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

David Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is right. Parts 1 and 2 have been shown over the past few days to be utterly deficient. There is no evidence, no drive, no remedy to be pursued, no problem to be resolved that would justify part 3. There is legislation in place, which I shall come on to later, which shows that membership lists from trade unions are heavily regulated already. Part 3 is merely a legislative burden on the trade unions timed to deflect attention, as my hon. Friend says, from other parts of the Bill that are completely deficient.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend hit the nail on the head when he said that part 3 came from the high-level discussion between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. This is a continuation of other Bills that have been introduced over the past three years on the constitution of this country. They all aim at one thing—giving advantage to the parties in the coalition in the upcoming general election. Yesterday we saw their attempt to hide from lobbying groups and not be answerable to them. Now they are trying to curtail the influence of the trade unions and the support that they give to the Labour party in particular to give their own parties an advantage. That is what this is all about.

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government cannot win the next general election on the arguments so they nullify the Opposition. It is ironic that part 3 heavily regulates trade union membership lists, whereas most of the stuff attacking workers’ rights came from the report written by a certain Mr Beecroft, who donated £550,000 to the Conservative party. The Bill deals not with the Beecrofts of this world but with the ordinary working people throughout the country.

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[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is right. Our amendment would allow people who have a proper complaint about a trade union’s membership list to make it through the normal channels, and the certification officer would then determine whether the complaint was vexatious or had merit before, on top of all that, deciding whether to instigate a process. If people wish to make legitimate complaints about a trade union’s membership, this Bill gives them a mechanism to do so, but our proposal is that they should be able to do so only if the professionalism of the certification officer proves that that process is required. Given that there have been only 10 complaints since 1987, I think the certification officer is pretty wily in determining what is and what is not a vexatious claim.

[Mr Anderson]

It is interesting that my hon. Friend has gone back to 1987, because the root of this law in the 1980s was a direct political attempt by the then Conservative Government to get trade union members to undermine their own union. There was a backlash after the miners’ strike when the then Government instigated the setting up of the scab unit to try to undermine the trade union activities of the National Union of Mineworkers.

The issue here is that only a small number of people complain to a certification officer. Does my hon. Friend know—if the Minister was listening, she might be able to answer as well—whether there is any evidence that the certification officer has raised concerns? Has he said that this is not working and that we need to change it? My understanding is that that has never happened.

[Ian Murray]

The trade unions have complied with the legislation, with bells on, every single year since it was introduced in the mid-’80s, and the published figures are available to the public from the certification office. As I have said, the TUC made a freedom of information request to the certification officer asking whether he had recommended a change in the law to the Government, and he replied that no discussions had taken place. That underlines my hon. Friend’s point.

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[Mr Djanogly]

Unison and Unite now account for approximately 40% of total union membership. As such, it follows that the larger unions are becoming increasingly powerful politically and economically, and with power comes responsibility and the duty to be accountable. We can make a comparison with companies and the difference between how private and public companies are regulated. It is therefore right that union obligations to administrate themselves correctly, such as membership records, are subject to a suitable level of oversight and scrutiny, and the clause provides for that. I note that the Labour party seems to accept the number of 10,000 as appropriate for the higher level of regulation to apply.

[Mr Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. Will he answer the question I asked my hon. Friend on the Front Bench? If there is such a problem, why has the certification officer not raised it? Has he come to the House and said, “I’m really not happy because the unions are not staying within the remit”? Has that been the case? I do not believe it has.

[Mr Djanogly]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that the last time I visited the certification office was more than half a dozen years ago, so I am not totally up on what the latest one is thinking. However, from my experience of looking into the matter in detail—the regulations and laws have not changed—I know that the certification office has very limited powers. In fact, most people would not even see it as a regulator; rather, as I said, it is more like a Companies House collection box than anything else.

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[Stephen McPartland]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Local councils around the country have to confront a number of issues with vexatious claims and are currently struggling under the freedom of information rules introduced by the previous Government. It may well be an issue that needs to be looked at further. It is a law of unintended consequences, however, and if there have been only six complaints in the last 10 years, I cannot imagine that there would have been many vexatious claims.

In most small workplace environments, a large proportion of the employees are not union members. If they are, they are often members of a variety of different unions. Most of those employees do not want to cross a picket line and have no intention of doing so. That can be a real emotional struggle for them; I saw that a lot when I was growing up in Liverpool. If a person is being called out on strike by union members in the area but does not want to strike, I think it is perfectly acceptable for such an employee who is not a union member to be expected not to cross the picket line. However, it is perfectly acceptable for them to question whether the ballot was accurate. There is personal and social pressure put on people and it is understandable.

