Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Our two witnesses are Steve White, who is chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, and Deputy Chief Constable Charlie Hall of the National Police Chiefs Council. You are both very welcome.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q 242242 Good morning and welcome to the witnesses. There is a serious number of provisions in this Bill, particularly in relation to picketing. One of the consultation documents contains proposals on supervising social media comments and potential criminalisation, although we are not clear on the Government’s position on those issues. Do you believe that there are problems with the way in which the Bill could be policed and the additional stresses and strains it would place on policing, which is obviously already subject to significant pressures?

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: In the majority of cases, there is no real need for the police to be involved with industrial disputes and picketing. Indeed, our stance is that we would wish to avoid it if we can. Many pickets and industrial disputes run without any contact or involvement with policing. Clearly, there are occasions when police have been, and need to be, involved to keep the peace and prevent disorder. There are provisions in the Bill for police to be notified of picket lines, and my reading of that is that, in pretty much every instance, we would be notified of industrial disputes and picketing. My position is that I do not see that as absolutely necessary, simply because we would expect those picket lines to be self-policing as far as possible. Involvement of police beyond that should be the exception, rather than the rule.

On social media, I have seen some detail in the Bill about that. I do not believe that there is a need for the police to be able to vet or censor social media posts. Clearly, there may be a role for policing at some point. If things are posted that commit criminal offences, we would investigate in the same way that we would investigate other social media posts.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 243 Steve, do you share those views?

Steve White: Yes, broadly. There needs to be a recognition of what is practically possible in terms of the level of resource that we currently have, particularly on the social media aspect—goodness gracious me. I am on Twitter, and I sometimes wish that perhaps we did have the powers to deal with social media comments from time to time, but, goodness me, that would be massively complex. From a policing perspective, it would be a dangerous route to start going down if we say that the police should have a role to play in that.

Of course, the relationship between local police officers and employees of local firms is key and crucial to this. It would be a travesty if we ended up going back to the days of the 1970s and ’80s when, whether rightly or wrongly, the police service was seen as an arm of the state, which of course we absolutely are not. I certainly echo Charlie’s comments that these disputes should be largely self-policing.

The only other comment that I would like to make is about the requirement to inform police in relation to picket supervisors, for example. I question that. I mean, it is not for the Police Federation to say what laws there are in the country, of course. However, I personally question whether there would be more appropriate ways for that information to be recorded, so that the police absolutely do not have to be involved at all, apart from keeping the peace when necessary. Perhaps local authorities could play a part in that more appropriately. And of course, the sad fact of the matter is that we are now seeing increasing mission creep, whereby the police service has to step in where other services are providing gaps. So we do not want to design something that brings that about, when perhaps there are more appropriate agencies to do that work.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 244 Given what you have said, do you both think that there is a risk that with some of the provisions—particularly those about being able to demand letters, anyone being able to demand a letter, the wearing of armbands and all sorts of stuff—that if things got out of hand, they could draw the police into situations where multiple people demand things? As you say, preferably, the police should stay out of these situations. Do you think that there is potentially a risk of a breakdown in order around protests that otherwise would have been conducted and self-policed, as you have described?

Steve White: The point is that if there is a requirement for a notification to be made to the police, what happens when that does not happen and how do you know if it has not happened? Presumably, the police will have to investigate that. That is the issue. Otherwise, there is no point in having that requirement; it is about enforcement.

I think that it is justified for us to have a view in relation to the practicalities of enforcement, because we are the ones who are charged with enforcing the laws. So I think it is right for us to be able to comment on that. My question is: what would the sanction be? Then, of course, immediately you will drag the police service into other aspects, which I am not convinced is the intention of the Bill. It is the mission creep element.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I think that my response to the question would be “possibly”, but I would not over-emphasise that it will cause problems. When police need to attend picket lines, there is some utility in being able to identify who is supervising or in charge of that picket line; certainly, that would be helpful. But I do not believe that it is necessary to have notification directly to the police in advance of every picket line being set up, and that is simply because, as I have already said, I do not see us needing to attend in the vast majority of cases anyway. However, a mechanism by which we can easily identify who to speak to when we arrive would be of assistance.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 245 I have one last question. Would it be your opinion that, in a general sense, industrial relations and the involvement of the police have significantly improved over the last 10, 20 or 30 years, compared with some of the situations that we might have seen in the past, and that we do not want to jeopardise that type of relationship? I think it applies more broadly to the policing of protests, as well, that we have got to a very good situation and that we do not want to put that at risk.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Clearly, there is some history here, going back. The police role must be impartial in these industrial disputes, without doubt, and I would like to think that is the position that we have taken in recent years. I agree that that should be maintained. Our role there is to balance the lawful rights of all parties, and I would want to ensure that role continues.

