this? Who has said they want this? Have employers, businesses and public servants up and down the country been banging on the Minister’s door saying, “We want this information out there in the public domain,” as the Bill would require?
This would not only add to the regulation of trade unions and the implications for employers; new powers for the certification officer would inevitably be followed by additional costs. The wide extension of the certification officer’s power will have significant fiscal implications. What assessment has the Minister made of the likely cost implications of the certification officer having to gather this additional information? Will it come from existing budgets, will new moneys be provided or will it be cost-neutral?
In any other sector, I am sure the Government would attack such burdensome regulations as needless officialdom that should be done away with in a bonfire of bureaucracy. Does the Minister agree that legislation affecting trade unions should be held to the same standards?
Nick Boles
There the hon. Gentleman goes again with his blood-curdling language. I have been described as introducing “an executioner” of trade unions. The simple truth, as ever, is a lot duller: we are just trying to beef up the certification officer’s role so that it can be a modern regulator of trade unions.
The certification officer will have no greater and no more expansive powers than other regulators—indeed, rather less in some examples. We also want more transparency for everyone about industrial action undertaken by unions. Effective regulation and transparency help to improve confidence in how institutions are run, which can only be a good thing. It is slightly surprising to hear the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues argue against transparency, as if somehow the public interest is better protected by keeping things secret. That is a surprising position for the Opposition to take.
We will discuss the detail of the certification officer’s role later, and I do not want to anticipate that. This debate is about the information that trade unions are required to provide to the certification officer about industrial action. That is an important requirement, because the timely provision of good quality information is a key component of ensuring effective regulation. It gives more confidence to those affected by industrial disputes, which is of course why trade unions are already required to provide certain information every year to the certification officer. That is set out in section 32 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and annual returns submitted to the certification officer are already available for public inspection. I do not remember any proposal coming forward from the previous Labour Government to alter the fact of those annual returns or of that availability. If industrial action is taken during the period of the return as a result of a successful ballot called by a union, the clause requires that union to include certain information about the action in its annual return to the certification officer.
Stephen Doughty
If the administrative burdens—all the blue tape—were not already sufficient to halt industrial action, make the rights of trade unions illusory and disrupt the activities of their members, and even though the ballot thresholds are rarely used elsewhere in our democracy, the Minister has yet another legislative weapon in his armoury to render the campaigns in the run-up to industrial action, which are often used to seek agreed settlement and avert strike action, impotent. Clause 7 seeks to extend the notice period that unions must provide to employers before industrial action can take place from seven days to two weeks. That is excessive and unnecessary, because trade unions are already required to provide at least one week’s notice of a ballot, allow at least two weeks for the ballot and then announce the result before giving two weeks’ notice of action. In practice, at least five weeks will pass between the start of a balloting process and any industrial action.
It is important to understand that, because the actual practice, rather than the academic approach that the Department appears to be taking to trade union activities, is what matters. Members of the Government gave all these examples in their oral evidence of people being able to prepare for disruption and everything else. Obviously those of us on this side of the Committee would want people to have the maximum amount of information and awareness with which to do that, but five weeks is a long time. Of course, in most industrial disputes such things would have been under discussion for some time. There would be an awareness of tensions and potential problems. There may have been consultative ballots in the past and evidence that there may be disruption. Industrial action is always a last resort.
Ian Mearns
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Clause 4 has been agreed by this Committee, and is therefore likely to go forward to Report. The important point is that, because of clause 4, employers will be informed of the proposed start date of the industrial action when the people involved in the ballot receive a copy of the voting paper. The notice is already in the Bill, so this is yet another unnecessary measure.
Stephen Doughty
I absolutely agree. In fact, I was just about to make that very point. Because of clause 4, employers will know when industrial action, if it is agreed upon, would start before the ballot is run. The information is there. There is already the five-week period, which is lengthy, and most people would consider it reasonable. Again, I believe that this measure belies the Government’s real intent. In my view and the view of the Opposition, the extended notice period will serve no legitimate purpose other than giving the employer additional time to organise the agency workers that the Government want to allow them to undermine the strike or industrial action, and to prepare for the legal challenges and the lawyers’ charter that the Bill provides.
Seema Kennedy
The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have made great play of the fact that Government Members have very little experience of trade union activity. Personally, I accept that; I do have not very much. But I do have experience—as does my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk—of running a small business. There is cost, inconvenience and, most importantly, damage to the employee’s goodwill when they go to law. The idea that we are all rushing off to lawyers is a misunderstanding, certainly of what I would have done as an employee and of what the majority of British businesses do.
Stephen Doughty
I regularly speak to many small businesses up and down my constituency. I have a very positive relationship with them, and I have a good degree of understanding of the challenges they face. As I have repeatedly said in this Committee, we want to avoid situations in which industrial action takes place. That is not under dispute in this debate or in our discussion about the whole Bill, but we believe the Government are going too far on the restrictions on reasonable rights.
Jo Stevens
Is it not the case that the litigation to which the hon. Member for South Ribble referred is actually brought by employers, not by employees or trade unions? It is employers who bring injunctions against industrial action.
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend speaks with a great degree of legal experience and expertise from her previous career. That is indeed the case, and it is a very important point to make. I believe this is just a case of providing opportunities to undermine, rather than seeking resolution and negotiation in a consensual manner. It again provides the potential for protracted disputes, which means that amicable settlements will be more difficult to achieve. If the Government were serious about promoting positive industrial relations, dialogue, agreement, conciliation and arbitration, they would not simply be extending time, which is already extensive, on the basis that people will be shocked if there were a tube strike tomorrow. People know well in advance if such things are happening, and it is deeply patronising to suggest otherwise.
Nick Boles
We recognise the important part that negotiations play in reaching resolution of disputes between unions and employers. Even where such negotiations have been ongoing for some time, reaching the point at which a union serves notice of an intention to take industrial action signals to an employer that the matter has now escalated to a critical level. With a valid ballot mandate having been secured—which in itself is a prior signal that the matter is escalating—serving notice is the last stage in the process before a union can take industrial action. It is therefore also the employer’s last opportunity before the industrial action takes place to reach a negotiated solution. This is when continuing dialogue between the parties becomes even more important.
We recognise that, which is why the clause allows a longer period of time during which the trade union and the employer can discuss and strive to reach an agreement on how best to resolve the dispute without recourse to industrial action. That is why in clause 8 we are also removing the need to take some industrial action within four weeks of a ballot. A negotiated settlement is best for the employer, the public, the union and its members, and we are keen to promote every opportunity for such discussion to take place.
Stephen Doughty
I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 8, page 4, line 14, leave out “four months” and insert “twelve months”
The amendment would extend the period before any new ballot would be required, and reduce the risk of incompatibility of the provisions with Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights – an issue addressed by the Government in its memorandum on the Bill.
As we have discussed, Opposition Members believe that many of the measures we have scrutinised risk making industrial relations worse, not better. Clause 8 is no exception to that rule. Existing legislation provides that so long as industrial action starts within four weeks of a successful ballot, the mandate for it remains intact for as long as the dispute with the employer exists. The changes brought about by clause 8, however, will mean that trade unions are no longer required to start industrial action within four weeks. Where industrial action, whether continuous or discontinuous, lasts for more than four months, the union will be required to reballot.
The clause will have two effects. First, it will create substantial legal and administrative costs for trade unions, which spend significant sums of money on ballots to ensure the very participation that the Government say they want to encourage. I do not see that the Government appreciate the impact this will have—perhaps I am suspicious that they do—on unions in terms of costings.
Secondly, where ballots meet the Government’s thresholds, the measures will actually intensify disputes, leading to more sustained industrial action at the outset as unions try to settle disputes without the need to reballot, given the financial implications. That is a real threat, and one that I do not believe the Government have given consideration to. Again, if their intent is to prevent industrial action and strikes, why are they introducing this sort of measure? This inevitably risks worsening employment relations and creating more disruption for the wider public, which none of us wants.
The additional risks posed by the clause to industrial relations, coupled with the fact that the number of days lost to industrial action are at a historic low—my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead pointed out that the days lost to industrial action today are barely one hundredth of those lost in the 1970s, with nearly two thirds of actions lasting only one day—mean that many are rightly wondering what the purpose of the clause is.
I gently suggest to the Committee that the Government’s focus for the proposals is some particular public sector disputes relating to the Government’s proposals on pay and pension changes. In those disputes, trade unions have often relied on one ballot mandate to organise a succession of strike days over 12 months or so, to limit the immediate impact in the short term but make clear their concerns over a period and encourage the Government to negotiate on the matter. However, under the Government’s proposals, after four months, unions will be required to reballot, even if employers refuse to engage in genuine negotiations and the dispute remains unresolved. I believe this has more to do with silencing the critics of Government who want to raise legitimate grievances about pay, pensions and conditions at work.
Jo Stevens
Does my hon. Friend agree that the clause is designed to allow employers to effectively sit out a dispute and refuse to negotiate in order to force a union to reballot, at considerable cost? For big public sector unions with hundreds of thousands of members, the costs are significant. In contrast, unions will feel forced to bring forward any planned strike days in an attempt to secure an earlier settlement.
Stephen Doughty
Indeed; that is a likely intent of this. When coupled with the measures on check-off and political funds, the Government are essentially chopping off funding for trade unions and then massively increasing their costs by this measure and the other regulatory burdens imposed by the Bill. Rather than imposing additional restrictions on workers’ ability to strike, the Government should engage in genuine negotiations with trade unions.
Ian Mearns
My hon. Friend makes an important set of points. I have a real concern: the Government have stated time and again that the whole thrust behind the Bill is to avoid disruptive industrial action, but it seems to me, particularly where complicated industrial disputes cover many different workplaces, that the proposals in the clause could significantly increase the potential for unwelcome wildcat action, where members’ frustrations boil over and they just walk off the job.
Stephen Doughty
That is a risk. Undoubtedly, when the Minister gets to his feet he will talk about ballot mandates from a long time ago legitimatising action years down the line. There is a genuine sympathy with that concern, which is why I tabled amendment 24, which would extend the period before a union would be required to reballot its members from four months to 12 months. The amendment would be likely to assist the resolution of disputes and significantly reduce the administrative cost burden for trade unions involved in protracted disputes, while avoiding the problem that the Minister will undoubtedly refer to as motivation for the clause.
It is a question of reasonableness in all these matters. Most unions want to ensure that there is a strong mandate for action if it is required, which is fair, but four months is such a short period. Given the costs involved, it reveals a different intent behind the Bill and will discourage good industrial relations.
Chris Stephens
Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the Bill is potentially a rogue employers’ charter? Such employers will use tactics to continue to delay the negotiations. On that basis, if the four-month limit is coming up, they will not deal with the trade unions.
Stephen Doughty
Absolutely, and, combined with the other measures by which a vexatious employer might wish to frustrate the balloting, the wording and everything else that we have already discussed, that creates a very difficult set of circumstances that will fundamentally render illusory the right to strike, to freedom of association and to withdraw labour in furtherance of a dispute. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.
Nick Boles
As we draw towards the end of the first day of line-by-line consideration of the Bill, we are reaching a point where the shadow Minister could do my bit as well. He could make my arguments: he anticipates them and knows exactly what I am going to say before I say it. It would be vastly to the entertainment of the Committee were we to allow him to do so, but I might be fired.
We simply want to ensure that industrial action is based on a current mandate on which union members have recently voted, and that those members are still working for the employer where the industrial action is proposed. It should not be a legacy mandate based on a vote undertaken many months or years previously.
I would not want to disappoint the shadow Minister by not doing as he anticipated and reminding the Committee of certain recent strikes that caused great disruption to members of the public but were based on very old mandates. There were strikes by the National Union of Teachers in July and March 2014 that were based on mandates from June 2011 and September 2012. In October 2013, there were strikes based on a mandate from November 2011. It just is the case that there is current practice of holding strikes based on very old mandates. That is what we are seeking to address with clause 8.
We specify that a ballot mandate has to have an expiry date, which both frees employers from the current situation where strike threats are made for which the original balloting took place some years earlier and removes the resultant long periods of uncertainty, not only for employers but for union members and members of the public.
Stephen Doughty
For the benefit of the Committee, will the Minister clarify where the four months come from? Why four months?
Nick Boles
In deciding how long the mandate should last, it is important that we strike a balance. As I have said, we must remove the uncertainty, which can currently last years. That must be balanced with the need to provide a reasonable amount of time for constructive negotiations to take place. Of course, I am delighted to see that, through the amendment, the Opposition are open to the idea of testing the concept of a time limit to the mandate. The question, as the hon. Gentleman has just asked, is why we have decided on four months, rather than the 12 months that he proposes.
We consider that a four-month period balances the objective of, on the one hand, ensuring that strikes cannot be called on the basis of old ballots and, on the other, allowing sufficient time for constructive dialogue to take place. A period of 12 months would tip the balance too far in favour of the unions to the detriment of everyone else—not just employers, although employers would still have the threat of strike hanging over them for a considerable length of time. Union members should have certainty on the period during which they might be asked to take industrial action. That is particularly important given the consequential effect on their pay. Twelve months is simply too long to expect people to live with such uncertainty. If members have moved jobs, it might not even be the same group of people affected.
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, annual staff turnover in 2014 was 13.6%, which means that after 12 months, on average, nearly 14% of the workers who voted for a strike might no longer be in the same job. That must call into question whether the union has a truly valid mandate.
Nick Boles
Obviously we disagree on this, but the fact is that this is not only about union members—some of whom may have moved on or changed their mind—although they are incredibly important to the process. It is not only about employers, although they are also incredibly important to the process because they can lose a great deal of money and perhaps even customers as a result of strike action. This is also about members of the public who rely on services and need to know that there might be a bus strike if a ballot in support of strike action took place three months ago. No one will remember the strike ballot and its result if the period was 12 months.
Let us not forget that, crucially, the period of four months is not the only period during which negotiations will take place. Indeed, such negotiations should have started long before a union seeks a ballot mandate. Let me also be clear about what the clause does not do. It does not prevent strikes. If a union has legitimately secured a clear, decisive, democratic ballot mandate for industrial action from its members, and the dispute cannot be resolved by negotiation, that union’s members can strike. It also does not prevent unions from seeking a further ballot mandate if the dispute is ongoing when the ballot mandate expires. New subsection (1A)(a) specifically provides for that. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth to withdraw the amendment.
Stephen Doughty
While I sympathise with some of what the Minister said, I fundamentally do not see the argument for a four-month period. This is a matter of interpretation. Twelve months provides a much better period; four months is far too short and will encourage disputes. Indeed, as many Members have said, it could encourage wildcat action, which we certainly would not condone and I am sure the Government would not want. With that in mind, I seek to press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
Our two witnesses are Steve White, who is chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, and Deputy Chief Constable Charlie Hall of the National Police Chiefs Council. You are both very welcome.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Q 242242 Good morning and welcome to the witnesses. There is a serious number of provisions in this Bill, particularly in relation to picketing. One of the consultation documents contains proposals on supervising social media comments and potential criminalisation, although we are not clear on the Government’s position on those issues. Do you believe that there are problems with the way in which the Bill could be policed and the additional stresses and strains it would place on policing, which is obviously already subject to significant pressures?
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: In the majority of cases, there is no real need for the police to be involved with industrial disputes and picketing. Indeed, our stance is that we would wish to avoid it if we can. Many pickets and industrial disputes run without any contact or involvement with policing. Clearly, there are occasions when police have been, and need to be, involved to keep the peace and prevent disorder. There are provisions in the Bill for police to be notified of picket lines, and my reading of that is that, in pretty much every instance, we would be notified of industrial disputes and picketing. My position is that I do not see that as absolutely necessary, simply because we would expect those picket lines to be self-policing as far as possible. Involvement of police beyond that should be the exception, rather than the rule.
On social media, I have seen some detail in the Bill about that. I do not believe that there is a need for the police to be able to vet or censor social media posts. Clearly, there may be a role for policing at some point. If things are posted that commit criminal offences, we would investigate in the same way that we would investigate other social media posts.
Stephen Doughty
Q 243 Steve, do you share those views?
Steve White: Yes, broadly. There needs to be a recognition of what is practically possible in terms of the level of resource that we currently have, particularly on the social media aspect—goodness gracious me. I am on Twitter, and I sometimes wish that perhaps we did have the powers to deal with social media comments from time to time, but, goodness me, that would be massively complex. From a policing perspective, it would be a dangerous route to start going down if we say that the police should have a role to play in that.
Of course, the relationship between local police officers and employees of local firms is key and crucial to this. It would be a travesty if we ended up going back to the days of the 1970s and ’80s when, whether rightly or wrongly, the police service was seen as an arm of the state, which of course we absolutely are not. I certainly echo Charlie’s comments that these disputes should be largely self-policing.
The only other comment that I would like to make is about the requirement to inform police in relation to picket supervisors, for example. I question that. I mean, it is not for the Police Federation to say what laws there are in the country, of course. However, I personally question whether there would be more appropriate ways for that information to be recorded, so that the police absolutely do not have to be involved at all, apart from keeping the peace when necessary. Perhaps local authorities could play a part in that more appropriately. And of course, the sad fact of the matter is that we are now seeing increasing mission creep, whereby the police service has to step in where other services are providing gaps. So we do not want to design something that brings that about, when perhaps there are more appropriate agencies to do that work.
Stephen Doughty
Q 244 Given what you have said, do you both think that there is a risk that with some of the provisions—particularly those about being able to demand letters, anyone being able to demand a letter, the wearing of armbands and all sorts of stuff—that if things got out of hand, they could draw the police into situations where multiple people demand things? As you say, preferably, the police should stay out of these situations. Do you think that there is potentially a risk of a breakdown in order around protests that otherwise would have been conducted and self-policed, as you have described?
Steve White: The point is that if there is a requirement for a notification to be made to the police, what happens when that does not happen and how do you know if it has not happened? Presumably, the police will have to investigate that. That is the issue. Otherwise, there is no point in having that requirement; it is about enforcement.
I think that it is justified for us to have a view in relation to the practicalities of enforcement, because we are the ones who are charged with enforcing the laws. So I think it is right for us to be able to comment on that. My question is: what would the sanction be? Then, of course, immediately you will drag the police service into other aspects, which I am not convinced is the intention of the Bill. It is the mission creep element.
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I think that my response to the question would be “possibly”, but I would not over-emphasise that it will cause problems. When police need to attend picket lines, there is some utility in being able to identify who is supervising or in charge of that picket line; certainly, that would be helpful. But I do not believe that it is necessary to have notification directly to the police in advance of every picket line being set up, and that is simply because, as I have already said, I do not see us needing to attend in the vast majority of cases anyway. However, a mechanism by which we can easily identify who to speak to when we arrive would be of assistance.
Stephen Doughty
Q 245 I have one last question. Would it be your opinion that, in a general sense, industrial relations and the involvement of the police have significantly improved over the last 10, 20 or 30 years, compared with some of the situations that we might have seen in the past, and that we do not want to jeopardise that type of relationship? I think it applies more broadly to the policing of protests, as well, that we have got to a very good situation and that we do not want to put that at risk.
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Clearly, there is some history here, going back. The police role must be impartial in these industrial disputes, without doubt, and I would like to think that is the position that we have taken in recent years. I agree that that should be maintained. Our role there is to balance the lawful rights of all parties, and I would want to ensure that role continues.
Steve White: I would agree with that. In fact, before this session, I was reflecting—I have been a police officer for 27 years—and trying to remember the last time that we really had something of major significance. We were talking about the dispute involving petrol tanker drivers, and the amount of planning and the number of issues that we had to deal with then. That is probably the last time, but of course that was largely carried off in a very low-key and successful way, although there was a lot of resources and planning behind it, which I think shows how much things have improved.
The Chair
Okay. I am already getting a list of people to ask questions, and we only have half an hour. You do not both need to answer questions unless you really want to, and I ask members of the Committee to try to limit themselves to one supplementary question, unless they are really bursting to ask another. I know that the next questioner will be very brief and to the point.
The Chair
When I was practising as a criminal barrister we were not allowed to ask leading questions. There is nothing out of order about leading questions, but our witnesses are so skilled that one probably does not need to lead them, and I sure Mr Doughty, who has the next question, will not.
Stephen Doughty
Q 260 There has been some quite unhelpful rhetoric from Ministers about the Bill and industrial action in general. Although industrial action has been at significantly low levels for a generation, the Minister for the Cabinet Office has talked about setting up hit squads, and standing ready to use the Cobra system to deal with industrial action. What are your thoughts about those comments? Do you think it is appropriate that we are talking about using the Cobra system, which is a key national resilience mechanism, to deal with what are extremely low levels of industrial action?
Steve White: My reaction to that—I am not experienced at Cobra; I know that Charlie is—is that we have got to remember that policing in this country is wholly independent of the state. I think that is the important element to recall around that. There is not political control of the police service in this country, and I think it is important that that should continue. Policies and procedures that the Government want to put in place are a matter for the Government, but I will just make that point.
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I would agree with that—that chief constables are independent in terms of how they deploy their resources, and we must remain impartial to the merits of whatever the dispute is around. I think I can perhaps understand why Cobra may, for some disputes, feel the need to meet to sustain services, but the police role within that will always remain impartial. If there is disorder to be dealt with, or there are criminal offences to be dealt with, we will do it, but our role will be as much to facilitate the lawful picketing as it will to facilitate the lawful carrying on of business activities. Our role is right in the middle of that.
Stephen Doughty
Q 261 Specifically on Cobra, in your view would it be a very small number of instances where it would ever be appropriate for that system to be brought into play?
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: That is ultimately for Government to determine, but I see that there are often local disputes where Cobra would never need to get involved and manage that. The Government will make decisions as to when they need to activate that machinery.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
Q 262 Thank you both for being here. I have a question for the deputy chief constable. I think you mentioned that your primary responsibilities are to keep the peace and uphold the law. Obviously there have been situations where that has not been the case on picket lines, and we heard evidence on Tuesday about that and talk of intimidation. I was looking around at how you deal with other organised protests, such as marches, and it says clearly on the Met police website:
“Organisers should try to give as much notice as possible”,
and provide the names and addresses of organisers. Given that, would it be a help or a hindrance for you to have the notice period in the Bill of two weeks and the identity of someone organising a protest? It seems pretty clear that it would be a help, rather than a hindrance, but I wanted to confirm which of those you think it would be.
Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Well, I think there are degrees of protest. If you look at protest across the country as a whole, there are some big, national-level protests, but almost on a day-to-day basis many smaller protests take place, too. We are certainly not notified of all of them, nor do I think it practical for police to be notified of them. Many protests are self-policed and are not ones that we would particularly need to get involved with.
