Strikes: Cover by Agency Workers

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Woodley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with (1) employers, (2) employment agencies, and (3) trade unions, about their plans to remove regulation 7 of the Conduct Regulations 2003 to allow agency staff to cover for striking workers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the removal of Regulation 7, which gets rid of an outdated blanket ban on employment businesses supplying agency staff to cover strikes, is about ensuring that the British public do not have to pay the price for disproportionate strike action. We consulted extensively on this in 2015 and have carefully considered the responses received when deciding to proceed. In our view, further consultation is unlikely to bring up fundamental issues not already raised.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his response, but he will not be surprised to hear that it is just not good enough. He has not consulted trade unions or employment agencies and, with respect, he does not even want to consult Parliament. That is the simple truth of it. Just last week—and I am not sure whether this is government policy—he claimed that unions do not represent anybody. That is crazy stuff—tell it to the 6 million trade unionists in this country. Will he at least listen to the bosses of Hays, Adecco, Manpower and 10 other major UK recruitment firms when they warn him that these strike-breaking proposals are likely to inflame and prolong disputes, not solve them?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I do not agree with him. We did consult the trade unions; in fact, the TUC submitted a petition of 25,000 names against the proposals, so they clearly had a chance to comment. We will of course consult Parliament when the regulations are debated.

Trades Union Congress: Levelling Up

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, it seems to me that the premise at the heart of this Question is the wrong way round. The Government should be supporting those 6 million trade unionists in this country who are really struggling to survive the cost of living crisis that is before us. They should not be undermining them by allowing bad bosses to break strikes with agency workers while, at the same time, the shareholders and directors are cleaning up. Does the Minister understand that the best way to build back better is to empower workers and trade unions so that they can hold unscrupulous employers to account?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sorry to tell the noble Lord that I just do not share this outdated methodology that, on the one hand, you have workers and, on the other, you have bosses. We are all working together for the good of the country. The thing about the trade unions in this country is that they are now a minority profession: only 13% of workers in the private sector and only half of those in the public sector are in trade unions. The reality is that they do not represent anybody.

Fire and Rehire

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Woodley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent the use of fire and rehire as a negotiating tactic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government asked ACAS to investigate fire and rehire, and it published guidance in November. The Government have announced their intention to publish a statutory code on fire and rehire in March, and the draft is due to be published for consultation this summer. The code will set out good practice, helping parties to reach a negotiated agreement. In cases of dispute, the code will be admissible in relevant legal proceedings and may result in increased compensation.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s response. Codes and consultations are helpful but, with respect, they do not go far enough. Ministers, including the Prime Minister, are paying lip service to condemning fire and rehire as an unacceptable practice. However, talk is cheap; we need legislation to stop the many abuses by numerous big-name companies and others. Today I will introduce a Bill banning fire and rehire, except in the most extreme circumstances—the same Bill that the Government so cynically squashed in another place. Therefore, my question to the Minister is simple: will he do the right thing and back my Bill —yes or no?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, we always do the right thing. I realise that it is an easy soundbite for the noble Lord to say “ban fire and rehire”, but even he would accept that you cannot ban redundancies, for instance if a company is going bust. You would end up banning the rehiring part of the equation.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have already said, there was no mention of the Government’s much-promised employment Bill in last week’s gracious Address. There is no doubt that this is a scandalous omission and nothing less than a betrayal of working-class voters, many of whom, sadly, believed the Prime Minister’s cynical pledge at the last election, as my noble friend Lord Monks said,

“to make the UK the best place in the world to work.”

Since then, Ministers have promised at least 20 times to deliver an employment Bill to protect workers’ rights, yet, sadly, it is nowhere to be seen. We have been taken for fools; promises have been made and broken time and again.

As my noble friend Lord Haskel stated, no employment Bill means no new “single enforcement body” to

“crack down on any employer abusing employment law, whether by taking workers’ tips or refusing them sick pay.”

That is a direct quote from the Tory manifesto. Here is another quote:

“We will legislate to allow parents to take extended leave for neonatal care, to support those new mothers and fathers who need it during the most vulnerable and stressful days of their lives.”


