Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

That is a good question. The Government have a policy initiative of taking out two regulations for every one brought in. Will the Minister say which regulatory burden she will be removing from the trade union movement, given the regulations that she has just put on the statute book? The Government have wholeheartedly refused to deal with zero-hours contracts, blacklisting, payday loans and the high cost of credit, but they are unnecessarily piling regulations on to the trade unions.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Is not my hon. Friend’s point the fact that the Government do not want to regulate people such as Lynton Crosby, yet do want to punish trade unions, whose only sin is to represent the ordinary working person? The only things they have ever campaigned for are people’s right to work, the ending of zero-hours contracts, decent pay and conditions, and decent standards. They are being hit, yet all the rich lobbyists such as Lynton Crosby are allowed to get off scot free.

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[Ian Murray]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. No general secretary of a trade union, whether it is affiliated to the Labour party or not, would take strike action on the basis of a 51:49% vote of its membership. It would also be concerned about the legality of its membership list if any of it was found to be inaccurate, but the point is that legislation on the accuracy of membership lists already exists. It is in the union’s best interests—this has nothing to do with strike action—to have and maintain accurate membership lists, because it wants to communicate with its members, and it is also in the members’ interests to ensure that the unions have accurate details.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill was supposed to deal with moneys being exchanged so that people could pursue personal agendas to, in effect, line their pockets? We have heard about lobbying scandals, but the Bill was never intended to cover trade union members who write to their local MPs to say, “I don’t agree with zero-hours contracts,” or, “My pay is absolutely rubbish; could you please fight for my pay and my terms and conditions?” That is not what the Bill was meant to be designed for, yet it is being used as a weapon to hit the ordinary working person.

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[Ian Murray]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend intervened, because it allowed me to look at the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Huntingdon cannot draft his own amendments and would like a crash course from me, given that he received a £21,406 donation from a legal firm only a few years ago. Perhaps it is lobbying him about the Bill. Perhaps he would like to stand up and correct the record.

I forget where we were, but I will go back to discussing amendment 103 and consequential amendment 121. Amendment 103 would prevent vexatious claims. The Lib Dem Minister should think about that carefully. The principle behind introducing the draconian fee of £1,250 for people who want to seek justice through an employment tribunal was that it would prevent vexatious claims. A Bill that deals with trade union membership lists should therefore deal with the fact that vexatious claims might be made to the certification officer. The amendment would resolve that by giving the certification officer the power to consider whether vexatious claims had been made.

Secondly, the amendment would prevent third parties from submitting unwarranted queries. Interestingly, third party submissions are mentioned in the consultation but not in the Bill. I wonder whether the Minister could address that point when she comes to the Dispatch Box. The amendment would reduce unnecessary costs for trade unions. The Government parties tend to forget that any additional costs for trade unions from draconian legislation—there is no evidence for the Bill and it does not resolve any identifiable problem—is merely pushed on to the 7.2 million members, whose membership fees are then increased.. Any additional costs hit ordinary workers who are already engulfed by the Government’s cost-of-living crisis.

The amendment would give the certification officer a mechanism to take complaints—he must ensure that they are verified as competent and of a sufficiently serious nature to warrant the commencement of the complicated process.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Does that measure not confirm to the country at large that the Government are not bothered about the ordinary person’s living standards, and that the only people they are concerned about are the rich and powerful?

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend makes the point for me, but it is true that the 7.2 million trade union members will be worse off as a result of the measure, because the burden of any significant additional costs on trade unions from duplicate legislation—they already conform through the Data Protection Act and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992—will be passed on to the membership in the form of membership fees.

I therefore ask the Minister to answer a number of questions on this group of amendments. Has the certification officer asked for the additional powers? Has the certification officer approached the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to say that those powers are necessary, and that he would like the Government to legislate to ensure they are introduced? Has DBIS consulted the certification office, trade unions and other relevant organisations on whether the powers are required and, if so, why? Have there been meetings between certification office and DBIS officials on the subject at which anyone described a need for a problem to be resolved? Have the Government considered the two-out, one-in regulation policy, or demonstrated what measures will be removed to alleviate the burden of regulation on trade unions? Lastly, will the Minister give the certification officer additional resources to deal with the problem? If the answer is yes, there will also be an onus on trade unions to find additional resources.

