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Mr Allen: My hon. Friend is making a powerful and compelling speech. I am tempted, as the organiser of the highly successful 1985 political fund ballots, to venture into all our yesterdays, but I will limit myself to one question. He is telling us that there have been no complaints whatsoever, yet the lobbying Bill has a big part on trade unions. Has he noticed that, although complaints have been made over and over again about lobbying, big business, money and sleaze, they do not appear in a Bill that is called the lobbying Bill, and that something about which there have been no complaints has a big section in it? Is he able to explain that to me?

Ian Murray: I am delighted that this Committee sitting has allowed the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee a little walk down memory lane with regard to his organisation of ballots in the mid-’80s. He is right that there is no compelling evidence. Of the hundreds and hundreds of e-mails I have received from constituents about the Bill, not one has mentioned part 3, because the public are concerned with lobbying, which is what this Bill was supposed to address.

As I was saying, only 10 complaints had gone to a decision since 1987. As my hon. Friends have suggested in their interventions, we must wonder whether the certification officer needs any of these powers, given the level of activity there is on membership lists. Indeed, the certification officer has less work to do in this particular area than the Leader of the House has in counting support for the Bill. People will be asking themselves whether the powers are unnecessary and disproportionate, and the answer is clearly yes.

Let us reflect again on what the Leader of the House said on Second Reading:

“All we are doing is asking unions to provide an annual assurance that they are doing everything that they can to ensure that they know who their members are and how to contact them.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 185.]

That is almost a one-paragraph description of the current legislation that trade unions abide by, including the Data Protection Act and their responsibilities to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The current law prescribes exactly that. It says that trade unions should ensure that they do all that is—we will come back to this terminology again—“reasonably practicable” to maintain their membership lists.

While the Government trumpet the slashing of red tape for business, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) said—and for “slashing red tape” read “demolishing workers’ rights back to what they were in Victorian times”—they are imposing a completely unnecessary burden on trade unions to resolve a problem that does not exist. Indeed, officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills cannot tell us what the problem is.

Amendment 103, with consequential amendment 121, would result in part 3 of the Bill coming into force only if a complaint was received and verified by the certification officer as a valid compliant, and if the certification officer felt that a membership certificate process was required. That goes back to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran). The trade unions have absolutely nothing to hide. The amendment would mean that part 3 would come into force only if a verifiable and non-vexatious claim came forward.

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Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab): Is there not a legal contradiction in the Bill? A trade union has a duty under the Data Protection Act to keep in its records, but not to divulge, personal and private details relating to each member. If the Bill is passed, it will give the certification officer, the certification officer’s staff and the new assurers access to that information. That is a huge contradiction and I believe that it contravenes European law. Should we not consider that at the first possible opportunity?

Ian Murray: My hon. Friend is right that there are contradictions with the Data Protection Act and an inconsistency with articles 8 and 11 of the European convention on human rights. Those matters will come up when we discuss clause 37 and the cluster of amendments to it. Those inconsistencies highlight the way in which part 3 has been completely rushed through, without any proper consultation or dialogue with the people who are involved. There is also no identifiable problem that will be resolved.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) has just informed me that, as of 1.35 pm this afternoon, the Vote Office still did not have an impact assessment or a response to the consultation. [Interruption.] The Minister might say that that is not correct, but that information must be available to Members. If it is available, I wonder whether the Minister’s office could photocopy two dozen copies and pass them around.

Ian Lavery: It is extremely important with Bills of this nature that there is consultation with all parties that could be affected. Part 3 was introduced in July without any prior notification. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) said, there have been only eight working days since then. There has been a lack of consultation and there might not have been any. We have received legal advice that, because this is being done without prior consultation, it could violate the rights to privacy and freedom of association that are enshrined in the European convention on human rights. What is my hon. Friend’s view of that?

Ian Murray: There is a very strong view that part 3 contravenes the European convention on human rights. The Committee will discuss that in some detail when it considers clause 37. That just shows how part 3 is being rushed through.