Certainly for the bigger scale protests—the ones that are likely to involve some element of policing—some advance notice to plan around that is necessary. Very often, our intelligence structures provide that information to us anyway to enable plans to be put in place. Some of that comes through organisers notifying us, and some of it comes from information and intelligence that we receive into policing.
The Chair
Good afternoon. We are now joined by David Palmer-Jones, who is chief executive officer of SITA UK, and Commissioner Ron Dobson of the London fire brigade. You are both very welcome.
Stephen Doughty
Q 268 I have a question for each of you. First, Commissioner, could you outline your relationships with the Fire Brigades Union, how you feel they are at the moment and whether you think the Bill will help or hinder them?
Commissioner Dobson: Relationships with the FBU are, in my opinion, positive. We have some issues we need to deal with, both locally and nationally, in relation to Government challenges to the firefighters’ pension scheme, which is still unresolved. Generally, at a local level, our relationships are reasonable. The London fire brigade has had experience of industrial action—back in 2010 in relation to a local dispute, and in the past couple of years in relation to the national pensions dispute. I have to say that the conduct during those two disputes was very different. There is a stark comparison between the two. We are always trying to improve our relationship with the Fire Brigades Union. There are some difficulties at the moment, but we are working hard to resolve them.
Stephen Doughty
Q 269 David, I understand that there has been a series of disputes involving your company. Can you tell us a bit about one of the disputes that is going on in relation to Teesside and Merseyside at the moment? I understand that trade unions have recently met with the company and requested a full forensic audit of your workers’ terms and conditions, but apparently you have refused it on cost grounds. The trade unions involved have offered to pay for the audit, but it has been refused. Could you tell us a bit about the dispute and why that is the situation at the moment?
David Palmer-Jones: Okay, I can do that. I will be as quick as possible. We are in the process of building an energy-from-waste plant up in Teesside. We have been investing in Teesside for the past 15 years: we have probably spent £700 million and employed 500 people in that area, and we are continuing to do that. I am in the process of doing a piece of work—a PFI-type contract—for Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority, which is progressing very well. We are almost three years into the build now, so the build is almost complete. About a year ago, we were targeted by some local activists who are running a campaign around “pay the rate”, which is some form of national protest that is looking at pay on very specific types of national agreements. At the moment, we are a minority shareholder—a 40% shareholder—in that particular element, and I will take over the operation of that facility early next year.
Stephen Doughty
Q 270 I asked a very specific question, though. I understand that there has been a request for a forensic audit of your workers’ terms and conditions. Why have you refused the willingness to pay for it?
David Palmer-Jones: We have not refused. We have already done a forensic audit. As you can imagine, it is quite a complex audit to do. We have more than 60 different contractors involved in the project. We have a head contractor and 60 others, all of which bring specialist services to build the £220 million project. On behalf of Merseyside, we did that analysis. I met with the national union representatives recently, and I had the opportunity to show the officers and the elected members of Merseyside—our customer—that information, which satisfied them. I made a genuine offer. It was controlled by ACAS, and we asked for ACAS to come in. I was very happy to share and pay for a forensic audit of the wages on that site through ACAS. That was refused by the unions. Therefore, I am left in a rather difficult position with an ongoing dispute. Our company has now experienced 29 protests, at both the Wilton site and—
The Chair
May I interrupt? This is not a Select Committee, Mr Doughty; it is a Bill Committee, so your questions have to go laser-like to the Bill.
Stephen Doughty
Q 271 The reason I wanted to ask the question was to find out why you think you have been asked here to give evidence on the Bill. Is it so that your poor industrial relations with a whole series of unions can then be used as an example to be reflected in full-scale national policy making? Is that why you think you have been invited here today?
David Palmer-Jones: I hope I have been asked here today to look at some of the grey areas—not the black and white areas about intimidation or numbers of pickets and so on—and perhaps a changing tactic on protests and the disruption they cause my company in continuing to invest in Teesside. I think that is why I have been invited; I hope so.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Q 272 The project at Wilton, of course, uses CNIM Clugston as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor. Are you aware of allegations that CNIM Clugston is paying certain members of staff—contractors who they employ and who are non-British workers—€6 an hour?
David Palmer-Jones: That is a complete fallacy. It is untrue. I have done the audit. I have seen the information myself and presented it to Merseyside council and the elected members. They are satisfied, as my customer. I have no obligation to show the unions. I offered, very genuinely, to involve ACAS, so that they could see it. They refused. They want to do their own audit.
Victoria Prentis
Q 283 It would be very helpful to hear more about that.
David Palmer-Jones: This is something that is very much condoned by the unions. When I meet with Merseyside and those unions, I am meeting the senior national levels of the union, which in some way tacitly approve of the tactics being deployed up in Teesside at the moment. We have a situation where council employees who are delivering household waste vehicles to the site feel quite intimidated to go across a picket line and a protest that is very much dressed in the union colours and waving union flags. They do not want to cross what is not an industrial action. This is very important to understand: there is no industrial action on any of our sites, yet I am still facing the difficulty of a sponsored, wider protest that is of a more national scale.
Stephen Doughty
Q 284 I just have a specific question, given what the commissioner has been saying. Can you confirm whether during the 2010 dispute any FBU members were actually arrested or prosecuted for their behaviour in picketing; and, secondly, can you confirm whether any agency staff brought in were arrested or prosecuted for their behaviour?
Commissioner Dobson: No, nobody was actually prosecuted.
Stephen Doughty
Q 285 Was anybody arrested?
Commissioner Dobson: I am trying to think; I cannot recall anybody being arrested, but they may have been—but certainly nobody was prosecuted, and the police did investigate a number of things that occurred on some of the picket lines and elsewhere.
Stephen Doughty
Q 286 But no FBU members, to your knowledge, were arrested or prosecuted.
Commissioner Dobson: No.
Stephen Doughty
Q 287 Given that you are not aware of the wider circumstances, could you perhaps write to us and tell us what happened during that dispute, given that it has been referred to a number of times, with agency workers who were brought in? I think that is directly relevant to the Bill, because there are obviously proposals that the Government are putting forward on the use of agency workers. I think it is important to understand the sort of tensions that are created. Do you think there is potential for tensions being created more widely in industrial disputes by agency workers being brought in, particularly in professions such as yours where there are specific sets of health and safety concerns and specialities?
Commissioner Dobson: I think there are tensions when agency workers are used. Our emergency fire crew contract, which provides our contingency arrangements, is provided by an external company. We contract it out in order to meet the requirements of the current employment legislation. That obviously does increase tensions, because striking workers see somebody else doing their job; I think it does increase tension.
The difficulty is, in an industry such as mine where we are providing a critical emergency service, we do need arrangements in place to cover public safety if the fire brigade is on strike. Therefore, we did not really have much choice. Other fire brigades outside London use other arrangements; but they have the opportunity to use people who maybe were retained fire fighters. We do not have that opportunity in London and we needed to make sure we had a robust contingency plan in place. That does create tensions, inevitably, but I do not think we have any option on that at the moment.
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
Q 288 You have both referenced how keen you are to ensure good industrial relations in the work you do and the duty you have to your staff, to protect and look after them. We have heard a number of references from both sides, and from both of you, about intimidation. Can you give us a flavour of specific examples that have stuck in your mind of the form that intimidation has taken—what was said, what was done and how that played out?
Commissioner Dobson: In terms of physical intimidation, during the 2010 dispute—and I have to be clear that this did not take place in the recent disputes—we saw the emergency fire crew operatives being refused access to fire stations and being intimidated: followed to incidents when they were actually attending emergency calls. They were followed there by striking workers and intimidated at the incident ground.
We have seen photographs being taken and posted on social media of people who were working during the strike, with comments such as, “We know who you are; we know where you live.” We have seen intimidation of some of the emergency fire crew by taking photographs of them and trying to find out what their names were, and by comments such as, “Don’t come back to London because we know who you are.” So there is a range of intimidation using social media.
All those instances where these things have happened have been reported to the police, but I refer back to the previous people giving evidence about how difficult it is to investigate and bring to a conclusion any offences over social media. So while it was investigated, unfortunately, there was not any result to the investigations; but they certainly took place and the evidence exists and actually has been shown to the Committee before.
David Palmer-Jones: I think from my side it is really the fact that it can occur away from the site itself. That is the bit that concerns us the most. We have had instances where cars have been damaged, threats of violence to our supervisor, and threats to other members of staff, who are not members of the union, who continue to work. That causes a lot of disruption and disharmony in the workforce; and we do not have many strikes, I can assure you—perhaps one in the last 10 years. When it does happen, there needs to be some form of control, very much specifically around secondary action outside the local area where the picket would happen. That is the most worrying for me.
The Chair
Our last witness this morning is Byron Taylor of the national office of the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation.
Stephen Doughty
Q 316 For the avoidance of doubt, I have already declared an interest, but obviously, I am a member of the Labour party and of the GMB, which is a member of TULO. Byron, could you tell us why you believe the provisions in the Bill break the established conventions on arrangements for political party funding?
Byron Taylor: The Bill is a fairly partisan attack on Her Majesty’s Opposition. It does significant damage to the funding of the Labour party, and I think that is in breach of existing parliamentary convention.
There is a long history here. Back in 1948, Winston Churchill said:
“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, 16 February 1948; Vol. 447, c. 859.]
That was reinforced by Margaret Thatcher in a Cabinet meeting on 9 February 1984, when she said:
“legislation on this subject, which would affect the funding of the Labour party, would create great unease and should not be entered into lightly.”
There is a fairly well-established history of parliamentary convention that says parties should not interfere in matters affecting the Opposition. Even as recently as 1998, the Conservative party’s submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life stated:
“The Conservative Party does not believe that it is illegitimate for the trade union movement to provide support for political parties.”
The Bill, in its current format, is designed to do exactly that and to stop the trade union movement being involved in political parties. That is a really important concern, because there is not only an established parliamentary convention.
There are very solid grounds about the freedom of association: article 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998, the European charter of fundamental rights and, dating right back to 1948, the universal declaration of human rights, to which this country is a signatory, which says:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society”.
Stephen Doughty
Q 317 May I ask a specific question? There is an important point here about the distinction being made between the rules governing company donations and corporate donations to political parties and trade union donations to political parties. Could you say a little bit about the difference between the conditions that will be brought about by this Bill and what applies to, for example, companies making political donations—for example, the ability of shareholders to opt out of those decisions?
Byron Taylor: Indeed. There is no right for shareholders to opt out of political donations. A company is required to make a political resolution once every four years. A private company can do it by simple resolution. A public company does it at the annual general meeting, but the reality is that a single political resolution is made every four years.
If you contrast that with the requirements upon a trade union, there are significant differences. The trade union membership here in the UK already enjoys fairly substantial protection. We call it the triple lock. In the first instance, a trade union member can opt in or opt out of the political fund at any time, and that has been the case here in the UK since the 1940s. In addition, they can participate in the representative democracy of their trade union if they are unhappy with how a trade union is operating their political activity. They can participate in the structures of the union and seek to change how that activity is conducted. Finally, there are political fund review ballots, which operate once every 10 years. That is a simple one member, one vote ballot on the membership. The membership, should it so wish, can choose to disestablish any existing political funds, so there are several safeguards for trade union members in the operation of political funds that are not comparable with those upon companies.
This is a critical point. If you look at some of the donations that come in from companies—the one I draw reference to is Bearwood Corporate Services, which made 177 donations to the Conservative party, totalling £5.3 million. If you look at the ownership structure, it goes back to two faceless companies in the British Virgin Islands. We have no idea who is behind those donations.
Stephen Doughty
Q 318 Can you give us some practical examples of how trade unions are transparent about their funding—the amounts that are given and so on—at the moment, and why the provisions in the Bill simply are not required?
Byron Taylor: Trade unions are already required to publish any donations to a political party under the auspices of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. In addition, they are already required to provide significant information to the certification officer about the number of members in the fund and the amounts paid into the fund and so on. There are already significant reporting requirements on the trade union movement about how political funds are expended. That is an important and clear point. What is proposed in the Bill represents a serious change to the way in which trade unions operate without any basis in evidence to do so.
Stephen Doughty
Q 319 The Bill’s provisions would have to be adhered to within three months of Royal Assent and its commencement. Do you think that is a fair amount of time for any organisation to comply with such significant changes to law?
Byron Taylor: No, I really do not. Three months is an extremely short timescale. Let us bear in mind that trade unions are, primarily, industrial organisations; politics is very much a secondary function for them. If the Bill is passed unamended, we will be asking 4.9 million people to opt back into the political fund in a three-month period. To set that against a couple of other examples, the recent changes relating to plastic bags supplied by retailers were enacted in Ireland in 2002, in Wales in 2011 and in Scotland in 2012. The coalition Government initiated the change in the UK in 2013 when they conducted the regulatory impact assessment and the Deputy Prime Minister announced the policy in October 2013. Companies have had a significant time to be aware that the changes are likely to happen, and as of 2013 they had two years to prepare for that.
Another example is self-assessment; everyone who completes a self-assessment is required to submit their returns by the end of January each year. They have a clear 12-month notice period that they must effect that change, and a significant Government-sponsored media campaign is run to inform people that they need to get their returns in by 31 January. If they fail to do so, a fine of £100 is imposed. Despite all those safeguards, this year alone, 890,000 people failed to fill in their self-assessments. We are asking 4.9 million trade unionists to opt into the political fund in a three-month period dated from Royal Assent, and I think that is unacceptable. There is also the issue of retrospection. Those people joined a collective organisation and opted, as part of their decision to join a trade union, to become part of the political fund. I see no clear public interest test that requires trade unionists to opt in to the political fund of their trade union when they have already joined that trade union in the past, and I fail to see what reference the Government are making to human rights on this matter. In 2002, the Solicitor General referred to the public interest and human rights when he spoke of retrospective legislation, and I believe that the Bill is such legislation.
Nick Boles
We do not intend to intrude upon the conversation among members of the Labour party, who seem to be having a very good time.
Dr Cameron
Q 323 What would be the impact of that if it were implemented?
Byron Taylor: There are questions about what is actually being proposed and the format. For example, on the face of it, the Bill requires written communication, but I am not sure if that is what the Bill actually means. One of the things I would particularly like clarity on in the coming weeks is what is the requirement. If it is implemented in the format that is suggested in the Bill, I think you are going to see a significant drop in political fund payers in the trade union movement. The net effect of that will be to remove a whole series of people from the political process in the UK. At a time when we are talking about declining engagement and how we can encourage people to be more engaged in the political process, what we are doing is reducing the number of people who actively engage in politics in some format. That is very bad for democracy in terms of participation and in terms of the funding gap it will create in British politics.
Returning to the Churchill convention, which requires parties not to interfere in matters of other parties without consent, we are going to find ourselves in a situation where the Labour party struggles to compete in electoral terms with the Conservative party.
Stephen Doughty
Q 324 I am intrigued that the Government Minister and the Whip have been going round gagging their Members from asking questions about what is a significant part of the Bill. Mr Taylor, why do you think Government Members are unwilling to ask questions about a significant part of their own Bill?
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
On a point of order, Sir Edward. It would be completely unparliamentary for any Member to seek to gag another Member. I assure the Chair that no such attempt to gag Members has taken place. I request the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that suggestion.
Stephen Doughty
Q 325 May I finish my question? Mr Taylor, are you surprised that there appears to be very little Government interest in what is a significant part of their own legislation? What do you think the reasons for that might possibly be?
Byron Taylor: That is a very interesting question. As I said at the start of my evidence, as far as I am concerned, this is a partisan attack on Her Majesty’s Opposition and forms part of a broader attack on civil society. If you look at the concerns being raised about charities’ political campaigning or what is being said about the BBC—it is a deeply partisan attack. It is deeply damaging to our society, and I have real concerns.
I return to the Committee on Standards in Public Life hearings in 2011. Those of you who have read the transcripts will know I gave evidence to that Committee. The argument put forward by the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party at that point was that there should be individualisation of political fund payments. The Committee took the majority view that
“such a condition would be a disproportionate intrusion into the constitution of the relevant trade unions”.
That is a really important principle to me—freedom of association and the right of trade union members to come together, form a trade union and determine their own rules and constitution. The Bill is interfering directly in that human right, which I think Amnesty and Liberty made reference to yesterday.
James Cartlidge
Q 326 I want to raise a specific technical point. Mr Taylor, you said this is an attack on funding and that funding will go down. Surely, if people have to opt in, funding will only go down if they had not wanted to opt in in the first place.
Byron Taylor: Funding will go down because people have busy lives and the trade union movement is then required to contact every single member to require an opt-in, when many people already believe they are opted in.
Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Professor Keith Ewing, professor of public law at King’s College London. This session will run until 2.30 pm. Professor Ewing, could I just outline how we are going to play this? I will ask you to introduce yourself and outline why you are here. It will then become a hearing, with Members from alternate sides asking you questions. Could you be as succinct as possible? I would urge my colleagues to do the same, but it does not always work that way. Remember that the time you are using is the only time you have, so use it well, if you can. Would you care to introduce yourself?
Professor Ewing: My name is Keith Ewing. I am a professor of public law at King’s College London.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Q 337337 Professor Ewing, could you set out in a little more detail your experience working on issues around trade union law at a domestic and international level?
Professor Ewing: In terms of my experience?
Stephen Doughty
Yes. Your experience, background and qualifications.
Professor Ewing: I have been professor of public law at King’s College since 1989. Before that, I taught at the University of Edinburgh and at Cambridge. I have taught overseas in many countries. I have worked as an adviser to a number of trade unions, both in this country and overseas. I have worked as an adviser to the International Trade Union Confederation. I do a lot of work with the International Labour Organisation in terms of evidence that I prepare and cases that I help to submit. I work very, very closely, I suppose, with the trade union movement.
Stephen Doughty
Q 338 Thank you. That is very helpful. Given that level of experience, and looking at the Bill as a whole, where do you feel it falls down or potentially conflicts with both international and domestic conventions and law?
Professor Ewing: I have two concerns with the Bill. The first is the extent to which it is compatible with our treaty obligations. The second, because of my other interest, is the extent to which it is compatible with the constitutional principles, conventions and practices that operate in this country.
As far as the first of those is concerned—international labour treaty obligations—there are a large number of treaty obligations binding this country that relate directly to the provisions of the Bill. I will start with the International Labour Organisation. There are three treaties that are particularly relevant and are binding on this country: conventions 87, 98 and 151. I can go into some detail, if you would like.
Stephen Doughty
Q 339 Can you expand a little on where you feel the Bill conflicts with those?
Professor Ewing: Convention 87 is relevant because it deals with the right to strike. The right to strike is not expressly referred to in convention 87, but it has been read into convention 87 by the supervisory bodies over a number of years. One issue that I think arises in relation to the right to strike is the additional requirement of two weeks’ strike notice. There are lights flashing in my head about that. The second issue relates to the thresholds for industrial action, and in particular the 40% threshold for support for industrial action in some sectors. That, too, is beginning to make lights flash in my head about the compatibility with ILO convention 87.
There are two other conventions: 98 and 151, which deal with the question of collective bargaining. Convention 98 applies to collective bargaining generally, and 151 deals specifically with collective bargaining in the public sector. One reason I think there might be problems here relates to the Minister’s announcement after the Bill was published about abolishing check-off in the public sector. I think that will cut across collective agreements and raise questions in relation to 98 and 151.
Another point relates to trade union facility time and the provisions in the Bill, which will give a Minister the right to rewrite collective agreements. That cuts across the idea of collective agreements being voluntary and runs into problems with 98 and 151.
Before I finish, there is the good question of why we should take the conventions seriously. There are two reasons. First, although people were quite indifferent to ILO obligations in the past, the European Court of Human Rights has, since 2008 in particular, begun to pay particular attention to the importance of the conventions in determining the scope and boundaries of the European convention on human rights itself. There was a very important case to that effect in 2008.
Secondly, we are reaffirming our vows to the conventions in the free trade treaties that we are now signing. We signed such an agreement with Korea in 2010, and we are about to sign a free trade agreement with Canada. In these treaties, we commit ourselves not only through the European Union, but as a member state to complying with the international labour obligations to which we have subscribed. The conventions are very important.
Stephen Doughty
Q 340 May I ask a specific question about the certification officer? The Bill’s proposals amount to an extensive expansion of the role. We have heard from other witnesses that there is potentially a serious blurring here between the investigating, adjudicating and enforcing of complaints. Does that breach international conventions or domestic principles about natural justice and not blurring such roles in a quasi-judicial position?
Professor Ewing: The certification officer provisions are extremely serious. I say that partly because we have to bear in mind who appoints the certification officer. Under the 1992 Act, the appointment of the certification officer is in the gift of the Minister, so the Secretary of State effectively appoints the certification officer. You referred to powers of investigation, which are deeply troubling because, in a sense, they give the certification officer this extraordinary power where he thinks there is good reason to do so. That is the test. It is where the certification officer thinks there is good reason to do so. They can then embark upon this extraordinary power of investigation to demand documents, to require individuals to co-operate and to require the attendance of individuals at a particular location. The certification officer then has the power to demand that—[Interruption.]
The Chair
Professor Ewing, I apologise for that interruption. Sometimes technology is to blame. One of the first things people do when they get downstairs and outside is light up a cigarette and that can be a bit of a problem. Mr Doughty, would you like to continue?
Stephen Doughty
Thank you, Sir Alan. I also apologise for the disruption. Sir Alan, I hope with your agreement it will be okay if we need to go on a few minutes longer.
The Chair
I have had a word with Professor Ewing and he says he might be able to finish in the timescale set, but if we cannot, we will continue.
Stephen Doughty
Q 341 Thank you, Sir Alan. Professor Ewing, we were talking about the certification officer. Recalling what you were saying, essentially you are worried that a Minister—a member of the Executive—will appoint an individual who is effectively police, judge, jury and executioner with some fairly wide-ranging powers.
Professor Ewing: Let me say, I hope it was not anything I said that led to the disturbance.
My concern with the Bill is, first, these very extensive powers of investigation, which could eventually lead to someone to being imprisoned for non-compliance. What would worry me is what would trigger that process. What triggers the process is the suggestion that the certification officer can take these steps where he thinks there is good reason to do so. Given the nature of the power that has been given to the certification officer, you would be looking for much a higher threshold before powers of that kind could be triggered.
That is the power of investigation, but there is also the power of adjudication, which has been greatly expanded under, I think, what is now schedule 2. The issue is that the certification officer can initiate a complaint, so in a sense he is the complainant. The certification officer as a complainant will bring his or her own witnesses, cross-examine his or her own witnesses and then make a decision in his or her own cause. They will then have a new power to impose a financial penalty.