[Mr Anderson]

The person that the hon. Gentleman is talking about has that right now. There is no point in this Bill, because the provisions are already in place: the individual can already do exactly what the hon. Gentleman says. Legislation was deliberately set up that way by Governments in the 1980s to undermine the ability of unions to take industrial action. It is already law; we do not need this new law.

[Stephen McPartland]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful intervention. I grew up in Liverpool in the 1980s and I remember a great deal of industrial action. I survived. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon said that the purpose of the Bill is to take things back to the 1980s so that that exists as the status quo now. I am not particularly interested in the ideological arguments going back and forth across the Committee. I genuinely believe that the purpose of clause 36 is to help people who feel that they want to make a complaint but cannot. I heard the shadow Minister talk earlier from the Dispatch Box about the possibility of a charge of £1 or £2 being exercised in respect of clause 36. I imagine that most trade unions would hate that because it would probably cost more to administer the charge than it would to send off the certificate.

The basic purpose of clause 36 boils down to transparency; it innocently says that trade unions need to know where their members are. There is a massive reality gap here. We all know from the electoral register, which we deal with every single year in all our walks of life, that the number of people moving in and out of constituencies when they move home is huge.

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[Mr McKenzie]

I will restrict my remarks to clause 36 and to supporting our amendments. As we have heard over the past few days, this is a bad Bill and it would be poor legislation. Part 3 and clause 36 have clearly been ill thought out and ill conceived by the Government—but they have clearly thought through what they want to achieve. These measures would achieve their goals, but, unfortunately, they are not the goals a lobbying Bill should set out to achieve.

To compound things, this Bill is being rushed through Parliament at a speed that would make Usain Bolt envious. Opposition Members repeatedly ask, “Why the hurry? Why can’t we take a bit of time to scrutinise this Bill and get it right?” There has been no consultation on the Bill either, which has been highlighted.

[Mr Anderson]

My hon. Friend asks, “Why the hurry?” Does he agree that it is because the Government hope to get this Bill on to the statute book so that for 12 months from 8 May next year lobbying groups and trade unions will find that their hands are tied in criticising the Government’s record and reminding the people of this country what a dire mess they have got them into? They are trying to hide that from the public.

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[Ian Lavery]

Although the trade unions were not very receptive to the legislation initially, they accepted the change in the law. They accepted that the TULR regulations had to be adhered to, and they have done so—reluctantly, although now it is not too much of a problem. In fact, in many ways it helps trade unions to keep people pressed to ensure that they have up-to-date names and addresses for all members. The trade unions were not receptive at the time; they are happy now. Indeed, I have not spoken to any union or union representative, or even any union member or non-union member—not one person—who has told me that we need more legislation on union names and addresses in the register. Although the unions were not happy about the 1992 Act initially, it has been acted upon and delivered. There are not many complaints, as we have heard, to the certification officer because of problems with the names and addresses in the register or the legislation, so everything seems to be in order. Everything seems to be going ahead, yet the Government have put these proposals before us.

[Mr Anderson]

Is my hon. Friend award that the TUC briefing says that it has made freedom of information requests to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, ACAS and the certification officer asking whether anyone has been raising this issue, and that no one has?

[Ian Lavery]

That is an important point. I have been in front of the certification officer on numerous occasions in my previous employment, on lots of different issues—some not very pleasant, by the way—but there are very few people complaining to the certification officer about this issue. We heard the facts and the figures from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South(Ian Murray), which show that there is no one complaining. The only person complaining is the certification officer, who is saying, “What on earth do you want me to do here? I’m only doing what I’m expected to do. What’s happening?”

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[Ian Lavery]

Speaking from vast experience, it is always in a trade union’s interest to maintain the best possible record of its members, for a whole raft of reasons. A good trade union does not stand on its hind legs every week screaming, “Strike, strike, strike!” A good trade union needs the correct names and addresses of its members, so that it can address all the problems that society currently faces. This is not just about strike action, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). That is always a last resort. But I will tell you something, Mr Sheridan. I was on strike for a full year during the miners’ strike, and what a brilliant year it was! I was fighting not for myself but for the wider society, for jobs and for communities up and down the country. It gives people a lot of pleasure if they are taking action and suffering greatly for those reasons. My father and my four brothers were all on strike—my mother had a hell of a job—but we enjoyed it because we were fighting for others. That is what the trade union movement is about, and that is why I get terribly upset by the constant union-baiting from the Liberal Democrats and of course the Tories.