I say to the Minister that I am happy to pass around a hat so that Opposition Members who want to see the impact assessment can pay for the photocopying and so that her office does not have to waste paper. Perhaps she could come to the Dispatch Box and tell us whether it is available.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson): I will happily explain. The assessment has been in the public domain for more than eight days on gov.uk. My understanding is that it has been sent to the Vote Office, but we are investigating whether there has been a problem in communication.

Ian Murray: Problems of communication are not the responsibility of the Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool, the staff in my office in Edinburgh and the office of the shadow Business Secretary have

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been searching for the impact assessment. I think that the Minister might be referring to the equality assessment, not the impact assessment. We will wait for it to be photocopied and handed round.

Mr Allen: When my hon. Friend gets an impact assessment, would he mind popping one over to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, because we are meant to be doing some of the scrutiny of the Bill?

Ian Murray: We are compiling a rather expensive list of photocopying.

Jo Swinson: I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that although he has been searching so hard for the impact assessment, he clearly has not looked on gov.uk, which one might have expected would be an obvious place to look.

Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab): It should be in the Vote Office.

Jo Swinson: I happily accept that it should be in the Vote Office. We are looking into that now.

Ian Murray: I have looked at the pages of the gov.uk website that relate to the Bill incessantly over the past week or so. The only thing I have been able to find is the equality assessment for the Bill. As far as I am aware, the impact assessment is not there. I am not trying to be difficult with the Minister. If it has been published on the website, we would certainly be talking about its contents.

1.45 pm

Mr Djanogly: On process and transparency, will the hon. Gentleman advise the Committee who drafted the Opposition amendments? Was it the unions that gave them to him? If so, which unions, or was it union-paid lawyers? That should be reported for the purposes of transparency.

Ian Murray: That kind of intervention is pathetic. Let me put it on the record, in front of the Committee and the country, that I drafted all the Opposition amendments personally because I take an interest in the Bill and it is part of my shadow ministerial portfolio. I did every single bit of the work myself. I also refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have a £2,000 constituency development programme with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. That is as far as my responsibilities go in declaring such issues.

If the hon. Member for Huntingdon would like a crash course on how to write amendments, I would be happy to meet him this evening. Perhaps he could then write some amendments to make the Bill better. All I would need to do is show him how to spell the word “delete”. That would certainly make the Bill better. [Interruption.] The Government Whip chunters that we should have declared our interests at the start. He will not even tell us how many members the Conservative party has, never mind anything to do with the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. We are absolutely transparent and people can look at my entry.

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Mr Allen: Given that my hon. Friend has been so busy drafting his amendments, he might not have heard all the proceedings over the past two days. I advise him to be very careful about offering to draft amendments for the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), because he may end up becoming a lobbyist under the definition in the Bill. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said the other day, he could end up with the IPSA of lobbying looking at what he is doing. I therefore advise him to tread carefully.

Ian Murray: I am delighted that my hon. Friend intervened, because it allowed me to look at the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Huntingdon cannot draft his own amendments and would like a crash course from me, given that he received a £21,406 donation from a legal firm only a few years ago. Perhaps it is lobbying him about the Bill. Perhaps he would like to stand up and correct the record.

I forget where we were, but I will go back to discussing amendment 103 and consequential amendment 121. Amendment 103 would prevent vexatious claims. The Lib Dem Minister should think about that carefully. The principle behind introducing the draconian fee of £1,250 for people who want to seek justice through an employment tribunal was that it would prevent vexatious claims. A Bill that deals with trade union membership lists should therefore deal with the fact that vexatious claims might be made to the certification officer. The amendment would resolve that by giving the certification officer the power to consider whether vexatious claims had been made.

Secondly, the amendment would prevent third parties from submitting unwarranted queries. Interestingly, third party submissions are mentioned in the consultation but not in the Bill. I wonder whether the Minister could address that point when she comes to the Dispatch Box. The amendment would reduce unnecessary costs for trade unions. The Government parties tend to forget that any additional costs for trade unions from draconian legislation—there is no evidence for the Bill and it does not resolve any identifiable problem—is merely pushed on to the 7.2 million members, whose membership fees are then increased.. Any additional costs hit ordinary workers who are already engulfed by the Government’s cost-of-living crisis.