Amendment 106, on additional resources, is fairly standard and self-explanatory. The new bureaucratic process will be costly for trade unions, and those costs will ultimately be passed on to the trade union membership. At a time when we should do all we can to encourage a healthy trade union membership in the UK, we must not put the burden of this ideologically driven policy on to those hard-working members. Under the amendment, a charge to cover the costs of production can be levied. There is a reasonable charge for accessing Companies House information on companies—the hon. Member for Huntingdon is interested in those regulations. That principle should be continued in the Bill. I believe the charge is £1 or £2 to access basic information from Companies House. The amendment would make the Bill consistent with section 30(6) of the 1992 Act—this has been discussed at great length by my hon. Friends—which states:

“Where a member who makes a request for access to a union’s accounting records is informed by the union, before any arrangements are made in pursuance of the request…(a)…of the union’s intention to charge for allowing him to inspect the records to which the request relates, for allowing him to take copies of, or extracts from, those records or for supplying any such copies, and…(b)…of the principles in accordance with which its charges will be determined…then, where the union complies with the request, he is liable to pay the union on demand such amount, not exceeding the reasonable administrative expenses incurred by the union in complying with the request, as is determined in accordance with those principles.”

Clause 36 is barely consistent with the 1992 Act. The amendment is a way of resolving that and other inconsistencies.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House said:

“It is a Bill that the Government should be ashamed of. It is incompetent. It is rushed. It has been developed in a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister and his deputy, but with no other consultation. It is a sop to vested interests, an illiberal attack on democratic debate and involvement, and a cheap, partisan and cynical misuse of the legislative process for the Government’s own ends.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 199.]

The Bill is a partisan attack. Clause 36 and the rest of part 3 of the Bill are completely and utterly unnecessary. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister forget that the people they attack are the people who deliver the mail, serve in the shops, teach our children, care for the sick, look after the elderly, clean our streets, assemble our cars and build our bridges. They deserve better than to be subjected to another piece of the Tory ideological jigsaw.

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[Mr Djanogly]

I declare any interests I have in the debate arising from my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Essentially, the question on amendment 103 is whether we tweak the existing system for an automatic annual union membership auditing and inspection regime, or, as Labour wants, we tweak the system in much the same way as the Government propose but so that it comes into play only if a complaint is made under the existing rules. I support the part 3 and clause 36 proposals to aid the verification of union membership. The question is how far the measures should go. On listening to Opposition Members on Second Reading, one might have thought that part 3 constituted a massive attack on union rights, or at least a vehicle for what the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Leader of the House, has called “cheap” and “partisan” attacks.

The Bill is nothing of the kind, as is immediately apparent when one looks through the Opposition amendments. Their proposals are mainly low-key and technical, and not political. Admittedly, taken in the round, the Labour amendments could be seen as obstructive amendments that seek either to stymie the role of the certification officer or at least to keep him in his existing box, which is why they should be opposed.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that, when the Prime Minister said that the next big scandal to break out in British politics would be lobbying—all hon. Members agreed with him—the Bill was what he envisaged? With all the problems and challenges the country has, does the hon. Gentleman believe that this little Bill is necessary?

[Mr Djanogly]

I will come to the hon. Lady’s point— I might agree to an extent with some of what she says.

Let us put the measures in context. An emergency motion on the Bill, which was moved by Unison at the TUC conference, has called for an investigation of a policy of non-co-operation with the Bill. Considering the Opposition amendments, that is way over the top, particularly in relation to the part 3 proposals.

On the other hand, despite the Labour smokescreen, the part 3 provisions are something of a missed opportunity to reform the certification officer role, which has long been in need of reform. The key point is that the certification officer is not a true regulator of unions, as it should be. Rather, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) has said, it is like Companies House. It checks that filings are made, but does not look at what is contained in those filings. There is a limited power of investigation, but only in relation to administrative matters.

Therefore, when I look somewhat more charitably at amendment 103, I note that it gives us the chance to debate what the underlying role of the certification officer should be, and to ask what is the purpose of the records kept by unions. Given the surprising reticence of the Government to set out their answers in much detail to date, the amendment serves a useful purpose.

The clause 36 provisions effectively retain the status quo—that originally created via the Trade Union Act 1984 and replicated in the 1992 Act. One has to look only at the obscure clause numbering in the Bill—it proposes new sections 24ZA to 24ZK—to realise that it is high time properly to review the legislation and, in effect, to start from scratch.

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[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), like others, will be aware from when he did his law degree—as I am from when I did mine—that there are three golden principles running through our judicial system that come into play when judges interpret legislation. The first is the mischief rule, which asks what mischief the law was introduced to deal with; the second is the golden rule, which means generously interpreting a piece of legislation; and the third is the literal rule, which means interpreting it literally. That is where I would like to start with the amendment and these provisions.

I hope you will forgive me, Sir Edward, if I digress a little—I will not take up too much time—but we were told that the reason for introducing a lobbying Bill was that there was a significant problem with lobbying in this country. Everyone was talking about the next scandal being lobbying, but we were in fact talking about, for example, somebody being paid—a Member of Parliament, say, or somebody else—to ask questions that are not within the rules. We were also talking about people who have access to Ministers and are able to campaign and lobby for private companies—for example, Lynton Crosby and people like that. What we were talking about was money changing hands and others not knowing what was happening. That was what was meant by the scandalous part of lobbying. As a Member of Parliament, I should not be asking questions in the House or raising issues because somebody is sponsoring me or giving me money to line someone else’s pockets, make a company richer or help it to secure a contract that it should perhaps not have.