Was this just a con? Was there outrage when they did not talk about stopping the fire and rehire, which Ministers, including the Prime Minister himself, have called “unacceptable” and “bully-boy tactics”? Do they really believe that, or is it just another publicity stunt? I think we know the answer, because if they really believed, why did they block the Private Member’s Bill of my Labour comrade Barry Gardiner, which sought to outlaw the shameful practice in all but the most extreme circumstances?

Not only did Ministers block that Bill, but they blocked it as hard and as fast as they could, enforcing an unprecedented three-line Whip on a Friday and employing a variety of dirty tricks, such as not-so-urgent Urgent Statements to use up debate time and ministerial filibustering to finish off the Bill before it could achieve its Second Reading—or so they thought. Well, they were wrong, because I am delighted to tell this House that I have been successful in our own ballot with the reincarnation of Barry’s Bill. The Bill is backed by the Labour Party and the entire trade union movement, particularly my own union, Unite. I am really honoured to have the baton passed to me, especially at a time when it is more urgent than ever to ban fire and rehire, which is spreading through our economy like a virus, threatening a pandemic of poverty, adding yet more misery to millions during the cost of living crisis.

What are the Government doing to stop this cruel abuse of loyal workers? What action have they taken, as was said earlier, against P&O bosses, who went a step further by sacking 800 seafarers on union rates by Zoom and replacing them with agency staff on as little as £1.80 an hour, even after the CEO admitted to a Select Committee in the other place that he had knowingly broken the law by not consulting recognised unions? Why? Because he knew it was simpler to blackmail workers into taking enhanced redundancies. Ministers have done absolutely nothing to address this scandal, despite being in the same room when it was said that he should have been barred from holding directorships. Any decent person would have said that.

What more evidence do we need that this Tory Government will always be on the side of the bosses, despite their absurd claims to be the new workers’ party? It is laughable. Thankfully, the workers of this country are waking up to the deception and I am confident that they will not have short memories at the next general election. I ask everybody who questions this: how much more damage will Ministers do in the meantime? As well as letting bad bosses get away with abusing their workers, the Government want to scrap the Human Rights Act, removing the vital protections it provides, including freedom of conscience, expression and association, and even the right to a fair trial. Taken together with other draconian legislation, including further crackdowns on the right to protest that this House has already rejected, the direction of travel is clear. The disgraceful laws passed in the last Session, especially the elections, borders and police Acts, have all laid the groundwork for a fundamental shift in power and authoritarian control in our country.

We must learn from the mistakes of the last Session and work out our strategy for defeating this new assault on our most basic human rights. We have the Members in this place to make a real difference and the duty to restrain what has basically become a rogue Government, led by a Prime Minister who refuses to resign despite breaking his own laws and is now planning, as was said earlier, to renege on the Brexit deal that was struck. Labour, my party, founded by the movement, is committed to rolling back the Tories’ anti-worker laws, as laid out in our excellent Green Paper on employment rights, which my noble friend Lord Hendy played a key role in drafting. From Government-brokered fair play agreements—what in the past we would have called central bargaining—to day-one rights against unfair dismissal and, of course, a ban on fire and rehire, our Green Paper sets out a new agenda to address the unfair power imbalance at work, which has only grown over the past 12 years of Tory rule.

For all our faults, Labour is a real party of the workers, and in government our party will have to start by clearing up the Tories’ mess, as we always have to. Until then, our top priority must be to limit the damage and protect as many people as possible from the Conservatives’ conscious cruelty. I hope that all Members across the House worried about where the Government are taking us will continue to fight the good fight until we can turn the page of this disgraceful chapter in our democracy’s history.

Employment Bill

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Woodley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to introduce the Employment Bill, announced in the Queen’s Speech in December 2019.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, in the unavoidable absence overseas of my noble friend Lord Woodley, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Trade Union (Levy Payable to the Certification Officer) Regulations 2022

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, like many debates on statutory instruments in this House, the real substance of this debate is not particularly about the topic on the agenda. A moment’s thought will tell us that this is really about party funding. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on behalf of the Labour Party, has to oppose this in the way the Labour Party will oppose most attempts to place any form of restriction on the trade union movement. As we all will realise, historically, the Labour Party started as the political wing of the trade union movement. Of course, in recent years Labour is even more dependent on funding from the trade union movement.

