Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Davey and David Nuttall

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I have not seen that advice. It is important that Ofgem focuses on trying to give the best possible advice that will help people who are struggling with energy bills. Government advice certainly includes practical suggestions on how to get the financial help that is available and to cut bills.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Shale gas has the potential to reduce energy bills and increase the security of supply. Will my right hon. Friend set out what steps his Department is taking to allay public concerns about fracking?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Davey and David Nuttall

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

It is interesting to look at the history of wholesale prices coming down and reductions not being passed on. There were much greater falls in wholesale costs when the Leader of the Opposition was doing my job, and they were never passed on. This Government have taken action by giving consumers far greater choice. They can now switch from companies that are not offering them a good deal and, in some cases, cut their bills by hundreds of pounds.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the best way for the Government to keep energy bills down is to stop subsidising working windmills? We are now subsidising those that are providing energy when the windmills are not working. Instead, we should get cracking with fracking.

[Mr Davey]

That is a good soundbite, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that his understanding of how these things work needs a little work. It is important that we have an energy mix. That encourages greater competition as well as enabling us to tackle all our energy objectives, including keeping bills down and ensuring that we cut carbon and have secure energy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Davey and David Nuttall

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to see a big investment in the skills and expertise of our young people, as well as in the existing work force. This is a great opportunity, given the massive investment taking place in our energy sector, and we are going to need all the young people that the skills centre in his constituency can deliver.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that increasing competition in the energy market, as in any other market, requires the Government to remove red tape and regulation and the barriers to entry so as to increase the number of new entrants to the market?

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question; that is exactly what we did in 2010. Since then, we have seen a boom in the number and size of independent suppliers taking on the big six that Labour created. As Ofgem and the competition authorities’ assessment makes clear, however, we need to see more progress. That is why I am strongly behind the market investigation reference.

Energy Bills

Debate between Ed Davey and David Nuttall

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

It would be interesting to see the petition, because I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not show the people who signed it the small print, which shows that the price freeze would reduce competition, reduce investment, and is a complete con.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the best way to secure lower energy bills and more investment in the energy sector in the long term is for Government to cut corporation tax further, to cut the regulatory burden on companies, to increase competition, and to scrap altogether Government-imposed green and social levies on energy bills?

[Mr Davey]

There were moments in that question when I thought my hon. Friend was doing a good job, but I am afraid I cannot agree with everything he says.

Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

Debate between Ed Davey and David Nuttall

Friday 22nd October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I certainly intend to do that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I hoped it would help the House if I set out some of the context of the debate. I think that people sometimes have amnesia when it comes to what actually happened in the past.

It is worth reminding Opposition Members that the laws we have today relate not only to the laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s, but to the changes in those laws made by the last Government. My hon. Friends made it very clear that the last Government reviewed and made changes to this very part of our law, and did not adopt changes such as those that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is trying to persuade the House to support today. They did not want to make any significant changes to the law on ballots and notices. Indeed, the last change of any substance that they made was in 2004. That is probably why the hon. Member for Llanelli was unable to support the Bill. She and the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe)—when he was doing the job that I am doing now—examined the law extremely closely, and found no case for changing it.

It has hardly been a secret that trade unions wanted to extend the disregard in section 232B, but I presume that when the last Government examined the law, they decided not to listen to those trade union voices. I am pleased to observe the consistency in the position adopted by the hon. Member for Llanelli. Successive Governments have taken the view that the legal framework of our industrial relations law is basically sound, and this coalition Government certainly share that view.

[Mr Nuttall]

I realise that we need to stick to the point, but I think that the historical context is very relevant. The certainty of the law is of great benefit not just to employers but to trade unions. The danger posed by the Bill is that it will reintroduce a great element of uncertainty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I agree. I put it in another way, which complements the argument that my hon. Friend is making. I think that progressive trade unions welcome the law as it is. It ensures that their reputation, the way they work and their relationship with members is protected because they can show that they have gone through the right procedures. That improves their reputations with not just their members but the public, so I ask Labour Members who support the proposed change to reflect on the long-term implications for trade unions if we went down that route.

