Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding
Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Cormack
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on his excellent report. I begin by reminding the House that we have this report because of the great unease in the House about the proposition put forward. I say further to my Front Bench that it is highly likely that if the noble Lord tabled an amendment based on the findings of his report, it would be carried—
Lord Balfe
Okay, then it will be carried. I would therefore hope that the Government will devote a good proportion of their thinking power to working out where the acceptable compromise is between where they are and where the majority of the House will be, because I predict that the amendment will be carried.
Paragraph 61, which has not been mentioned, states that after 1927, unions raised the amount that they paid into political funds. That is a far more significant paragraph than has been realised. We have seen this with the political fund ballots. I remind the House that when the Conservative Government proposed political fund ballots, they thought that that would end political funds. Not only has it not: there are more political funds today in more unions than there have ever been. We should not underestimate the power of marketing. Also, if people look forward, they may say, “We may need a political fund to carry out certain functions”.
I am not saying that we should therefore support the clause, but that the law of unintended consequences may well come home to roost. This will not find much favour on the Opposition Benches either. We talk about political funds, but not about giving people any choice within them. There is no proposal to tick a box so that the money can go to the Green Party or the 30% who vote for the Conservative Party. It is a straightforward sledgehammer approach, in the probably mistaken belief that it will somehow break the union political funds.
I notice that the proportion going to the Labour Party is about four-ninths of the amount collected so, for the last time, we can use an old Liberal slogan of ninepence for fourpence: you collect ninepence and you give fourpence to the Labour Party. That was how Lloyd George sold national insurance—for those who are not in the Liberal party.
In paragraph 107, the committee states, “We endorse”. There are no minorities there. The Certification Officer needs a balance between proportionality and accountability. That is clearly evident, because it seems that things are being pushed on to the Certification Officer without thought being given to how he is going to carry out his functions. We need to think very carefully about what his role is. Is it just to receive the report? If you say, “Dear Certification Officer, we have spent £50,000 on Build a Better Society, a front organisation that will organise demonstrations at the Conservative Party conference”, you have fulfilled all that you have asked the Certification Officer to do. He takes that and puts a stamp on it and says, “Oh, yes, they’ve declared that—it’s jolly good, isn’t it?”. End of story. What are we trying to do with this Bill?
On the subject of funding reform, paragraph 115 has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. We do not want to get into a unilateral tit-for-tat action; it is not going to do any of us any good. Paragraph 128 cites Sir Christopher Kelly, who is not normally found in the Jeremy Corbyn part of politics, but he called Clause 10,
“a partisan, cynical move that is likely … to bring the whole process into even greater disrepute”.
I think we need to take note of what he had to say.
In conclusion, I hope that we will agree with paragraph 141(a), giving the new members time to opt in, and I hope that we will find a way of coming to terms with paragraph 142(a), which reflects the majority feeling of the committee and what is likely to be the majority feeling of this House. The benefit of this debate is that the Government can think their way out of the problems they have unfortunately got themselves into. I am sure that all noble Lords will be happy to help them to solve this particular, rather difficult problem.
Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Cormack(8 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Balfe
There is no need for there to be a huge gap between us. One of the points that I put forward when I was working for the Conservative Party in conjunction with the 2010 manifesto was a suggestion that instead of contracting in to the political levy, one should be enabled on the box to tick any political party to receive part of the political levy donation—any party represented in Parliament, to prevent money going to fascists and the like. That was rejected by a very senior person who is still in the Cabinet, who said to me that it would be unfair unless we had an overall settlement of the party funding issue, because it would mean impacting on one party without having an overall effect.
I have made my views clear in this House before: I do not believe in public funding of political parties. But this is not public funding. I do not queue up to get my hand in the gravy bowl to give money on the basis of the number of votes or things like that. In fact, if it were left to me, I should set a quite low limit of probably no more than £2,000 a year on donations to political parties. I happen to be suspicious: if people put more than £2,000 in, I say, what on earth are you after, then?
We could look at the issue of contracting in or out, but only in the context of a reform of the system. The noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, is absolutely right. Anyone who has had anything to with the trade union movement knows that three months is a ridiculous timespan. It is just not administratively possible, any more than it is possible to convert to not giving away plastic bags in three months: you cannot do it. I am afraid that this clause in the Bill is not motivated by anything other than a desire to take a partisan stand. One of our strengths in the House of Lords is that we can be a little more independent than in other places. I am very unhappy with this as a system, and the whole way it has been put forward is wrong. I am not against the principle of contracting in as part of an overall reform, but this is not the way to do it.
The whole political fund thing of course went wrong. As my noble friend Lord King probably knows, it was brought in because they thought that if they gave the unions a chance, all the union members would vote against political funds. If I remember rightly, the trade union movement got a chap called Bill Keyes to organise political funds, and he did brilliantly: he almost doubled the number of unions with political funds. Not a single ballot has ever been lost. This could bounce back the other way if we pursue this particular reform. It is neither fair nor democratic, and we should think very carefully before we upset the democratic apple cart.
I speak from this side of the House, from a party that is not affected. But we in the House of Lords, an unelected Chamber, to an extent have the strength to ask the Government to please go away and think again. We are not asking the Minister to give concessions tonight, because we realise that this is complex, but as it stands this is a very partisan move. I do not think that it has a place in a trade union Bill, and it is not in the manifesto. I appeal to the Government to think carefully and to at least allow a version of the noble Baroness’s amendment on to the book to give a decent amount of time so that this can be done properly.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, as one who has never been a member of the Labour Party, I entirely agree with the forceful plea made by my noble friend Lord Balfe. I very much hope that this does not come to a vote on Report, but I have to give notice that if it does, unamended, I will almost certainly vote against it, because it is intrinsically unfair. If one tries to stand for anything in public life, it should be for fairness. Of course my noble friend cannot announce concessions tonight, but I appeal to her to listen very carefully indeed to everything that has been and will be said.
The way forward, if there is to be legislation, has probably been hinted at in the extraordinarily important speech made by my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater. As he said, he negotiated in good faith with the then leaders of the TUC and an agreement was reached, which clearly has been honoured. What is not clear—my noble friend himself made it abundantly plain that he did not know—is whether it has been honoured more in the breach than in the observance or more in the observance.
I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt until it is proved otherwise, on the same basis that a man or woman is innocent until proved guilty. But if it does transpire that this has not been honoured as scrupulously as the noble Lord, Lord Monks, believes it has been and should have been, and if it is considered that there should be any legislation on this, it is the enacting of that code of practice that should follow. We should not have what is proposed in this Bill—and we most certainly must get rid of this utterly iniquitous three months. It is quite wrong. The noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, made a very effective and telling speech on this.