Trade Union Workplace Access

I remind hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered trade union access to workplaces.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to support from trade unions.

It is important to open with some stark context. The 14 years of austerity between 2010 and 2024 forced down real wages in the UK, a setback from which many working families are still recovering. That came atop a 40-year structural decline in the share of national wealth going to labour, coinciding with the erosion of trade union rights and with declining membership and falling union density. Against that backdrop, the most urgent task of the Labour Government is clear: raising living standards. Trade unions are central to that mission. They are the vehicle through which better pay, safer working conditions and fairer workplaces can be achieved. Equipping them effectively is fundamental to restoring balance.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. I want to tell a short story very quickly, for the record. When as a 20-year-old I went to work for Henry Denny in Belfast, the guy says to me, “You have to be a member of the union.” I said, “I’m not so sure whether I want to be or not.” He said, “It’s compulsory.” What I learned then was that trade unions protect the workers. They ensure workers get their wages, and if workers have any problems with management, they are always there. Being a member of a trade union? I would recommend it.

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right. It may have been compulsory, but it is certainly one of the better decisions that he has ever made.

The problem of trade union access to workplaces is long-standing. Employers have often restricted union representatives from entering their sites, particularly in high-profile industrial settings. The GMB’s attempt to access Amazon’s Coventry warehouse during its 2024 recognition ballot was met with resistance, highlighting the barriers that unions face even when legally seeking to organise.

I hugely thank my hon. Friend for the work, effort and determination that he put into seeing the Employment Rights Bill through the Commons—absolutely outstanding work. On access to the workplace, does he agree that any individual who wants to speak to a trade union or union representative in the workplace, or perhaps even digitally, should have the opportunity to do so, and that it is only bad employers who have something to fear?

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I thank him for his kind comments. I will return to the issue of digital access shortly.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I draw attention to my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group. I am glad that he mentioned GMB’s frustrations with Amazon. Another sector in which that union and other unions have been frustrated is social care, which has been fragmented for three decades now. Does he agree that having a strong general statutory right of access must be complemented with an enhanced right of access under the forthcoming fair pay agreement in social care?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The fair pay agreement architecture gives us a real opportunity to enhance the provisions.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the House. I commend the University and College Union, which was incredibly supportive to me and my colleagues in my former life as an academic. It was only because our employer was decent that it was able to have access to our campus site. I join the hon. Gentleman in condemning those organisations who refuse access for the vital work of unions.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s timely intervention. We know that in schools, the National Education Union and the NASUWT union face obstacles from multi-academy trusts such as the Harris Federation, where access is often limited to outside working hours, when staff are rushing home to pick up children, curtailing union engagement.

Under the responsibility of the Cabinet Office, the MyCSP civil service pension provider refuses to recognise the Public and Commercial Services union or allow it into workplaces to meet members. That dispute is now in its 15th week. The lack of recognition is a situation that must end under a new wave of insourcing and public interest-led procurement. On Teesworks, union access has been blocked by local employers, with tragic health and safety incidents underscoring the consequences of absent oversight.

Until now, UK law has offered no guaranteed legal right of access, relying instead on voluntary agreements or ad hoc arrangements. Even if a Central Arbitration Committee decision is issued, compliance by employers is not guaranteed. Historical parallels include the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004, which quickly became ineffective because of weak penalties and no means of compelling employer compliance. The lack of a legally binding enforcement mechanism creates a scenario in which unions may abandon attempts to secure access, undermining workers’ rights and collective representation.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does he agree that in sectors such as social care, which are facing recruitment and retention crises, better trade union access would improve working conditions and staff retention, which ultimately is only for the better for good employers?

My hon. Friend makes an apposite point. We hear constantly about the crises of recruitment and retention in our core public services, among others. Only by strengthening workers’ access to trade union representation will we ever conquer the rolling crisis across our economy. It is an important point.

I very much welcome the Employment Rights Bill for establishing statutory procedures for union access. It was an important part of our discussions when we formulated the new deal for working people, ably aided and abetted by the Minister, for which I am eternally grateful. Clause 63 will allow unions and employers to negotiate access agreements, permitting union representatives to enter workplaces for recruitment, organisation, the support of members and potentially collective bargaining. The Bill will require employers to respond within a defined negotiation period, with the CAC empowered to determine access terms where agreement cannot be reached.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this really important debate; I refer Members to my entry in the register of interests. Does he agree that trade union access will increase collective bargaining, which drives up pay and conditions for our constituents?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The decline in trade union penetration of the economy is consistent with the stagnation in wages. If we are to turn the issue around, these recognitions and collective bargaining processes have to be given their full voice.

The Bill also acknowledges the need for facility time for union representatives, providing paid time for duties. The Business and Trade Committee welcomed the statutory right of access, but urged that it explicitly include digital channels. It also endorsed the GMB’s call for template agreements to speed up negotiations.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend not only for his incredible work to advance employment rights, but for securing today’s debate; I refer to my entry in the register of interests, having spent many an hour on street corners trying to get information to workers about trade unions. Does my hon. Friend agree that digital access needs to be directly with the worker—not via the employer, who could oversee it—and that any reciprocal communication with the union needs to be free from the scrutiny of employers?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am sure that she has in mind the Amazon debacle in Coventry, where that issue was at play. I thank her and all my hon. Friends for their consistent application to this agenda over many years. It is now bearing fruit.

Concerns remain about the enforceability of access, as some employers may refuse to comply with CAC decisions, creating incentives to disrupt legitimate access. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has called for the CAC to be adequately resourced. Labour pledged to act to ensure that union members and workers are able to access a union at work. In a written ministerial statement in March 2025, the Government said that they would implement

“a fast-track route for achieving an ‘off-the-shelf’ access agreement where certain conditions are met, alongside a mechanism to ensure there are robust penalties in place for non-compliance.”

Access rights will mostly be detailed in secondary legislation.

Future regulations must genuinely deliver the Government’s promise of a meaningful right of access. That includes ensuring that the right is enforceable, as union-busting employers and their lawyers will exploit any gaps. Unions want to ensure that provisions are as strong as possible. Face-to-face communication remains the most effective way for unions to recruit and organise. Robust penalties are needed so that employers cannot price refusal in. Far too often, we have seen employers pricing in the breach of provisions as simply the cost of doing business. We cannot permit that.

Debates in Committee and wider parliamentary discussions have reiterated those points. Witnesses stressed the importance of digital access, reasonable notice, clarity over dwellings and enforceable CAC determinations. Amendments clarified that only independent trade unions certified by the certification officer could exercise statutory access rights, preventing employers from using non-independent sweetheart unions. The CAC is empowered to adjudicate disputes, but unions still bear the cost of pursuing penalties through the employment appeal tribunals, and fines are payable to the Government, rather than the union. That creates a risk that enforcement will remain weak.