Steve White: I would agree with that. In fact, before this session, I was reflecting—I have been a police officer for 27 years—and trying to remember the last time that we really had something of major significance. We were talking about the dispute involving petrol tanker drivers, and the amount of planning and the number of issues that we had to deal with then. That is probably the last time, but of course that was largely carried off in a very low-key and successful way, although there was a lot of resources and planning behind it, which I think shows how much things have improved.

[The Chair]

Okay. I am already getting a list of people to ask questions, and we only have half an hour. You do not both need to answer questions unless you really want to, and I ask members of the Committee to try to limit themselves to one supplementary question, unless they are really bursting to ask another. I know that the next questioner will be very brief and to the point.

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[The Chair]

When I was practising as a criminal barrister we were not allowed to ask leading questions. There is nothing out of order about leading questions, but our witnesses are so skilled that one probably does not need to lead them, and I sure Mr Doughty, who has the next question, will not.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 260 There has been some quite unhelpful rhetoric from Ministers about the Bill and industrial action in general. Although industrial action has been at significantly low levels for a generation, the Minister for the Cabinet Office has talked about setting up hit squads, and standing ready to use the Cobra system to deal with industrial action. What are your thoughts about those comments? Do you think it is appropriate that we are talking about using the Cobra system, which is a key national resilience mechanism, to deal with what are extremely low levels of industrial action?

Steve White: My reaction to that—I am not experienced at Cobra; I know that Charlie is—is that we have got to remember that policing in this country is wholly independent of the state. I think that is the important element to recall around that. There is not political control of the police service in this country, and I think it is important that that should continue. Policies and procedures that the Government want to put in place are a matter for the Government, but I will just make that point.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: I would agree with that—that chief constables are independent in terms of how they deploy their resources, and we must remain impartial to the merits of whatever the dispute is around. I think I can perhaps understand why Cobra may, for some disputes, feel the need to meet to sustain services, but the police role within that will always remain impartial. If there is disorder to be dealt with, or there are criminal offences to be dealt with, we will do it, but our role will be as much to facilitate the lawful picketing as it will to facilitate the lawful carrying on of business activities. Our role is right in the middle of that.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 261 Specifically on Cobra, in your view would it be a very small number of instances where it would ever be appropriate for that system to be brought into play?

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: That is ultimately for Government to determine, but I see that there are often local disputes where Cobra would never need to get involved and manage that. The Government will make decisions as to when they need to activate that machinery.

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)]

Q 262 Thank you both for being here. I have a question for the deputy chief constable. I think you mentioned that your primary responsibilities are to keep the peace and uphold the law. Obviously there have been situations where that has not been the case on picket lines, and we heard evidence on Tuesday about that and talk of intimidation. I was looking around at how you deal with other organised protests, such as marches, and it says clearly on the Met police website:

“Organisers should try to give as much notice as possible”,

and provide the names and addresses of organisers. Given that, would it be a help or a hindrance for you to have the notice period in the Bill of two weeks and the identity of someone organising a protest? It seems pretty clear that it would be a help, rather than a hindrance, but I wanted to confirm which of those you think it would be.

Deputy Chief Constable Hall: Well, I think there are degrees of protest. If you look at protest across the country as a whole, there are some big, national-level protests, but almost on a day-to-day basis many smaller protests take place, too. We are certainly not notified of all of them, nor do I think it practical for police to be notified of them. Many protests are self-policed and are not ones that we would particularly need to get involved with.

Certainly for the bigger scale protests—the ones that are likely to involve some element of policing—some advance notice to plan around that is necessary. Very often, our intelligence structures provide that information to us anyway to enable plans to be put in place. Some of that comes through organisers notifying us, and some of it comes from information and intelligence that we receive into policing.

