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

Frank Doran Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am not even sure whether Government Members have read amendment 103, because it agrees with the need for a process, but only if a proper complaint is made and verified and the certification officer decides that the process has to be followed. There is nothing wrong with that. It is incredibly transparent.

[Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the very small number of complaints made to the certification officer. I have in my hand the text of a speech that was given at a conference that I organised for trade unions and at which the certification officer spoke. The certification officer had done an analysis of complaints and, importantly, highlighted a small number of cases. He found that

“some of the allegations are clearly made with a view to cause problems for the union and not necessarily because of concern for the member’s interests”,

and that

“some of the allegations of irregularities come from those involved in the irregularities”.

There was nothing of any substance in most of the complaints made.

[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.

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[John Cryer]

I am told that the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) regularly leads people astray—[Interruption.] I do not mean that; I am joking.

As has been said repeatedly, we were first led to believe that this measure would be a lobbying Bill, but since then parts 2 and 3 have been added. We had been promised a lobbying Bill for three and a half years, but all sorts of things have been bolted on to that. Why was there no consultation paper on not only part 2, which we dealt with yesterday, but part 3 and provisions such as clause 36? Why could not the Government have issued a consultation paper so that people could have contributed to the process, rather than ramming the Bill through in a few days, despite introducing it just before the recess? These measures should have been thought through carefully and a consultation process to which people could contribute should have been held, but that simply did not happen.

[Mr Doran]

I declare an interest as a member of the GMB union, which has funded me in the past, and as secretary of the trade union group of Labour MPs. I wanted to say that because, like most of my colleagues, I am tired of the way in which trade unions are demonised, especially by the Government, who are putting as many obstacles as possible in the way of trade unions carrying out their normal and reasonable functions, as is apparent from part 3 of the Bill. The points that hon. Members have made about this group of amendments, which we have been discussing for some time, are relevant to virtually every other provision, because we need to hear from the Government why part 3 is necessary, which is the point on which I shall focus my speech.

I have had some experience of working with the certification officer. In 1993, when the unions were approaching the 10-year ballot for their political fund, I was appointed by a group of trade unions—more than 30 of them—to run the campaign, along with a colleague, Derek Gladwin, who became Lord Gladwin. Sadly, he is now dead. We ran that operation, balloting more than 6 million trade unionists. I did it in close co-operation with the certification officer and I learned a little about the way in which certification officers operate.

If we look back at the history of the regulation of trade unions, it is fairly clear that trade unions are used to regulation and the requirements of regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) pointed out forcefully the very small number of complaints from members about the processes and about the way in which the unions operated— 10 complaints, I think, since the 1980s. Given the numbers involved, that is remarkable.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is setting out what I think is the correct approach to dealing with trade union matters. He mentioned earlier the role of the certification officer. From his wide experience of trade unions, is he aware of any problems with the current role he has set out? If not, does he share my conclusion that this is merely a politically motivated attack on trade unions going about their legitimate day-to-day business?

[Mr Doran]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am trying to be polite to the Government. I must say that I have not had any contact with the certification officer for some time, but I know from the years when I did have contact that there were problems—it would be unfair to say that there were not. When I was in the job, a number of trade unions were very unhappy with the changes that had been made in 1984 and were not complying. I know from my contact with the trade unions that that is all resolved, and the record speaks for itself. The certification officer does a job that is required of him. Some people might think that he requires too much of the trade unions, but the fact of the matter is that they have accepted the regulation and work within the rules as they are.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman is giving a fascinating description of the certification officer’s role in providing membership audit certificates. The Leader of the Opposition has suggested in recent days that perhaps there should be an opt-in for the political fund. Does the hon. Gentleman support that, and does he think that that could have been included in the clause?

[Mr Doran]

I always support my leader.

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. Members cannot just make something up and say that it should be in the clause; they must relate the debate to what is in the clause already. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has been here quite long enough, should learn how to behave properly.

[Mr Doran]

I hope that I took it in good part, Sir Edward.

The decision on the legislation that was to proceed was taken under the process I have mentioned, and everything agreed between the CBI and the TUC was implemented. At its heart was the need to take the heat out of industrial action. We looked at a whole range of areas. One key area was the problem of recognition disputes, when unions had built up a membership in a company and wanted recognition. Many such disputes ended up in the courts and in difficult strikes. We wanted to take the heat out of all areas of conflict. All of that was implemented in the Employment Relations Act 1999. The evidence was a dramatic reduction in the number of strikes—my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South mentioned the number, but I cannot remember—and that has been maintained. I do not think that there is any question about that.

During the Conservative years, and the previous Labour years, to be honest, the level of strikes was far too high. That legislation and that process brought that to an end, and at the time both sides were happy. Even before that legislation was implemented to set in place a process for dealing with recognition disputes, and the effort was to take them out of the courts and minimise conflict, over 1,000 new recognition agreements were signed by both sides.