The amendment would give the certification officer a mechanism to take complaints—he must ensure that they are verified as competent and of a sufficiently serious nature to warrant the commencement of the complicated process.

Yasmin Qureshi: Does that measure not confirm to the country at large that the Government are not bothered about the ordinary person’s living standards, and that the only people they are concerned about are the rich and powerful?

Ian Murray: My hon. Friend makes the point for me, but it is true that the 7.2 million trade union members will be worse off as a result of the measure, because the burden of any significant additional costs on trade unions from duplicate legislation—they already conform through the Data Protection Act and the Trade Union

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and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992—will be passed on to the membership in the form of membership fees.

I therefore ask the Minister to answer a number of questions on this group of amendments. Has the certification officer asked for the additional powers? Has the certification officer approached the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to say that those powers are necessary, and that he would like the Government to legislate to ensure they are introduced? Has DBIS consulted the certification office, trade unions and other relevant organisations on whether the powers are required and, if so, why? Have there been meetings between certification office and DBIS officials on the subject at which anyone described a need for a problem to be resolved? Have the Government considered the two-out, one-in regulation policy, or demonstrated what measures will be removed to alleviate the burden of regulation on trade unions? Lastly, will the Minister give the certification officer additional resources to deal with the problem? If the answer is yes, there will also be an onus on trade unions to find additional resources.

Amendment 106, on additional resources, is fairly standard and self-explanatory. The new bureaucratic process will be costly for trade unions, and those costs will ultimately be passed on to the trade union membership. At a time when we should do all we can to encourage a healthy trade union membership in the UK, we must not put the burden of this ideologically driven policy on to those hard-working members. Under the amendment, a charge to cover the costs of production can be levied. There is a reasonable charge for accessing Companies House information on companies—the hon. Member for Huntingdon is interested in those regulations. That principle should be continued in the Bill. I believe the charge is £1 or £2 to access basic information from Companies House. The amendment would make the Bill consistent with section 30(6) of the 1992 Act—this has been discussed at great length by my hon. Friends—which states:

“Where a member who makes a request for access to a union’s accounting records is informed by the union, before any arrangements are made in pursuance of the request…(a)…of the union’s intention to charge for allowing him to inspect the records to which the request relates, for allowing him to take copies of, or extracts from, those records or for supplying any such copies, and…(b)…of the principles in accordance with which its charges will be determined…then, where the union complies with the request, he is liable to pay the union on demand such amount, not exceeding the reasonable administrative expenses incurred by the union in complying with the request, as is determined in accordance with those principles.”

Clause 36 is barely consistent with the 1992 Act. The amendment is a way of resolving that and other inconsistencies.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House said:

“It is a Bill that the Government should be ashamed of. It is incompetent. It is rushed. It has been developed in a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister and his deputy, but with no other consultation. It is a sop to vested interests, an illiberal attack on democratic debate and involvement, and a cheap, partisan and cynical misuse of the legislative process for the Government’s own ends.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 199.]

The Bill is a partisan attack. Clause 36 and the rest of part 3 of the Bill are completely and utterly unnecessary. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister forget

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that the people they attack are the people who deliver the mail, serve in the shops, teach our children, care for the sick, look after the elderly, clean our streets, assemble our cars and build our bridges. They deserve better than to be subjected to another piece of the Tory ideological jigsaw.

Several hon. Members rose—

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should say that the amendments are narrowly drafted. I know that hon. Members, when they take part, will not just have a general debate on part 3. That is quite important.

Mr Djanogly: I declare any interests I have in the debate arising from my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Essentially, the question on amendment 103 is whether we tweak the existing system for an automatic annual union membership auditing and inspection regime, or, as Labour wants, we tweak the system in much the same way as the Government propose but so that it comes into play only if a complaint is made under the existing rules. I support the part 3 and clause 36 proposals to aid the verification of union membership. The question is how far the measures should go. On listening to Opposition Members on Second Reading, one might have thought that part 3 constituted a massive attack on union rights, or at least a vehicle for what the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Leader of the House, has called “cheap” and “partisan” attacks.