It is in everyone’s interest to keep accurate records. Under the measures that were introduced in 1992, trade unions have to have that information for balloting reasons, among others. They normally have to send a full membership list with the annual return form, the AR21, to the certification officer anyway. The problem was that whenever we tried to take any type of democratic industrial action, the employer would say to me as the local representative, “You’d better have the right names and addresses. If you haven’t, we’ll get an injunction. Then, under the law, the union will be liable for any loss to the company resulting from strike action.” At the same time, the employer obviously had a list of everybody’s names and addresses. A responsible employer has everyone’s name and address in order to pay them—some trade unionists might prefer to keep their identity private—so surely it should be incumbent on the employer to allow any change in name and address to be passed on to the relevant trade union so that the union can act in accordance with the law. Is that too much to ask? It is feasible, but it is a trap.

I was a representative at different levels of the union, and we would sometimes appear in front of the certification officer and often the High Court. If industrial action occurs, it might be said that somebody’s name has been spelt incorrectly or that somebody has died without people being aware of it in order to try to get that whole democratic process abolished. That is the problem with this legislation.

Many colleagues on both sides of the Committee might agree that bureaucracy is not always a dirty word. Since the Prime Minister got the keys to Downing street, the Government have promised to cut red tape. What have we seen? We have seen the Government making it easier for people to be hired and fired for no particular reason. They have gone to work with some zeal in attacking workers’ rights at every opportunity, and they have relaxed health and safety legislation. The unions have rightly opposed all those things, which they won in the first place.

I have said before that it is funny that the only area where the Government have sought to increase bureaucracy is in the administration of trade unions. This will not be for the last time either. Unfortunately, this coalition, with Liberal Democrat support, will continue to oppose and attack not just trade union members, but many of the most vulnerable people in society. That is what they are about. As I have said, I believe that at the ballot box they will reap what they have sown. That, by the way, is democracy.

This Bill is undoubtedly about ideology. It is a thinly veiled attack on a movement that the parties on the Government Benches despise. We could move on to deal with the duty to appoint an assurer, but at this point I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South and of course the shadow BIS Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who has highlighted another issue relating to another problem with these lists: they will allow organisations to increase blacklisting, which is already the scourge of the working class. Because of information being passed willy-nilly from employer to different secret organisations, some people are on blacklists. At the end of the day, these people and their families can suffer greatly for the rest of their lives.

That is a problem with the data. The new rules will mean that three new groups will have access to individual membership details—three new opportunities for data to escape into the public domain. Several organisations have raised a concern—I have already mentioned it—about the legality of that. The trade union movement and its individual organisations have a duty under the Data Protection Act to ensure that the information they hold on individual members is kept secure, but this new legislation when passed—not “if”, because it will be passed—will prevent that from happening. There will be a legal contradiction about who is right and it will be up for legal challenge.

I think that in any other country, action such as this on the part of a democratically elected Government would be condemned as an attack on free trade unionism, and I think that that is exactly what is happening in this case. It is about time that the coalition Government sat back and paused, as they have in the past. It is time that they consulted others, got the legal position right, and then returned with reforms that actually meant something and changed something. I look forward very much indeed to the Minister’s response, which should take all of one minute.

[Mr Anderson]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Sheridan.

I intend to focus on clause 36 stand part. Let me begin by putting it on the record—in case anyone thinks that I am trying to hide it—that I am very much part of the trade union movement. I am a former national president of Unison, and a honorary life member of that union; I am a member of the Communication Workers Union, and a former proud member of the National Union of Mineworkers; and I was a member of the General Council of the TUC for six years. So I think that I may just have a little bit of an idea of what we are talking about, whereas other Members who are in the Chamber may not.

I was actively involved in the trade union movement for 40 years, and during that time I challenged very drastically some of the legislation that has been referred to today, including the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which the trade unions described at the time as a scabs’ charter. That was exactly what it was there for. It was there to help people to take on and undermine their own trade unions. It was a deliberate attempt by the Conservative party to undermine trade union legislation and trade union activity, and exactly the same thing is happening today. This Bill is part and parcel of that legislation. [Interruption.] It looks as though the Minister wants to intervene.

[Tom Brake]

I was just speculating on when the hon. Gentleman would actually refer to clause 36, given the absence of any reference to it so far. However, I am sure that the Chairman will intervene when he thinks that the hon. Gentleman is not addressing the issue.

[The Temporary Chairman (Jim Sheridan)]

The Chair will decide what is in order.