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[The Chair]

Good afternoon. We are now joined by David Palmer-Jones, who is chief executive officer of SITA UK, and Commissioner Ron Dobson of the London fire brigade. You are both very welcome.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 268 I have a question for each of you. First, Commissioner, could you outline your relationships with the Fire Brigades Union, how you feel they are at the moment and whether you think the Bill will help or hinder them?

Commissioner Dobson: Relationships with the FBU are, in my opinion, positive. We have some issues we need to deal with, both locally and nationally, in relation to Government challenges to the firefighters’ pension scheme, which is still unresolved. Generally, at a local level, our relationships are reasonable. The London fire brigade has had experience of industrial action—back in 2010 in relation to a local dispute, and in the past couple of years in relation to the national pensions dispute. I have to say that the conduct during those two disputes was very different. There is a stark comparison between the two. We are always trying to improve our relationship with the Fire Brigades Union. There are some difficulties at the moment, but we are working hard to resolve them.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 269 David, I understand that there has been a series of disputes involving your company. Can you tell us a bit about one of the disputes that is going on in relation to Teesside and Merseyside at the moment? I understand that trade unions have recently met with the company and requested a full forensic audit of your workers’ terms and conditions, but apparently you have refused it on cost grounds. The trade unions involved have offered to pay for the audit, but it has been refused. Could you tell us a bit about the dispute and why that is the situation at the moment?

David Palmer-Jones: Okay, I can do that. I will be as quick as possible. We are in the process of building an energy-from-waste plant up in Teesside. We have been investing in Teesside for the past 15 years: we have probably spent £700 million and employed 500 people in that area, and we are continuing to do that. I am in the process of doing a piece of work—a PFI-type contract—for Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority, which is progressing very well. We are almost three years into the build now, so the build is almost complete. About a year ago, we were targeted by some local activists who are running a campaign around “pay the rate”, which is some form of national protest that is looking at pay on very specific types of national agreements. At the moment, we are a minority shareholder—a 40% shareholder—in that particular element, and I will take over the operation of that facility early next year.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 270 I asked a very specific question, though. I understand that there has been a request for a forensic audit of your workers’ terms and conditions. Why have you refused the willingness to pay for it?

David Palmer-Jones: We have not refused. We have already done a forensic audit. As you can imagine, it is quite a complex audit to do. We have more than 60 different contractors involved in the project. We have a head contractor and 60 others, all of which bring specialist services to build the £220 million project. On behalf of Merseyside, we did that analysis. I met with the national union representatives recently, and I had the opportunity to show the officers and the elected members of Merseyside—our customer—that information, which satisfied them. I made a genuine offer. It was controlled by ACAS, and we asked for ACAS to come in. I was very happy to share and pay for a forensic audit of the wages on that site through ACAS. That was refused by the unions. Therefore, I am left in a rather difficult position with an ongoing dispute. Our company has now experienced 29 protests, at both the Wilton site and—

[The Chair]

May I interrupt? This is not a Select Committee, Mr Doughty; it is a Bill Committee, so your questions have to go laser-like to the Bill.

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[Stephen Doughty]

Q 271 The reason I wanted to ask the question was to find out why you think you have been asked here to give evidence on the Bill. Is it so that your poor industrial relations with a whole series of unions can then be used as an example to be reflected in full-scale national policy making? Is that why you think you have been invited here today?

David Palmer-Jones: I hope I have been asked here today to look at some of the grey areas—not the black and white areas about intimidation or numbers of pickets and so on—and perhaps a changing tactic on protests and the disruption they cause my company in continuing to invest in Teesside. I think that is why I have been invited; I hope so.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

Q 272 The project at Wilton, of course, uses CNIM Clugston as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor. Are you aware of allegations that CNIM Clugston is paying certain members of staff—contractors who they employ and who are non-British workers—€6 an hour?

David Palmer-Jones: That is a complete fallacy. It is untrue. I have done the audit. I have seen the information myself and presented it to Merseyside council and the elected members. They are satisfied, as my customer. I have no obligation to show the unions. I offered, very genuinely, to involve ACAS, so that they could see it. They refused. They want to do their own audit.