“Lobbying” refers to those types of situation; sadly, this Bill does not really deal with any of them. Part 1, which deals with consultant lobbyists, catches only about 1% of those concerned—it would not catch people like Lynton Crosby. Part 2 deals with charities and voluntary organisations. If somebody from a cancer charity comes to speak to me about—

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. The hon. Lady is introducing her speech. I give a certain latitude, but I know that, as a skilful Member, she will soon get on to audit certification.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will move on swiftly, Sir Edward.

Let me return to the trade union aspect. The provisions in this Bill have been designed just to cause more bureaucratic headaches for trade unions. All they mean is that trade unions will have to spend more of their members’ money—let us remember that these are the 7.2 million ordinary working people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) pointed out, who are members of trade unions and pay their subs. The Bill would mean that trade unions had to spend more money on trying to comply with the system. Surely that cannot be right. Trying to put that provision in legislation dealing with lobbying as a whole is completely wrong. It is unfair. What is the mischief that the Government are trying to deal with? The mischief is big money and corporate enterprises, yet this Bill does nothing to address such lobbying. All it does is impose a financial burden on unions that rely solely on subs from their members.

The Government are often accused of being out of touch and only looking after the rich and powerful. Surely it is about time they sent out the message that actually they do care about the ordinary person and are perturbed that their living standards and wages are going down. The Prime Minister was not willing to acknowledge those issues at Prime Minister’s questions. The issue of living conditions was put to him time and again, and he was asked about the living wage, yet he refused to answer or to acknowledge the fact that people’s living standards have gone down. We are talking about the same people who have to pay their trade union subs out of their own pay packets. And before anyone says, “Why are they giving the trade unions their hard-earned money?”, I will tell them the reason. In the workplace, the only person a worker can rely on if things get hard is their trade union representative.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

Having left school at 15 and been a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, before going on to found two businesses, I can tell the hon. Lady that small businesses always need to look after their employees, because they rely on them so heavily. If a business gets a good employee, it needs to keep hold of them, so there is a lot more care in the workplace than she is suggesting. Would she accept that?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I accept that there are many responsible employers, small as well as large, but the hon. Gentleman will know that many are not responsible. He must also know that there are workplace situations where people have problems, and we cannot take away from that. For most people, the reason they give their hard-earned money to the trade union movement—it is not compulsory: nobody in the workplace has to be a member if they do not want to—is that if there is a problem in the workplace, they will have someone to go to. We know from our country’s history that, over the years, issues of sex discrimination, equality legislation, and health and safety have often been dealt with by members going to their trade unions.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is coming to the nub of some of the concerns about the provisions we are debating. Some of the information now being sought is sensitive, personal information, and in some of the workplace situations that she is describing, there is a concern—perceived or, in some cases, actual—about people being victimised because of their association with trade unions or, worse still, blacklisted.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I completely agree with what my hon. Friend says about blacklisting and intimidation.

When people have a problem, they go to their trade union because that is the only body in the workplace that can assist them. Let us remember some of the issues that the trade unions have been arguing for over the years. Conservative Members constantly heap abuse on the unions—they talk about Unite and the other unions—but let me remind the Committee of some of the things the unions have campaigned for throughout their history.

The trade unions campaigned for proper wages. What is wrong with that? What is criminal or immoral about that? When the industrial revolution started, wage levels were very low, given the work that people had to do. Wages have gone up over the years, but even now it is impossible for most people to survive on the minimum wage. The unions are therefore campaigning for a living wage. What is wrong with that? I am proud of the Labour party’s links with the trade unions, and of the fact that we are actively involved with them. At the end of the day, trade unions represent ordinary working people. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South said earlier, these are the people who cook and serve the food, who work in shops and who clean our streets, our offices and our toilets. They do the worst possible jobs. They also work in the NHS and the education system.

[Mr McKenzie]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason for including clause 36 in the Bill is completely transparent? It is clear from the contributions from those on the Government Benches that its purpose is to use up union resources, union time and union funds. It is a veiled attack on the trade unions.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

[The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady replies to that point, may I suggest that she will want to return to the subject of audit certification?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will come to that, Sir Edward. The need for certification will cause financial harm to the unions, and we do not need it. It will not deal with the mischief that the legislation on lobbying was supposed to address. All it will do is impose an unfair financial burden on the trade unions, which rely on the subscriptions of ordinary members.