[Mr Anderson]

That is par for the course in this debate, Mr Sheridan. The Government are trying to stifle debate, and they are doing that by pushing the Bill through Parliament in record time. They do not want to hear the truth. They do not want to hear the facts. There is a thread running through this debate. It is not about the clauses; it is not about the words on the paper; it is about a political fix. The Minister’s party is colluding with the Tory party in an attempt—a direct attempt, as we heard yesterday—to fix the people in this country so that their voices are dumbed down.

The 1992 Act created the office of commissioner for the rights of trade union members, or CROTUM. There was also a Scottish commissioner for the rights of trade union members, or SCROTUM. That is what the debate, and the Bill, are about. It is fitting in this context. That office was set up deliberately to encourage disgruntled trade union members to get out of their unions and undermine them.

The Minister said that I should return to the subject of the clause, and I shall do so now. Let me ask this: why are we here? This debate ought to be driven by the huge public concern that exists in this country about cash for questions, cronyism, dinners at No. 10 and the buying of favours. We ought to be discussing what was revealed yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann): the fact that private individuals pumped £250,000 into his constituency to try to prevent him from becoming Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw. We should be discussing those issues, rather than the minutiae of legislation that is already more than adequate.

As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), 40 million people have been registered on union lists in the last seven years, and there has not been one complaint. The people of this country are not concerned about what certification officers are getting up to; they are concerned about cronyism. They are concerned about the influence that Murdoch has, and the influence that private people have. They are concerned about people such as Asil Nadir and Michael Brown, who are languishing in jail while the Government parties keep money that they stole.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a superb speech. If his constituency mailbag is anything like mine, he will have received hundreds of e-mails and letters about yesterday’s business. How many people in his constituency have raised concerns about the certification officer?

[Mr Anderson]

Absolutely none; not one.

We heard earlier from our learned friend the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee about the work it was doing to try to build a consensus across the House in addressing the points the people of this country are really worried about. That has been thrown out of the window, however, so that yesterday we discussed attacks on charities and organisations like the Royal British Legion and today we are talking about attacks on the trade union movement.

[Stephen McPartland]

Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to tell us how many unions have approached him with concerns about the certification officer and this part of the Bill?

[Mr Anderson]

No trade union has approached me about the certification officer, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said, the unions campaigned against legislation in the 1990s, but they have now accepted the reality of that legislation. They have put money aside time and again. Staff time is used up and people are employed to make sure the records are kept up to date. There is no reason to do what this part of the Bill is saying should be done, and what this part of the Bill is supposed to be about does not in any sense have anything to do with lobbying or people misusing lobbyists.

As we saw yet again today, the Prime Minister cannot stop himself: he has to attack the trade union movement, because that is part of the narrative—the big, bad trade union bosses who are controlling the Labour party, telling the leader what to do and telling us all what to do, and bankrolling us. That is absolute guff. The people being bankrolled are the Members sitting on the Government Benches, who are bankrolled by people who have no democratic right whatsoever and where there is no transparency about what they are doing. The truth is the agenda is very clear: big business is getting away with murder.

We have heard over the past few days that 1% of lobbyists could be caught by this Bill. What about the other 99% who are getting away with things? That is what the people of this country are worried about.

This is a continuation of a raft of constitutional work that has been done over the past three years: the alternative vote referendum Bill, Lords reform, the packing out of the Lords, the boundary review, the attempts to impose city mayors. They have been introduced for one reason alone: to tip the balance of power in favour of the coalition parties at the 2015 general election. It is a deliberate ploy, and people can see through it and see it for what it is. The Government want to put this Bill in place quickly so that from 8 May next year there will be a year when trade unions and civic society are banned from speaking, because the Government want to try to make people forget the mess they have got this country into and the things they have done such as introducing tuition fees and the bedroom tax, and not responding positively to the Robin Hood tax campaign. They want a vacuum in that year so no one can challenge them. The people of this country will not have that, and I am convinced that if this Bill becomes law there will be a lot of people who are prepared to stand up and break that law.

[Lady Hermon]

Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the inconsistency in the Government’s approach? A Bill relating to Northern Ireland is going through that will continue the anonymity of donations to political parties in Northern Ireland, but this Bill, which is about the transparency of all sorts of things, is putting huge burdens on charities and trade unions. In Northern Ireland, however, we do not know how much, if anything, any of the parties represented in this House are contributing across Northern Ireland.

[Mr Anderson]

As the hon. Lady will know, I serve on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and I have been involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill. The way it has passed through this House is a model of how to handle legislation. We went to Northern Ireland, we met people over there, we brought people to this House, and we talked about the implications of the measures. We talked literally about life and death matters, because people are frightened. They say, “If I’m exposed as supporting this political party, my life could be at risk.” That is a model of how to deal with a Bill, but it is the exact opposite of what has happened with this Bill—what has happened here is an absolute disgrace.

