Trade Union Bill

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

The amendments address restrictions on facility time. Facility time is a good thing. The Royal College of Nursing—not known as the most militant trade union—believes that the Bill could lead to £100 million being lost to the NHS because of workplace issues that go to tribunal and so on. Public bodies should have the right to test the argument presented in Committee that taxpayers should be protected, because trade union members are taxpayers, and they are also voters.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Does evidence from the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Nursing not contrast spectacularly with that of a Government witness from Health 2020 who admitted when giving evidence that she did not even know what facility time was?

[Chris Stephens]

That is correct. I had never heard of Health 2020, and under the skilful questioning of the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) it was revealed that the witness was a former Conservative candidate. When she mentioned her concerns about patient care, I said that a trade union is obliged to provide life and limb cover, but the witness had not heard of that either; and as the hon. Lady mentioned, she did not know what facility time was.

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[Jo Stevens]

The hon. Gentleman refers to intimidation when people cast their ballot. Does he have any real examples of intimidation in ballots?

[Mr Djanogly]

I am not here to accuse anyone. If the hon. Lady thinks that the 1984 legislation was introduced because there were no instances of intimidation at that time, we need to go back to the history books. I do not intend to do that today. I am not saying that postal ballots will always be free from intimidation, particularly if several members of the same family work in the same place. I appreciate that new clause 7 requires that votes at the workplace are private and free from unfairness, but the question is how far does that go? Does it cover only the voting room or the factory premises? What about beyond the factory gates and the pickets? I am concerned that this could be a retrograde step.

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[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is quite right. Other Members have also drawn attention to the degree to which the Bill discriminates against women in the workplace.

[Jo Stevens]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and neighbour.

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[Jo Stevens]

Is my hon. Friend aware of any other cases in which the Government have retrospectively interfered in private agreements between consenting parties in order to undo them?

[Kevin Brennan]

My research may have been inadequate, but I have not come across any such examples. However, the Minister must have dozens. Surely he would not single out one particular group in society for this draconian treatment unless he were meting out such treatment to other organisations as well.

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[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

On Second Reading, I asked a question to which I have had no answer to date. Quite simply, what problem is this proposed legislation designed to solve? What calamity do we have in our land in the field of industrial relations that means that the Government of the day must prioritise this legislation? I cannot find any. The average worker in the United Kingdom goes on strike for one day every 15 years. It is therefore ridiculous that this matter should be the priority of the Government.

I believe that the only reason the Bill is before us, with so few Government Members listening to the debate, is purely ideological. I do not say that all Members or all strands of the Conservative party are against trade unions, but there most definitely is a strand that is very unempathetic to trade unions and that sees the ability of people to combine together in the workforce to prosecute their interests as an impediment on the rights of employers to make their profits and run their enterprises as they see fit. There is a hostile attitude to trade unions. That, unfortunately for the working people of this country, is the strand within the Tory party that is in the ascendency and in the driving seat in respect of this legislation.

It is a great irony, is it not, that to introduce this legislation, the Conservative party will have to have an unprecedented degree of state interference in the affairs of private enterprise? There will have to be state regulation of trade unions that is more akin to a totalitarian than a democratic regime.

I support the SNP amendments that would require consent from the local and devolved authorities in the United Kingdom for the provisions of the Bill to be implemented. In parallel with this discussion, we have been having a debate on the Scotland Bill about the competences and authorities that should go to the Scottish Parliament. In fact, we argued that this entire area should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament simply because it would mean that proposals such as this Bill would never see the light of day. However, we know that there is not a majority in this House for devolving these powers and I want it to be clear that we are not arguing for that today.

What we are arguing for goes to the heart of the debate in this country about who runs public services. It has been the will of this Parliament that many of our public services should be devolved to local and devolved administrations. It is therefore not right for this Parliament to hinder the ability of the managers of those services to deliver them by interfering and setting requirements on the most important resource that is available to them: the workforce. Just because the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has a problem managing relations on the London underground, the rest of country should not have to suffer.

A series of amendments seek consent on each of the major provisions in the Bill. I will speak about some of those measures, but I will try not to repeat what has already been said by my hon. Friends, much of which I completely agree with. A number of mechanisms in the Bill are designed to make it harder for a trade union to win a ballot to go on strike—let us be clear about that objective. However, Conservative Members are mistaken if they think that that will make a problem go away.

It seems that among the authors of this Bill there is great ignorance about the process of managing industry. Often, if a concern or dispute arises among the workforce, and members go to their trade union and the union decides to do something, that can be a way of resolving a dispute or problem to the benefit of the industry or service concerned. The additional measures in the Bill will make it harder for unions to go on strike, but that will let problems fester and dysfunction continue, which will not benefit the trade, industry or service in which the dispute is taking place. When a union eventually passes those hurdles and gets a mandate for a strike, that strike will be bigger, longer and more vicious than it ought to have been had the matter been attended to at an earlier stage. I contend that measures that the Government think are about making it harder for unions to take strike action will have a deleterious effect on industrial relations and make it harder for the management of public or private services to deliver and get the consent of their workforce.