I have obviously been a critic for many years of our system of funding, which has led Labour to be in a position where they require this, but the problems Labour has are as nothing compared with the current funding problems of the Tory party, with Russian donations and skirting very close to the line on the sales of honours. I do not think it is for the Tory party to criticise Labour for taking the position of the trade union movement on this.

I have every sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on this issue. As he and one of his colleagues in the House of Commons commented, to make trade unions pay for certification is like making charities pay for the Charity Commission. That is a very valid point that the Minister needs to answer.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, indicated, the sums taken from the unions, for minimal advantage to the taxpayer, would mostly be spent on the necessary protection of their members. I know people assume that unions are simply political activists, but most of the money they raise is spent on that. This money will be taken directly from their members and will not be used for that purpose.

Finally, I thought the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, went slightly light on the Tory party and the Government on this issue. Having watched them over my 25 years in your Lordships’ House, I think that hostility to the trade union movement is deep in the Tory party’s DNA. It goes back to the reforms created by Margaret Thatcher, which they believe sets the standard for all future activity by the Tory party. It is unfortunate. I support the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. These proposals are very unfair.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is the first opportunity I have had to speak since my near-death experience nine months ago. It would be wrong not to thank the Lord Speaker for all the support he has given me and my family and to thank the rest of the noble Lords here who know what has gone on. I also thank Dr Wong in Liverpool general hospital for somehow saving my life. It is a privilege to be back.

I declare an interest as the former leader of Unite. This levy is correctly being called a trade union tax. Indeed, it is nothing less, as we know, than an ideological attack on workers and their families. It is part of a pattern of anti-trade union legislation that also includes the Elections Bill. As the previous speaker just said, taxing trade unions to fund their own regulator makes as much sense as taxing charities to fund the Charity Commission. It could be up to 2.5% of annual income. How on earth can that be justified? How on earth can that be right? By taking this money from trade unions, the Government are restricting their ability to support members at work at a time when workers are facing a cost-of-living crisis and trade union help is needed more than ever.

The new regulations unfortunately also open the door to vexatious complaints—whether from vindictive employers, far-right organisations or even the Conservative Party itself—which threaten to consume the regulator’s time and resources, and therefore cost more money for the trade unions. Is that the aim? As has been said, last year, 34 complaints were made to the Certification Officer and no enforcement action was taken. Clearly, this is a solution to a problem that does not exist. Unions naturally fear that this number will dramatically rise when absolutely anybody, not just union members, has the power to make complaints. Of course, it will be the unions who foot the bill.

I will close on some straightforward questions for the Minister, one or two of which have already been mentioned. Why are the Government bringing forward these aspects of the Trade Union Act 2016, but not making any progress on the important issue of electronic balloting? Where are the pilot projects called for in the Knight review, which could be very helpful? We find ourselves in a situation where they are not being brought forward now. Is it the very fact that, democratically, people do not want trade unions to really be democratic? It is just an attack. Could the Minister also tell me when we can expect to see the much-promised employment Bill that will

“make the UK the best place in the world to work”—

a manifesto commitment no less, unlike so much of the government business we are currently dealing with—or was this just an empty pledge to fool the workers into voting for the bosses’ party at the last election? Actions speak louder than words, and this cynical and repressive trade union tax speaks for itself. We must stop or remove this vindictive legislation.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to see the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, back in his place. We all welcome him back, although I do not agree with everything he had to say.

I have three questions on these instruments. First, is this package too bureaucratic? This is something we spoke about wanting to avoid during the passage of the Trade Union Bill, but have red tape and vexatious claims been minimised? Contributions to the debate so far suggest not, but is that fair? I hope the Minister will be able to enlighten us.