That seems to me to be a violation of fundamental principles of natural justice, which apply in this case and I refer to in my written submission: fundamental principles of justice rehearsed by Lord Chief Justices as far back as the 1920s. It would certainly contravene the well-established principle of English and Scots law that no one should be a judge in his or her own cause. I think that provision needs to be looked at very carefully again.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
Q 342 Thank you, Professor, for being here. I want to ask you about thresholds and that part of the Bill. I am obviously not a legal expert on rights, but I think what the threshold provision is trying to do is balance the right to strike—which certainly no one is saying should not exist—with the right of people to go about their ordinary business, send their kids to school, use the trains and tubes, gain access to hospitals and so on. That balancing seems moderate and reasonable. Do you think any weight should be given to the rights of people to go about their ordinary business? Do you agree with the general secretary of the Unite union who, you may have read, has said in principle that he can agree with the idea of thresholds and time-limiting ballots?
Professor Ewing: I do not want to intrude into these very sensitive debates. Whether or not it is moderate or reasonable, I would ask whether it is lawful. That would take me back to the ILO conventions that I referred to earlier—in particular, ILO convention 87—and there to the jurisprudence of the supervisory bodies that emphasise two points.
One is that we should be counting the votes of only those people who vote in strike ballots. If you do not vote, in a sense, you do not count for these purposes. Secondly, when we get to questions of thresholds, the ILO supervisory bodies have said, in a long line and expanding group of cases, that any threshold has to be reasonable. On the question of what is reasonable, what they have said so far is that a threshold of 50% of those eligible to vote is not reasonable. The Bill pitches that at a bit less—at 40%—and the question is, is 40% reasonable?
In determining whether 40% is reasonable or not, I think you have got to take into account the voting methods. The problem with the 40% threshold in the context of the legal framework within which it will be dropped is that it will be dropped into a very rigid system of voting. And if you are going to make an argument for thresholds, I think you have got to be a bit more relaxed about the way in which people go about voting. To have mandatory postal balloting is, I think, probably excessive, too rigid and does not apply elsewhere.
The Chair
Thank you. Before we proceed to hon. Members asking questions, can I just tell you that we have only until five minutes past 3? Our time is very brief, so please be aware of all the time you are using in the replies to the questions put to you. Try to make them succinct, because you are using each other’s time up. I am just giving you a bit of advice. If you could be helpful to both Members and yourselves, that would be much appreciated by Members.
Stephen Doughty
Q 357 I have a few short questions that I would like to put to different groups if that is okay. First, to Jon and Janet, given what we have heard about the relatively small incidence of industrial action in the history of the health sector, particularly in relation to your two bodies, fundamentally do you think that this Bill is needed?
Jon Skewes: Not at all. I do not think we have plans to repeat that industrial action over and over again by any means. I think we think it is disproportionate, absolutely; and also it could be quite dangerous in terms of safety in the NHS.
Janet Davies: We do not think it is necessary at all. In fact, we think it will damage relationships, which are very good in the health service. We know that productivity is increased with the facilities time and with having trade union representatives in the workplace. We know it affects patient safety. We think it will be expensive. We think it will introduce extra bureaucracy and could be quite damaging for the good relationships we have got, which could have an effect counter to what is required.
Stephen Doughty
Q 358 Janet, we had a Government witness yesterday, from an organisation called 2020 Health who, you may have heard, had a whole half hour to explain that they did not appear to know anything about the Bill. Nor did they know what facilities time was. Unfortunately, you have not got very much time, but could you briefly give us an example of how facilities time benefits employees and patients?
Janet Davies: Yes. We know that facilities time has benefits; we have looked at the evidence and the University of Warwick has done some studies for us and we know that productivity is increased. Certainly, in terms of staff leaving and recruiting, it is much better in a place where there is trade union facilities time, and where there are trade union representatives. Actually, we have worked out that that difference in turnover would save an average teaching hospital £1 million a year. It is a really positive effect that the time gives.
What happens is that our trade union representatives work in partnership with employers, often introducing change, introducing new clinical practice, and investigating things and stopping problems before they start. The proposal could be counterproductive for the good relationships that we have at the moment. Importantly for us as a nursing organisation it could have a detrimental effect on patient care, as it would seriously affect the positive practice environment that we try to create.
Stephen Doughty
Q 359 Thank you for that. Matt, we heard some evidence from the London Fire Brigade this morning and you have referred to it. I wondered whether you wanted to respond to any of the comments and whether you could also tell us about the different approaches to industrial relations in the fire sector across the UK. Some quite important contrasts were drawn between what has happened in Wales and what happened in some disputes in London.
Matt Wrack: Yes, I do want to correct the impression that was given this morning. I have known Ron Dobson a long time and was surprised to hear some of the things he said. He mentioned that he was unaware of any arrests. There were two arrests in that dispute. They were not of FBU members. One was of a non-union middle manager and one was of an agency driver—in both cases for driving into members of the Fire Brigades Union. Two of our members were injured, one of whom is sitting in this room, behind us. Ron Dobson was also unaware of the outcome, which is again surprising because his own authority paid compensation to the two FBU members who were injured as a result of those two incidents.
Stephen Doughty
Q 360 So you were surprised that he did not appear to be aware of that fact.
Matt Wrack: I am surprised that the senior executive of that organisation did not know that his organisation had paid compensation to two members of mine who had been injured by agents of his during an industrial dispute.
He also used the word “barricades”, which gives the impression of watching “Les Mis”, or something. There were no barricades on London fire stations in 2010. It is utterly misleading to claim that. He also was asked a question, by Jo Stevens, I believe, about the unlawful docking of pay. He said that three cases had been settled. Most people will know that actually in many such cases you run test cases. We ran three test cases of 368 individuals who had had pay stopped. We won those test cases. The London Fire Brigade has decided not to appeal, and the London fire authority has set aside several tens of thousands of pounds to pay compensation for the 368 Fire Brigades Union members who had pay unlawfully stopped. Those are the facts of the situation.
Stephen Doughty
Q 361 It is very concerning to hear that, and the commissioner made it clear that he would write to the Committee with some of the information that he did not appear to have at his fingertips. I hope that he will correct some of what he said in the light of what you have said to us just now.
I want to ask about devolution and perhaps this could be touched on broadly across the panel. Clearly, you all operate in public services that are, to a large extent, wholly or partially devolved across the UK. We have just heard from Professor Ewing that the Bill could lead to a fairly serious constitutional crisis in terms of cutting across the devolution settlement. How would you respond to that? Do you think that there are serious risks for relationships across Wales, Scotland and local government across England, of which the Bill shows no awareness, and does not address? I am happy to take a couple of comments, though I am sure we do not have time to hear from everyone.
Mark Serwotka: I share Professor Ewing’s concerns, and I will illustrate that with these examples. We have very good industrial relations currently, for example, in Scotland and Wales with the devolved Administrations, who have sat down and agreed with us the need for positive industrial relations, and made it clear that they do not wish to see the withdrawal of check-off or facility time. What we are in danger of seeing is those bodies that have entered into agreements with their workforce for the smooth running of public services being compelled to act against what they think is in the best interests of themselves as an employer and public service users.
That is particularly concerning because if we look at the civil service when this was done, the last Government effectively compelled all Government Departments to do the same thing, under the guise of this activity being a waste of taxpayers’ money. The Committee needs to know that in the civil service our union offered to pay every penny of every cost that was required to take check-off, so there would be no cost to the taxpayer. Not only was that rejected, but we saw the absurd situation in the Department for Communities and Local Government, where Eric Pickles, as the Secretary of State, withdrew check-off. We took him to the High Court; he lost the case and we won it, on a contractual right to check-off. He cost the taxpayer £100,000 to save £320 a year in the entire Department’s administration.
Stephen Doughty
Q 362 Given what you have just said and given the evidence from the Welsh Government and others, do you think that there is a serious risk here that we will end with significant legal disputes about contractual provisions that have already been entered into, particularly with regard to check-off?
Mark Serwotka: Absolutely inevitably and it will be very, very costly, as the example I have just given proves. We can furnish you with the evidence of that case.
The Chair
Len, if you hand it to the Clerk, we will distribute it to all Members in due course.
Stephen Doughty
Q 375 Frances, can I turn to you first? Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you said that the TUC represents 6 million workers—one tenth of the UK population. That is a huge number. Given the severe implications of the Bill for a whole range of issues and its potential impact on those individual members and, indeed, the member unions of the TUC, are you satisfied with the level of consultation and how the Government have gone about the consultation in drafting and presenting the Bill?
Frances O'Grady: Absolutely not, nor was the Regulatory Policy Committee. I am afraid that bad laws are made in haste. We were given an eight-week period over the summer holidays for the consultation period, and of course that has left huge holes and uncertainty in the proposals, which I am very happy to list separately. Very big and important questions appear not to have been considered and thrown in belatedly—for example, the proposals on removal of check-off in the public sector. Critically, this has meant that unions, employers and those with practical experience of industrial relations have not had the chance to influence the nature of the Bill in the way we should. I think it contravenes the Government’s own standards in that respect.
I have been pleased to belatedly have contact with Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Ministers and officials, but I wrote to the Prime Minister on 15 May, following the election of the Conservative Government, asking to meet to discuss precisely this issue, and I have not yet received a reply. Frankly, I think my members would see that as discourteous to working people.
Stephen Doughty
Q 376 So the Prime Minister is not willing to meet an organisation that represents a tenth of our population—that is quite surprising. Are you also surprised that we are discussing the Bill, in both this format and the line-by-line sessions, without having seen the responses to the consultation process from the Government or much of the secondary legislation that the Bill gives them very wide powers to implement?
Frances O'Grady: Absolutely. Perhaps there will be a question later on this, but it is not just unions that are worried about it; employers are, too, because we believe it poisons industrial relations in this country.
Stephen Doughty
Q 377 Thank you. I wonder if I could turn briefly to Dave. I understand Unison has significant concerns about the aspects of the Bill that address facility time, check-off and so on. Could you briefly outline your key headline points of concern?
Dave Prentis: I will try to be as quick as I can. To deal with check-off, these are voluntary arrangements made with employers. No employer is forced into the arrangement. We have 9,334 check-off arrangements with separate employers, 7,242 of which are in the public sector. It is a means by which we organise our partnership work and it is based on three contracts. There is the contract involving the member agreeing the payroll arrangement. It is voluntary, and they are given the option of other means of paying. There is a collective agreement with the trade union, part of which includes training arrangements, facility time and check-off. Obviously, there is also a contract between the union and the member. The systems work incredibly well. From an employer point of view, they know who is in a union.
You can have deductions at source for 14 or 15 different things, including buying a bicycle, paying crèche charges or for season tickets. Why would an employee’s contribution to their trade union be the only thing excluded? Why are the Government pushing auto-enrolment for pensions, which we think is right, while denying trade unions the ability to collect money? It singles out trade unions and will have a major effect on partnership working in health, schools and local government, because the arrangements are part of our participation arrangements.
If we have to spend all our time seeking to transfer people over, that means changing 800,000 people from check-off to direct debit. It will be a massive undertaking, using all the union’s resources. We represent 1 million women members, most of whom are low paid, and we do not see the need to disrupt arrangements that employers have been willing to enter into. It about localism. It is about the employer having the right, at the local level, to decide what agreements they want to reach with their trade union, without having authoritarian legislation preventing them from doing so. There is no logic to singling out the public sector and not the whole economy. It is based on prejudice, and it will badly affect our working relationships with the employers that recognise us.
Connected to this is time off for trade union duties. I will be as brief as I can. Our relationship with employers is based on our local reps having partnership working with them, sitting in the committees that deal with major issues, and representing people in the workplace, which the employers need for their disciplinary or grievance procedures. This is all done by activists under the time-off arrangements. If those arrangements are taken away from our people, it will mean that the joint working that has been fostered in public services since 1948 will become far more aggressive. There will be far more industrial action, and we will have major problems.
We have union learning reps who are involved in getting people to train not just as stewards, but professionally. We do dementia, mental health awareness, lesbian and gay rights and service user training. We provide training for the employers when they sign the agreement. Many thousands of low-paid public service workers benefit from this. They actually get on in life through this and get promotions as a result. All of that will end if these draconian attacks on check-off and facility time take place. They are part of the fabric of the work that we do as a union across all our public services.
Stephen Doughty
Q 378 That is very helpful. Turning to another section of the Bill and the provisions that deal with picketing, we have heard the police’s serious concerns, shared by many witnesses, about the workability of a number of the proposals, in particular the proposals in the consultation relating to policing Facebook and Twitter. What has your experience of picketing been? Do you think that these proposals would simply not work?
Sir Paul Kenny: The reality is that the police are looked at in picket line situations almost exclusively as the middle people. They are independent and the co-operation with the police, which is vital for the police to do their job, comes about as a result of being seen in that light. With these proposed regulations, effectively, it is a whole new ballgame.
Please, do not anybody tell me about intimidation on picket lines. I have seen lots of it. I have seen people blacklisted from work for 20 years because they stood on a picket line. I have seen people intimidated about going back to their job by managers, but there is nothing in this Bill is about any of that, is there? I hear—it is illusionary, almost—these stories about intimidation on picket lines. My experience is that the police are effective at dealing with that, and they do it by consent and they do it clearly. It is not what trade unions condone or seek and the police operate very much on a consensus basis.
The side wagons to the main Bill—if you will forgive me for putting it that way—are issues such as the notice-posting and the rest of it. This is just beyond belief. It would be uncontrollable by us anyway—that we would be able to predict what is going to be put on Twitter or Facebook by other people, who may not be particularly connected with the union at all—but we would effectively find ourselves involved. You are criminalising what is effectively a civil right. That is why I described it earlier as just a mess. This is clearly a mess.
Stephen Doughty
Q 379 Can I ask a separate question on participation? Perhaps some of the others will want to answer; I know that Len has concerns about that. As union representatives, I am sure that you all want to increase participation in ballots and to see the maximum turnout in those. We have heard a lot about the fact that the Government do not seem to be willing to consider e-balloting, secure workplace balloting and other methods. Could you briefly comment on that, Sir Paul, and then Len? I looked closely at your evidence, Len, and you speak about Central Arbitration Committee ballots, for example, where secure workplace balloting is already used. What are your views on why the Government will not accept methods that would boost the participation that they say they want to see?
Sir Paul Kenny: I will briefly answer, then pass the question to Len. In a sense, this gets to the heart of what this Bill is all about. This is a dishonest approach, because if it was really about getting more people to participate and more people to engage, you would modernise a balloting process that is actually a third of a century old. That is how old it is, but the truth of the matter is that you do not want to. The Government are not seeking to help people to participate or seeking to get conflict resolution. If you think frustrating people through a ballot will mean that the problem will go away, it will not. It will get bigger and then it may erupt in a way that is not controllable by the selected agreements. This is absolutely a dishonest approach.
Stephen Doughty
Q 380 So facilitating better participation would benefit industrial relations more.
Sir Paul Kenny: Of course. I forget how many countries use this now, but a whole host of countries do. There was a quote from the Speaker’s Commission saying this was unfair, or unreliable, but I am not sure that that is actually what they did say. I went back and had a look at it and I do not think that is right. Clearly, people are talking about maybe modernising our general election participation by moving to electronic balloting. You clearly want the vast majority of people to participate. That is what you want, and it is why the thresholds issue is not one that I am particularly—I would like to see every person participate, but this Bill does not even attempt to deal with the issue of encouraging people to participate, thereby encouraging dispute resolution. What it seeks to do is to suppress it and therefore foster it.
Len McCluskey: Obviously, Paul has made the point that this is the nub of the Bill. In fact, the Prime Minister himself on 4 October, in an interview with Andrew Marr, made it clear that lots of things in the Bill can be debated and discussed. The inference was that they could be changed and amended, but he said that this was the most important element of the Bill. Everyone in this room will know that I have written to the Prime Minister suggesting that if he is genuine about wanting to increase the turnout, given that he has expressed his concerns about low turnout, which all of us have concerns about, then he should move towards, and get involved in a proper debate about, modern methods of balloting—the same balloting that the Conservative party has just elected their London mayoral candidate with—and most importantly, secure workplace balloting. All of that is feasible. The Electoral Reform Society has said that that is easily achievable with independent assessors.
You asked me, Stephen, why it is not being supported, but you need to ask that question of your colleagues opposite in the Conservative party. When you are considering the whole nature of the situation, you have to ask yourself what is wrong with secure, independent workplace balloting. The point that Paul makes about where this may lead us is something that members of this Committee, and indeed the Government in general, will need to consider seriously. We may well find that our members—ordinary, individual, decent trade unionists, who contribute massively to the wealth of our nation—are pushed outside the law. What this Bill will do, if it is not changed, is to require general secretaries such as myself to repudiate, or distance themselves from, those workers. Unite will not do that. We will not repudiate and we will not distance ourselves from people who are engaged in legitimate action.
I have said to the Prime Minister, extending the hand of pragmatism, “Please sit down with us. There is no reason why you cannot concede the principle of independent, secure workplace balloting. If you did so, the issue of thresholds would become an irrelevance. Workplace balloting would consistently produce high turnouts.” I am puzzled as to why there has not been a positive response to that offer. I am confused about why that was not snatched at immediately, unless the Prime Minister is being disingenuous. With the greatest respect, I have to say that it did not fill me with confidence when he said yesterday in Prime Minister’s questions:
“I notice that Len McCluskey now supports our position.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 314.]
That is wrong and disingenuous, and he knows that. My appeal to him, to the Government and to the Conservative members of the Committee, is: please, stop playing games and tell us why you believe secure workplace balloting is not acceptable. Nobody is giving a reason. If that was grasped in the manner in which it has been offered, a huge element of the controversy surrounding the Bill would be removed.
Frances O'Grady: Chair, I wonder if I can add very briefly to that. I know that this issue of safety and security has been raised a number of times, including by the Minister in a meeting I held with him—although I think, Nick, you actually quoted the lack of security of a postal ballot in a local authority election, perhaps in error.
The real issue here is: is electronic balloting any less safe than postal balloting? The Electoral Reform Society report confirms that it is no less safe, given the risk run in postal balloting. Of course, a number of employers, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, use electronic balloting already to elect worker representatives to their consultative committee. We see it used across a whole range of organisations, including political ones. Frankly, if it was not safe, that selection ballot for the Conservative Mayor of London candidate should be rerun as a postal ballot.
The Chair
May I just say that we have got a very short period of time left? The purpose of the session is to get in touch with you. You got in touch with us and said that you wanted to say things, and we said that we would like to ask questions of you. I have got about seven or eight Members of Parliament, on both sides, who want to do so. If you can be more succinct—that goes for Members too—we will try to get as many answers out as possible, and that may help both sides.
The Chair
We are moving into an area that we should be wrapping up. We should finish in about one minute, but I have leeway of up to five minutes. I will call Julie Elliott as the final speaker, but before I do, we may have a brief response from Stephen Doughty.
Stephen Doughty
Q 400 Frances, you talked about the international context. We heard factual comparisons from Amnesty and Liberty. Obviously, it was David Davis who compared parts of the Bill to Franco’s Spain. If the Bill was enacted as it stands, how would we compare internationally? Which countries would we find ourselves alongside?
Frances O'Grady: I always avoid naming particular countries because I am hopeful of persuading the Government that we should not be in that league. We already have what is widely recognised as one of the most restrictive legal frameworks on unions in developed western industrial democracies.
Stephen Doughty
Q 401 But it would put us somewhere near the bottom.
Frances O'Grady: This would take us further down that very unsavoury league.
The Chair
I am sure that you can write to us on that subject, Ms O’Grady. It would be helpful.
The Chair
Thanks very much. It is true that when every Member of Parliament is elected, then takes the oath and signs the book, they become seasoned politicians. I ask Members on both sides of the Committee to direct their questions to the appropriate Minister, rather than the collective, otherwise we will get very few answers done.
Stephen Doughty
Q 403 We have heard some pretty interesting evidence during the course of these two sittings, and of course, on Second Reading and outside this House as well. We are in a situation where many Government witnesses could not appear to find reasons for the Bill, did not appear to have read or to understand parts of it, and certainly could not justify it. There have been passenger bodies who were not willing to comment on it; the police, who think parts of it are unworkable; the unions, who obviously do not want it; civil liberties organisations, who do not want it; legal experts, who do not want it and think it violates various conventions; and devolved Governments, who do not think they are going to give their legislative consent for significant parts of the Bill to go forward. So where was this dreamt up? Was it done by Minister Hancock? Was it in Minister Boles’s bedroom? Or was it the Chancellor? We seem to have a Bill without a purpose and without a need that appears to be largely unworkable. How was this dreamt up?
Nick Boles: Well, Mr Doughty, I am sure you remember—you were paying as close attention as I was—the evidence that was given by the Confederation of British Industry. The director general or secretary general—whatever he is called—John Cridland made it clear that it was a policy that the CBI had adopted five years ago and had been campaigning on for five years. We in the Conservative party think that the business community is important and should be listened to. You will also be aware that in the last five years, in which we were in government in coalition, there were a number of strikes—I must always emphasise that these are the great exception to strikes in general—that caused huge disruption to members of the public who have no alternative means of securing the service that the organisations offer.
Stephen Doughty
I—
Nick Boles: I am just going to finish, Mr Doughty. Those strikes cause great disruption to members of the public, and they did take place either on very old ballots, or on very old ballots that were also secured by a very low turnout. Therefore, we have put together these proposals, which we think the public support.
Stephen Doughty
Q 404 We have heard the myth of mass industrial action that the Government are presenting, when the facts simply do not bear that out. It is important that we use the latest evidence—
Nick Boles: Did you hear me say “mass industrial action”? I do not think I said that. I said it was very much a minority of industrial action.
Stephen Doughty
Q 405 Yes, but that is not the impression created by Ministers. In the media, we had Minister Hancock going out over the summer talking about—[Interruption.] I have here what Minister Hancock said over the summer. He was talking about having “hit squads” to deal with strikes. He said:
“We are ready to use the Cobra system if there are strikes. We are ready to respond”—
to a wave of industrial action. Talk about 1980s rhetoric—that is exactly what we are getting from Minister Hancock. Let me return to the facts. The Ministers should be familiar—
Matthew Hancock: Hold on.
Stephen Doughty
Q 406 Did you say those things, Minister?
Matthew Hancock: You are confusing the difference between headlines and what I said in that case.
Stephen Doughty
I have your exact quotes here, Minister.
