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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There are two hon. Gentlemen who should be behaving themselves. It is unfair. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) should be heard.
Mr. Redwood: I am grateful for your courtesy, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The House should recognise that good industrial relations are crucial to jobs and prosperity in our country. Have we not been through enough in the 1960s and 1970s? Did we learn nothing from that bitter experience? Did we learn nothing from the disputes in the 1980s to establish better trade union law?
Before the election, the Secretary of State and his friends in the Labour leadership were seeking to reassure people that they accepted the Conservative trade union settlement. They were even prepared to say that they thought that it was one of the better things that the Conservative Administration had done.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
Rubbish.
Mr. Redwood:
The Labour leadership agreed that too much power had gone to the shop stewards and to disruptive forces in the 1970s, and that it was important to have a new settlement. Why are the Government now backing away from that, having won the election?
Mr. Bercow:
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend heard the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) saying "Rubbish." Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason why the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the new clause is presumably that he was a keen supporter of the Government under which the streets went unswept, the sick went untended, and the dead went unburied?
Mr. Redwood:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was talking about rubbish in the streets, rather than rubbish in my speech. That would have been wise of him, but as I have offered him the opportunity to intervene, it is a pity that he could not have made such a contribution in open debate.
Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale):
Get on with it.
Mr. Redwood:
I am getting on with it--and it would be easier to get on with it if Labour Members behaved themselves instead of trying to disrupt the progress of their own legislation. They have made a good job of disrupting the Bill so far, despite the considerable help that we have given in trying to get it through. I am beginning to wonder whether we have been too generous on that score tonight, in view of the way in which the parliamentary Labour party is now behaving.
The new clause would provide an important safeguard. If the Secretary of State is right and no increase in strikes results from his legislation, he has nothing to fear from it. If he is wrong, and there is a danger of the number of strikes getting out of control, the new clause would be a welcome salvation, whereby he could avoid the delay and difficulty involved in coming back to the House to amend primary legislation. It would give him the scope to suspend the complicated and difficult features of the Bill that are likely to become a cause of trade disputes and strikes in themselves.
If hon. Members consider some of the complex detail in schedule 1, which runs from page 19 to page 56 of the Bill, they will see how much scope there is for dispute, and how much power rests in the hands of the Central Arbitration Committee. For example, paragraph 21(5) tells us:
Given the lateness of the hour, I shall not pursue all the flaws and holes both in the schedule and in the other parts of the Bill that introduce it. I rest the Opposition case and plead again with the Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry, a junior Minister who has now been left on his own on the Treasury Bench--
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill):
I notice that the right hon. Gentleman and a few of his right hon. and hon. Friends have registered an interest with regard to the new clauses. It would be interesting for the House to know what those interests are.
Mr. Redwood:
Had the hon. Lady been present at the beginning of our proceedings, she would have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) and myself explain that we had interests in companies--[Hon. Members: "Ah."]. Companies would be affected by all the measures in the new clauses--[Interruption.] Neither my hon. Friend nor I spoke on behalf of a particular company, nor did we table our new clauses at the request of particular companies. We are being extremely careful by saying, "Yes, we are practical people with knowledge of the business world"--[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Mr. Sedgemore and Mr. Campbell-Savours should know better. It is not good for the House to behave in that manner.
Mr. Redwood:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
If the hon. Lady reads the record of our proceedings tomorrow, she will see that what I have said is true. We have behaved very carefully, although we have no specific interests to declare in connection with the new clauses.
Mr. Sayeed:
When two parties enter into a contract, it is beholden on both to keep to it. New clause 7 would get rid of one of the most damaging parts of the Bill. At present, an employee who violates the terms of his contract can be dismissed. Under the Bill, that protection of the employer will go, because the employee will have the right to sue the employer and, possibly, to be
In relation to new clause 10, it is worth remembering that 29 million days were lost to strikes in 1979. In 1996, the number had fallen to 1.3 million days, a testament to the step-by-step approach towards industrial relations taken by the then Conservative Governments. Despite the fact that the number of people in employment increased, the number of people striking, and the frequency with which they did it, fell dramatically.
New clause 10 would set a limit much higher than 1.3 million days at which, if the number of days lost in strikes were so great as to be deeply damaging to this country, some of the Bill's more expensive proposals could be cut away, at least for a time. It is a fairly modest proposal, and any sensible Government would adopt it.
Mr. Fabricant:
New clause 7 is mainly concerned with collective bargaining. The Bill is flawed. Adair Turner, writing in the Financial Times on 18 March, said:
The Bill is outrageous. It will bring about disruption in industrial harmony. To make matters worse, employers will be expected to meet 50 per cent. of the cost of each ballot. That is money that most small firms can ill afford, if I may echo our earlier debates on exemptions for businesses that employ fewer than 51 people.
"In deciding how the ballot is to be conducted the CAC must take into account--
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(a) the likelihood of the ballot being affected by unfairness or malpractice if it were conducted at a workplace or workplaces;
(b) costs and practicality;
(c) such other matters as the CAC considers appropriate."
In other words, the CAC can do whatever it likes without reference to Parliament. The House is being asked to approve legislation so loose, general and vague that it provides enormous scope for disputes, rows and strikes over its interpretation.
Similarly, paragraph 18 is very vague about how the "appropriate bargaining unit" should be defined. That gives plenty of scope for argument and dispute. Under paragraph 17, considerable judgment will have to be exercised in deciding how many workers would have to vote for compulsory negotiation by the trade union--a judgment that could easily be made badly by the CAC, and could easily be disputed. That, too, could lead to strikes and court action.
"Good employee relations should be built on trust and it is not best fostered if collective bargaining has been imposed on an employer by a trade union. Collective bargaining can work where it has two willing partners, but not when there is only one. No real improvements in industrial relations occurred the last time we had compulsion in the 1970s and, indeed, the legislation proved to be unworkable."
I need not remind the House that Adair Turner is director general of the Confederation of British Industry.
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