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[Victoria Prentis]

Q 283 It would be very helpful to hear more about that.

David Palmer-Jones: This is something that is very much condoned by the unions. When I meet with Merseyside and those unions, I am meeting the senior national levels of the union, which in some way tacitly approve of the tactics being deployed up in Teesside at the moment. We have a situation where council employees who are delivering household waste vehicles to the site feel quite intimidated to go across a picket line and a protest that is very much dressed in the union colours and waving union flags. They do not want to cross what is not an industrial action. This is very important to understand: there is no industrial action on any of our sites, yet I am still facing the difficulty of a sponsored, wider protest that is of a more national scale.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 284 I just have a specific question, given what the commissioner has been saying. Can you confirm whether during the 2010 dispute any FBU members were actually arrested or prosecuted for their behaviour in picketing; and, secondly, can you confirm whether any agency staff brought in were arrested or prosecuted for their behaviour?

Commissioner Dobson: No, nobody was actually prosecuted.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 285 Was anybody arrested?

Commissioner Dobson: I am trying to think; I cannot recall anybody being arrested, but they may have been—but certainly nobody was prosecuted, and the police did investigate a number of things that occurred on some of the picket lines and elsewhere.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 286 But no FBU members, to your knowledge, were arrested or prosecuted.

Commissioner Dobson: No.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 287 Given that you are not aware of the wider circumstances, could you perhaps write to us and tell us what happened during that dispute, given that it has been referred to a number of times, with agency workers who were brought in? I think that is directly relevant to the Bill, because there are obviously proposals that the Government are putting forward on the use of agency workers. I think it is important to understand the sort of tensions that are created. Do you think there is potential for tensions being created more widely in industrial disputes by agency workers being brought in, particularly in professions such as yours where there are specific sets of health and safety concerns and specialities?

Commissioner Dobson: I think there are tensions when agency workers are used. Our emergency fire crew contract, which provides our contingency arrangements, is provided by an external company. We contract it out in order to meet the requirements of the current employment legislation. That obviously does increase tensions, because striking workers see somebody else doing their job; I think it does increase tension.

The difficulty is, in an industry such as mine where we are providing a critical emergency service, we do need arrangements in place to cover public safety if the fire brigade is on strike. Therefore, we did not really have much choice. Other fire brigades outside London use other arrangements; but they have the opportunity to use people who maybe were retained fire fighters. We do not have that opportunity in London and we needed to make sure we had a robust contingency plan in place. That does create tensions, inevitably, but I do not think we have any option on that at the moment.

[Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)]

Q 288 You have both referenced how keen you are to ensure good industrial relations in the work you do and the duty you have to your staff, to protect and look after them. We have heard a number of references from both sides, and from both of you, about intimidation. Can you give us a flavour of specific examples that have stuck in your mind of the form that intimidation has taken—what was said, what was done and how that played out?

Commissioner Dobson: In terms of physical intimidation, during the 2010 dispute—and I have to be clear that this did not take place in the recent disputes—we saw the emergency fire crew operatives being refused access to fire stations and being intimidated: followed to incidents when they were actually attending emergency calls. They were followed there by striking workers and intimidated at the incident ground.

We have seen photographs being taken and posted on social media of people who were working during the strike, with comments such as, “We know who you are; we know where you live.” We have seen intimidation of some of the emergency fire crew by taking photographs of them and trying to find out what their names were, and by comments such as, “Don’t come back to London because we know who you are.” So there is a range of intimidation using social media.

All those instances where these things have happened have been reported to the police, but I refer back to the previous people giving evidence about how difficult it is to investigate and bring to a conclusion any offences over social media. So while it was investigated, unfortunately, there was not any result to the investigations; but they certainly took place and the evidence exists and actually has been shown to the Committee before.

David Palmer-Jones: I think from my side it is really the fact that it can occur away from the site itself. That is the bit that concerns us the most. We have had instances where cars have been damaged, threats of violence to our supervisor, and threats to other members of staff, who are not members of the union, who continue to work. That causes a lot of disruption and disharmony in the workforce; and we do not have many strikes, I can assure you—perhaps one in the last 10 years. When it does happen, there needs to be some form of control, very much specifically around secondary action outside the local area where the picket would happen. That is the most worrying for me.