Given the way that the issue is being discussed, it seems that Conservative Members conceive of facility time as some sort of stipend whereby union officials spend all day organising strike action and trying to bring industry to its knees. It is nothing of the kind, and if those Members had worked in a public service for one day, they would understand that often, union stewards and officials play an extremely constructive role at local level in the delivery of that industry or service. In many ways, their role can be described as that of a welfare officer, and officials often help out individual employees who may have problems with management or at work, but who may also just have personal problems that are affecting their work.

[Jo Stevens]

When giving evidence to the Bill Committee, the general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, John Hannett, said that trade unions are problem solvers rather than problem causers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I agree wholeheartedly and my experience all my working life, as both employer and employee, indicates that that is exactly the case. Facility time can be a good thing for management and industry, and for getting things done.

If a local authority, health board or whatever has a check-off facility that has been voluntarily agreed with its workers to deduct a payroll subscription for a union, how can it be okay for that to be outlawed and criminalised, when the same facility can be used by the National Trust or any charity or insurance scheme that wishes? That is frankly ridiculous and punitive in the extreme, and it belies the fact that the Bill, despite its title, is an anti-trade union Bill. Hopefully we will get an explanation for that when the Minister winds up the debate. If this is about money and the cost to the public sector, I am sure that unions will be happy to negotiate paying. As the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) remarked earlier, local authorities and others may be able to make money out of providing a service for payroll check-off.

Time is short and I know that other Members want to speak. I say simply that if the amendment is voted down and we do not agree to the consent of the London Mayor, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, or whoever is delivering the service being required for this provision to be implemented, and that the Government will force services to do whatever they want, even if that does not make sense locally, will we not be entering into uncharted territory? The Government will effectively be declaring that they are prepared to go to war with the devolved Administrations and local authorities in this country, which they have said should be responsible for the delivery of those services.

As I have said so many times, this is one of the things in the Conservatives’ manifesto that I do not think they ever expected they would have to implement. They do not have a mandate for this, and I ask them, even at this eleventh hour, to pull back.

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I know that many right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches will be encouraged by their Whips to hold their noses and support clause 9, in the party interest, against some of their better instincts, but I have to say this to them: in terms of freedom and liberty, you can hold your nose all you like, but it still stinks.

[Jo Stevens]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this Bill in effect creates two tiers of civil liberties and human rights in this country? One tier has much higher restrictions for trade union members and the other tier is for the rest of the population.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. Why is it only trade unions that are being singled out in this way? I think we explored some of the reasons earlier in this afternoon’s debate.

New clause 1, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and his colleagues, is similar to the new clause 12 we tabled in Committee. It would insert in the Bill a ban on the supply of agency workers during industrial action. As we know, the Government are planning to remove the ban on agencies knowingly supplying agency workers to replace striking workers. Kate Shoesmith, the head of policy at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, which has nearly 3,500 corporate members, has said:

“We are not convinced that putting agencies and temporary workers into the middle of difficult industrial relations situations is a good idea for agencies, workers or their clients.”

The CIPD, the professional body for HR, which has about 140,000 members, warned that the Government’s plans to reform trade union laws are “an outdated response”, given the challenges employers face today.

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[Victoria Prentis]

I would like, with your leave, Mr Deputy Speaker, to finish my point and come on to armbands later.

Article 11 allows for proportionate restrictions on the exercise of—[Interruption.] I am referring to article 11(2), which states:

“No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society”.

The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly acknowledged, as recently as last year, that it is legitimate under article 11 for the Government to legislate to impose conditions on the right to strike where there is evidence that that is justified.

The Court has also acknowledged that the Government have a wide margin of appreciation in deciding how to legislate. Clause 9, as we have heard, introduces a set of requirements on the supervision of picketing, following some sensible concessions that were made by the Minister following the consultation period. The picket supervisor will have to wear a badge, armband or other item to ensure that they are easy to identify. This is hardly onerous.

[Jo Stevens]

The hon. Lady referred to article 11(2), which sets out the circumstances in which the right of freedom of association can be interfered with, including the protection of national security and the prevention of serious crime. All we have heard Conservative Members talk about is the “temporary inconvenience” that strikes cause. I am afraid that that is not listed in article 11(2).

[Victoria Prentis]

I do not believe that the wearing of a badge or armband, or some other means of identification, is onerous in the way that the hon. Lady suggests. In fact, it is something that unions widely do already as part of the code on picketing, which actually says that everybody should wear an armband.

I must admit that in Committee I was somewhat bemused by this part of the argument and the briefs provided by Amnesty International and Liberty in the evidence that was given. Both are excellent human rights organisations that undertake extremely important work around the world dealing with executions and torture, yet the wearing of an armband by one person so that they are identifiable during a strike presents them with a big issue. I do not agree. We are not asking everybody taking part in a strike to wear an armband, but simply asking the organiser of a particular event to do so in order to identify themselves.