The Bill is nothing of the kind, as is immediately apparent when one looks through the Opposition amendments. Their proposals are mainly low-key and technical, and not political. Admittedly, taken in the round, the Labour amendments could be seen as obstructive amendments that seek either to stymie the role of the certification officer or at least to keep him in his existing box, which is why they should be opposed.

Yasmin Qureshi: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that, when the Prime Minister said that the next big scandal to break out in British politics would be lobbying—all hon. Members agreed with him—the Bill was what he envisaged? With all the problems and challenges the country has, does the hon. Gentleman believe that this little Bill is necessary?

Mr Djanogly: I will come to the hon. Lady’s point— I might agree to an extent with some of what she says.

Let us put the measures in context. An emergency motion on the Bill, which was moved by Unison at the TUC conference, has called for an investigation of a policy of non-co-operation with the Bill. Considering the Opposition amendments, that is way over the top, particularly in relation to the part 3 proposals.

On the other hand, despite the Labour smokescreen, the part 3 provisions are something of a missed opportunity to reform the certification officer role, which has long been in need of reform. The key point is that the certification officer is not a true regulator of unions, as it should be. Rather, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) has said, it is like Companies

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House. It checks that filings are made, but does not look at what is contained in those filings. There is a limited power of investigation, but only in relation to administrative matters.

Therefore, when I look somewhat more charitably at amendment 103, I note that it gives us the chance to debate what the underlying role of the certification officer should be, and to ask what is the purpose of the records kept by unions. Given the surprising reticence of the Government to set out their answers in much detail to date, the amendment serves a useful purpose.

The clause 36 provisions effectively retain the status quo—that originally created via the Trade Union Act 1984 and replicated in the 1992 Act. One has to look only at the obscure clause numbering in the Bill—it proposes new sections 24ZA to 24ZK—to realise that it is high time properly to review the legislation and, in effect, to start from scratch.

Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab): Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that trade unions are one of the most highly regulated institutions in the country—far more so than, say, political parties, which do not have to produce the kind of information the Bill would require? Does he accept that that is because of the ideological wish, from certain people involved in politics, to regulate trade unions highly? That sits ill at ease with some of the comments made regularly by Government Members about cutting red tape.

2 pm

Mr Djanogly: I actually think the opposite. I will be upfront about this. In the previous Parliament I did a lot of work on regulatory issues—the Companies Act 2006 and the Legal Services Act 2007, which was a major piece of legislation. That work was done, for the most part, on a consensual basis by the two sides of the House, and some pretty good laws were passed. My point is that the trade union laws were passed in the mid-1980s and are in serious need of reform and review.

Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman says that the law is in need of review and change, but can he answer one simple question? What is the problem that these amendments and provisions are seeking to address? That is not clear me.

Mr Djanogly: I answered that specifically in reply to a question put by the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. I have to say that one does wonder why we are missing this opportunity for reform; I am not sure. Perhaps it is because the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is packed with Liberal Democrat Ministers. Who knows? Perhaps it is the Government’s more general reluctance to look at legislation governing unions and industrial relations. In any event, the toothless nature of the certification officer remains, despite so much having changed since 1984. For example, on the membership register, in the mid-1980s membership records were for the most part probably kept on paper. Official management and database IT systems were not very developed. E-mail did not exist for everyday use and communications with members and voting had to be in person or by post. Of course, postal voting at that time was seen as a novel

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idea to be used against the intimidation of members at the time of union votes—union intimidation being rife at the time.

There is another key difference between then and now. Unions are, in general, becoming fewer in number, but far larger and more general than in the 1980s.

Ian Lavery: The hon. Gentleman mentions union intimidation. Does he want to provide some examples of his experience of union intimidation?

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. I do not think we need to get into these wider areas. I repeat that this is a narrow amendment and that the clause itself is very narrow.