Matthew Hancock: Hold on, because you have just accepted that you had moved away from the facts and are now having to return to them, and I look forward to that. There is one further thing that motivates some of the changes in this Bill, and I know it is not something that the Labour party cares much about.
Stephen Doughty
Q 407 Minister, did you say the things that were reported in the summer?
The Chair
Order.
Matthew Hancock: In the last Parliament, in the civil service, which is about a tenth of the public sector by headcount, the changes proposed in this Bill, which would be enabled as reserve powers in this Bill, saved over £50 million. I know that saving and looking after taxpayers’ money is something that different MPs care about more or less, but I think it is important—and I know it is important to the general public—that we run public services as effectively and efficiently as possible. Saving taxpayers’ money is important, and at the moment we do not know how much taxpayers’ money is spent.
Stephen Doughty
Q 408 Minister, we will come to the potential costs of the Bill in due course. Given that you are speaking about the public sector and that you wanted to return to facts, could you tell me how many working days were lost due to industrial action in the past six months, based on the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics? What proportion is that of the overall number of working days in the public sector?
Nick Boles: Sir Alan, you may remember, though of course you have not been chairing all the sessions, and other Committee members will certainly remember that, on the first day of evidence, we had a lively debate about the difference between direct impacts of days lost—we have always accepted and been very clear that the number of days lost is low, historically; that is very welcome—and the indirect impacts on people who have to completely reorganise their lives because the bus they use to get to work is not running or the school to which their children normally go of a morning is closed.
That is what we are focusing on, and we have been explicit: this is not trying to dramatically reduce the number of days lost to strikes. We have never said it is. We have acknowledged that the number of those days is low. We have said that we are trying to reduce the impact of strikes with low support on members of the public. Their days lost and their disruption is not measured by the ONS. I would love it to be measured by the ONS, though I suspect it might be quite challenging to capture those data. It is a real thing. You just have to ask the public what they think of our proposals, and they clearly support them.
Stephen Doughty
Q 409 So we are making a Bill based on evidence that the Minister admits does not exist. The British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry could not provide that evidence either. I have the facts: for the public administration, defence and social security sector, 145,400 working days were lost to strikes in the six months before August 2015, according to the latest ONS statistics. The total number of working days in a year is 393,580,000. The days lost to strikes are less than 1%; it is a tiny proportion.
Nick Boles: It will not come as a surprise to any member of the Committee that the Labour party is not interested in what the public think about the situations with which they are faced. This idea that everything important in life is captured in an ONS statistic is, frankly, perhaps what has led the Labour party to its current position. We take the view that when the public say they do not like being disrupted, they do not like having to miss work and they do not like having to look after their children mid-week because a strike that took place on 37% turnout closes the school their child goes to, we should pay attention. These proposals have been supported by a great majority of the public when tested in opinion polls, and we are doing the public’s bidding on this.
Stephen Doughty
Q 410 With respect, Minister, nobody likes being disrupted. We have heard repeatedly from witnesses that industrial action is always a last resort. We have also heard extensively about how unions put in extensive measures, particularly when there are health and safety issues and life and limb are at risk, to deal with that and ensure the public are not adversely affected. Whether you look at the TfL figures for the underground or the health and safety figures that Frances O’Grady mentioned, we know that the days lost or disrupted for citizens and customers in this country are vastly outnumbered by those lost due to causes other than industrial action. This is a huge sledgehammer to crack a relatively small nut.
I want to ask a few specific legal questions of Mr Boles and of Mr Hancock, given the impact on the areas he covers. We have heard clearly about the Bill’s potential conflict with the devolution settlement. We heard very clear evidence from both the Welsh and Scottish Governments that they would consider withholding legislative consent and that they believe this could lead to significant challenges. We have also heard about potential breaches of international conventions, let alone breaching principles of natural justice.
We talked about costs to the taxpayer. Given the cost to the taxpayer of, for example, the Supreme Court case that the Welsh Government were involved in with the UK Government over the Agricultural Wages Board, what estimate have the Law Officers made of the potential legal cost to the Government as a result of this legislation being challenged in its current form?
Nick Boles: I am glad to say the Law Officers have advised us that all the proposals in the Bill are entirely compatible with both devolution law and the European convention, so we are not anticipating legal costs to fight. If, of course, trade unions or others want to challenge, we will defend robustly our proposals, but we are absolutely satisfied that they abide by all the conventions that apply.
Stephen Doughty
Q 411 Do you plan to go back to them, given some of the evidence that has been presented and the very public positions of the Scottish and Welsh Governments?
Nick Boles: No, because, as I think you will remember, the representatives of the two Governments did accept, although grudgingly, that employment is currently a matter that is reserved to the UK Parliament, so it is entirely proper for us to make changes to employment rules and apply them across the United Kingdom. They might prefer it was otherwise, but they accepted that that is the current legal position.
The Chair
Ms O’Grady spoke on this matter and promised to provide written evidence to all Committee members, so I suspect it will come up again when line-by-line scrutiny gets under way.
Stephen Doughty
Q 412 On balloting, the Minister and other witnesses have referred extensively to the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy in advancing an argument against the use of e-balloting that I think most members of the public would find absolutely nonsensical, given that if we want to increase participation, we should increase the methods by which people can participate. The evidence to the commission from the Open Rights Group, which I think influenced what the Minister has been saying, made it clear that it was based on a comparison between general election voting in polling stations and online voting. The evidence did not consider the current union context of postal ballots under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, so it is not relevant to the discussion of the Bill. Why does the Minister keep citing the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy as evidence to stand in the way of e-balloting?
Nick Boles
I do not know why voting in a strike ballot is essentially different from voting in other elections. We have been very clear about our position and the Prime Minister has replied to Mr McCluskey’s letter to make it clear that, as I have said several times—I certainly said it in the wind-up on Second Reading—we do not have an in-principle objection to the exploration of alternative methods of voting, including e-balloting, but we have some practical concerns that were set out very well in the evidence from the Open Rights Group and also in other discussions about various forms of voter identity protection, voter fraud and the like. If those practical objections can be overcome, this question might well be revisited in future, but we are not currently satisfied that voting can be done safely online in these elections. That may well change.
Stephen Doughty
Q 413 Have you taken advice from the Electoral Reform Society? It advises that, in 2014 and 2015, the Nationwide building society, Yorkshire building society, the Co-operative Group, the British Medical Association, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales—the list goes on and on—have all used these methods. Most members of the public listening to this debate will struggle to understand why the Government are not willing to come forward, have a sensible discussion about e-balloting and secure workplace balloting, to which I can see no objections whatever, and get to a solution.
Nick Boles
The hon. Gentleman has started that debate, Sir Alan, and I am sure that this is not the end of it. We will debate the different forms of voting and the practical objections, or otherwise, to them. All we are saying are that our concerns, which we have not just made up—they are shared by others, independent of Government, and were elaborated upon in the Speaker’s commission, which met only last year—have to be overcome. Frankly, internal elections in organisations to choose office-holders have to meet a much lower test than elections that involve the withdrawal of labour, the closure of services and great disruption to the public, so we are right to attach a higher level of demand—
Stephen Doughty
But it is fine for the annual general meetings of major financial organisations.
The Chair
I think we have tested this enough. We will move on, because we have very little time remaining and there are Members on both sides who want to ask questions. These issues will be tested in Committee when we reach that part of the Bill and more evidence is presented.
Stephen Doughty
Q 435 Given what the Minister said, it would be very helpful for the Committee—perhaps you can arrange this, Sir Alan—to have a full compendium of the ONS labour market statistics, including all of the forms of industrial action and how those compare with days lost for other reasons. I think that the Minister is selectively quoting.
The Chair
Members, that is the end of today’s session. We are very grateful to everyone who participated and the final Ministers in particular.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Stephen Barclay.)
Trade Union Bill (Second sitting)
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
Order. We will now hear oral evidence from 2020 Health. Ms Manning, Members on either side of the room will be asking questions, but please give us a brief introduction first. We have to finish at 2.30 pm.
Julia Manning: Thank you for the invitation. My name is Julia Manning, chief exec of 2020 Health. We are a think-tank whose mission is to make health personal. That is very much about information, education, understanding and confidence for individuals to make decisions for themselves.
My background is that I served in the NHS for 19 years as an optometrist, firstly in the high street and then in hospital, in research practice and finally with people who are housebound, disabled, end-of-life care and also working in prisons with people who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act. So I have an NHS background and I continue to be involved in research. I am a research associate at UCL in medical anthropology looking at the impact of digital health technologies on behaviour and wellbeing.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Q 9191 Thank you Sir Alan. I welcome you to the Chair and hope that you will enjoy proceedings with us over the coming weeks.
Julia, I was not aware of your organisation before seeing you were giving evidence today. Could you clarify if you have ever had any associations with any political party in the past? Does your organisation or anybody in a senior position or present directors have any political affiliations?
Julia Manning: Yes. After 10 years in the NHS I was very frustrated that a lot of what I did was influenced and dictated by politicians. I had no prior engagement in party politics at all. I looked at what the different political parties were doing in health inequalities, and at that time, under the leadership of William Hague, the Tories were doing more than any party, so I joined the Conservative party.
I stood as a councillor and stood in the 2005 general election. During that period I became increasingly concerned that the front line of the NHS—whether managerial, clinical, research—did not have a voice when it came to policy formation, so I gave up my parliamentary ambitions and set up 2020 Health, which is about having vision for the future and not our sell-by-date.
Stephen Doughty
Q 92 Am I correct that your current president is a former Conservative MP as well? Is that right?
Julia Manning: Are you referring to Dr Thomas Stuttaford?
Stephen Doughty
Yes, Thomas Stuttaford.
Julia Manning: He has been ill for some time, so we have not had any contact with him for some years.
Stephen Doughty
Q 93 But he was involved?
Julia Manning: Yes, he is notionally still our president.
Stephen Doughty
Q 94 And he is a former Conservative MP. Is that correct?
Julia Manning: Yes.
Stephen Doughty
Q 95 Why do you think this Bill is necessary, particularly given the lack of industrial action in the health sector? The RCM has obviously not authorised industrial action before; it was the first time the RCM had gone on strike in its 134-year history. Given that, why is this Bill so needed in the health sector?
Julia Manning: I think you are right that the health sector is part of the public sector that has set a very impressive record of not taking industrial action. You cannot speak for everyone—there is over a million employees—but the ethos has been very much one of focusing on caring for the individual and doing everything possible to keep that as your primary focus. That is the perspective that I am coming from.
Stephen Doughty
Q 96 I am interested in that because you are talking about the relationships that exist in the health service and that ethos of patient care and so on. I am well aware that concerns about the Bill have been expressed to Ministers in writing and submissions from senior figures in the NHS, who have made a point of emphasising their strong partnership arrangements with trade unions and the fact that they are worried that the Bill is going to put that at risk—in jeopardy. In one letter that I have seen they say that it will make us less able to agree solutions locally to manage any potential impacts of any actions in the future. Would you agree that there is a serious risk that the Bill will put at risk those type of partnership arrangements that have ensured that patient care is the focus, even when there are industrial disputes?
Julia Manning: No, I do not agree, and I do not really see where that concern comes from. My understanding is that the Bill ensures that everything possible has been done in terms of sorting out issues at the front line and that it ensures that there is a large majority of opinion that action needs to be taken, rather than a few vocal proponents of action being allowed to have their head.
Stephen Doughty
Q 97 Even though there has not been such action, as you have accepted, in terms of the RCN and the RCM and many other bodies?
Julia Manning: The RCM, I believe, was going to take action in 2014, and then at the last minute—
Stephen Doughty
Q 98 For the first time in 156 years.
Julia Manning: Absolutely. Prior to that, there was some action in 2001, and in 1982. It has been rare in health.
Stephen Doughty
Q 99 Okay. I have a specific question about devolution. Do you operate just in England, or do you operate across the UK?
Julia Manning: We operate across the UK.
Stephen Doughty
Q 100 What do you make of the position of the Welsh Government, and, I believe, the Scottish Government as well, that significant parts of the Bill cut across the devolution settlement? These are fully devolved matters—health is a fully devolved matter, and yet the Bill effectively interferes in relationships that the devolved Governments have with the health sector.
Julia Manning: I am not an expert in devolution, but I think that the general direction of travel is a greater emphasis on local relationships and local negotiations, and the Bill reflects that.
Stephen Doughty
Q 101 So you would agree that the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government should have the freedom to be able to determine those local relationships, rather than being interfered in by the Bill?
Julia Manning: I think it is a conversation that needs to take place across the country—across the devolved nations.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Q 102 The health service would be subject to the 40% threshold for strikes. Do you think that that has been drawn widely enough, and would you like to see any other bits of the health service included in that?
Julia Manning: In terms of detail, I have not clocked all the amendments, and one of my concerns was that certain areas would be excluded. Maybe you can tell me, for instance, what the terms are for some of the critical services, such as intensive care and emergency services, and whether they are different.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Q 118 I was going to ask a question, but you actually answered it in your previous response about the exception to the rule in relation to how industrial action might affect access to services for patients. How often, in your opinion, do the exceptional circumstances that you are coming out with actually happen?
Julia Manning: I only looked back to 1982, I think; so for prior to 1982, I could not tell you.
Stephen Doughty
Q 119 Going back to the fundamentals of why you are appearing and giving evidence today, why did you think you were called to give evidence on the Bill? Why were you asked as a Government witness? Has your organisation lobbied for the Bill and the measures in it? Have you been meeting with Ministers arguing for the measures in the Bill?
Julia Manning: No, but we have a strong record on representing patient interests, talking about the patient experience and considering the wider landscape of change in legislation in terms of trends in population—
Stephen Doughty
Q 120 Sorry, but just to clarify, you did not ask for the Bill before it was published? Your organisation has not published a report or given a submission?
Julia Manning: No.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
Q 121 You just said that your organisation has a strong record on representing patient interests. In what way do you engage with patients? How representative are you? Are you represented across the country? How do you conduct that information-gathering exercise? How can you validate what you are saying in terms of representing people? Representation is a strong word.
Julia Manning: I agree, and right from the start it was something that we thought seriously about in terms of engaging not just with the front-line people who are doing the job and delivering services, but with those who receive them as well. The way in which we engage in all the research we do is that we have steering groups. We engage with the relevant charities. We do polling. We do a lot of one-to-one interviews with people who are either on the receiving end of services or involved in delivery. There is a lot of dialogue with people who know what they are talking about, either from a position of being at the front line of delivering services or of having received treatment.
The Chair
We will now move on to the next section of our investigation and take evidence from Janet Cooke, chief executive of London TravelWatch, and David Sidebottom, the passenger team director at Transport Focus. You have 45 minutes to answer questions, and it will be a question and answer session throughout. Before we start, I will just ask you to give a quick résumé of your situation and why you are here—briefly, if you can, for the members of the Committee, so that we can get on with the job of asking the questions. Ms Cooke, would you like to start?
Janet Cooke: I am Janet Cooke, and I am the chief executive of London TravelWatch. We were set up, in our current guise, under the Greater London Authority Act 1999. We are funded and supported by the London Assembly. We are run by a board who are appointed by the London Assembly following a public advertisement.
We are small organisation; our budget is just over £1 million, most of which is spent on staff. We have fewer than 16 full-time equivalent staff. Our role is to represent all users of Transport for London Services. That includes the tube, the underground and the buses, but also dial-a-ride and cyclists on the red route. Everything that TfL does, we represent the users of. We also represent all passengers using rail services in the London railway area, which is wider than the GLA area. The best way of putting it is that it extends to take in access to all of London’s five major airports, so we go down to Gatwick airport. We have a fully multi-modal role in representing those passengers and transport users.
We are an appeals body, so if people are dissatisfied with how a complaint they have made to an operator has been handled, they can come to us and appeal. That is for all the modes that we represent. We do some primary research, but with a very limited budget—we do very little primary research. We are, however, experts at looking at other people’s research and recycling it. We are also a statutory consultation body, so if you want to change the bus service or whatever, you have to consult with us.
Our entire remit is to act as the voice of transport users. There are two values that are particularly important to us. The first is independence. It is vital for our work that we are not only independent, but seen to be independent. Although we are funded through the political process, we are accountable to the London Assembly but our board make their own decisions based purely on the passenger interest. We are independent of operators and independent of the transport union. I have been chief executive since 2008.
David Sidebottom: Transport Focus is a non-departmental public body with statutory remits under the Railways Acts to represent Britain’s rail passengers, and under the Local Transport Acts to promote the interests of bus, coach and tram passengers in England outside of London. More recently, we were provided with powers in April to represent users of the strategic road network in England. Similar to Janet’s description, we take on individual representations from unhappy rail passengers and try to get a better outcome for them. In addition, we have a budget that we use to spend extensively on research to give us the evidence base to provide useful information to Government, train operators, bus operators and other stakeholder organisations.
Stephen Doughty
Q 128 Recognising what you have both said about independence and the role of an NDPB, have you, on behalf of those you represent, made representations to the Government arguing for the measures that are set out in the Bill?
Janet Cooke: No.
David Sidebottom: No.
Stephen Doughty
Q 129 And have any of the individuals or groups that you represent commented on any parts of the Bill, to your knowledge, in any great detail?
David Sidebottom: No.
Janet Cooke: No. Transport for London has put a submission in, and we sent some evidence to you saying that as a consumer body, we have no view on industrial relations policy.
Stephen Doughty
Q 130 So why do you think you have both been invited here today?
Janet Cooke: Presumably to talk about the impact that industrial action, or threats of industrial action, has on passengers.
Stephen Doughty
Q 131 But you do not have a view on how those should be dealt with.
David Sidebottom: No.
Janet Cooke: No.
Stephen Doughty
Q 132 There was a report from the GLA in 2011 and an independent review, both of which said that there needs to be an emphasis on the employer creating the conditions for dialogue to improve industrial relations, particularly in the transport sector, and thereby reducing disruption to service users. Are you able to comment on any progress in implementing those recommendations from the 2011 report from the GLA?
Janet Cooke: No. From time to time we try to follow up recommendations that the GLA or the Transport Committee in particular have made, if we have the resources to and if we think it is a particular issue that we should follow up. In terms of industrial action, however, we would not, although we would agree that there should be as much dialogue as possible so that it does not impact on passengers.
David Sidebottom: I cannot comment on the GLA, as our role is specifically outside of London. I will quickly mention one particular view that we have, which is about the impact on passengers of threats of action and the impacts of action directly. In the last five or six years, we have seen the emergence of rest-day working patterns and how short-notice voluntary action—that is probably the best way of describing it—can create uncertainty among passengers.
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.
Stephen Doughty
Q 146 Janet, you were quoting some statistics a moment ago about industrial action apparently increasing in London in recent years. Are you aware that London Underground and Transport for London use a statistical measure called lost customer hours?
Janet Cooke: Yes.
Stephen Doughty
Q 147 Obviously, that can reflect either lost customer hours due to industrial action or it can relate to other causes. Now, I accept that in the last four years there has been an increase in lost customer hours due to industrial action, but what is very telling is that in only four out of the last 12 years has the proportion of overall lost customer hours as a result of industrial action been larger than 10%; it has never been larger than 20%. So, the vast majority of lost customer hours are due to impacts other than strike action or other industrial action; I imagine that it is due to defective equipment, overcrowding, signal failures, adverse weather and so on. Therefore, do you agree that when you look at the overall customer experience, as you are doing, industrial action and its impacts must be kept in perspective?
Janet Cooke: I would agree with that, but the work that is essential in London is to keep London moving, because there is an ageing infrastructure and so many people are using it. The work to upgrade the tube lines, the new trains that the train companies are running and the works to upgrade the lines into London Bridge should make services more reliable and lead to a reduction in lost customer hours. So, the danger is that industrial action will represent a higher proportion of lost customer hours, when lost customer hours should be going down.
Stephen Doughty
Q 148 I agree, but even in the last four years—in 2011-12 and 2012-13, it barely registered. In 2011-12, 1.3% of lost customer hours resulted from industrial action; in 2012-13, it was 4.9%. I accept that the figure has been higher in the last two years, but these are relatively small numbers; I am not saying that they are not important, but they are relatively small compared with all those other things.
Janet Cooke: I agree, but I would also say that there is, quite rightly, intense media interest in anything like this. So, the headlines really big it up when industrial activity has an impact on passengers, which is probably part of what is meant to happen from the union perspective, but that all adds to passengers’ feeling that disruption is increasing.
Stephen Doughty
Q 149 But do you agree that there is a danger that if we make national Government policy and legislation for a very, very large area based on media feeling about something—the kind of rhetoric that we hear from some of us around this Committee table—?
Janet Cooke: We said earlier that we did not have the formal evidence to give you, but how the media reacts to things helps to inform passenger opinion; I think that that is probably as evidence-based as I can get.
Stephen Doughty
Q 150 David, I do not have the statistics for the rest of the UK transport network, but do you accept that there is a similar thing here, and that we should keep industrial action in perspective, taking into account other reasons for lost customer hours?
David Sidebottom: I think so. We have specifically asked passengers what the priorities should be for improvement, and we also ask whether they are satisfied with what they have got now. We have focused on those areas where there is high priority for improvement and a low level of satisfaction. Information provision is the key driver of dissatisfaction for Britain’s rail passengers, so we focused on that and how the problem manifests itself.
The challenge that we saw over the summer with Network Rail and the “will they/won’t they?” strike situation caused a dilemma for the industry as much as it did for passengers. That is when we put emergency timetable information on to websites and make it available to the public.
Rishi Sunak
Q 151 Following on from the comments of the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, if the numbers and the percentages seem small, I am puzzled, as you said before, that Londoners seem to have accepted that strikes are just part of London. It makes me think that the constant talk—are they going to happen, are they not going to happen?—and the uncertainty adds to the disruption to people’s lives, as well as the strikes themselves. Would that be a fair comment?
Janet Cooke: Yes, it does add to the uncertainty. My comment was not intended to be flippant, but from the feedback we get there is an air of resignation about commuting in the London area. It is going to be overcrowded; it is great when it works, but it does not always work as well as it might. Maybe my point was slightly inappropriate, but it is part of an overall feeling. I think that, as commuters into London, you just accept, if you commute a long distance into London, what the experience tends to be like.
The Chair
May I thank you for coming in before your time? It is always a bit nerve-racking for anybody. We will move on to the oral evidence session for Amnesty, Liberty and the Blacklisting Support Group. This period runs up to 3.45 pm. I will invite you to come forward and give us a short address, a résumé of your role in this. We will then move on to questions and answers from both sides. If you can make your answers fairly succinct and brief, that would be helpful, because we can get more in if we do it that way. Without further ado, Ms Ogilvie, would you like to introduce yourself?
