Trade Union Bill (First sitting)

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Jessica Morden]

Q 45 Does that mean that you have consulted?

John Cridland: Yes. We have consulted on the Bill as a whole.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Q 46 It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. As a former Government lawyer, compliance is always of enormous interest to me. Do you feel—this is for all of you—that the enhancements to the role of certification officer are really sufficient and that they will make a difference?

John Cridland: We look to harmonious employee relations. It is very important to us that we work with recognised trade unions and that we work strenuously, as trade unions nearly always do, to avoid these strikes. If there are strikes, they need to be properly and fairly regulated. Compliance is therefore important. You cannot have rules that are not properly enforced. We think these are sensible provisions to strengthen the compliance requirements but I put my answer to your question, if you will allow me, in the context that I have because I think we all want to see these rules applied in the smallest possible number of circumstances.

Dr Adam Marshall: I have nothing to add given my answer to the previous question.

David Martin: Likewise, it is not a provision that I understand in full detail. I need to spend a lot more time to understand the implications of it, so I have nothing to add.

[Victoria Prentis]

Q 47 The CBI, I know, feels strongly about this, as you have indicated. Do you feel that anything further could be done?

John Cridland: No, I am comfortable with the provisions that I have read and consulted our members on.

[Dr Cameron]

Q 48 Is it reasonable that clause 13 would give a Minister the power to overrule agreements made by trade unions and employers about the appropriate amount of facility time? Are your members concerned that that could undermine partnership working in the workplace and lead to further disruption?

John Cridland: If I may answer that, it is certainly the case that facility time is best agreed between employers and trade unions. It is primarily an issue of concern in the public sector, not in the private sector. This is not a matter that the employers in the private sector that I speak for have strong views on.

David Martin: I would be quite adamant that I would not want to see it cut across the existing effective working relationships that have built between trade unions, employees and employers.

Dr Adam Marshall: We have a very small number of members whom this affects, so we do not have a mandate to come forward with comments on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Cameron]

Q 73 The Government are consulting on draft regulations that would repeal the restriction on providing agency staff during industrial disputes. What are your views on these proposed changes? Could they further undermine industrial relations?

Mike Emmott: Our view is that the consultation paper overstates the likely impact of removing the prohibition on employment agencies supplying workers on a temporary basis during industrial disputes. It is already possible for employers to recruit temporary labour without any difficulty, provided that they do it directly. For some of the reasons that emerged from the last witness session, we think that issues of training and safety, never mind the availability of qualified staff, will very considerably reduce the impact of this, which is the third of the consultation issues. It is likely to be pretty much a non-event, except possibly in some cases where employers—maybe large employers—have close relationships with agencies, and on a daily basis they take on quite a lot of temporary labour. It might be difficult to know whether or not particular workers were engaged in replacing workers who are on strike. But in general, we do not think that this particular part of the Bill is likely to have any major impact. I do not speak for recruitment agencies or recruitment businesses, but I think that many of them will be quite reluctant to get sucked into industrial disputes.

Stephen Cavalier: Indeed, the recruitment businesses’ own organisation, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, has said that this is a very dangerous proposal which it does not support. The Regulatory Policy Committee itself said that there was absolutely no basis for the Government’s assertion that 22% of days lost would be solved by this. Moreover, there are very good emergency arrangements in place to ensure that cover is provided in the public sector, certainly in the fire service and in midwifery. I am sure that people would much rather have those arrangements than agency workers brought in to put out fires or to deliver babies.

[Victoria Prentis]

Q 74 My questions really relate to the certification officer, which you present in your evidence as a sort of big bad wolf, and you seem very concerned about the prospect of the additional powers. I put it to you that really the prospect of having a certification officer is surely a sensible solution to difficulties with compliance, and an appropriate response to situations where non-compliance may have occurred. What strikes you as so outrageous about having to produce documents?

Stephen Cavalier: Well, first, the certification officer is not a big bad wolf, and his current iteration is doing a very good job. I would be very interested to hear from the Government what consultation there was with the certification officer about his own powers and his current arrangements, and whether he felt that his powers needed to be extended, and indeed what consultation there was with other agencies on the impacts of these powers. The purpose of the certification officer was to enable individual union members who felt that they were getting the wrong end of the stick from a collective issue to have a voice, which they would otherwise not have had. It is not about allowing outside agencies to influence the state regulator or to put pressure on the state regulator to initiate action. I cannot see how a state regulator can be impartial if they can be prevailed upon externally to take action. Also, if they were funded in the way that is suggested, that would completely alter the nature of the role.

[Victoria Prentis]

Q 75 But would you agree that the purpose is to establish whether or not there has been non-compliance?

Stephen Cavalier: Well, I am not sure that it is to establish whether there has been non-compliance. Non-compliance with what? At the moment if there is an issue to do with rules or statute, a member can complain to the certification officer. What is actually changing here is to take it beyond that and start, for example, requiring unions to report to the certification officer details of industrial action, which are really none of the certification officers’ concern. A certification officer is essentially there to deal with internal matters within unions to do with disputes and rights within unions, whereas here they are talking about the possibility of any person initiating a complaint with no written notice, and calling on unions immediately to produce documents and immediately to explain documents—it is difficult to see what the purpose of it is. It is very intrusive. This would certainly impact on unions’ own regulation and their democratic right to organise and be accountable, which is likely to call into question the European convention and ILO matters.

[Victoria Prentis]

Q 76 It is not unreasonable, though, to ask that the certification officer be able to have documents produced to him, is it?

Stephen Cavalier: Well, if there is a complaint made to the certification officer by an actual member about a real concern—

[Victoria Prentis]

Q 77 Forgive me, if the certification officer has a concern, he should surely—

Stephen Cavalier: The certification officer does not range around the country investigating trade unions and looking at what they are doing to find out whether he has a concern. Where are the concerns going to come from? At the moment, the certification officer is dealing with complaints that are made to him from legitimate concerns about individual union members or groups of members. If he thinks that that complaint has some grounds, he can deal with that, and in the course of that hearing, he is entitled to ask for documents and to have documents produced in the same way as an employment tribunal.

[Victoria Prentis]

Q 78 But you are not happy for him to self-generate concerns.

Stephen Cavalier: For example, were you suggesting that there should be a labour inspectorate that could decide whether it thought there were poor labour practices going on around the country and could call for employers to produce and explain documents, like a health and safety inspector can, that would be a very different situation. The proposal here completely alters the role of the certification officer from deciding on legitimate complaints to going out and fishing around to try to find issues. Where would the certification officer make these decisions? Why would they be making these decisions? The Law Society is very concerned about the complete change in this role and the fact that it fundamentally alters the nature of his role.

[Victoria Prentis]

I do not want to hog the time.

[The Chair]

No, do not hog it. I call Ian Mearns.