My second question is about electronic balloting. What is the Minister’s latest assessment? So much of our world is now online and Covid has accelerated that extraordinarily—indeed, we are about to debate the online harms Bill. Can we safely move forward on electronic balloting in this area or others, or do the reservations I remember being raised during the passage of the Trade Union Bill remain?

Finally, noble Lords will recall my happy experiences with the union USDAW in my own career at Tesco. Did it respond to the consultation? If so, what did it say?

Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port and Battery Manufacturing Strategy

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that we are already investing millions of pounds in training for green jobs under the Green Homes Grant scheme. We invested about £7 million in a training competition, and there are numerous other government schemes doing precisely what she suggested: the eco scheme, the home upgrade grant, et cetera.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, I appreciate the helpful comments that have already been made, but I must ask the Government to leave no stone unturned in keeping this Vauxhall car plant at Ellesmere Port open—it is crucial, as people have said. Finalising an agreement with Stellantis to manufacture not one but potentially two next-generation battery-driven vehicles is crucial, securing, of course, thousands of high-skilled jobs for Ellesmere Port and, indeed, our country. Battery-driven vehicles are the future for this industry, if we are to have any future at all, and I suggest that it would be unforgiveable if the Government missed the opportunity of this investment and of securing these jobs for our country.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know the noble Lord’s personal commitment to the north-west, and I agree with him about leaving no stone unturned. I assure him that the Government are committed to securing the future of Ellesmere Port. The Business Secretary and his senior officials are engaging frequently with the company to explore ways to ensure that the plant stays open. The noble Lord will understand that, while these discussions are ongoing, I cannot comment further, but we will do all that we can.

National Security and Investment Bill

Lord Woodley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woodley (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to join your Lordships’ House and speak in this debate today. Turning to the subject of the Bill, I believe that critical national infrastructures should be controlled and operated in the public interest, and certainly not run for private profit or sold off to corporate investors in a way that jeopardises jobs, safety and the security of the British people.

Before I continue, I thank noble Lords on all sides of the House, all officials and staff for their very warm and hospitable welcome. I also extend sincere thanks to my two distinguished supporters, my noble friends Lord Collins and Lady Blower. I also thank Jeremy Corbyn, for giving me the opportunity to enter this illustrious House, and Gordon Brown, for giving me the encouragement to accept a peerage.

I understand the privilege that I have been given; I also understand poverty. I was born in Wallasey on the Wirral and had a humble upbringing, with my parents fighting to put food on the table each day for me and my sisters in our two-up and two-down house, with no hot water and an outside toilet. They were often unable to pay the rent. Free school meals were a must in those days to feed us kids. Shamefully, as many in this House recognise, 60 years on, the need is as great today. On a lighter note, if I ever see prunes and custard again, I will give up the will to live.

As a merchant seaman at the age of 15, I travelled to most areas of the Far East and beyond, watching the exploitation, poverty and child abuse. The unfairness in our world, at home and abroad, had the most profound effect on me. It helped to create my moral compass and the progressive politics that have driven my life ever since. I became a workers’ representative at Vauxhall Motors in Ellesmere Port, a shop steward and convener, and the last general secretary of Britain’s most famous union, the Transport and General Workers’ Union and a creator of Unite the Union.

Personally negotiating and working with many of the world’s largest companies, CEOs and Ministers, particularly in the automotive and manufacturing industries, has been great. Yes, we had our disputes, but I spent more time working for and with companies for investment, protecting jobs and plants, than we ever did fighting each other. I have always said that I have known many good bosses, but I have never known a generous one.

While we have many good examples in the Bill we are debating, particularly those given by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, privatisation and outsourcing have all too often become a blight of our lives, leading to the fragmentation of services, operational inefficiencies and the short-termism culture that puts the interest of shareholders before the interests of workers and the wider public. Privatisation has failed again and again. We recently witnessed this with the failure of the part privatisation at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, responsible for no less than the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons, which had to be brought back under direct control of the Ministry of Defence. Need I say more?

At least the Bill represents recognition from Ministers that there is an over-riding public interest in stopping essential assets from falling into the hands of nefarious interests. The general thrust of the Bill is to be welcomed, and I look forward to debating the details as it completes its passage.