Sara Ogilvie: My name is Sara Ogilvie. I am a policy officer at Liberty, the human rights organisation. The reason why we care about the Trade Union Bill is that we think that trade union rights are a fundamental part of the human rights framework. They are part of freedom of association, which is article 11 of the European convention on human rights. We also care because we think that membership of a trade union helps individuals to enforce some of their workplace rights and the workplace entitlements conferred on them by Parliament. That is our general interest in this area.
Shane Enright: I am Amnesty International’s trade union campaign manager. I am also the global trade union adviser to Amnesty International. We share the concerns that Liberty has expressed. Amnesty International firmly believes in the right to form and join trade unions, to collectively bargain and to strike. They are universal human rights and critical enabling rights that facilitate people to defend their livelihoods and working conditions and to protect the public services on which the vulnerable are most often dependent.
Dave Smith: I am an ex-construction worker who was blacklisted because of my trade union activities by some of the largest construction companies in the UK. I am now the secretary of the Blacklist Support Group—the justice campaign set up after the blacklist files were discovered in 2009. I am also the co-author of the book, “Blacklisted: The secret war between big business and union activists”, which goes into the detail of the links between the police and big business against trade unions. Because of our experience as blacklisted workers and because of the research I have done for the book, I have grave concerns about some of the elements of the Trade Union Bill.
Stephen Doughty
Q 157 I have a couple of questions that are more directed towards Sara and Shane, and then I have a question for Dave. I have carefully read what Liberty and Amnesty have had to say on this. The British Institute of Human Rights made some strongly worded statements. I understand that there are particular concerns on the intrusion of the state into freedoms of association and assembly for trade union members; the undermining of the right to a private family life in some aspects; and the jeopardising of the UK’s history and the precedent of supporting peaceful protest and the right to express views. Could you just take each of those issues briefly and explain where your key concerns lie and which international conventions and UK laws you think we are calling into question with the Bill?
Sara Ogilvie: As I said at the start, article 11 of the European convention on human rights is the right to freedom of association, and that includes an explicit protection for joining trade unions. That is also the article that protects our right to freedom of assembly, which is essentially the right to protest. I am concerned about the proposals in the Bill and the associated consultation because of the impact they will have on the right to picket and protest. For a picket to be lawful, clause 9 of the Bill would require the union to appoint a picket supervisor, to name that person in advance and to give their contact details to the police in advance. It would also require that individual to wear an armband on the day and to carry a letter of authorisation that they would have to show to the police or to anyone else who asked to see it. That is extremely concerning to me.
The thought that we would require a person in 2015 to wear an armband and carry a letter of authorisation at the behest of the state in order to exercise their rights does not seem right. In the particular context of trade union rights, I am sure that colleagues here will be able to talk in more detail about the concerns on blacklisting, but I think that the collaboration of the police in the process of blacklisting gives strength of feeling to why trade union members would not want to provide advance information to the police about who they are and how they can be contacted.
On the one hand, I worry that the provisions are discriminatory. Why would they apply to people on a picket, rather than to anyone attending a protest in general? But when you think about that, it is even more worrying: what if the proposals were applied to everyone who wanted to protest? It is ridiculous that they would have to undergo such processes. It seems to me that that is certainly going to bring us into conflict with the European convention on human rights because it is an absolute violation of the right to peaceful protest.
Shane Enright: I would like to expand on that a little. Article 11 of the European convention allows freedom of association and particular trade union rights to be circumscribed only in very particular cases. I am particularly disappointed by the impact assessments associated with the Bill because it seems to me that absolutely no case is made for the legislative provisions. Simply to assert, as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills does, that the provisions are compatible, while providing absolutely no evidence or justification of where in law that compatibility exists, risks opening up a very serious legislative and legal conflict if the measures proceed as intended.
I would like to touch on the collective bargaining implications of the Bill. It seems to me that the provisions to limit facility time and the proposals to ban check-off arrangements in workplaces would be entirely without precedent in peacetime Britain. As you will know, the provision of facility time is governed by collective agreements between unions and employers on behalf of employees in the workplace—such matters are not determined by the state. It seems to me entirely unprecedented for the Government to retain reserve powers in clause 13 to interfere—it is interference—with what effectively should be a matter for agreement, through collective bargaining, between employers and workers in a workplace, facilitated, of course, by their union.
Facility time is critical. We know from all the evidence—I am sure that the Committee will hear more in due course—that effective industrial relations in the workplace are facilitated by union representatives who can assist in many ways and in many domains. The amount of facility time that is appropriate can vary according to circumstances. For instance, when a workplace is undergoing substantial change—for example, where there is reorganisation, or where redundancies are being faced—it is not unusual for an employer to agree with a union to increase facility time so that representations can be made on behalf of employees in a free and collective way to facilitate that change. It absolutely beggars belief that the Government are making that proposal.
On check-off, I cannot see why it is the Government’s responsibility to interfere, yet again, in a voluntary arrangement between employers and employees. For instance, in my own workplace, we have not only a check-off arrangement that is voluntarily entered into and governed by the collective agreement between the employer and the union, but bicycle loans to encourage staff to travel to work healthily. We also have computer loans—a loan of which I have taken advantage—which of course supports efficiency when I choose to work from home.
Stephen Doughty
Q 158 And of course, as MPs we also have the ability to check-off on our own salaries for various purposes. You are obviously both keen observers of the legal framework in other countries around the world. These measures are being described as some of the most restrictive globally. What sort of league would the Bill put us in? With what countries would we be roughly comparable in terms of the level of restriction on basic rights?
Shane Enright: There are no universal comparators by which I can give a simple percentage, but I will refer to the digest of decisions and principles of the Freedom of Association Committee of the governing body of the International Labour Organisation. The jurisprudence of the ILO is absolutely clear and unequivocal in relation to a number of elements in the Bill. On the question of ballot thresholds of 50%, paragraph 556 states:
“The requirement of a decision by over half of all the workers involved in order to declare a strike is excessive and could excessively hinder the possibility of carrying out a strike, particularly in large enterprises.”
In paragraph 592—by the way, these are summaries of the decisions of the supervisory body of the ILO—a really important point is made about the economic impact of strikes. The ILO says:
“By linking restrictions on strike action to interference with trade and commerce, a broad range of legitimate strike action could be impeded. While the economic impact of industrial action and its effect on trade and commerce may be regrettable, such consequences in and of themselves do not render a service ‘essential’, and thus the right to strike should be maintained.”
There is more and more jurisprudence that points to the inadequacy of the legislative proposals.
Sara Ogilvie: From the perspective of the European convention on human rights, the way the court that is responsible for that system looks at the issue is to see whether the essence of the right is infringed and whether the right is rendered illusory. My concern is that the proposals in the Bill would absolutely render the right illusory, largely by creating a system of bureaucracy and hurdles that people have to overcome. In doing so, that would put us on the side of those countries that have fallen foul of the human rights system, rather than on the side of the people who come up with a system that is effective and that works.
The Chair
Before you move on, would you like to add anything here, Mr Smith?
Dave Smith: My case is actually at the European Court of Human Rights now. During my case, the British Government intervened when it was at the Court of Appeal and admitted in their admission that article 8 and article 11 had been engaged during the process of blacklisting. I am concerned that there are restrictions on trade unions already, and outside of the existing legal framework, we clearly have large multinational companies breaching the human rights of British citizens—hard-working British citizens, I hasten to add. If there are to be restrictions on what is going on—there are scandals in industrial relations that need legislation—it should be primarily on the side of big business that is breaching our human rights, rather than on the side of construction workers who have basically been standing up for bog-standard legal rights.
The Chair
Can I just point something out to you? I said at the beginning that we need to be succinct in both the questions and the answers, and we have recovered all the time that we had to gain. This is fascinating and interesting stuff, but it is your time and the Committee’s time to ask questions of you. We only have a small amount time remaining, so if you could make your answers a little bit more succinct, that will be helpful to you and the Committee.
Stephen Doughty
Q 159 Dave, you might be aware that there were a number of debates on blacklisting in the previous Parliament that revealed quite shocking revelations, particularly in the construction sector. We heard about current and former Members of the House who had been blacklisted and their horrific experiences. I know that other Governments across the UK have taken measures to deal with the matter. Is your primary concern that there are a whole series of measures in the Bill that could essentially make it easier to blacklist workers? I am particularly thinking about the provisions around picketing.
Dave Smith: Very specifically, the issue that I am concerned about as a blacklisted worker is the undoubted police collusion in blacklisting. It is not even a question anymore. Peter Francis, the undercover police officer who spied on Stephen Lawrence’s family, has given statements that were read out in Parliament in which he admitted spying on the Fire Brigades Union, Unison, the National Union of Teachers, the Communication Workers Union and a number of unions in the construction industry. Having seen the blacklist files that were seized by the Information Commissioner’s Office, Peter Francis said that some of the information came directly from the special branch registry database.
There is another undercover police officer called Mark Jenner from a section of special branch called the special demonstrations squad. In the 1990s, I stood on picket lines with him and attended meetings with him. The man actually chaired some union-based meetings when he was an undercover police officer sent to spy on trade union activists. There is a section within the special branch called the industrial division, and its entire purpose is to spy on trade unions and give the information to big business. It is quite open about that; it has been on BBC documentaries. I am not a conspiracy theorist; this stuff has all been published.
The Chair
Can I just point out that we have a very small window of time—
Dave Smith: Okay. My point—
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.
Stephen Doughty
Q 172 I want to go back to the beginning. Obviously, Liberty and Amnesty have outlined a whole range of issues with the Bill that they are not happy with. In terms of the potential for legal challenge, do you think it is inevitable, given the concerns we heard from Thompsons Solicitors earlier today, that aspects of the Bill, if not its entirety, are going to be subject to legal challenge?
Shane Enright: I think it is utterly inevitable. The European convention and the European Court exist for a reason, and I cannot see that the rights holders concerned would not challenge this at the European Court. Let us be clear here: trade unions are effectively the voice of workers and workers have universal human rights.
Stephen Doughty
Q 173 Sara, do you share that view?
Sara Ogilvie: Yes, I share that view in terms of the protesting and picketing elements we have discussed. I also think that when we look, perhaps not at individual elements of the Bill—we have spoken about thresholds; we could talk about a lot more if we had the time, but we obviously do not—but the cumulative impact of those proposals will create so many bureaucratic obstacles and hurdles that you have to get through to call a strike that the right to strike will be illusory. That is a key area on which there will be challenge to the legislation. I should also just say that even if we ignore human rights arguments, the fact of the matter is that when we create lots of rules and laws, the people involved—trade unions and employers—who want to get these enforced will go to court. That is going to be expensive for them.
Stephen Doughty
Q 174 So in that way it is very similar to the gagging Bill and other measures that have been taken by the Government?
Sara Ogilvie: Certainly, we have seen a number of trends whereby the previous Government had different pieces of legislation that looked like they were trying to shut down various parts of civil society from engaging in public debate. What I am concerned about with the Bill is that it attacks freedom of association from a number of angles, but it will just create a lot of cost and a lot of regulation for the whole spectrum of actors involved.
The Chair
In the couple of minutes we have left, we have two Members still to go, so I ask them to make it very short. If we run out of time and the witnesses want to reply to the Committee, they can certainly email us.
The Chair
Q 176 Thank you both for attending the hearing to answer the questions that Committee members will put to you. It is a strange way of doing things, but we want to ask you to introduce yourselves in a very short, precise manner and tell us about your backgrounds and why you are here. We will then move to a question-and-answer session, with Members asking you questions and you giving replies. Without further ado, Mr Wilson, would you like to start?
Tony Wilson: My name is Tony Wilson. I am managing director of Abellio London and Surrey. We are one of the London bus operators running red buses. We operate about 650 buses in London and employ 2,600 staff, about 2,200 of whom at least are represented by Unite the union under a recognition agreement.
Jonathan Isaby: My name is Jonathan Isaby. I am the chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance—an organisation founded in 2004 that seeks to represent taxpayers across the UK. We have tens of thousands of supporters—about 80,000 supporters across the United Kingdom. We want to see lower, simpler taxes and less Government waste. We have conducted a lot of research over the years into how taxpayers’ money subsidises trade unions, and we have campaigned for that subsidy to be reduced as far as possible. Hence, I am delighted to have the opportunity to help the Committee with its deliberations today.
Stephen Doughty
Q 177 My first question is for Jonathan. I have asked this of the TaxPayers Alliance previously. You stated that you have 80,000 supporters, but how representative of the UK are they? How do you consult them? Do they pay you money? How are they distributed across the geographical regions of the UK, income brackets and so on? Give us a flavour of the people you claim to represent.
Jonathan Isaby: I think you asked me exactly the same question when I appeared before the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs the other year.
Stephen Doughty
And you could not answer it.
Jonathan Isaby: I will give you exactly the same answer, which is that we have a broad swathe of support from across the whole United Kingdom. We regularly talk to our supporters through weekly email bulletins. We hold events up and down the country, and we engage with politicians across the political divide.
Stephen Doughty
Q 178 I am surprised that you cannot answer, given that I have asked you this before. How have you consulted them about the Bill, and how many of them have lobbied you to see the Bill and all its provisions introduced?
Jonathan Isaby: I have a daily email dialogue with supporters from across the country.
Stephen Doughty
Q 179 How many have written to you about this out of the 80,000?
Jonathan Isaby: I have not kept a tally, but it is an issue that exercises supporters. They have given me great encouragement to campaign on it.
Stephen Doughty
Q 180 Okay. You spoke a minute ago about transparency in political funding—the funding that unions give for political causes and so on. Given that you speak out on those issues, would your organisation like to be subject to the rules that the Bill will impose? I have been looking at a very interesting website called “Who Funds You?”, which basically says that the TaxPayers Alliance does not display funding information on its website, does not name its organisational funders, does not declare amounts given by organisational funders, does not name individual funders and does not declare amounts given by individual funders. Why is it one rule for you and one rule for trade unions?
Jonathan Isaby: Well, we are subject to zero subsidy from the taxpayer. We are entirely funded by private individuals. We take the view that when taxpayers’ money is being spent, there needs to be a very high standard of transparency, so that taxpayers can see what is being doing with their money. We have a very broad base of support—thousands of people are financially supporting us. We do not publish their names and we are not obliged to do so. We respect their right to privacy. Some individuals decide to identify themselves as supporters.
Stephen Doughty
Q 181 So why should trade unions be subject to very intrusive explanations of all sorts of levels of funding? The Bill goes well beyond the established consensus on political funding and transparency. Why is it one rule for trade unions and a different rule for you?
Jonathan Isaby: As the Taxpayers Alliance has shown before, trade unions get a taxpayer subsidy in excess of £100 million a year. That is more than £100 million earned by your constituents that is effectively being handed to trade unions.
Stephen Doughty
Q 182 Sorry, how can you justify that? Can you explain that?
Jonathan Isaby: How can I justify that figure?
Stephen Doughty
Q 183 Yes. Can you break it down?
Jonathan Isaby: In the report that we published in 2013 or 2014, our most recent figures were that there were direct grants of about £23 million to trade unions from Government Departments and other public sector bodies and facility time was time worth at least £85 million a year, which is an underestimate, because a lot of public sector bodies are not properly recording facility time. There are some very good measures in the Bill that will crack down on that.
Stephen Doughty
Q 184 Would you accept that the unions pay the public sector money for the provision of check-off, for example? There is money going in the opposite direction.
Jonathan Isaby: Well, that is another issue in the Bill. Only 22% of the public bodies that offer check-off are charging for that service, so, again, millions of pounds are being lost every year, which is basically a taxpayer subsidy to the unions through the provision of that kind of service. That is before we get into office space, telephone lines and other things that are not covered in the Bill but that I hope the Government will look at adding to it. Perhaps the Committee would like to add those things to the Bill because that is another subsidy that is totally unjustifiable in our view.
Stephen Doughty
Q 185 So you are not willing to tell us how many people have lobbied you on this or where your money comes from, but you are willing to come here and make statements about what should happen to other civil society organisations. That is the nub of it.
Jonathan Isaby: There are hundreds or thousands of campaign groups and campaigning charities that will appear before such Committees and are not subject to intruding on the privacy of those who support them.
Stephen Doughty
Q 186 But others should be.
Jonathan Isaby: If they are in receipt of taxpayers’ money, yes. That certainly goes for—
Stephen Doughty
Q 187 In all aspects of their work, not in proportion to that funding or at any other level?
Jonathan Isaby: When millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being handed to an organisation, whether it is a trade union or, indeed, a charity—a lot of charities are in receipt of huge amounts of taxpayers’ money—there needs to be a very high standard of transparency to justify to taxpayers where that money is going.
The Chair
Before we leave this subject, Mr Isaby, you made a lot of claims there about large amounts of money—£100 million and £85 million. Would you be able to write to Committee members outlining where those funds come from, because they have been a source of information that I think would—
Jonathan Isaby: The grants to the unions and so on?
The Chair
Q 218 Will you introduce yourself for the record?
Leighton Andrews: I am Leighton Andrews, the Minister for Public Services.
Stephen Doughty
Q 219 Leighton, it is Stephen Doughty, speaking for the Opposition. Croeso. I have here the 9 September statement from the Welsh Government in the name of the First Minister, which very clearly states that the Welsh Government believe
“that significant elements of the Bill relate specifically to public services which in Wales are unambiguously devolved responsibilities. I therefore do not accept the suggestion that the Bill must be regarded as concerned exclusively with non-devolved issues.”
It seems very obvious to me where this sits in relation to health, education of under-17s, fire and a number of other potential areas. You have a range of concerns, so will you elaborate on where you feel the Bill breaches the devolution settlement? Given the First Minister’s statement, will you outline what consultation was undertaken between UK Government Ministers and Welsh Government Ministers?
Leighton Andrews: Well, I suppose our starting point would be, what problem is the Bill seeking to solve? We believe that the Bill contrasts sharply with the constructive social partnerships brokered in Wales. We have good relationships with the trade unions. We value our workforce and believe that they contribute proactively to the development of strong public services.
The First Minister communicated with the Minister in charge of the Bill in Westminster via letter on, I think, the day the Bill was published. The First Minister subsequently wrote a long, detailed letter to the Prime Minister outlining our concerns, as a Government, with the Bill. Those concerns, as you rightly say, reflect the fact that the Bill addresses devolved public services—health, the fire service, education under 17 and potentially other areas, such as some transport staff. Clearly, under the devolution settlement, it is for us to make policy in respect of education under 17, health, fire and rescue, and so on.
The First Minister’s letter to the Prime Minister also raised a fundamental constitutional issue in respect of our right to defend legitimate devolved interests. He said in that letter that we have great concerns that the nature of the Bill would cut across the devolution settlement, which is of great concern to us. We recently received a short reply from the Prime Minister, but we do not regard it as dealing with the key issues that we set out.
Stephen Doughty
Q 220 Have you had specific replies on the issues—particularly check-off—that have been raised as concerns?
Leighton Andrews: UK Government Ministers have not yet written to the Welsh Government about proposals on check-off. We know, of course, that the UK Government made a statement in August, subsequent to the introduction of the Bill, that they are planning to take forward proposals on check-off. They are of great concern to public service employers as well as trade unions in Wales. Indeed, those issues were discussed at our workforce partnership council only last Thursday. Public service employers in local government, the health service and, indeed, the further education sector expressed their discontent with the Bill. As I say, we have not formally heard from the UK Government in respect of check-off yet.
Stephen Doughty
Q 221 Lastly, the UK Government clearly have form on this. You will recall, of course, the case that was before the Supreme Court regarding the Agricultural Wages Board. What is the Welsh Government’s wider experience of the UK Government’s legislating on matters that are devolved and have been found to be so by the courts?
Leighton Andrews: Well, I think you raise an important issue. Obviously, the judgment of the Supreme Court in respect of the Agricultural Sector (Wales) Bill confirmed that, provided an Assembly Bill fairly or realistically satisfies the tests set out in section 108 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, it does not matter whether it might also be capable of being classified as relating to a subject that has not been devolved, such as employment rights and industrial relations.
The policy background of the explanatory notes to the Bill sets the context of the Bill in respect of essential public services. That, of course, takes us into public services that are devolved, such as the ones we have discussed. There is a clear divergence in approach to delivering public services between England and Wales, and we think the proposals in the Bill, far from protecting public services, will be more likely to provoke confrontation.
We also find it somewhat odd that a UK Government Bill of this kind seeks to specify, for example, how much union facility time employees have saved local authorities in Wales. We have been going through, for example, a local government reform programme, which might not be supported by trade unions in local government. Their access to facility time will be a very important element for us in ensuring harmonious relations with the workforce as our reform programme goes ahead.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
Q 222 I hope you can hear me okay. We took evidence earlier from Mr Wilson, who operates more than 700 buses. He stated that on a ballot turnout of 12%, two days’ industrial action was called. The 12% of people requesting industrial action may no longer be involved in his company now, because the decision was taken much earlier in the year. You spoke about schools earlier, and we also discussed the fact that on a 25% turnout in 2011, 62% of England’s schools were closed. I wonder what you think is a decent turnout for a ballot, considering that we are talking about accountability and transparency, and about making sure that the voice of every individual who is a member of a union is heard.
Leighton Andrews: I am sorry if you have had problems with strike action in England’s schools, of course, but let me say that in Wales we have been very successful in reaching agreements with trades unions that have avoided the need for strike action. For example, in respect of the firefighters’ dispute over pensions, we reached a solution and the Fire Brigades Union put off strike action in Wales. In respect of junior doctors, the British Medical Association’s advice has confirmed that the ballot for industrial action will not be taken in Wales. In respect of the agenda for change in the health service, the inclusive approach that we adopted led to the acceptance and successful application of a two-year pay deal in Wales, avoiding the threat of industrial action. In respect of education, we had constructive discussions with the trades unions and avoided the rolling strike action that was due to take place in Wales in 2013, while strike action was taking place in England.
So I suppose I go back to my opening comment: what is the problem that the Bill is seeking to address? The reality as far as we can see is that we have good relationships with trades unions in Wales and with our workforce. We have good relationships with public service employers in Wales and with our workforce. Public service employers in Wales do not support the Bill and do not see the need for it.
The Chair
What we are going to do is introduce Members to ask questions and then you will reply to those questions with your answers. [Interruption.] Thank you very much indeed, Minister, for staying with us. Technology, at times, is a bugger. I know that that will go on record, anyway. What we are going to do is to put questions to you from Members, and then hopefully you will give us the answers and we will hear them.