Mr Djanogly: Unison and Unite now account for approximately 40% of total union membership. As such, it follows that the larger unions are becoming increasingly powerful politically and economically, and with power comes responsibility and the duty to be accountable. We can make a comparison with companies and the difference between how private and public companies are regulated. It is therefore right that union obligations to administrate themselves correctly, such as membership records, are subject to a suitable level of oversight and scrutiny, and the clause provides for that. I note that the Labour party seems to accept the number of 10,000 as appropriate for the higher level of regulation to apply.

Mr Anderson: The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. Will he answer the question I asked my hon. Friend on the Front Bench? If there is such a problem, why has the certification officer not raised it? Has he come to the House and said, “I’m really not happy because the unions are not staying within the remit”? Has that been the case? I do not believe it has.

Mr Djanogly: I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that the last time I visited the certification office was more than half a dozen years ago, so I am not totally up on what the latest one is thinking. However, from my experience of looking into the matter in detail—the regulations and laws have not changed—I know that the certification office has very limited powers. In fact, most people would not even see it as a regulator; rather, as I said, it is more like a Companies House collection box than anything else.

Andrew Gwynne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous. Regarding his involvement with the certification officer, albeit several years ago, does he have any evidence that the current membership figures for trade unions are incorrect and therefore require the change in law that is being suggested?

Mr Djanogly: That is not an issue I have investigated. As I said, complaints emanate from members of unions, not from people outside unions, and I think that that is the wrong way to be going about such an issue.

Let us step back and look at the clause in the round. There is a fundamental question which, to be fair, was picked up by the Opposition on Second Reading and the hon. Member for Edinburgh South today, and it is implied by amendment 103: we need better clarification from the Government on the intention of these clauses.

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In the 1983 Government Green Paper, it was specifically claimed that decisions made by unions could be contrary to the wishes of their members and that union leaders often appeared not to be responsible to their members. The then Government made the case that legislation could limit malpractice, such as ballot rigging and forgery.

What, therefore, are we trying to do with improved membership registers? Are we concerned about the validity of strike ballots where key public services, such as London trains, are disrupted by a simple majority of an overall minority of members voting? Is there concern that ballot rigging is still going on because of poor membership records? Let us remember that the certification officer has very limited powers in such situations, and that the few powers he does have can be triggered only by existing union members, not by the public who are unable to get to work.

Ian Lavery: The Chair said that we were perhaps veering off the subject, but I have to come back to the serious allegations the hon. Gentleman is making. If someone makes serious allegations in the House, they should be big enough to present evidence. Where has there been evidence of ballot rigging in the trade union movement? The trade union movement is an extremely transparent and democratic organisation.

Mr Djanogly: The hon. Gentleman is clearly not listening to what I have been saying. I have not been saying that there has been ballot rigging. In fact, in some ways I think I am helping his case by saying that we need to look more carefully at the purpose behind the clause. This would be a good opportunity for the Government to give at least a sense of direction on part 3 about their intentions on strike balloting. Perhaps that purpose is related to party funding, given that the previous part of the Bill relates to election funding. If that is so, why are we not giving the certification officer the power to check that the political opt-out is clearly stated on the union membership application form—that has clearly not always been the case—let alone going the further step, as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition no less, of reversing the position to an opt-in?

Despite the Opposition’s position being muddied following the Leader of the Opposition’s speech at this week’s TUC conference, why are the Opposition not taking this opportunity to amend the Bill to that effect? This is a pressing issue, not least because the majority of union members do not even vote for the Labour party. Even if such reform needs more time to be formulated, why cannot the Government indicate their intentions for party funding as a result of improved membership records?

The clause deals specifically with auditing membership numbers, but what about overseeing matters in the context of the return as a whole, let alone dealing with issues of client care or quality of service? The provisions do not even tighten up the definition of what membership means, which would be helpful, if that is what is to be audited.

Ian Murray: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is reeling off a list of potential obligations on a trade union with regard to its members. Does he

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not think that if a trade union was not compliant with obligations under customer service and so on, the member would just simply leave?

Mr Djanogly: Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example. If we are to have the provision to audit members, we should know what “member” means. This is a fundamental omission, as was shown with the miners compensation scheme.