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[The Chair]

Our last witness this morning is Byron Taylor of the national office of the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 316 For the avoidance of doubt, I have already declared an interest, but obviously, I am a member of the Labour party and of the GMB, which is a member of TULO. Byron, could you tell us why you believe the provisions in the Bill break the established conventions on arrangements for political party funding?

Byron Taylor: The Bill is a fairly partisan attack on Her Majesty’s Opposition. It does significant damage to the funding of the Labour party, and I think that is in breach of existing parliamentary convention.

There is a long history here. Back in 1948, Winston Churchill said:

“It has become a well-established custom that matters affecting the interests of rival parties should not be settled by the imposition of the will of one side over the other, but by an agreement reached either between the leaders of the main parties or by conferences under the impartial guidance of Mr. Speaker.”—[Official Report, 16 February 1948; Vol. 447, c. 859.]

That was reinforced by Margaret Thatcher in a Cabinet meeting on 9 February 1984, when she said:

“legislation on this subject, which would affect the funding of the Labour party, would create great unease and should not be entered into lightly.”

There is a fairly well-established history of parliamentary convention that says parties should not interfere in matters affecting the Opposition. Even as recently as 1998, the Conservative party’s submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life stated:

“The Conservative Party does not believe that it is illegitimate for the trade union movement to provide support for political parties.”

The Bill, in its current format, is designed to do exactly that and to stop the trade union movement being involved in political parties. That is a really important concern, because there is not only an established parliamentary convention.

There are very solid grounds about the freedom of association: article 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998, the European charter of fundamental rights and, dating right back to 1948, the universal declaration of human rights, to which this country is a signatory, which says:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. 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”.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 317 May I ask a specific question? There is an important point here about the distinction being made between the rules governing company donations and corporate donations to political parties and trade union donations to political parties. Could you say a little bit about the difference between the conditions that will be brought about by this Bill and what applies to, for example, companies making political donations—for example, the ability of shareholders to opt out of those decisions?

Byron Taylor: Indeed. There is no right for shareholders to opt out of political donations. A company is required to make a political resolution once every four years. A private company can do it by simple resolution. A public company does it at the annual general meeting, but the reality is that a single political resolution is made every four years.

If you contrast that with the requirements upon a trade union, there are significant differences. The trade union membership here in the UK already enjoys fairly substantial protection. We call it the triple lock. In the first instance, a trade union member can opt in or opt out of the political fund at any time, and that has been the case here in the UK since the 1940s. In addition, they can participate in the representative democracy of their trade union if they are unhappy with how a trade union is operating their political activity. They can participate in the structures of the union and seek to change how that activity is conducted. Finally, there are political fund review ballots, which operate once every 10 years. That is a simple one member, one vote ballot on the membership. The membership, should it so wish, can choose to disestablish any existing political funds, so there are several safeguards for trade union members in the operation of political funds that are not comparable with those upon companies.

This is a critical point. If you look at some of the donations that come in from companies—the one I draw reference to is Bearwood Corporate Services, which made 177 donations to the Conservative party, totalling £5.3 million. If you look at the ownership structure, it goes back to two faceless companies in the British Virgin Islands. We have no idea who is behind those donations.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 318 Can you give us some practical examples of how trade unions are transparent about their funding—the amounts that are given and so on—at the moment, and why the provisions in the Bill simply are not required?

Byron Taylor: Trade unions are already required to publish any donations to a political party under the auspices of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. In addition, they are already required to provide significant information to the certification officer about the number of members in the fund and the amounts paid into the fund and so on. There are already significant reporting requirements on the trade union movement about how political funds are expended. That is an important and clear point. What is proposed in the Bill represents a serious change to the way in which trade unions operate without any basis in evidence to do so.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 319 The Bill’s provisions would have to be adhered to within three months of Royal Assent and its commencement. Do you think that is a fair amount of time for any organisation to comply with such significant changes to law?

Byron Taylor: No, I really do not. Three months is an extremely short timescale. Let us bear in mind that trade unions are, primarily, industrial organisations; politics is very much a secondary function for them. If the Bill is passed unamended, we will be asking 4.9 million people to opt back into the political fund in a three-month period. To set that against a couple of other examples, the recent changes relating to plastic bags supplied by retailers were enacted in Ireland in 2002, in Wales in 2011 and in Scotland in 2012. The coalition Government initiated the change in the UK in 2013 when they conducted the regulatory impact assessment and the Deputy Prime Minister announced the policy in October 2013. Companies have had a significant time to be aware that the changes are likely to happen, and as of 2013 they had two years to prepare for that.

Another example is self-assessment; everyone who completes a self-assessment is required to submit their returns by the end of January each year. They have a clear 12-month notice period that they must effect that change, and a significant Government-sponsored media campaign is run to inform people that they need to get their returns in by 31 January. If they fail to do so, a fine of £100 is imposed. Despite all those safeguards, this year alone, 890,000 people failed to fill in their self-assessments. We are asking 4.9 million trade unionists to opt into the political fund in a three-month period dated from Royal Assent, and I think that is unacceptable. There is also the issue of retrospection. Those people joined a collective organisation and opted, as part of their decision to join a trade union, to become part of the political fund. I see no clear public interest test that requires trade unionists to opt in to the political fund of their trade union when they have already joined that trade union in the past, and I fail to see what reference the Government are making to human rights on this matter. In 2002, the Solicitor General referred to the public interest and human rights when he spoke of retrospective legislation, and I believe that the Bill is such legislation.

[Nick Boles]

We do not intend to intrude upon the conversation among members of the Labour party, who seem to be having a very good time.

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[Dr Cameron]

Q 323 What would be the impact of that if it were implemented?

Byron Taylor: There are questions about what is actually being proposed and the format. For example, on the face of it, the Bill requires written communication, but I am not sure if that is what the Bill actually means. One of the things I would particularly like clarity on in the coming weeks is what is the requirement. If it is implemented in the format that is suggested in the Bill, I think you are going to see a significant drop in political fund payers in the trade union movement. The net effect of that will be to remove a whole series of people from the political process in the UK. At a time when we are talking about declining engagement and how we can encourage people to be more engaged in the political process, what we are doing is reducing the number of people who actively engage in politics in some format. That is very bad for democracy in terms of participation and in terms of the funding gap it will create in British politics.

Returning to the Churchill convention, which requires parties not to interfere in matters of other parties without consent, we are going to find ourselves in a situation where the Labour party struggles to compete in electoral terms with the Conservative party.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 324 I am intrigued that the Government Minister and the Whip have been going round gagging their Members from asking questions about what is a significant part of the Bill. Mr Taylor, why do you think Government Members are unwilling to ask questions about a significant part of their own Bill?

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Sir Edward. It would be completely unparliamentary for any Member to seek to gag another Member. I assure the Chair that no such attempt to gag Members has taken place. I request the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that suggestion.

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[The Chair]

I see a Conservative Member wants to be ungagged.

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 325 May I finish my question? Mr Taylor, are you surprised that there appears to be very little Government interest in what is a significant part of their own legislation? What do you think the reasons for that might possibly be?

Byron Taylor: That is a very interesting question. As I said at the start of my evidence, as far as I am concerned, this is a partisan attack on Her Majesty’s Opposition and forms part of a broader attack on civil society. If you look at the concerns being raised about charities’ political campaigning or what is being said about the BBC—it is a deeply partisan attack. It is deeply damaging to our society, and I have real concerns.

I return to the Committee on Standards in Public Life hearings in 2011. Those of you who have read the transcripts will know I gave evidence to that Committee. The argument put forward by the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party at that point was that there should be individualisation of political fund payments. The Committee took the majority view that

“such a condition would be a disproportionate intrusion into the constitution of the relevant trade unions”.

That is a really important principle to me—freedom of association and the right of trade union members to come together, form a trade union and determine their own rules and constitution. The Bill is interfering directly in that human right, which I think Amnesty and Liberty made reference to yesterday.

[James Cartlidge]

Q 326 I want to raise a specific technical point. Mr Taylor, you said this is an attack on funding and that funding will go down. Surely, if people have to opt in, funding will only go down if they had not wanted to opt in in the first place.

Byron Taylor: Funding will go down because people have busy lives and the trade union movement is then required to contact every single member to require an opt-in, when many people already believe they are opted in.