Stephen Doughty
Q 227 Fantastic. I will ask you a similar question to the one I have just asked the Welsh Government Minister. Given the quite clear constitutional implications of the Bill cutting across the devolution settlement in terms of issues and services that are provided by the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and others, what consultation did the UK Government have with you about the Bill, and what consultation have they had with you during the process? I know that concerns have been raised.
Roseanna Cunningham: I am not aware of there being any formal consultation in advance of the introduction of the Bill. While I have had some correspondence backwards and forwards with the relevant Minister, there has not really been much in the way of a discussion and we are still trying to establish exactly how it would impact on us. We share a lot of the concerns that the Welsh Minister expressed to you.
Stephen Doughty
Q 228 I do not expect you to share the detail of this, but have you taken legal advice from your own counsels and legal advice team on the implications of the Bill?
Roseanna Cunningham: We are looking at that, because we feel that it ought to require an LCM—sorry, a legislative consent motion—given the extent of the interference in what are clearly devolved policy areas. We are looking closely at that, and, yes, it will involve taking some legal advice, but I am obviously not going to share it.
James Cartlidge
Q 229 On the constitutional point, given that industrial relations are reserved—they are a UK matter—is it not the case that any industrial legislation that comes out from any Government of any type and that potentially affects public services will have ramifications for devolved areas?
Roseanna Cunningham: You are reaching right into the operations of our Government and, in fact, into a significant policy area for us as well. You will have heard the title of my job, which is fair work, skills and training, and that ought to tell you something about the approach that we are trying to take in Scotland, throughout the work that we do. It principally means the way in which we behave as a devolved Administration in terms of our own employment, our relationships with our employees and the way in which we conduct our business. This is now directly reaching into, and attempting to change, the way in which we conduct our business.
Stephen Doughty
Q 241 I have one last question for the Minister. Looking at clause 9, the provisions on picketing have implications for police officers and police involvement in picketing. Policing is another area that is wholly devolved to Scotland. What conversations have you had with your ministerial colleagues and representatives of the police in Scotland about the provisions, including whether they put the police in an invidious position regarding involvement in industrial disputes?
Roseanna Cunningham: I certainly think that this is a situation that the police do not want to find themselves in. I have had some brief conversations with relevant colleagues. One of our difficulties is with the way that the Bill is drafted. So much is so uncertain at this point that we are almost having to wait and see until regulations appear to discover the practical outcomes of some of what is being vaguely suggested. We have some concern that what is being proposed will be simply exacerbate the situation, rather than help to calm it down. I cannot repeat often enough that if this is fixing a problem, I do not know where that problem is. It is certainly not a problem in Scotland.
Trade Union Bill (First sitting)
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I am a member of the GMB union, and I draw attention to my declaration on the register of interests.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25am on Tuesday 13 October) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 13 October;
(b) at 11.30am and 2.00pm on Thursday 15 October;
(c) at 9.25am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 20 October;
(d) at 11.30am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 22 October;
(e) at 9.25am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 27 October;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
TABLE
Date | Time | Witness |
|---|---|---|
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 10.15 am | Confederation of British Industry; British Chamber of Commerce; Arriva |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 10.45 am | Community; Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 11.15 am | Thompsons Solicitors; Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 2.30 pm | 2020 Health |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 3.15 pm | London Travel Watch; Transport Focus |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 3.45 pm | Amnesty; Liberty; Blacklist Support Group |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 4.15 pm | TaxPayers’ Alliance; Abellio |
Tuesday 13 October | Until no later than 5.00 pm | Welsh Government; Scottish Government; Scottish Trade Union Congress |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 12 noon | National Police Chiefs’ Council; Police Federation |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 12.30 pm | SITA UK; London Fire Brigade |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 1.00 pm | Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 2.30 pm | Professor Keith Ewing, Professor of Public Law, King’s College London |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 3.00 pm | Royal College of Nursing; Royal College of Midwives; Public and Commercial Services Union; Fire Brigades Union |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 4.15 pm | Unite; Unison; GMB; Trade Union Congress |
Thursday 15 October | Until no later than 5.00 pm | Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; Cabinet Office |
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 14; Schedules 1 and 2; Clauses 15 and 16; Schedule 3; Clauses 17 and 18; Schedule 4; Clauses 19 to 22; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 27 October. —(Nick Boles.)
The Chair
On the basis of the motion, the deadline for amendments to be considered at the first line-by-line sittings of the Committee on 20 October is Thursday 15 October.
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Nick Boles.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Nick Boles.)
The Chair
Good morning and welcome to the Trade Union Bill. We are joined by John Cridland, who is the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, Dr Adam Marshall, who is executive director of policy and external affairs at the British Chambers of Commerce, and David Martin, who is chief executive of Arriva plc. This session will last until 10.15 am, so it will be fairly snappy. We will go from Opposition to Government side, and Members will take this as they wish.
Stephen Doughty
Q 1 First, may I say it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward? I welcome all members of the Committee to the evidence sessions and thank the witnesses for making themselves available this morning.
I have a few questions. My first is to the CBI and the BCC. The CBI specifically says in its written evidence that
“Business backs plans to modernise our industrial relations framework.”
Can you explain whether you think there is a unified view across business and industry in support of all the measures in the Bill? Given that you specifically refer to modernisation, do you—perhaps the BCC can answer this as well—support measures to introduce e-balloting and secure workplace balloting to increase participation in the most modern ways possible?
John Cridland: Thank you for that question. I believe the CBI does support the Bill, and I think the business community as a whole supports the Bill. Increasingly, the positive and constructive employee relations that we have built up over the economy are based on direct engagement with the workforce. We believe that there is a valuable role for trade unions but that the nature of trade union law needs to reflect the modern workplace in the way that I described—direct engagement.
I think the provisions in the Bill that are of most concern to businesses are those that ensure that where there is strike action—particularly in public utilities, education and health—it reflects a significant voice from the workforce. The fact that we are coming in with provisions similar to those in the statutory trade union recognition legislation, which has worked well and effectively for a number of years, reflects the sort of mandate of support that business, if it is to be significantly disrupted by the action I described, needs to see reflected. In principle, I think these are the right provisions.
On your particular question of e-balloting, we do not think at the moment the evidence is there that e-balloting can be secure and effective. We do not have a problem in principle with e-balloting, but it is probably premature to have it available.
Stephen Doughty
Q 2 May I follow up on that point? Even though e-balloting is used by a number of banks, building societies and other organisations, you do not believe that it is secure.
John Cridland: The need to protect the privacy of an individual trade union member voting is important to their employer, and we would want more assurance that that could be effectively conducted. Clearly, even in relation to some of the professional services that you just described, there are significant issues about data privacy.
Dr Adam Marshall: Thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning and to answer the question. It is our belief—fairly similar to that of my colleague from the CBI—that the right to withhold labour needs to be balanced in its application with the right of others to continue to work or to receive essential services, so we support strongly the provisions in the Bill that raise thresholds, for example, and ensure that essential public services are subjected to additional thresholds. It is our belief, however, that questions around the method of balloting are probably for the Government, the trade unions and the Opposition to have a debate over, rather than for us in business to have a debate over. Our concern is principally about the elements of the Bill that help to raise thresholds and ensure that the right to work is balanced with the right to withhold labour.
Stephen Doughty
Q 3 Do you accept that industrial action is at a 30-year low? Therefore, why is there a need to tighten up the legislation in such a draconian way as the Bill proposes?
Dr Adam Marshall: I think the statistics measure the number of days lost directly to industrial action. They do not measure the number of days lost indirectly because of industrial action, and what our members have asked us to represent is that those days lost to industrial action are significant. They affect business, productivity, the right of individuals to earn a living and access to public services. Were one able to make the argument that the number of days lost both directly and indirectly had gone down, that might be different, but a lot of people are significantly affected by strike action, hence our support for those provisions in the Bill to raise thresholds.
Stephen Doughty
Q 4 Mr Martin, can you tell us about your experience of industrial relations? There have been a number of high-profile cases where there have been findings against Arriva in its relations with union members and others. Can you tell us a little bit about your company’s experience and why you think this Bill is so necessary?
David Martin: Good morning. Arriva recognises that employees have the right to belong to trade unions, and we recognise a number of different trade unions. We pride ourselves totally on the fact that we are there to deliver highly satisfied employees to deliver services to highly satisfied passengers. We carry about 6 million people a day across the UK on buses and trains.
Frankly, I am extremely proud of the fact that we work very closely with our trade unions on the overall strategic direction of the business. We paint out and include them as a deliverer in the context of developing the strategy over a three-year or five-year timeframe, and that has worked extremely well for us. We all recognise the issues in the overall UK economy and the global economy, and the impact of fuel prices and so on. The ability to work closely with our trade unions has generated a situation where we have had a very low level of disputes over the past 30 years, certainly to my knowledge.
The only interesting disputes, which lead me to support the Bill, have been the London bus strikes this year and the issues in London in 2012 surrounding the Olympics, where the whole issue was union-led rather than membership-led. It was not a dispute within the membership. The fact that 17% of my staff voted and 50% of the buses did not run in London over that period of time shows us that we need a failsafe, and this Bill delivers that failsafe. In the event that industrial relations issues arise, there needs to be a clear mandate from the trade unions.
Stephen Doughty
Q 5 Do you accept broadly, though, that the vast majority of strikes in the transport sector have met the thresholds as envisaged by this Bill, including those in the rail and bus sectors?
David Martin: In the rail sector, yes, I would say that they probably have, so I do not think that it will make that much difference. In the bus sector, no; it is very different.
The Chair
I do not want to be too formal and restrict people to one question, and the main Opposition spokesman needs some latitude, but just keep an eye on the time everybody, and if you can just ask one question, fine. All three witnesses do not have to answer everybody; you can divide it up between yourselves.
The Chair
Normally, we would go to the Government and then to Labour, but I do not want to be too formal. If somebody is bursting to ask a really telling supplementary, they can come in. I think Steve Doughty is burning to ask a question.
Stephen Doughty
Q 27 Just to follow on this point specifically, I am also concerned about the lack of evidence. We have a bit of evidence here that findings from the 2011 workplace employment relations survey revealed that despite an increase in public sector strikes in 2010-11, only 3% of managers were experiencing any disruption as a result of strikes in another workplace. So that is a piece of evidence and I wonder if you or the CBI have any comments on that: very low levels of industrial action and then very low levels of disruption shown in an actual survey, actually evidenced in figures, unlike some of the comments that we have heard from the panel.
John Cridland: If you think of a strike in education, for example, like last year with schools, most employees in most workplaces in the affected area have to provide alternative childcare arrangements. How is that caught in national surveys? It is very difficult to capture—a point that Dr Marshall made. How is that aggregated in employer surveys? It is very difficult.
Stephen Doughty
Q 28 With respect, you are saying that it is very difficult, but you and Dr Marshall are making some very broad statements about this issue without having evidence to back them up. That is what I do not understand. It is a very broad assertion to make.
John Cridland: I think it is just a law of common sense that if a school is closed, every working parent in that school has to make alternative arrangements.
Stephen Doughty
Q 29 But we are talking about the economy as a whole.
John Cridland: With respect, I was using the illustration of a strike in education. Most working parents have to make alternative arrangements.
Dr Cameron
Q 49 You spoke about the importance of communication with your workers and harmonious employee relations. Have you consulted the workforce at all about their views?
David Martin: Not in its entirety. I have certainly had conversations with the full-time representatives that we have within the organisation in this context. I could not say that I have consulted 25,000 people in the UK.
Stephen Doughty
Q 50 I just want to push John on whom he is representing. I would contend that there are actually a number of voices in business and industry who are concerned that the Bill will do the opposite and will promote less positive industrial relations, which could have an impact on productivity and the ability to negotiate. A whole series of measures in the Bill could foster dissent rather than the agreements and constructive relationships that lead to avoiding industrial action in the first place. I was on a panel with a CBI representative a couple of weeks ago and a representative of a major industrial employers’ organisation said, “Let’s put it this way: we didn’t call for this Bill.” Could you just explain, very clearly, whom you are representing and whether there is an absolute consensus of view across business and industry that this is a good thing for business and the economy as a whole?
The Chair
After this one brisk answer, we have one more question and we must then wrap up on time.
John Cridland: I do appreciate that there are a variety of organisations and a variety of voices speaking for the business community. The CBI is an important one, but it is not exclusively the voice of business. Our own organisation has consulted fully and widely through our open and transparent governance processes, and this is the view that we have come to, as reflected in both my written and oral evidence.
Stephen Doughty
Q 52 A question first to Roy and then one to John. In terms of the steel industry’s history and industrial relations in the industry as a whole over the past 20 years, where do you think positive industrial relations have helped for both employees and employers in what are clearly difficult times? I particularly commend your work on the situation at SSI, but will you speak in general terms about what benefits a positive relationship between trade unions and employers can have in a crucial industry?
Roy Rickhuss: Perhaps I should start by explaining that my union, Community, was formed in 2004 as a merger between the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the Knitwear, Footwear and Apparel Trades. The ISTC was predominantly the steelworkers’ union and KFAT was predominantly textile and footwear. My background is within the steel industry. I was a steelworker when I left school right up until when I started to work full time for the union.
To answer the question on the steel industry, since 1980—incidentally, that was probably when we had the last major dispute in the industry and that was a good many years ago, so we have not done too badly in terms of industrial relations. When you look at and consider the massive changes that have gone on not just in the steel industry but in a lot of our traditional industries that are now in the private sector, we have seen massive changes: job losses; restructuring; reorganisations; flexible working; upskilling; and team working. Change is constant, and throughout that process, my union, like other unions, has been at the forefront of ensuring that that has happened smoothly, in the best interests of employees and the employer, and I think we have done a pretty good job.
I think we have also done a pretty good job in terms of trying to protect the industry. You mentioned briefly the SSI situation, and that is an absolute tragedy. We have a steel summit on Friday where we are meeting with the Minister, Anna Soubry, and we are doing everything we can to try to save steelmaking on Teesside. I do not know whether that answers your question, Stephen, but clearly we would not be where we are today in terms of having any steel industry left in the UK if it was not for the good industrial relations that we have enjoyed for 30 or 40 years.
Stephen Doughty
Q 53 Do you think that the Bill risks worsening industrial relations across the economy as a whole?
Roy Rickhuss: I do, because industrial relations—the previous speaker was interesting—is about getting the balance right. At the moment, if I am honest, I think the balance is not right; I think it is probably weighted slightly on the employer’s side already. So we need that balance and we need good industrial relations.
We have been calling on the Government for some time to look at reviewing and overhauling industrial relations in this country and trying to develop more of a partnership approach where employee representatives and trade unions work in a positive way with good employers, because, at the end of the day, that is what we want. I have never met anybody in my career who does not want to work for a successful company or be part of a successful business, because that gives stability and job security and allows people to do the things in their lives that they want to do. So it is about getting the balance right and working in partnership.
Stephen Doughty
Q 54 John, as you represent a significant number of members in a diffuse sector, what are the Bill’s specific problems and challenges for your members? I wonder in particular what your views are about the Government’s proposals on check-off.
John Hannett: USDAW is the fourth largest union, as you may know, with more than 440,000 members. In fact, it has grown by 100,000 members in the past 10 years. I have spent the past 12 years as general secretary, and seven before as deputy general secretary, promoting the partnership model that Roy referred to. The Bill, in a sense, feels to me more like a control mechanism than a fostering of good industrial relations. What do I mean by that? If you look at the agreement we have with some of the biggest private sector companies, those agreements and those relationships have been informed by, and developed based on, trust, understanding the business and honest representation.
The problem with the Bill is that it sounds like something that is highly political and intended to control behaviour more than foster good industrial relations. We have the biggest private sector partnership agreement in the country, with more than 180,000 members in one of the most successful businesses. All those negotiations take place in a spirit of trust, of building up the relationship and of understanding the sector.
In terms of check-off, this is interesting. If you look at the agreements we have within the biggest organisations in the country, these check-off arrangements have worked. They have been negotiated with those individual companies. To be perfectly honest, without check-off, it would be extremely difficult for a union like mine, which operates in a seven-day, 24-hour sector, where people are working short hours and long hours, and trying to collect union contributions. There is also something significant about check-off. It is a kind of identity between the employer and the union that we co-exist and work together. It is part of their commitment to the union, as we commit to some of the changes.
Roy referred to the many, many changes he has had to oversee. The biggest company we have the agreement with now is going through difficult times. The union is here now, operating and dealing with those issues—not just the good times, but the difficult times too. Is the Bill intended to help industrial relations? I have not seen the evidence. The best way to improve industrial relations is between the employer and the unions where they are represented, in consultation with their employees.
John Howell
Q 55 Can I move you on to some questions about the political levy? It seems to me that there is a fundamental principle of fairness in this. Voluntary funds, which is what the political levy is, should not be taken out of someone’s pay packet without their consent. Do you agree with that?
John Hannett: My union has a very clear position on this that has been in place since the union merged in 1947. First, our rulebook is very explicit about the right to be paying the political levy. On our membership form, when somebody joins the trade union, there is a very explicit clause that says, “If you do not wish to pay the levy, you do not have to.” Some of our members exercise that right, so we already cover it with our form and we are transparent about this in all our communications with our members.
The Chair
For our last session this morning we have Stephen Cavalier, chief executive of Thompsons Solicitors, and Mike Emmott, senior policy adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. We have half an hour.
Stephen Doughty
Q 69 I have two questions each for you. Mike, your organisation has been very clear about its concerns about the Bill, which has been described as counterproductive and as having potential unintended consequences. Given your representation of members working in HR who obviously have daily front-line experience of dealing with trade unions, industrial disputes and individual disputes, will you explain why you came to those conclusions about the Bill?
Mike Emmott: Thank you very much for that question. Basically, we think it targets a problem that was more evident several years ago than it is today. We do not really have any evidence that the problem has become more acute or needs tackling. In particular, we do not know that, if there is a problem, it should be tackled in this manner. We do not really see the need for legislation on this topic. We do not believe it is likely to have the intended effect of reducing industrial action, or that it is likely to contribute to greater productivity, innovation or performance generally, because it does not really address the issue of relationships on the shop floor, which we see as being at the heart of productivity.
We are more interested in the relationship between employer and employee or workforce and we are a bit concerned that the Bill does not address that in a constructive way. Those are our main reasons. We feel that, particularly in the public sector, the issue of employee engagement—the word “partnership” has been used—the attitude of looking to develop trust, is the way that the Government should tackle the continuing, quite real problems that they will encounter, in the public sector in particular.
Stephen Doughty
Q 70 Okay. That is very helpful.
Steve, you and Thompsons have said that significant aspects of the Bill are essentially unworkable. Will you explain why you believe that to be the case and whether you believe that the Bill will actually lead to an increase in probably expensive litigation if, as you say, parts of the Bill are unworkable or unenforceable?
Stephen Cavalier: Thank you for the question and thank you to the Committee for the opportunity to give evidence today. First, I endorse the evidence given by the witness from Arriva that it is necessary for the Bill to be clear and workable. Putting it bluntly, it is not. It is unworkable in several respects. We heard from the CBI about the law of common sense, which seems to have gone out of the window in some aspects of the Bill. The Bill needs to be workable but it is unworkable in several ways and, in fact, some aspects seem to be designed deliberately to make it difficult, if not impossible, to comply with the provisions. I shall give the Committee a couple of examples.
On the 40% threshold, the Government kick off by saying that the unions must ballot all members who are affected by the dispute. That is simply wrong; it is a wrong statement of the law. They have to ballot those they expect to call upon to take action. They build on that by trying to introduce these thresholds in a way which is very unclear. The thresholds apply where people are normally engaged in important public services—those are not defined—or in ancillary services. The consultation paper for the consultation, which concluded on 9 September —we have obviously not seen the Government’s response—tries to list a whole load of jobs which are included in “important public services”. The Government recognise the difficulty in doing that—it is very unclear—and it is exceptionally difficult to see how a trade union, when balloting, is able to decide whether or not a particular member or group of members is covered by that definition when the information is in the hands of the employer. You may have a mixed constituency, some of whom are covered and some of whom are not. For example, in a school where some teachers are teaching pupils of under or over the age of 16—so they are partly covered and partly not—it is complete chaos as to whether they are actually going to be covered.
On the ballot paper point, an earlier question mentioned the importance of clarity on the ballot paper. It will be a lot less clear if we have ballot papers as proposed by this legislation. What on earth is a reasonably detailed indication—it is an oxymoron, it is internally inconsistent —of the matters at issue in a dispute? As everybody who knows about industrial relations will know, often one of the issues in dispute in a dispute is what actually is in dispute, so I do not know quite how that is going to be stated clearly. This is not about providing information for members; it is about providing ammunition for employers.
The intention here is clearly to encourage a lot of litigation and that is going to be expensive. It is very unclear and an awful lot of detail needs to be sorted out, even, for example, in terms of describing types of industrial action. We had a meeting with Government lawyers and I felt rather sorry for them. They were trying to explain what the provisions meant—I happen to have a lot of time for Government lawyers and the work they do—and they could not explain what types of industrial action they were talking about. They said, “Overtime bans, work to rule”. Well, those are not legal terms of art. That creates more confusion, rather than less.
Stephen Doughty
Q 71 May I ask a specific question about clause 14 and the certification officer? Wide-ranging powers are being suggested with regard to changing the role of the certification officer. Essentially, the certification officer will be able to bring a complaint, investigate it, decide on which witnesses, make decisions over the matter, impose fines and enforce them. Do you think that creates a very unwelcome blurring of the lines between investigator and adjudicator?
Stephen Cavalier: I am not sure that it blurs the lines; I think it probably removes them altogether. There will be a lot of applications to be certification officer on that basis, I should imagine, given the sheer range of powers. The pity is that the certification officer does a very good job of arbitrating in disputes between union members and the union—so, the individual member and the union as a collective. This completely changes that role. It means that the certification officer himself has to initiate investigations, can demand documents and demand immediate explanations of documents, and can appoint investigators, who may not actually be employed by the certification officer—they may be from accountants, for example, at enormous expense to the unions themselves, who then have to pay a levy for it.
It is interesting that unlike in employment tribunals, where applicants have to pay a fee to bring a claim, no one seems to be suggesting that a complainant needs to pay a fee before they go to the certification officer. Then, to extend that, to be able to impose fines and the fact that enforcement orders by the certification officer can be enforced not just by the certification officer but by individual members as well, goes well beyond any rule-of-law or natural justice considerations.