One of the major problems with this Government is that they have a one-sided approach that demonises trade unions and in every way possible places barriers in the way of the trade union movement. There is no realisation of what happens on the ground. Most trade unions are there not to strike or disrupt the employer, but to protect their members. As part of the process I mentioned, we did a lot of balloting and held focus groups to find out why members signed up to unions. The important thing for most of them was the insurance policy that they got—the fact that the union would support them if there was an argument with their employer, and in particular would pay for the lawyers in an unfair dismissal case, for example. That is what members bought into.

One of my concerns about the Government’s approach is that the harder it becomes for trade unions to operate properly, as trade unions should be allowed to operate in a democratic system, the more members will become tired of the system and have no proper recourse for their grievances. I do not often agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on these issues—

[John McDonnell]

Yes, you do.

[Mr Doran]

I try not to.

[John McDonnell]

Increasingly you do.

[Mr Doran]

My point is that if people see a weakened trade union movement, they will take matters into their own hands. That is a dangerous situation.

Many companies around this country work well with their trade unions and recognise them properly. Most are large; a significant number of FTSE companies, for example, have good relations with trade unions. I remember a number of occasions when unions have been used to lobby Members of Parliament. Once my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and I made a difficult trip to Sellafield; we were expected to stand on top of a reactor, although we were both too cowardly to do that. We were also gently asked to meet the trade union officials. At that time we were developing an anti-nuclear policy.

[The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should leave the subject of Sellafield and come back to clause 36, please. The discussion is getting very wide.

[Mr Doran]

Two hundred trade unionists turned up to lobby us at the meeting we attended. The point I was trying to make, Mr Leigh, was about the relationship between a good union and a good employer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) raised union problems. There are two ways of looking at the matter. Either the Government do not know what the problems are, in which case they are negligent, or they know the problems and want them to be exploited. There are major difficulties in the path of any trade union that wants to keep proper records.

The first difficulty is the churn rate. My hon. Friend said that it was 10% or 15%, but the churn rate for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, for example, is 25% or sometimes 30%. Every year it has to replace 25% of its membership. A lot of members go on to other jobs. They pay their union dues by direct debit and think they do not need to bother to tell the union that they have changed workplace, because they are still working in the same business and paying their union dues. That is difficult for unions. There are lots of practical issues such as that.

The biggest employer in my area is the North sea oil and gas industry, which employs about 30,000 workers offshore and 150,000 onshore. All have different status in the workplace. Many union members are self-employed and many work from company to company. At the moment, there is a massive skill shortage in the North sea. Wages are being ramped up—not a problem in the rest of the country, I know—because people are being enticed to other companies, but still working in the same business, travelling on the same unsafe helicopters and paying their union dues as usual through their bank accounts. Those are all massive problems.

[Katy Clark]

My hon. Friend’s speech is most interesting. It is incredibly important to put these issues into context. Over recent years, unions have spent millions of pounds trying to ensure that they have the best possible membership records. They have also had to pay many millions of pounds to lawyers in defending those membership records in courts of law. Is that really what we want?

[Mr Doran]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the discussions we had in 1997, the aim was to take industrial relations out of the law courts, yet this Bill is going to put them back in again.

In addition to all the logistical problems, many employers, not just those in the North sea industry—I think this also applies to virtually every shipping company based in Britain—now offshore their workers so that employers national insurance contributions do not have to be paid. The Chancellor has decided that that situation should change, but I am not sure whether he has yet introduced the necessary regulations or legislation. When the employers are not paying national insurance and the workers are moving from system to system, it is very difficult for the trade union to make contact, and that is a major problem.

There are four major unions for workers on the North sea: the GMB, Unite, BALPA—the British Air Line Pilots Association—and the RMT. Those workers come from all parts of the country. Every one of them is registered with their trade union at their home address, but their workplace is the North sea. It is very difficult for the unions when they have major problems trying to contact their members on the North sea—even when they know they are there, which is not always the case. I saw many problems along those lines when I was involved in trade union ballots, because one of my jobs was to make sure that the unions had up-to-date and adequate records.

This issue has been under discussion in trade union and Government circles for a number of years. It is a great disappointment to me that the Labour Government did not recognise the problem, because it was easy to resolve. If the Minister is seriously worried about it, he could easily implement an obligation on employers to give information to trade unions about their current work force which would be virtually cost-free. It would not place a huge responsibility on employers to ask them to provide that information so that everybody can be sure that there is accuracy, particularly as regards any industrial ballots that may take place. There would be much more good will if the Government went down that route instead of imposing extra bureaucracy on the unions in the way they propose.