Inconsistency is a problem. I have mentioned a number of times that no one seems to think it is an issue. Three organisations that ought to know whether or not the current arrangements are working are the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the certification officer and ACAS, and they all say they have had no complaints.

We have heard this is part and parcel of a modernisation process. What about the Government’s system of one-in, two-out regulation? Regulations will be involved in implementing this measure, as will costs to the taxpayer, when we employ assessors and investigators. What does that do? I hope that the Minister will tell us how many regulations she thinks might be needed to put this in place and which regulations she will take out to cover for it.

It is clear from our discussions that there are two reasons why this measure is going to be pushed through. First, it will make it very much harder for unions to have democratically effective industrial action—that is clear. Secondly, as has been reported by Liberal Democrat Lord Tyler—this was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey)—it is about having an impact on the ability of trade unions to fund the political party they choose to fund. It is dead clear that that is what it is about. People are not stupid. Government Members expect the public of this country to be treated like fools, but people are not fools and they can see through this; the Bill is about “transparency”—there is a lot of transparency going on at this time. People know exactly what is happening.

Why should this “transparency” apply only to people who support the Labour party? Why are we not talking about whether it is right and proper that we can see what makes up the Labour party’s political fund? When are we going to see the same from the other parties? When are they going to cough up? When are they going to show us where their money comes from? We can see why they would not want to do that.

This measure is just like yesterday’s in that it is about Government Members trying to shrink away from accountability—the accountability that applies to those such as the TUC, the trade union movement, the Royal British Legion, the Robin Hood tax campaign and the National Union of Students. This is the accountability that people demand of us and that they will want to demand of us coming up to an election, and it is right that they should do so. It is the mark of a civilised society that we stand up and are accountable. Sometimes when we stand up we are found wanting and people get rid of us. Sometimes when we stand up we are not found wanting but they still get rid of us. That is called democracy and we should not be frightened of it. Clearly, Government Members are frightened to stand up and be made accountable.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Do the current regulations governing the trade union movement, which were so eloquently set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), not mean that few organisations are as transparent and open as the trade unions in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as there is absolutely no doubt about what he says. I do not think that any Government Member has said that it is not the case. The one Government Member who made a serious contribution was the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who spoke about whether this measure should be more restrictive. Although I would not agree with his view, he was making the point that we have something in place. He was asking whether we could make it tougher, but even he accepted the fact that the certification officer was saying, “There isn’t a problem.” The numbers that have been cited clearly show that there is no problem.

The TUC was right to say that this measure is part and parcel of a package that is attacking free speech: it is limiting criticism of the Government or Government policies; it is threatening the legality of the TUC to do its business through its congress; it is preventing the TUC from having a national demonstration in the lead-up to any elections; and it is preventing campaigning. As the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) said, it also raises particular issues in places such as Northern Ireland and has implications there. So, if nothing else, we should be saying, “This is not on.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne asked the Leader of the House, when he was still here, why he will not do the same as he did when he was Secretary of State for Health—pause and reflect.

[Ian Murray]

Or resign.

[Mr Anderson]

He could resign—that is a good idea.

I am clear that the Government will not pause and reflect because they want to ram this measure through. There is a timetable involved. The Conservative party has decided that 7 May 2015 will be the date of the next general election, so 8 May 2014 is the day when campaigning stops, when criticism stops, when the charities have to shut up and when the trade unions have to watch what they are doing. We will get through the process of the Bill going to the Lords and coming back here just before Christmas. It will then be banged on the head and the Queen will put the stamp on it before 8 May 2014, so that Government Members can try to hide from their liability for the state they have got this country into. It is not on. This measure is not needed and it should be withdrawn. I will be supporting the very moderate amendments that have been tabled by Labour’s Front-Bench team, but it must be said that we are being led by the coalition, which is doing this for no other reason than self-interest, just as was the case on other constitutional matters. They are trying it on in this way and if the measure gets through it will be a disgrace for democracy in this country.

[Jo Swinson]

We have had a wide-ranging debate this afternoon on this string of amendments. At some points it might have resembled more of a part 3 stand part debate, but we have certainly discussed clause 36 stand part and the amendments, and I hope to address the points that have been made.

It is important that union activity and decisions reflect the will of members. Knowing who their members are and being able to engage them is fundamental to unions’ democratic accountability.