Stephen Doughty
Q 89 We have heard a lot about schools, hospitals and transport. Obviously, those are devolved matters. We are hearing from the Scottish and Welsh Governments later on today. In your view, is there a fundamental breach of the devolution settlement here and potential legal proceedings as a result of some of the measures in the Bill impacting on decisions that are actually fully devolved to those Governments and, indeed, in a number of cases, to local governments across England?
Stephen Cavalier: Yes, I think that is absolutely right, in relation to facility time and check-off and to these matters to do with the threshold.
Stephen Doughty
Q 90 Do you agree with that, Mike? Do you think there is a risk here? You deal with Governments, public services and businesses across the UK. Do you think there is a problem here in terms of devolution?
Mike Emmott: I do not know what the devolution settlement would say specifically about these collective issues. I understand something about individual conflicts, tribunals and so on. We have not consulted members, but I think it is appropriate for these issues to be dealt with on a national basis. It is going to be quite odd for employers dealing with different rules applying in different jurisdictions, where there may be issues that go across the whole of the UK.
The Chair
We have come to the end of our time. Thank you for speaking to us. I thank the Members. We are going to adjourn until 2 pm, when my colleague Sir Alan Meale will take the Chair. He is a very kindly gentleman, so I hope you will be equally well behaved with him. It has been a very good session, and everyone has got in who wanted to.
Ordered,
That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Stephen Barclay.)
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Anna Soubry
As I said, we are aware of the particular pressures that high electricity prices put on industries, especially those that use the most, and a compensation package is available. We all want a greener, cleaner environment, so we have set targets that we have to meet, and a cost is associated with that. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that, especially as it affects the industries in his constituency of Corby.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister and I have discussed the clear and present dangers to the UK steel industry in a constructive fashion several times since she took her post. Given a summer of deeply worrying developments in the steel industry, not least with the news today from Redcar, can she assure us—notwithstanding what she has said today—that she has the full backing of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to take whatever action is necessary urgently to stand up for the steel industry in the UK?
Anna Soubry
Unfortunately, I was not present at Prime Minister’s questions last week, but I know that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) put a question to the Prime Minister, who made it very clear that he wants to give his full support to our steel industry. We recognise its importance to the economy and I am delighted that I have had so many very positive meetings with Members, notably Opposition Members, in which we have explored all the difficulties in an atmosphere that has been frank about what more we can do. We also have to understand that we are limited in what we can do. The state aid rules just do not help.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend always raises important issues like that. It is absolutely right for us to take a fresh look at Sunday trading rules, which have not been considered carefully for many years, and that is what the Government are doing. My hon. Friend will be fully aware of our proposal to devolve the relevant decision-making to local authorities.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
In The Independent last week the previous Business Secretary described the deafening silence from this new Government on industrial strategy as “ominous”. Has the current Business Secretary decided if he has an industrial strategy yet?
Sajid Javid
Our policies for dealing with all industries are very clear: we have a very active dialogue with all industrial groups and with many companies, as well as with leading business groups, and that dialogue will continue. We do that, for example, through the sector councils; we listen very carefully to what they have to say and work in partnership wherever we can.
Trade Union Bill
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I rise perhaps in the same spirit as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) in that what I have to say may put me out of favour on both sides of the House. I rise as a seemingly rare thing—a Conservative who is a member of a trade union, in my case the teaching union ATL, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. My reticence stems perhaps from the fact that many would not see the two sitting comfortably together. However, I see no contradiction in being both a Conservative and a member of a trade union. Indeed, although we get little credit for it, it was the Conservative party that first legislated to fully legalise trade unions under Benjamin Disraeli.
I want first to express a general opinion on trade unions before moving on to deal with two particular aspects of the Bill about which I have reservations. A trade union should be, I believe, a body that concerns itself with the rights and welfare of its members. It should be an organisation that strives to improve the working lives of people. It should always seek to work in partnership with employers, engaging in constructive dialogue and discussion. What a trade union should not be is a deliberately destructive force, seeking to hold back the economy of the country and unduly inconvenience, or—worse still—endanger other members of society. The ultimate power of calling a strike should always be the last resort, following exhaustive efforts to seek the resolution of disputes. Let me be clear: the withdrawal of labour is a fundamental right, but it is a right that must be tempered with responsibility.
The Bill contains a number of sensible measures: for example, the expiry of the mandate to strike four months after the date of the ballot, and the prevention of the unacceptable scenario of union bosses using ballots, sometimes years old, to call strikes when the issues at hand, and crucially the opinions of workers, might since have shifted. Also the two-week notice period for employers is welcome, so that proper planning can take place. Furthermore, I support the Government’s view that the political contributions of union members should constitute an act of free will, which is not the case under the current arrangements.
My first reservation about the Bill—and I am grateful for the Minister’s consideration of it—concerns “facility time”, which clause 12(8) defines as paid time in which union representatives can undertake unions duties and activities. I am concerned about the fact that “facility time” conflates trade union “duties” and trade union “activities”. It should be clear that such time should not be used for political activities such as the organisation of strikes and political lobbying, but should meet the genuine need for union representatives to be involved in important HR issues between individual union members and employers.
I suggest to the Minister that seeking to reduce “facility time” by publicising it, which does not take account of its exact nature, poses a risk that genuine HR matters may be unfairly neglected. I think that the Bill should clarify the position by making a subtle but important distinction between the sub-types of facility time, which should be carried through to the point of publication that the Bill stipulates. Such a clarification would surely be in line with the spirit of a measure that is, after all, designed to promote transparency and public scrutiny of “facility time”.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the same argument should apply to the Bill’s provisions on health and safety regulations?
William Wragg
I consider health and safety to be a union duty rather than a union activity, so I agree with that.
Surely transparency can only be enhanced by the introduction of an additional layer of detail, rather than the conflation which I fear could arise from the Bill’s current wording.
My second concern relates to the possibility of the use of agency workers to cover striking workers. I agree with every word that was said about it by my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), and I urge the Government not to go down that path.
Having raised those issues that concern me, I should add that I am minded to support the Bill, because I believe that we have a Minister who listens and can consider fairly arguments that are put to him in the House. I look forward to further discussions with him.
Let me end by saying that, while the events of the weekend may have revealed the Labour party’s desire to step back into the 1970s and 1980s, thus making themselves a political irrelevance, we Conservatives must show ourselves to be beyond that. We must show ourselves to be reasonable, responsible and, above all, relevant to the needs of the country. Yes, that means reform of the trade unions; but we must be careful not to be seen to erode fundamental rights and liberties of workers who are the foundation of our economy. We must look at measures objectively, and not risk fighting the battles of the past.
Grahame M. Morris
There is a contradiction in the Government’s position. E-balloting is accepted for the first stages of the election for the Conservative party mayoral candidate—it is secure enough for that—and for secure workplace balloting on recognition agreements, which is enshrined in legislation, but e-balloting is not accepted in the Bill.
Stephen Doughty
Is my hon. Friend aware that e-balloting is also used for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the National Trust, the Magistrates Association, the Countryside Alliance and the Royal College of Surgeons?
Grahame M. Morris
Absolutely. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. A plethora of organisations —[Interruption.]
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I draw the attention of the House to my declaration of interests, which includes membership of the GMB and Unite trade unions. For 15 years, I was an official with Unite, which gives me much more experience than some Conservative Members in dealing with industrial relations. That included dealing with some of the best managements in the country, such as at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port. Twice I worked with local management to save that plant by winning new models for the workers to build—something at which they are excelling now. That was achieved by consent and on a partnership basis. I saw no evidence from any management I worked with of a desire within British industry to bring in such legislation.
Some of the proposals in the Bill are so bizarre that I cannot help but wonder if they were put in just so that they could be removed at a later point in the Bill’s passage to give a false impression of just how reasonable the Government are. Other hon. Members have mentioned the armbands provision and the provision on tweeting during industrial action. If I as a member of a trade union and a Member of Parliament tweet in support of an industrial dispute, would I face prosecution?
Christian Matheson
That would be a terrible crime, and I would not wish to be accused of such a grave offence.
The Bill would be bad for the economy, because trade unions—yes, working with management—help to spread the wealth that the country creates. The richest countries are not the ones with the 1% wealthiest elite, but the ones with the highest average wages. The country with the highest average wages will win every time, but that runs contrary to Conservative philosophy.
I remember Prime Minister’s questions just before the summer recess when the Prime Minister criticised tube drivers in London because they were well paid and did not need to go on strike. Well, they are well paid because they are members of a trade union.
The Bill is about power. It is about removing power from any form of organised opposition to the Conservatives’ dominance. They know that individual people are stronger when they stand together and therefore opposition to the Conservatives will be weakened by removing that collectivism, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) explained so eloquently. The Government realise this. In typically cynical and dishonest fashion, they cloak the Bill in the claim of protecting the public when in fact it does the opposite: it makes families and ordinary people much more insecure by taking away one of the few avenues of protection they have in their economic and working lives.
There is a sinister and dangerous authoritarianism to the Government’s actions. Attacking the funding of the Labour party, as the Bill clearly and deliberately does, breaks many long-standing political conventions. It is part of a pattern that other hon. Members have identified: the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 taking away the ability of charities and unions to campaign in a general election, but not big businesses and newspapers; allowing local communities to decide on whether to have fracking in their local communities, but then, if they decide against it, the Government driving it through anyway; and the Human Rights Act 1998, which so many Conservative Members want to abolish, despite it being one of the few pieces of legislation that protects the rights of individuals against the state.
We live in a pluralistic democracy at present, but that pluralism and democracy will be eroded yet again in a manner that is sinister and troubling. Trade unions are an essential part of any democratic civil society and that is presumably why this unpleasant, authoritarian Government are attacking them tonight.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
May I declare my current membership of the GMB and draw the attention of the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I, like so many Members on this side of the House, have nothing to hide about my relationship with, and support for, trade unions. Whether it is campaigning locally to defend community services in the steel industry, nationally to defend shop workers facing violence and to stand up for the rights of poorly paid musicians, or globally to fight for a Robin Hood tax and efforts to tackle global poverty, I have been proud to stand alongside trade unionists as a trade unionist for my whole political career.
This has been an extraordinary debate on an extraordinary Bill. What has been most extraordinary among the numerous speeches by Government Whips’ cronies, tying themselves in contortions trying to explain their workers, credentials, while supporting the Bill, not to mention a mare of a speech by the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), has been the ream of Government Members lining up to oppose significant sections of the Bill and urge their Government to think again.
The hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) urged a rethink on agency workers. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who had already told us that parts of the Bill were reminiscent of Franco, rightly spoke about the serious restrictions on freedom of association and the risk of judicial review. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg), in an excellent speech, said that he had concerns about the provisions on agency workers and facility time. He told us clearly that we must not erode fundamental rights and liberties. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), in another excellent speech, raised concerns over the new notice periods, the role of the certification officer, which is set to expand massively, and the risk of inadvertent criminalisation.
The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), in yet another excellent speech, told us: “I cannot see what the problem is with check-off”.
He also pointed out that he cannot see the problem with electronic voting. He criticised the civil liberties aspects of the Bill and argued for a sensible, consensual and, if I may say so, Churchillian approach to political funding, which the Conservative party—at least, those on the Treasury Bench—seems to have abandoned.
We heard many excellent speeches from Opposition Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) said that this was a Bill not of high principle, but of low politics. There was an excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) about the role of trade unions in standing up for the rights of ordinary workers. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) described the attack on basic civil liberties. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) spoke powerfully about the attacks on London’s workers under the Mayor. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) talked about her role working with trade unions.
There were excellent speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham), for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for Bootle (Peter Dowd). My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) suggested a good new title for the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) gave an excellent speech and my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) spoke from her extensive experience as a workplace representative in the NHS about the importance of facility time.
We had excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) spoke—as did other Members—about the Bill’s potential contravention of International Labour Organisation conventions and of European and international law. My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) put it in a nutshell when she described the Bill as “illegal, illiberal and illiterate”, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) spoke about the importance of the principle of the right to strike.
My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) spoke powerfully about the importance of ensuring the possibility of e-balloting and secure workplace balloting, and I will return to that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) spoke about her work and of the excellent work she has seen by Unite at the Vauxhall plant in her constituency. She also spoke powerfully about facility time. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) gave an excellent speech from his extraordinary wealth of experience and judgment on these matters. He painted a different approach to the one taken by some Conservative Members by describing trade unions as a force for good and for liberty in this country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon)—with an excellent intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)—mentioned the absurdity of the social media provisions proposed in the Government consultation, and my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) spoke with powerful arguments about the role that trade unions play in driving productivity in our economy, and the role of good pay in doing that. My hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) gave an historical tour de force about the opt-in and industrial relations, and he spoke about the powerful issues around picketing and the complete impracticality of a number of provisions suggested by the Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) spoke powerfully about the role of organisations such as HOPE not hate, which I have seen active in my constituency doing incredible work on electoral registration and tackling extremism. She said how that will be put at risk by provisions in the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) also exposed many of those absurdities. There were many excellent speeches by Scottish National party Members, including an excellent speech by the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), who spoke about the role of communication in industrial relations and finding constructive solutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) called out the funding provisions in the Bill for what they are.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, said that Disraeli would be turning in his grave, and Conservative Members would do well to look at their own provisions—even their great Margaret Thatcher did not go this far, and they should think carefully about what they are saying. My hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr Campbell) made it clear that the Bill attacks what is, in his experience, the importance of working together to achieve agreement, which lies at the heart of good industrial relations. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) spoke of how the Bill could increase the threat of blacklisting, and he described the levies as a trade union tax and a potential breach of numerous legal conventions. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) spoke of his powerful personal experiences of being involved in strikes against injustice and the effect on his own family.
I am glad that we have the support of the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) because he spoke powerfully about how this Government claim that they seek to deregulate in every area except, it appears, the trade union movement, which they seem content to tie up in “blue tape”.
Many of us in the Chamber are, at times, prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, but this is not such an occasion. I have no hesitation in describing the Bill as one of the greatest threats to the activities of trade unions and ordinary working people up and down this country, and one of the greatest threats to hard-won and fundamental civil liberties in a generation. The Bill breaches long-established rights to strike, protest and take industrial action. It introduces pernicious measures and the potential for wide-ranging further restrictions and powers in secondary legislation that, as many hon. Members pointed out, we have yet to see.
The provisions on social media are simply absurd. Why on earth would we want the police to spend time establishing whether trade union members have said things two or three weeks in advance of action? The police have to spend enough time tackling extremists and criminals who are using social media. Importantly—I am a Welsh MP—we have heard that the Bill breaches the devolution settlement with far-reaching consequences for relationships and public policy in wholly devolved areas such as health and education, whether in Wales or Scotland, let alone at the level of local authorities in England or London. The Bill potentially puts the Government in breach of international conventions and European law. It breaches established conventions on the funding of political parties and political campaigning.
Geraint Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that as the Bill is a fundamental attack on democracy, human rights and trade unions, it will boost Labour party membership by thousands more as people protest against this evil Bill?
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend makes an important point and he echoes thousands of people who have expressed their opposition to the Bill today and in the past few weeks.
My noble Friends in the other place may be interested to note that the Bill breaches a Conservative manifesto commitment to make provisions regarding only essential public services. “Essential” is the word used in International Labour Organisation conventions, and it has a very narrow definition. Instead, the Bill talks about “important” public services and draws its provisions so wide that as yet unseen powers could apply to nearly every area of publicly funded activity. The House should not take my word for it or the word of those who have spoken today. Let us listen to the independent Regulatory Policy Committee, which described the Bill as not fit for purpose; to Amnesty, Liberty and the British Institute of Human Rights, which described it as a major attack on civil liberties; and to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, which said:
“We need to see more consultation and…engagement with, the workforce, rather than the introduction of mechanisms that reflect the industrial relations challenges of the 1980s.”
We should listen to recruiters who are fearful that their agency staff will be used as strike-breaking labour. The Recruitment Employment Federation said that it is “not convinced” by the Bill.
The Bill stands alone as a divisive and offensive piece of legislation, but when viewed alongside the Government’s wider agenda of scrapping the Human Rights Act, introducing fees denying women the chance to sue for equal pay, slashing legal aid, attempting to limit freedom of information and judicial review powers, disfranchising millions through ill-thought-out changes to electoral registration and the Act that has gagged charities and civil society organisations, it is deeply sinister and it should sound the alarm bell from town to town and city to city across this nation of hard-won liberties in the year we celebrate the anniversary of Magna Carta.
I return to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). What problem does the Bill seek to solve? This is not a Bill designed to increase democracy, transparency or the legitimacy of industrial action or political funding. It is nothing more than a naked partisan attempt to prevent scrutiny of the Government and their agenda. Not since the 1970s have we seen such wide-ranging attempts to change industrial relations law, but today we see barely a hundredth of the level of industrial action of those days. The Bill seeks to solve a problem that simply does not exist. Instead, it seeks to drive a false wedge between Government, industry, employees and the public by restricting rights and, at worst, criminalising people making their views known about their pensions, pay, health and safety and many other issues.
If the Government are serious about democracy and increasing participation, why are they introducing so many barriers and restrictions while denying trade unions a debate about electronic balloting and secure workplace balloting? If the Government intend to proceed with the Bill, they must bring forward amendments to it. At the very least, if they are serious about improving democracy, they could introduce a statutory instrument on the powers in the 2004 Act.
The Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), said:
“When we bash the trade unions, the effect is not just to demonise militancy, but every trade union member, including doctors, nurses and teachers.”
Today, the Financial Times said:
“Britain does not have a problem with strikes”,
and that the Bill is
“out of proportion”
and contains
“alarming proposals”
that
“threaten basic rights.”
Will the Government listen to their Ministers, their Back Benchers, the voices of civil society, the Financial Times and so many others who have spoken out against the Bill? We will oppose the Bill every step of the way and we urge all those who care about our democracy and civil liberties to join us.
Draft National Minimum Wage (amendment) Regulations 2015
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes for your first time in the Chair and my first time opposite the Minister. It is a pleasure to be in the Committee today.
I do not intend to detain the Committee for long because, as members of the party that introduced the national minimum wage—as the Minister acknowledged—we support the increases based on the LPC recommendations, with the exception of the apprentice rate, even though the regulations come from a Government of late converts. It is worth reminding the Committee that the Conservatives bitterly opposed the introduction of the national minimum wage. Their former leader, Michael Howard, warned of a “fiasco” and that the national minimum wage “could double unemployment”. We all now know that to be false.
We support increases in the minimum wage as a way of tackling the low-wage economy that means that many working families across the country are still struggling to get by and to cope with the cost of living. It is worth reflecting on that fact this morning, as a new report published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation states that the number of children in working families in poverty has continued to rise in my part of the UK, Wales. Indeed, there are similar statistics for the rest of the UK. The report says that it is largely due to low pay and scarce hours.
Low wages and zero-hours contracts are determining the prospects of far too many, despite the Welsh Labour Government’s excellent work in focusing resources on the poorest communities. Families face the prospect of being made even more worse off through cuts to tax credits, which will hit those on middle and lower incomes. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed that 3 million working families will be worse off by an average of more than £1,000 as a result of changes in the last Budget, despite the increases to the minimum wage that we are supporting today.
Let us remember how bad things could have been, had we not taken that historic step in 1999 of introducing the national minimum wage. Let us not forget that that meant that it was no longer legal for people to be paid as little as £1 an hour.
While we will not oppose the increases today, I want to question the Minister on two key areas related to the regulations. The first relates to the accommodation offset. It is an important part of the national minimum wage settlement, but it is also important that the balance of power in the agreement is not tipped too far in one direction. The regulations increase the national minimum wage for 21-year-olds and over by 3.1%, yet the accommodation offset appears to be increasing by a higher rate of 5.3%. Will the Minister explain that discrepancy and the reasons for it, given that it appears to reduce the value of the national minimum wage rise for those to whom the accommodation offset applies?
The LPC review in 2011 into the accommodation offset and the subsequent recommendations for the level of the national minimum wage from 2015 onwards were completed before the Chancellor announced the so-called national living wage—a higher minimum wage that is not and will not be the official living wage. Given that the national living wage, so called, will not apply to workers under 25, will the Minister explain the impact of the accommodation offset on those workers? Indeed, can he explain whether there are any further plans to review the application and level of the accommodation offset, given the Chancellor’s proposals in the recent Budget?
The second subject I want to look at is one that we have discussed in these Committees and on the Floor of the House: the proposals for the enforcement of the regulations and the legislation around the national minimum wage in general. There is increasing evidence from up and down the country, including in my own constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, that not everyone is playing by the rules. Analysis by the TUC has estimated that at least 250,000 workers are not being paid the legal minimum wage.
When questioning Ministers just months ago in the previous Parliament alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), I was astonished when it was revealed that just nine employers had been prosecuted for non-compliance since 2010. As the Minister pointed out, the Prime Minister has produced much rhetoric about increasing fines and tackling non-payment, so will the Minister put some meat on the bones and tells us exactly how many employers have been prosecuted since the general election?
I was equally astonished when the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who was the Minister leading one of the last Delegated Legislation Committees on this matter in the previous Parliament, accused my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and me of the “politics of envy”—you can read that for yourself in Hansard, Mr Gapes—for raising the issue of prosecutions. Will the Minister reassure the Committee that he does not share that sentiment and that he and his Government will do all that they can to ensure the enforcement of the legislation before us today?
I was further astonished to receive allegations regarding non-payment of the minimum wage by a company called MiHomecare, which is part of the Mitie Group, in my constituency in Penarth. Similar allegations have been made up and down the country. The company posted a 21.5% increase in its pre-tax profits for the year to 31 March 2014, and yet has been subject to an investigation by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and Care Quality Commission reports on the practice of “clipping” and possible non-compliance with national minimum wage legislation. One carer from the company told the BBC:
“I feel the pressure comes from the top to get as much money in, in as short a time as possible.”
The Committee might be interested to know—it is relevant to today’s discussion—that the chief executive of the company has just been awarded a peerage by the Conservatives. Extraordinarily, when I called the now Baroness McGregor-Smith before her ennoblement to ask her whether she was investigating the claims, what the status of the HMRC investigation was, and what the views of her company and others were about enforcing national minimum wage legislation, she blamed Government regulation and local authorities, and then, I was astonished to hear her accuse me of being “anti-corporate” for asking those questions.
Given the importance and interest in this particular case across the House and country, will the Minister tell me what the status is of the HMRC investigation into Mitie and MiHomecare? If he does not have the information today, will he write to me? Most importantly, is he willing to commit extra resources to the investigation of sectors where the most allegations are currently being made of non-compliance with national minimum wage legislation to ensure that this statutory instrument is implemented in full? I am thinking in particular of sectors such as care, agriculture and retail. Will he also assure me that he does not share the attitude of his fellow Minister or his new peer that scrutinising the implementation of this legislation is either the politics of envy or anti-corporate?