Derisory comments are constantly being made about the trade unions, but it is important to remind ourselves what they are arguing for. I get letters from unions lobbying me. For example, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers contacted me when there was talk of Sunday working during the Olympics. I also get letters from trade unions about pension rights, maternity rights, the minimum wage, health and safety, living conditions and better terms and conditions. What is there to be ashamed of about those things? What is wrong with a body arguing for those things?

Why are Conservative Members always having a go at the unions? They make it sound as though the unions are some kind of sinister organisations, but they are not. They are full of ordinary working people, and they have always fought for working people’s rights. The Conservatives should be championing the trade unions, rather than making derisory remarks about them and insulting them in the Chamber. This legislation is a clear example of their vindictive attitude towards the trade unions. The unions do not have a lot of money in the first place, but what they have will now be wasted on this unnecessary bureaucratic burden. The obligation that the Government are proposing will not deal with the mischief that the lobbying Bill is trying to deal with. That mischief relates to big business, to sinister deals and to cash being passed in underhand ways. That is what we are trying to deal with, but the Bill categorically fails on every single level.

This last part of the Bill illustrates the Government’s pure vindictiveness, and it has no purpose. We should all reject it. All Members of Parliament should vote against this Bill, and particularly against part 3. If Members really care about working people, as they all say they do, they should not allow this additional and unnecessary burden to be imposed on the trade unions. It will not deal with the mischief that the Bill was supposed to address.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the impassioned speech of the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), although I must point out that no one has a monopoly on caring about working people. I shall confine my remarks to clause 36.

I have discovered over the past three days that I am probably one of the most optimistic Members of the House, because I believe that the purposes of the Bill are very different from those suggested in some of the narratives that we have been hearing. Clause 36 introduces a clear duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I note with interest that if a union has fewer than 10,000 members, it can self-certify. Only unions with more than that number will need to certify.

I appreciate that there has been a certain amount of jolliness in the Chamber—

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[Stephen McPartland]

I am delighted that hon. Members believe that everything I have said is already covered by various Acts. I am even more pleased that they are not objecting to what I have said.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the ’80s, but there has been a great deal of trade union law since that time that deals with all the issues that he has raised. He should take it from me that the particular provision we are debating does not deal with any of the matters with which he was concerned; as I say, the laws governing that already exist.

[Stephen McPartland]

I am delighted to hear that hon. Members believe that the issues I am raising have already been dealt with. That is fantastic news. However, if those issues are already dealt with, I see no reason for people to be arguing that there is no reason for this part of the Bill; I see no reason to be against it. There seems to be a lot of anger being expressed.

Not all Government Members have an issue with trade unions or trade unionists. Whenever anybody mentions the words “trade union”, it seems as if we have to have an ideological argument between the two sides of the House. I do not agree with that. We should look at the facts, and the facts relating to clause 36 are very simple: there is a duty to provide a membership audit certificate if a union has more than 10,000 members; otherwise people can self-certify.

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[John Healey]

Indeed so, Sir Edward.

As a former member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the steps, linked to the clause, that any union needs to take before contemplating industrial action are already highly complex. They are legally specified, and they set a number of very high hurdles for any group of trade union members who wish to consider industrial action. As for his general point, it is often the determination of union members to take industrial action if necessary, and as a last resort, that causes employers to see sense, negotiate properly and, in many cases, solve the problems at hand.

Let me sum up the position. The number of days lost to strike action is at a near all-time low. Industrial action is always a last resort. The series of legislative steps that any group of trade union members must take before engaging in lawful industrial action are already highly complex, lengthy and tightly specified in law, but clause 36 will make that specification much tighter, and will make it much more difficult for unions to take such action. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) pointed out, there is no legal right to strike in this country, and any industrial action lays a trade union open to being sued for inducing and encouraging members to breach their employment contracts. It is only the immunity from being sued, which comes from following all the steps specified in existing legislation, that will be made more difficult by the provisions in clause 36.

Too often in recent years, employers—not just large employers such as Balfour Beatty, Serco and London Midland—instead of dealing with the grievance at hand, and instead of consulting, negotiating and discussing the problems that they face with their own employees and dealing with the dispute, have looked for legal ground to try to prevent any industrial action through the law courts. The duty in clause 36 to provide the membership audits and certificates, and the potential investigations on the back of any complaints under the auspices of the certification officer, are likely to make it much easier for employers to find legal grounds and to take legal action to prevent union members from taking proper, legitimate industrial action. Clause 36 will create a mountain of data and paperwork which will be at the fingertips of employers well in advance of any particular risk of industrial action or dispute.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Is that not exactly what the Government intend, so that, apart from causing financial difficulties, this Bill can be used by employers to hit out at employees?

[John Healey]

I think my hon. Friend is right, but our problem is that we are having to intuit the intention behind these provisions and this clause because the Government have not supplied evidence of a problem, have not supplied a purpose for these provisions, and have not supplied any reason for this unreasonable tightening of the legislation.