The issue of human rights gives rise to valid concerns. One of the trade union legal firms has given legal advice pointing out how intrusive the proposed powers are in relation to the possession of sensitive personal information, including the home addresses and personal contact details, and probably bank details, of unlimited numbers of union members. It says:

“The Bill gives the Certification Officer, his staff, inspectors and newly-created ‘Assurers’ sweeping powers to take and copy individual membership records and correspondence on the basis of having an undefined ‘good reason’. As the TUC has pointed out, it is not the business of the State to know who is or who is not a trade union member and where they live.”

There are serious worries about that. Others have mentioned the problems of blacklisting and so on, which should be taken much more seriously.

Finally, the much delayed impact assessment makes clear that the policy objective is to give greater assurance that unions comply with the existing duty to maintain a register of members’ names and addresses. I repeat the point that others have made: there is no evidence—or at least none that is clear to those of us who are regularly involved with trade unions—that this Bill is necessary. It is clear to the Opposition that it is politically motivated. The Liberal party has a very good record on trade unions and it is very difficult to understand why it is involved in this process.

[Ian Lavery]

There have been some fantastic contributions to this very important debate on part 3 of the Bill. The most important thing about the Bill has been addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) in his conclusion and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who both said that it could be in contravention of the European convention on human rights. That is a huge issue.

The Bill was published eight working days ago, which has given no opportunity for any clear consultation. Indeed, there has been a complete lack of consultation. Usually, those who are affected by a Bill are at least asked to participate in some form of consultation, but that simply has not been the case. The TUC, which is hardly a beacon of militancy, should at least have been given the opportunity to express the views of its 7.2 million members. Others should have been given a similar opportunity.

That lack of consultation and the fact that the Bill is undoubtedly an invasion of privacy and freedom of association mean that there is a huge question mark over whether it is legal. I am convinced that there will be a legal challenge.

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[Jo Swinson]

I said that I would make progress. I shall do that and then take some more interventions.

It is worth noting that there are also obligations on employers to provide information. If an employer has recognised a union, they are already required to provide the union with information that is relevant for collective bargaining and good industrial relations practice. We plan to provide guidance for employers in relation to the information that they hold that will assist unions with meeting their new obligations.

As has been outlined, there may be circumstances in which an employer has more information than the union on the names and addresses of employees who may be union members. For example, if a union member has their work address as a contact and the workplace moves, the member might forget to notify the union. Making sure that there is better guidance on how employers can assist unions to comply with all the requirements is an important part of what we are looking to do.

I have covered clause 36 in principle. Before I come to the specific amendments, I will give way to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran).

[Mr Doran]

Everything the Minister has mentioned so far could be done within the existing system and without applying this further layer of bureaucracy. Is she aware of the cost of accountants these days? For a union such as Unison, which has over 1 million members, auditing the membership would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. The figures in the impact assessment are laughable.

[Jo Swinson]

I hope that I can give the hon. Gentleman some reassurance. It is not a question of every single membership entry having to be audited; it is about the process the union has in place for doing so. The certificate needs to be provided to give assurance on that. He also said—a few Members mentioned this—that the proposed powers somehow exist already, but they are actually very narrowly drawn. The certification officer’s power to investigate a complaint by an individual member applies only to that individual’s membership record; it does not extend to other members in the organisation. Indeed, it does not give those who might not be a member of a trade union the ability to complain. Of course, a member might not know that there is a problem with their records. Indeed, if they are not receiving information from the union, they might not know when there is a ballot for a committee, for example.

I will turn now to the specific amendments and respond to some of the points that have been raised. Amendment 103 would remove the annual duty to provide a membership audit certificate. Instead, the certificate would need to be submitted only if a complaint were received by the certification officer and he thought that it was necessary. Amendment 121 would go along with amendment 103 by removing the duty to appoint an assurer. I do not think that the amendments are useful, because they stop the key policy objective. I agree that there is clearly a difference of opinion between both sides of the Committee on the reasonableness of the measure, but that is why the Government do not support the amendments. The current arrangements just do not give that assurance, because they rely on members proactively checking the register. Even if they do check the register, they cannot see all of it and they do not know whether other names and addresses are up to date; neither do they know who should and should not be on the register.

Various Members have mentioned the difficulties of tracking membership. Indeed, the Engineering Employers Federation has commented that trade unions

“do not have a unified way of tracking membership and it remains difficult for them to do so”.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said that

“Unions have stated difficulties at times maintaining the addresses of members”.

Amendment 104 would allow for delaying the submission of a membership audit certificate if the union were appealing. I absolutely understand that unions do not want an assurer to send mistakenly or maliciously a qualified certificate to the certification officer without their knowing about it, but I believe that the amendment is unnecessary and hope to give some reassurance on why. The current drafting states that the assurer will send the copy of the membership audit certificate to the certification officer only after it is provided to the union, which means that the union will already have seen the certificate and had that opportunity to talk with the assurer. Of course, it is worth noting that it is the union that will appoint the assurer, and it has every ability within the agreement it makes in appointing an assurer to say that it would like the opportunity to see the certificate and comment before it is sent off.