If the Government want to get serious about ensuring that this legislation is more than good intentions, they need much to take tougher measures. As well as proposed tougher penalties, there needs to be robust support and back-up for investigations, the proactive investigation of certain sectors—including, but not limited to those I have mentioned already—and more support for employees, particularly those in smaller workplaces, to blow the whistle on unscrupulous employers. There must also be a constant focus on the situation facing low-paid women, who still experience a gender pay gap that should shame this country, decades since the passage of equal pay legislation and despite the floor provided by the national minimum wage and these regulations. We will support the measure today, but the Government need more than rhetoric to help the millions struggling across this country to get by on low pay.
Nick Boles
Mr Gapes, I hope you will recall that I made a point of giving credit to the last Labour Government for introducing the national minimum wage. It was a good idea, a good policy, and Conservative Members make no apologies for agreeing that we were wrong about the national minimum wage. Labour was right, and that is why we have adopted and supported it, and why we are this year introducing the largest increase since the last Labour Government. It is also why we are going further by introducing a national living wage that will benefit even more people over the age of 25. Therefore, it might have been perhaps brotherly if the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth had responded by acknowledging that we have adopted the national minimum wage, and not just that, but that we have dramatically increased the enforcement efforts relative to those of the last Labour Government.
We have taken a budget, which in 2009-10, amounted to £8.3 million, and during a time of austerity, spending cuts and of an attempt by this Government to close the vast deficit opened up by the last Labour Government, we have expanded it, so that in 2015-16, it will be £13 million. That is a dramatic increase and one of the few budget lines in any budget to increase by that proportion. We have also introduced a naming and shaming scheme, which names individual directors and companies who fail to pay the minimum wage and are not able to provide us with any adequate explanation of why they have done so. It has had an enormous effect. Hon. Members should see the letters from people begging not to be named that come across my desk, and although we are the party of business, we are not the party of businesses that fail in their social responsibilities and moral duties, and we make no bones about doing that.
The hon. Gentleman focuses on prosecutions, which are perhaps a particular obsession of his. I do not know whether he was once a criminal barrister, but he seems inclined towards thinking that prosecutions are the only way to enforce. My view is simply that we want to enforce as effectively as possible. Effective means getting the money that is owed to hard-working people back into their bank accounts as soon as possible and ensuring that employers pay the rates that they should be paying. Prosecutions have been few, but there were few prosecutions under the previous Labour Government after the national minimum wage was brought in. The reason for that—it is a good reason—is that, in most cases, prosecuting is not the best way of achieving the best outcome for the working person who has not be paid their due. It is in some cases, however, which is why we announced last week a new specialist enforcement team at HMRC specifically to focus on prosecutions, which will rightly continue to remain rare because we are trying to achieve results and not just to be able to wave around prosecutions statistics.
The hon. Gentleman asked a reasonable question about the increase in the accommodation offset, and he is right to point out that it is a larger percentage than the proposed increase in the statutory minimum wage. I simply say that we are following the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation on that, as we are on the adult rate for the national minimum wage, but it can certainly be argued—the hon. Gentleman made the point well—that the increase in the national minimum wage will feel rather less generous for some people than for those who are not affected by the accommodation offset. As has been the precedent, we have tried to stick to the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations in almost every respect, except on the apprenticeship minimum wage.
Stephen Doughty
I appreciate what the Minister is saying. Given that the discrepancy could grow over time, is any kind of review likely? I accept what he says about following the LPC’s recommendations, but the issue could grow as time goes on.
Nick Boles
I would not want to promise formal reviews, but I am happy to say that, in preparing our submission to the Low Pay Commission for next year, I will ensure that we address the discrepancy in the increases. We will ultimately take the advice of the LPC on whether it is reasonable.
The hon. Gentleman made an important point about a particular company, but I do not want to discuss that here and I have no further information about the processes. I am happy to write to him with any information that I can give, although he will understand that that is sometimes limited. He is right to discuss a particular part of the social care sector, where the overwhelming majority of employers discharge their responsibilities fully. As constituency MPs, however, we are all aware of cases in which that does not take place or where the imposition of travel costs on people who are on the national minimum wage is not entirely lawful. Before the summer, I had a meeting with the Care Minister to discuss the matter, at which we are looking closely. Through the naming and shaming scheme, we are able to highlight a particular sector and to bring problems to the fore in order, hopefully, to remind others in that sector of their responsibilities. We are definitely looking at that. I do not want to imply that there are problems in the sector overall, but the hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that such cases exist and we need to root them out, just as we need to do in every other sector.
Question put and agreed to.
Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
First, I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice, the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) to her place and look forward to hearing from her shortly.
It has been an excellent debate today and we have heard many thoughtful and passionate contributions, on which I will reflect shortly, but I begin by paying tribute to all those in the House and in our country more broadly who have fought for gender justice, equality and equal pay. I refer to the former Member for Blackburn, Barbara Castle, whom I was privileged to meet a number of times—in fact, I wrote my first political letter to her when I was eight or nine years old—and to those who have campaigned in recent years on pay transparency, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), and many others.
We have heard some shocking statistics today that show us just how far we have to go 45 years after the Equal Pay Act: the 81p on average that women earn for every male £1, the disparity in the proportion of women who study the law yet do not end up as judges and the 68% fall in the number of equal pay claims since the introduction of the new tribunal fees. Given that we are at the start of Wimbledon, which has had its own equal pay concerns over many years, and the fantastic football match that we are all expecting this evening—I wish my very best to the women’s England football team—we have heard from many hon. Members about the disparity in sport. We heard a number of such contributions just a few moments ago. It is a sad fact, as a recent BBC study showed, that men get more prize money than women in 30% of sports—the disparity could not be shown more starkly.
I want to turn to some of the excellent speeches that we have heard today, including a number of excellent maiden speeches. First, the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), was clearly passionate about and committed to these issues. There seemed to be a dispute about the statistics on Scotland. They are from the Office for National Statistics and show that the gender pay gap in Scotland has grown from 17.2% in 2011 to 17.4% to 2014. We all need to do a lot better, whatever part of the United Kingdom we are from, and we all need to take a good look at ourselves given that we have so much progress to make 45 years on from the Equal Pay Act.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who is not in her place but is the new Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, spoke of the irony of girls outperforming boys for many years and said that, effectively, we were selling the country short, as she put it, by not using their talents, and I could not agree more.
We heard a very passionate speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the gender pay gap last year. She quite rightly asked why companies are scared to make pay information more readily available. That is the question we all ought to ask. She powerfully said that equality is not a women’s issue; it is an issue for society and we must do much better.
The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) made an excellent maiden speech, which I found particularly interesting as my family is historically linked to her constituency. She was the first of three hon. Members who spoke today who are the first female Members of Parliament for their constituencies. She spoke powerfully about Magna Carta’s link to her constituency. I was proud to join her recently on the armed forces parliamentary scheme—another area of our society where the progress of women has been slower than we would have liked. Progress is now being made, and it will be great to work with her on that scheme in the months ahead.
We had another maiden speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who spoke about the position of women in his constituency, particularly the justice for cleaners campaign, and the fight against inequality in his career and his family experience before coming to this place. Like him, I am only the third MP from my constituency since world war two to have made a maiden speech. I look forward to going to Borough market again shortly; I very much like the coffee there, as well as the many other delights that are on offer.
We heard an excellent speech from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), who spoke about his three daughters, but also, powerfully, from his legal experience—the challenges for women in the legal profession. The tone of the debate has been that we need to unite as a House around the issue and perhaps not look for some of the semantic differences, which I shall come to.
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston, who is an experienced advocate on these issues, proudly spoke about our party’s record and the pressure we applied during consideration of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill—I was a member of the Committee—on the issue of transparency. She also spoke powerfully about the perception of jobs and gender stereotypes, on which a number of hon. Members touched.
The hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), who is also the first female MP for that constituency, spoke authoritatively, and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) spoke powerfully about the potential need for a new Act. She said that the 1970 Act simply has not stood the test of time and that we cannot have reactive legislation, especially in the context of fees and the changes in tribunal law. That needs to be considered holistically: as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) said, we cannot deny people access to justice on this crucial issue through the imposition of those fees. She also powerfully said that women might have left the kitchen, but many have not gone very far. That is a stark reminder to us all.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) spoke about the four strong women who now represent constituencies around Portsmouth harbour. She spoke passionately about the prospects of women in her constituency and, like the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds, has joined the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I know she will do her best to speak up for the role of women in the armed forces.
The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) made an excellent maiden speech. Clearly, he is incredibly passionate about the people and the industrial history of his constituency. There are many links between my constituency and the Clyde’s industries, and I share the inspiration he has taken from the Apollo programme.
The hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) spoke strongly from her experience as a woman in business. Again, she is the first female Member of Parliament for her constituency. That is a significant reflection of how things are starting to change in this Chamber, although, as we have all said, that has not gone far enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) essentially asked us the question, “How long do we have to wait?” We have had 45 years since the Equal Pay Act, so how long will it be before we close the gender pay gap? The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) asked the good question, “Is there a different dynamic in the debate today?” That is an important point to raise, and one that I note.
It is also important that men have spoken up in the debate. I am proud to be speaking today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, this is not a women’s issue; it is an issue for all society and all Members of the House.
The hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) made an excellent maiden speech and spoke warmly of his illustrious predecessors, whether it was Campbell-Bannerman or my former friend in this place, Anne McGuire, who did such an incredible job championing the cause of equality for disabled people. The hon. Gentleman also spoke passionately about his history and the history of his constituency.
We heard a strong speech, which perhaps struck a more discordant tone, from the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), but he took it in his stride. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) followed up with an excellent speech, made from her experience as a director of a major company, in which she highlighted the situation of part-time workers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke honestly about her own marital pay gap and, importantly, about the recent history of the gender pay gap in Birmingham. She challenged us all, quite rightly, about our commitment to feminism and standing up for equalities in this place. I will certainly join her later and declare that I am a feminist, whether in this place or in the bar.
We also heard powerful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees), who was an advocate for women in sport before coming to this place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who spoke about the widening gender pay gap in local government since 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) rightly highlighted the fact that progress is slowing down, which should ring alarm bells with us all and which is disappointing, given the progress we have seen in recent years.
I do not disagree with the Secretary of State that the causes of the gender pay gap are complex. That is all the more reason why we need the comprehensive report that we call for in the motion to identify the key trends and what we might do about them, particularly as the welcome progress that was made has slowed. Given the common ground and the support that has been expressed on all sides for the principles of the motion, I implore the right hon. Lady not to let semantics get in the way of allowing the motion to pass. She commented on the technicality of the use of the term “equal pay” in the motion and in the law, as opposed to the term “gender pay gap”, but I gently remind her that she has used the terms interchangeably herself, most recently in an article in The Guardian in November last year, when she stressed the importance of equal pay day which, as we all know, is the day in the year when women start working for free compared with men—a shocking indictment.
Although the terms may be used interchangeably in the motion, they expose the same injustice to women across the country which, for many and diverse reasons, still blights our economy and society. The facts are clear. It is 45 years since the Equal Pay Act, yet women still earn on average 81p for every pound earned by men. The average woman will lose more than £200,000 in the course of her working life as a result of the gender pay gap. Women’s wages fell by around £30 a year last year before inflation. The pay gap exists not only in low-wage jobs—we heard much about that today—but across the board, especially at higher levels of management. We have seen a shocking fall in the number of equal pay claims.
The gender pay gap is not only morally wrong and an affront to our sense of equality in this House and in the country, but bad for our economy. If women were paid the same as men across the board, our GDP, on one projection, would be up by 13%. There is also an impact on parents and families. The unequal pay challenge means that parental leave will always be seen as primarily for women, even when men want to be with their children, because of the cost of raising children, even with a partner. We need to recognise the moral and economic costs and the costs for families.
I cannot participate in the daughters race as I do not have any daughters, but I have three goddaughters and I want them to have the same opportunities and chances in life as my godsons. As a man I am honoured to wind up the debate today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, this is an issue for all of us, so we need to get on and deal with it. Let us have the transparency, assess the data properly, remove the barriers to justice from tribunal fees, take action on childcare, education, elderly care, low wages and representation in board rooms, and let us get equal. I commend the motion to the House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for securing this important debate on equal pay and the gender pay gap. It has been a fantastic debate and we have had some excellent contributions from across the House and some outstanding maiden speeches. I have listened with great interest to all the points that were made. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield and the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for their kind words of welcome.
We all know that equal pay and the gender pay gap are entirely different but equally important. Discrimination is, sadly, just one of a number of factors behind the gender pay gap. Even if there was never a single incident in which a woman was paid less than a man for the same job, there would still be a gender pay gap. That is why this debate is so important, as it gives me the chance to remind the House how much progress we have made, and how this Government strive to continue to tackle all the causes of disparity between what men and women earn.
Hon. Members asked lots of questions in the debate today and made many specific points. The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said that she regretted that a debate on this subject was needed in this day and age—a sentiment we all share across the House.
I am proud that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who will be the first Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, was able to speak today. She speaks with great power and authority on these matters. She said that every woman has the right to a job that does not marginalise them because of their gender or penalise them because they have caring responsibilities, which I think we can all unite behind. She also mentioned the importance of flexible skilled working and asked about the progress on collecting data. The recent extension of the right to request flexible working means that more than 20 million employees will now have that right. We know that total requests just before the extension were running at about 182,000 a year, with about 144,000 agreed to. We will of course be monitoring the post-extension data.
The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who has long been a great champion of this important issue, spoke about the importance of tackling the pay gap nationally and internationally. She also talked about the devastating impact that violence against women and girls can have, both at home and overseas, on their ability to reach their full potential, both in the workplace and in the rest of their lives.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) made a fantastic maiden speech, taking us on a sumptuous and spellbinding tour of the places and people of her constituency. Her remarkable life and business experience made quite an impression and, I think, will make her not only an excellent champion for her corner of Suffolk, but a first-class addition to the House.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) spoke generously about his predecessor, who incidentally is also my predecessor in the Ministry of Justice. He spoke with enormous knowledge about his constituency and made all our mouths water as he talked about the delights of Borough market and the plethora of breweries and gin distilleries in his patch. Indeed, he might need his predecessor’s taxi to get us all home.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) spoke with experience about the economic benefits of flexible working and highlighted the importance of data collection, echoing what many business people have said: what gets measured gets managed, and what gets published gets managed even better.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) rightly pointed out that we need to tackle the jobs that are deemed to be either men’s jobs or women’s jobs. We need to get rid of that myth from our everyday parlance and everyday thinking. Unfortunately, she also felt the need, along with the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), to criticise the coalition Government for being slow to move away from a voluntary reporting system. She should remember that, contrary to what has been said, the previous Labour Government had no plans to move forward with section 78 of the Equality Act 2010; they proposed three years of voluntary compliance first, although I completely understand why the Labour party might want to erase parts of its more recent political history.
My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) represents one of the 20 or so seats where there is actually a positive gender pay gap. We should certainly be hotfooting it to the streets of Derby to find out how they are making such magnificent progress.
The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who is no longer here—[Interruption.] Oh, she is here but has moved, just to try to fool me on my first day out of the blocks. I welcome her contribution. She always speaks with enormous knowledge and conviction on this subject. She led a Westminster Hall debate in March in which she called for a new equal pay Act, and now she is proposing a new equality Act. We expect shortly to publish a post-legislative scrutiny memorandum on the 2010 Act as a Command Paper, and we now have the Women and Equalities Committee to receive it. It strikes me that the Committee, ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, might wish to consider the important issues that the hon. Lady raised in relation to the need for a new Act.
It was particularly great to hear from my hon. Friend and neighbour, the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), who rightly pointed out the importance of encouraging girls to fill the skilled engineering and defence jobs that our neck of the woods, with such a proud Navy heritage, always demands. She makes it 100% female representation for the Portsmouth harbour area, and that is to be celebrated.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on an educational and enlightening maiden speech that brought his constituency to life as the birthplace of James Watt, with a remarkable geography, and highlighted his long history of winning elections for the SNP.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) spoke about the success of women in SMEs, not least in her constituency, which has an award-winning bull semen business—the mind boggles. That reminds me that if women were starting businesses at the same rate as men, we would have 1 million more small businesses in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) highlighted the importance of the role of men in addressing this issue and how powerful they can be as agents of change.
The hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) made an excellent maiden speech giving a brief summary of his area’s history and making an early pitch for Stirling castle as an alternative location should we ever have to leave this building; I hope everybody has noted that.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) spoke with his trademark eloquence about girls’ educational dominance and rightly urged us not to forget their male peers who sometimes get left behind. He highlighted the impact of motherhood on women’s ability to fulfil their career ambitions and abilities.
The hon. Members for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and for Neath (Christina Rees) made a series of powerful, passionate and engaging speeches that underlined the importance of tackling this issue for a whole host of reasons. I note carefully what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said about the travails of Birmingham City Council in the face of equal pay claims, although I find it hard to square that evidence with the statements made by others in her party that equal pay law is ineffective and should be replaced.
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) spoke about the local government pay gap, as did the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn). The Government do not seek to set pay rates for local government, as all local authorities are covered by the public sector equality duty, which requires them to have due regard to equality considerations in carrying out their functions, including decisions about their own workplaces. The hon. Member for Cambridge asked whether bonuses will be covered in the regulations. The great thing about the consultation is that it will explore exactly what should be published, how it should be published, and what more can be done to tackle this issue.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby asked how we will fund 30 hours of free childcare. We will talk to the childcare sector and conduct a review of funding for this entitlement. We must strike the right balance between being fair to providers and delivering value for money for the taxpayer. I would gently say to her that as a mother of two children that I put through childcare under the previous Government, when it was the most expensive in Europe, anything we can do to improve opportunities for parents in this regard is very important.
The good news is that there are more women in work than ever before, and we have one of the highest women’s employment rates in the EU, with 14.5 million women employed, 8.3 million of whom are working full time. It is encouraging to see that there are now no all-male FTSE 100 boards. We have strongly promoted and championed the work of the Women’s Business Council and implemented Lord Davies’s review of women on boards. As a result, women now make up 23% of FTSE 100 boards and 34% of managing directors and senior officials. Let us not forget that 20% of SMEs are now majority led by women—that is nearly 1 million small businesses.
Too many women have told us that they were unable to develop their careers due to lack of affordable childcare and limited flexibility in balancing work and family responsibilities. We have taken action to ensure that the workplace meets women’s needs and to give them a fair chance to get to the top by extending to all the right to request flexible working, introducing shared parental leave, and extending free childcare to 30 hours a week for working families with three and four-year-olds, with a tax-free childcare scheme that will save a working family up to £2,000 per child.
We need to break down the barriers that say that one sort of job is more suitable for women and another for men. That needs to start with our young people, which is why we are broadening the career aspirations for girls and young women by encouraging them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and maths through the “Your Life” campaign.
Many hon. Members have mentioned the great ladies from the Ford Motor Company in Dagenham—the spiritual home of the fight for equal pay—and I was there last week, seeing how they are inspiring the next generation of female engineers. Opening up those highly skilled and better paid careers ensures that women are less concentrated in sectors that offer narrower scope for reward and career progression.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke has said, we need to make sure that older women are supported to reach their full potential. We have built on the success of the older workers champion by rolling out a regional scheme across the country. We have also started a project with a £1.6 million pot, exploring how carers can be supported to remain in employment if they wish by using flexible working arrangements and improving technological access to information and resources.
Under this Government, the gender pay gap is the narrowest it has ever been, but at 19.1% we still have work to do. All parties agreed in the last Parliament that the way forward was to introduce section 78 of the Equality Act 2010, requiring mandatory pay reporting by employers with at least 250 employees. Our manifesto underlined our commitment to that. We are serious about reducing the gender pay gap further, and because we understand business we want to bring business with us as we do so. We are delivering that as a priority. In line with our commitments from the last Parliament, we will shortly launch a public consultation on gender pay reporting and introduce regulations in due course.
The Opposition’s motion mentions the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Low Pay Commission. Of course, we are already working closely with the EHRC on equal pay, and there is nothing to stop it, as an independent body, analysing pay gap information in any way it likes. The EHRC is already under a duty to monitor the effectiveness of the equality enactments, which include regulations made under section 78, and to give advice and recommendations to the Government about them. Therefore, the EHRC will already be under a under a duty to monitor the effectiveness of section 78. Given that the EHRC will already be under such a duty, and given that the only way it could be mandated would be by Parliament changing the Equality Act 2006, which sets out its functions and remits, the Opposition’s motion seems a little muddled. Where there is evidence of actual pay discrimination, we introduced legislation requiring employment tribunals to order the employer to complete an equal pay audit.
Caroline Dinenage
I have very little time left, so I am going to try to get to the end of my speech, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will give me time, I will offer a full explanation.
In conclusion, this Government are already strongly building on the record of the coalition, both in tackling the gender pay gap and, more widely, in promoting policies that will ensure that women can play their full part in our economic growth. I am proud to be a member of this Government—we are taking forward that work—and delighted to have this opportunity so early in the new Parliament to present our record to the House. However, we should never be complacent about equal pay and addressing the gender pay gap.
Sadly, although I share so much of the sentiment of the motion, all of its suggestions, apart from a formal laying of the annual document before Parliament, could already be done by the EHRC without any change to legislation or any instruction by Government, which we could not in any case give to an independent body. I therefore call upon the House to reject the motion as a muddled and unnecessary add-on to what this Government are already committed to taking very seriously.
Question put.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Doughty Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
As my right hon. Friend will know, this is a one nation Government. We want to make sure that, as the economic recovery continues, it includes every part of the UK, and that will of course include Wales. We are more than ready to talk to the Welsh Government. I have had a number of discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, who at this point is a lot more interested than the Welsh Government in economic development in Wales.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chancellor says that he supports modern industrial policy and the Prime Minister has said that he wants an active industrial policy, but, according to the Financial Times, the new Business Secretary has told officials in the Department that they should not talk about industrial policy. Now we hear him talking about an “approach”. Can he tell industries around the country whether he still has an industrial policy and, if so, what on earth it is?
Sajid Javid
I think I have already answered the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I am happy to repeat that answer. This Government will have an active dialogue with all industrial sectors. We will listen to their needs on skills, infrastructure and training, and work with them. That includes the sector councils. We will also make sure that we are open to new industries, to competition and to disruptive industries, and that we become the most open economy in the world.