Trade Union Bill (Sixth sitting)

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman does that, I remind Members, in dealing with such amendments, that the mover wants to respond too, and that they will have the opportunity to have a more wide-ranging debate on matters that have been raised in the stand-part section of this consideration. I ask them to keep succinctly to the topic in hand, or we will not have time to deal with all the measures that concern us.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I am sorry to reduce the agricultural wages case to the level of Dr Seuss, but do you agree, Sir Alan, that within the agricultural wages case it was found, in principle, that although agriculture is a devolved matter—that matter was won by the Government—the wages aspect is not? It was because it was a mixed Bill that there was the result that there was. This is quite different. This is a Bill about industrial relations and trade unions. It is quite simple and obvious that this a reserved matter.

[Chris Stephens]

This has been an interesting debate about the group of amendments on the impacts on the devolved Administrations and other public bodies. It is interesting that some know better than others the effects that this will have on those bodies. I shall respond first to the shadow Minister’s gentle rebuke on the SNP’s amendments only applying to Scotland. He indicated that he respects our mandate on that and I agree with his point that the group of amendments seeks to enforce what has been referred to as the respect agenda. We hear from the UK Government that they respect the devolved Administrations and other public bodies, but with these amendments we want to ensure that that takes place.

Like the shadow Minister, the SNP opposes all of the Bill and will be voting for many of the amendments and against the clauses. We agree on his point about solidarity; we may have different approaches, but I assure him that we are in solidarity with all workers in the UK regarding the Bill, although there may be some differences in how we want to achieve that. I would go as far as to say that if the Bill were introduced in another nation state, we would oppose it and would be raising it in this Parliament, as we do with any abuses of workers’ rights across the world. There is no contradiction in supporting the consent amendments in this group and those that want to take workers out of it.

I turn to the hon. Member for Gateshead’s contribution about English workers having fewer rights. The general secretary of Unite, Len McCluskey, commented about that in his evidence, saying that that was one of the dangers that the Bill would introduce. The Minister seems to indicate that it is settled that employment law is reserved, but that is not the case. A new clause is being introduced to the Scotland Bill. I do not want to touch on the Scotland Bill too much, but a new clause is being inserted for debate, it will be put to the parliamentary test and the parliamentary verdict on that is yet to be given.

Nor have the Government taken into account the fact that Scotland has a different civil and criminal law and a different legal jurisdiction. That was also mentioned in the evidence from Thompsons Solicitors. Given that the Bill touches on criminalising certain behaviour, more consultation with the devolved Administrations is required. I certainly take the view that a legislative consent motion is needed, as is consent across the board in the public services.

The Minister asked me to write to him in relation to the costs to the public sector in terms of individual contracts. I wrote to his colleague in the Cabinet Office on this, and I am still waiting for a response. My concern is that some of the Bill relates to the agenda of the TaxPayers Alliance, which I believe is based on ignorance of the issues. It does not even take into consideration the fact that public services actually gain income from facility time and, indeed, from check-off. That is being ignored. It is very dangerous indeed to interfere with the collective bargaining units that exist across the UK, which is what the Bill seems to do.

Our view of the Bill is that it is ideologically driven. The Government seem to want to implement their ideology in all parts of the UK, even those where they have no mandate, and on that basis we intend to press amendment 90 to a Division. We will also want to press amendments 84 and 85 when we reach the relevant clauses.

Question put, That the amendment be made.