Elections Bill

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support the intention to oppose Clause 25 standing part of the Bill, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. In so doing, I also support Amendments 41 and 42, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury.

Clause 25 introduces significant delegation of powers in relation to Clause 24, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has indicated. We understood from the Minister last week that the purpose of Clause 24 is to protect the country from electioneering by overseas organisations. I am quite happy to support the Government in that purpose. However, the Minister was unable to assure the Committee last week that non-charitable civil society organisations in this country would remain outside the scope of Clause 24 and therefore also, importantly, of Clause 25. I hope that the Minister can clarify this significant point in his summing up.

I do not want to repeat my concerns about Clauses 24 and 25, which I expressed last Thursday, so will focus solely on the delegated powers in Clause 25, and in so doing declare my interest as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

It is concerning that, in Clause 25, the Government have provided wide-ranging powers for Ministers to amend Section 88 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to which Clause 24 applies. In a sense, it feels a little unnatural to be talking about Clause 25 when these two clauses are so very closely aligned and intertwined. The Government need a very good reason to introduce Henry VIII powers under which a Minister can amend an Act of Parliament.

I want to focus on Clause 25(1)(b) in that respect. I am sure that the Minister is aware that the DPRRC has particular concerns about this paragraph, which relates to the list of third-party organisations that can exceed the spending limits contained in Section 94 of PPERA. He may also be aware that, in its memorandum to the DPRRC, the department admits that preventing other categories of third party being able to campaign has the potential to impinge on freedom of expression under Article 10 of the ECHR and the right to enjoy a free election under Article 3 of the first protocol of the convention. The department has argued that it is important that, if a legitimate category of third party emerges, it can be added quickly to the legitimate categories to ensure that these restrictions on campaigning remain proportionate and no more extensive than is necessary to meet the aim of preventing campaigning by those with no genuine stake in the UK. As I said, I understand that objective, but this clause seems to go much wider and, with the delegated powers in Clause 25, we have no idea where it may go. The DPRRC is clear that the Minister needs to explain the need for Ministers to have Henry VIII powers to remove third parties. If Ministers are unable to provide a satisfactory explanation, these powers are inappropriate. That is the view of the DPRRC, not my view—I am simply a member.

I have brought this issue to the Floor of the Committee because if the Minister can explain the need for these Henry VIII powers in Clause 25 it may help noble Lords when deciding whether to bring back this issue on Report. I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that organisations based in the UK and which are not controlled from overseas will be clearly excluded by the Bill from Clauses 24 and Clause 25, thus taking fully into account the concerns of the DPRRC.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I too am a member of the Delegated Powers Committee and I support everything she said about the delegated powers provisions we are considering. I declare my interests as set out in the register. I support the amendments proposed by my noble friends Lord Collins and Lady Hayman.

There are 6.56 million trade union members in this country, which is one in 10 of the population, from babes in arms to our oldest citizens. Trade unions were defined by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in The History of Trade Unionism, in 1894, as

“a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining and improving the condition of their working lives.”

They achieve this in two ways: first, by seeking to regulate relations between workers and employers, a purpose which is captured by Section 1 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and, secondly, by campaigning for changes in the law. They have a glorious history in that respect, from the “Ten Hours Act”, factory and mines legislation, and, after they had formed the Labour Party, the Trade Disputes Act 1906 and many other pieces of legislation through the 20th century.

That campaigning function is a legitimate activity, protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European convention. Article 11 protects freedom of association and specifically the right to be a member of a trade union for the protection of one’s interests, and Article 10 protects freedom of expression. Only restrictions which are

“necessary in a democratic society”

are permitted on those two guaranteed rights.

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I hope that, in that light, the noble Lord will feel able to not press his amendments. I assure the Committee that I very much conceive it as my duty at the Dispatch Box to listen to the concerns expressed by your Lordships.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is now going to consider safeguards under Clause 25. I invite him to bear in mind that, in order to avert the danger under Clause 25(1)(9)(b) of

“removing a description of third party from that list”,

if the possibility remains of trade unions being excluded or put in that category, it will have to be justified, by reference to the convention, as necessary in a democratic society. That is a high hurdle.

Elections Bill

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, for the reasons explained by my noble friends Lord Collins and Lord Woodley, Clause 27 poses an unjustified, unnecessary but serious threat to trade unions. I say so for three legal reasons: the threat is to three particular rights. The first is the trade union right to autonomy—that is, the right of a union to determine its own constitution and how it will spend its own money. That is a right protected by Article 11 of the European convention, as vouchsafed in the case ASLEF v United Kingdom in 2002. Secondly, it interferes with the right of a trade union to campaign. That, too, is an aspect of freedom of association and the right to be a trade union member protected by Article 11 of the convention. Thirdly, it interferes with the right of trade unions to express themselves—freedom of expression—protected by Article 10. As I said earlier today, to justify such incursions on to those convention rights requires a demonstration that the restrictions are necessary in a democratic society.

As my noble friend Lord Woodley pointed out, this and other provisions in the Bill form part of a long line of legislative restrictions on the capacity of trade unions to improve and maintain the condition of the lives of working people, to coin the web’s phrase. I will not go back to the restrictions on political expenditure first imposed on unions in the Trade Union Act 1913 and preserved today, but I will refer to the legislation of the 1980s, which Tony Blair, as he then was, described in an article in the Times—which I am afraid is for ever embedded in my memory—on 31 March 1997. He described the legislative situation then to be inherited by the incoming Labour Government as

“the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world”.

Of course, Tony Blair’s Governments chose not to repeal that legislation, and unsurprisingly, the Governments formed from the Benches opposite have not repealed it either. Indeed, they have extended it. In place of the promised employment Bill, which it was said would extend the rights of workers, we have had further restrictions on trade unions. I refer to the Trade Union Act 2016 and, as my noble friend Lord Woodley has mentioned, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which further restricts the right to picket in many specified industrial sectors. Last week we had the statutory instrument on the trade union levy in respect of the certification officer, which imposes a tax on trade unions and gives further powers to the CO—and now we have the Elections Bill.

When all these things are seen together, it is clear that Clause 27 is part of a pattern. I accept that, as my noble friend Lord Collins said—and as the Minister said this morning—these clauses have implications for other democratic bodies too. But Clause 27 is unjustified. To cite the test of the convention, it is not necessary in a democratic society.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords—