I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 2D.
This House has been asked these questions before and twice this House has said no with an overwhelming majority. We are asked to consider for a third time an amendment that significantly expands on previous versions that have already been rejected. Members of the other place referenced the report of the International Labour Organisation’s committee of experts as a reason to reconsider. However, I should note that this ground has already been well covered by both Houses. It was argued that Lords amendment 2D requires Ministers to do what the ILO is requesting: to undertake consultation when considering introducing regulations to implement minimum service levels. The Bill already requires Ministers to do just that, as they have done in undertaking public consultations on their intentions to bring forward minimum service levels to passenger rail services, ambulance services and fire and rescue services. Impact assessments were published alongside those consultations and final impact assessments will be published alongside the regulations the Government bring forward for approval in Parliament in due course.
My colleague Lord Callanan was right to say in the other place that the ILO did not say that the legislation was not compatible with ILO conventions. It simply said that it should be compatible and that we should ensure that it is. As stated in Parliament when introduced and throughout its passage, the Bill is compatible with the UK’s international obligations. The Government will continue to uphold their international obligations as the minimum service regulations are introduced.
Lords amendment 2D also seeks to ensure that the “reasonable steps” that unions should take to make sure that their members comply are considered as part of the consultations that are required before minimum service regulations are made. Members will recall that when this House last considered the Bill, I confirmed that the Government were willing to consider whether there was a case for providing further detail on the reasonable steps that unions must take under new section 234E to ensure that identified workers comply with a work notice given by an employer. In the light of the recommendations from the Joint Committee on Human Rights and points raised in both Houses during the Bill’s passage, the Government accept that further detail would give unions more legal certainty and foresight with regard to their obligations than the Bill provides in its current form. The Government will therefore introduce a statutory code of practice on the reasonable steps that must be taken, using existing powers under section 203 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. These powers enable the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice to promote the improvement of industrial relations.
Will the Minister spell out exactly how trade unions are to comply with and enforce a code that is outwith their jurisdictions in making workers go into work?
The code of practice will be consulted on so that all parties are clear about what the obligations of the unions will be. We expect them to be quite straightforward. They have been debated at length, along with various ideas about how this might operate.
As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the measures that the Minister is trying to introduce are outside the jurisdictions of trade unions, which therefore do not have the powers to implement them.
As I have said, we intend to consult with all parties to make sure that they have a chance to comment on what reasonable obligations a union might be required to take. I think that it is pretty straightforward, and, indeed, unions will be familiar with the code of practice on picketing that was issued under section 203 of the 1992 Act. This code will be subject to statutory consultation, including consultation with ACAS, and to the approval of Parliament. The consultation will give trade unions, employers and any other interested parties an opportunity to contribute to practical guidance on the steps that a union must take in order to make it as practicable, durable and effective as possible.
We are not happy with a number of other parts of the amendment. We are proposing a measure that we have already proposed in earlier debates. It is, of course, up to those in the other place to decide how they take their amendments forward, but we believe that this is fair. We are satisfied that it is an effective way to provide for clarity, and that the individual consultations for specific minimum service levels in relevant services required by Lords amendment 2D are not needed. The real impact of the amendment would be a delay in the implementation of minimum service levels, given the additional and lengthy consultation and parliamentary requirements which we strongly suspect are its purpose. Unnecessary delays in the protection of the lives and livelihoods of those whom we have been elected to represent cannot be justified.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Let me repeat, at the outset, our opposition to the Bill and our intention to repeal the Act that it will become should we be in a position to do so in the future. It is one of the most illiberal, unconscionable and ultimately destructive pieces of legislation produced by any Government. We believe that the right to withdraw labour is a fundamental right, a human right, and one that should not be extinguished. Even if some Conservative Members cannot see past their hostility to trade unions and past the easy headlines, they should see that what they are asking their constituents to do is distinctly un-British, because it infringes on individual freedoms that ought to be—even for Conservative Members—a basic part of any open and democratic society.
Freedom matters, and valuing freedom sometimes means that we protect another person’s freedom to do something even if we do not personally agree with the particular course of action. But our objections are based not just on principles, but on practicalities. Ultimately, we do not think that the Bill will work. The Bill is counterproductive because it will not quell the concerns of many people in the sectors that have taken industrial action. Taking away the right to strike will not take away people’s concerns. We cannot legislate away people’s legitimate grievances about their working conditions. Because the Bill is so ill defined and poorly thought through, Parliament must have a proper opportunity to consider its ramifications.
The measures set out in Lords amendment 2D attempt to address some of those issues. The amendment also provides yet another opportunity for us to raise our concerns about the Government’s lax approach to proper scrutiny during the Bill’s progress so far. Let us go back to when the Bill was first published. It is surely a basic expectation of Government that they should provide an impact assessment before asking hon. Members to vote on a Bill. But no—we were asked to trust the Government that the matter was in hand and that all would be fine. We said it at the time and we say it again: that approach is completely unacceptable.
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The amendment would also ensure that the relevant Secretary of State consults with the ILO and lays before Parliament any advice it gives, as well as laying a report from the relevant Joint Committee on all the actions required under this amendment. This is important, not just because the ILO thinks it is needed but because it fills some of the holes in the process so far. Indeed, it may address some of the important questions that still need answering.
Right now, under this Bill, trade unions can receive huge fines if their members go on strike when they are asked not to do so by their employer, yet there is no information in the Bill on what a trade union will need to do to avoid that liability. Imagine if the Government presented a Bill that had the potential for businesses to receive a seven-figure fine but said nothing about what those businesses needed to do to comply. There would be uproar from Members on both sides of the House, and they would be right to be concerned. What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
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The Bill had been trailed in the press for months before it was published, so not to have the impact assessment ready at the same time was a failure of basic competence. When it finally appeared, we could see why the Government were so keen to keep it under wraps. The Regulatory Policy Committee said that it was not fit for purpose—it could just as easily have been talking about the Government—and no wonder, given that the assessment contains statements that undermine both the purpose and execution of the Bill.
The impact assessment states that the Bill
“could mean a general increase in tension between unions and employers. This may result in more adverse impacts in the long term, such as an increased frequency of strikes for each dispute.”
When Ministers told us on Second Reading that the Bill would reduce the disruption caused by strikes, what they apparently did not know was that the Government’s own impact assessment would say that it could, in fact, have the opposite effect. The impact assessment also says, on at least half a dozen occasions, that assumptions are being made about the level of service that would be required. That is the point of the Lords amendment: unless we have some idea about what these minimum service levels will be—in the six months since the Bill was published, Ministers have not come to the Dispatch Box and told us—we are legislating in a vacuum.
The point has not been lost on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which wrote in its assessment that
“there is nothing in the Bill saying what those minimum service levels are. We shall only know when Ministers make regulations after the Bill is enacted. This is small comfort to Parliament, which is considering the matter right now.”
The Committee’s recommendation was that the Government should publish indicative draft regulations alongside the Bill. As it rightly points out,
“the Government must have some idea how they propose to exercise these powers.”
It is no surprise that the impact assessment got a red rating. Of the 861 Bills assessed by the Regulatory Policy Committee since its creation, just 2.9% have been given a red rating. When legislation represents such a fundamental departure from past practice, the importance of impact assessments increases rather than decreases.
If this all sounds familiar to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is because it is. Only last week the High Court said, in relation to the consultation process for the regulations that allow agency workers to break strikes, that
“this is not a case in which the evidence is that the proposal had obvious and undisputed merit based on cogent evidence, and enjoyed strong support from representative bodies in the sector”.
It could have been talking about this Bill—no doubt, in time, it will be.
The pattern is familiar. The Government decide the policy, although “policy” is probably too strong a word. The Government decide the headline that they want to create, rush through ill-thought-out legislation and then ignore all the voices that point out principled and practical objections. That is to treat democracy with contempt. Parliament is not a rubber-stamping process to agree whatever the Government of the day decide. When Parliament is starved of its ability to properly scrutinise legislation, that impacts on fundamental human rights, as it does in this case. It should come as no surprise that there is pushback from the other place requiring that a robust process be followed.
The amendment is important because the International Labour Organisation’s conference committee on the application of standards called on the Government to ensure that existing and prospective legislation is in conformity with the convention that governs freedom of association and the protection of the right to organise. I would not have thought that is too much to ask of a modern liberal democracy. In fact, I am rather ashamed that the ILO has had to point it out at all.
All this amendment does is what the ILO is asking the Government to do anyway, which is to undertake genuine consultation before implementing minimum service regulations. This means that, when regulations are published, they would include an impact assessment and there should be genuine consultation on the regulations, including on the protection for workers named in work notices and the reasonable steps a trade union needs to take to ensure compliance.