Every union must ensure that it has a good grip of the procedures when it enters disputes and that those procedures are professionally run. I do not think it is unreasonable to ask them to ensure that their information systems and membership records are as accurate as possible, using the vast power of information technology currently at our disposal. I suspect Opposition Members would be as intolerant and unforgiving as I am if organisations in other walks of life failed to keep accurate records or provided mistaken advice or a second-rate service. We should expect high professional standards from trade unions, just as we expect the same high standards from others.

The truth is that the previous Government understood that. From their extensive political contacts with unions, they knew there were problems with how some of them were managed. I suspect that they believed union leaders were a mixed bag in terms of their professional competence. That is why they argued for, and introduced, the union modernisation fund. They wanted to inject public funds into unions to bring them up to scratch. Millions of pounds were spent on projects to update membership databases, adopt new technologies and inject modern managerial methods into the running of trade unions.

[Mr Nuttall]

On the question of new technologies, the Bill would have been better if it had addressed the problems raised by the judges in the Court of Appeal, and if, instead of changing the rules on substantial compliance, it had provided specifically for the internet, e-mail, Twitter and text to be valid means of electronic communication for the purposes of the legislation. That would have provided a specific clarification that Members on both sides of the House might have been able to support.

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Court of Appeal thought about that carefully in coming to its judgment, but I would not want to go any further and say the law has to be tightened up in that way, because the judge’s statements are already quite helpful. I see the thrust and power of my hon. Friend’s argument, however.

If the UMF had worked as intended, it should have rectified the deficit in this area. I suspect, however, that problems remain and inefficiencies persist. While we all need to make sure that unions can try to reform in that area, I do not think the law should be relaxed to preserve poor methods of working within unions. Rather, it should be designed—as, by and large, it is—in the expectation that trade unions will run themselves efficiently and spend the money they collect well; their total annual income is more than £1 billion.

The current law not as rigid as the Bill’s supporters suggest. At virtually every point, the provisions are designed to take account of the fact that trade unions, just like any other organisation, do not have perfect knowledge and complete information at their disposal. Many provisions in the law are flexible enough to take account of what is “reasonable” or “reasonably practicable” for the unions to achieve.

Let us take the example of the law on ballot notices, which is a major part of the Bill. I know trade unions criticise these provisions a lot. Obviously, notices need to convey information, but according to the law—section 226A of the 1992 Act—that information needs to be

“as accurate as is reasonably practicable in the light of the information in the possession of the union at the time”.

That is not an onerous condition, and it is because of those sorts of conditions in the current law that the unions have won a number of cases in this year alone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I am afraid I only did Latin O-level, and I have forgotten a lot of it.

Turning to the notices informing the voters and the employer of the outcome of the ballot, sections 231 and 231A respectively require only that the union take, as

“soon as is reasonably practicable after”

the ballot,

“such steps as are reasonably necessary”

to inform all persons entitled to vote and every relevant employer of the outcome.

The Bill’s supporters also believe that the law loads the dice in favour of the employer. According to their analysis, the law makes it difficult, and even impossible in some cases, for trade unions to defend the interests of their members—but, again, where is the evidence that the strike weapon has lost its potency, if used responsibly? The level of industrial action varies from year to year, but in the past 12 months for which data are available about 620,000 days were lost through industrial action. I would like that figure to fall, but such levels of industrial action in the UK are about the average for the EU overall, when allowance is made for the size of each country’s work force. In 2007, the latest year for which EU data are available, EU countries lost, on average, 34 days through industrial action per 1,000 workers. The UK figure was similar, although a little higher, at 38 days per 1,000 workers. That does not suggest that the UK laws on industrial action are out of step or are more difficult for British trade unions to navigate than laws elsewhere in the European Union.

[Mr Nuttall]

Just as a matter of interest, is the Minister aware of whether any other European Union country has a provision similar to the one proposed in this Bill?

[Mr Davey]

I am not, although I think it is highly unlikely that any EU country does, for the following reason. The way in which industrial relations laws have developed in different countries reflects different traditions, and that is how it should be; I do not think that there is a standard approach in the EU. The British view obviously draws on a very different tradition from elsewhere, but the effect is not dissimilar in terms of the average number of days lost. So the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, the promoter of this Bill, has not made his case; he has not provided evidence to show that our trade unions face particular problems.

The hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks contained references to various observations made by advisory bodies to the International Labour Organisation, but the data simply do not support the argument that unions in the UK are uniquely disadvantaged when it comes to organising strike action. The previous Government made it clear that Britain upholds its commitment to the ILO conventions; indeed, there has never been a challenge at the supreme authority of the ILO that we have transgressed our international commitments to those conventions. Some people make rather too much of this by saying that we are somehow breaching ILO standards and other human rights obligations on freedom of association.

It is also worth noting that employers normally choose to settle disputes before industrial action takes place—only a minority of industrial action ballots actually lead to industrial action. According to our estimates, in about 80% of cases where employees have voted for industrial action, no industrial action is subsequently taken. Both sides treat the outcome of the ballot as a stimulus to further negotiation. Once again, such behaviour is difficult to square with the conclusion that employers invariably have the upper hand under our law and could easily obtain an injunction to stop a strike in its tracks or impose their will unilaterally.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington and others have discussed recent court cases. He said that they have made matters much worse for trade unions, but we have heard that argument rebutted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

On court cases, does the Minister agree that it would have been sensible for the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington to wait before introducing this Bill until the case that the RMT is taking to the European Court of Human Rights had been dealt with, as that may shed some light on the matters that we have been considering this morning?

[Mr Davey]

My interpretation of the fact that there are some cases before the European Court of Human Rights is that we do not need the legislation at all. Those court cases are dealing with the issues of uncertainty that remain and the case law is helping to develop the situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I have enjoyed the sedentary interventions of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) over the years, but this Liberal Democrat has his own, independent mind, and he opposes the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am sure that hon. Members who have been present throughout the debate know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) had many more comments to make and has not had the opportunity to do so. The idea that opposition is being artificially engineered is far from the truth, because my hon. Friend had much more to say, and could well still have been speaking at this moment.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for all the interventions, but I want to present my arguments because there are genuine concerns about the Bill that the coalition partners share, and it is important to put them to the House.

We have serious difficulties with the proposal to reverse the burden of proof. To date, in any proceedings, once the employer has established that there has been a breach of the safeguards, the burden shifts to the union wishing to avail itself of the statutory defence to establish whether section 232B applies. That is consistent with the rules on the burden of proof: the burden generally lies on the party making the proposition. However, the Bill contravenes that general rule of evidence. In addition, it ignores another general rule that parties are not required to establish a negative. Under the Bill, the employer has to establish that the breach does not qualify for the disregard under section 232B. On a practical level, it is unrealistic and unfair to imply a level of knowledge on the part of the employer, which enables the employer to show not only that the law has been broken, but that the lack of compliance is substantial and meets certain thresholds.

Canterbury City Council Bill

Debate between Ed Davey and David Nuttall

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reference to my home town and for the point that he has made. I hope that I have done enough to reassure him and other right hon. and hon. Friends that we are mindful of the possibility of over-regulating—and thereby killing—what ought to be a legal, prosperous and vibrant livelihood. When we respond to the consultation, we will be extremely mindful of the need to ensure that we do not just maintain the status quo, but ideally encourage such entrepreneurialism. My Department is taking note of what people have said in response to the consultation.

[Mr Nuttall]

There has been a lot of debate about the merits of the Bills, but this evening we are considering whether they should be reintroduced in this Parliament. However, it seems to me that the most important point is the fact that more than 240 Members of the House have had no opportunity, other than in this short debate on a technicality, to consider this important legislation, which strikes at the very heart of free enterprise in this country. I wonder whether the Minister would like to comment on that.

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the procedures for private Bills are unique and somewhat different from those for many other types of legislation. That is why the Government do not normally comment on either the content or the process of private Bills; equally, as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said, it is why special provision is made for private Bills to continue from one Parliament to the next. I do not know how long that has been the position in our Standing Orders, but it is relatively traditional—it might not be as long a tradition as pedlary, but nevertheless it is not something that we should discard with undue haste.

I want to thank the House for this opportunity to outline the Government’s position on these important matters, and I look forward to future debates.