In that situation, certain unions created a new class of “associate membership”, with no rights other than the right for the claimants to be referred to the union-picked no win, no fee lawyers, from whom the unions then took a kickback commission. The scam was uncovered and the lawyers were heavily penalised by their regulators. However, not—

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman some leeway, but if he looks—as I know he has: he is a very skilful Member—he will see that this is a narrowly drafted clause. Will he please now restrict himself to the amendments and the duty to provide membership audit certificates, and not give a long history of the trade union movement?

Mr Djanogly: Thank you for that clarification, Sir Edward.

The point of amendment 103 is to ask the purpose of the clause, and that is right. If the purpose is to deal with auditing members, perhaps we should be talking about what constitutes a member and what is to be audited. Would it include the associated membership that we saw in the miners compensation scheme, for instance? Should the audit include a description of their rights as members? Alternatively, do we want to know accurately the number of members, so that this can be tied to union political contributions? If so, the Bill might not be as effective as some people think. That is because trade unions have not necessarily been affiliating the same number of members as have been contributing to the political fund. They may affiliate phantom members in order to get more union votes on Labour party matters. I am unsure what effect auditing membership numbers would have in that situation, other than to verify how bizarre Labour’s relationship with the unions can be. Again, however, a sense of direction for future reform from the Government would be helpful.

I support this Bill, because I can see nothing to object to in principle—it basically just repeats and fortifies what has been around since the 1980s. I hope that hon. Members do not take what I have said as anti-union, because I am not anti-union. However, I strongly believe that union law is way behind the times and desperately in need of reform. Can anyone really argue that legislation and procedural regulations passed in the mid 1980s are still adequate now? Although I disagree with Labour’s amendment 103, I appreciate its wider implication of showing up the lack of Government purpose and direction behind these provisions. Given the time the coalition Government have had to formulate policy on these key issues, which have a significant impact on the people of this country, we could and should be doing much better. This is a missed opportunity to reform industrial relations law.

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Yasmin Qureshi: The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), like others, will be aware from when he did his law degree—as I am from when I did mine—that there are three golden principles running through our judicial system that come into play when judges interpret legislation. The first is the mischief rule, which asks what mischief the law was introduced to deal with; the second is the golden rule, which means generously interpreting a piece of legislation; and the third is the literal rule, which means interpreting it literally. That is where I would like to start with the amendment and these provisions.

I hope you will forgive me, Sir Edward, if I digress a little—I will not take up too much time—but we were told that the reason for introducing a lobbying Bill was that there was a significant problem with lobbying in this country. Everyone was talking about the next scandal being lobbying, but we were in fact talking about, for example, somebody being paid—a Member of Parliament, say, or somebody else—to ask questions that are not within the rules. We were also talking about people who have access to Ministers and are able to campaign and lobby for private companies—for example, Lynton Crosby and people like that. What we were talking about was money changing hands and others not knowing what was happening. That was what was meant by the scandalous part of lobbying. As a Member of Parliament, I should not be asking questions in the House or raising issues because somebody is sponsoring me or giving me money to line someone else’s pockets, make a company richer or help it to secure a contract that it should perhaps not have.

“Lobbying” refers to those types of situation; sadly, this Bill does not really deal with any of them. Part 1, which deals with consultant lobbyists, catches only about 1% of those concerned—it would not catch people like Lynton Crosby. Part 2 deals with charities and voluntary organisations. If somebody from a cancer charity comes to speak to me about—

2.15 pm

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. The hon. Lady is introducing her speech. I give a certain latitude, but I know that, as a skilful Member, she will soon get on to audit certification.

Yasmin Qureshi: I will move on swiftly, Sir Edward.

Let me return to the trade union aspect. The provisions in this Bill have been designed just to cause more bureaucratic headaches for trade unions. All they mean is that trade unions will have to spend more of their members’ money—let us remember that these are the 7.2 million ordinary working people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) pointed out, who are members of trade unions and pay their subs. The Bill would mean that trade unions had to spend more money on trying to comply with the system. Surely that cannot be right. Trying to put that provision in legislation dealing with lobbying as a whole is completely wrong. It is unfair. What is the mischief that the Government are trying to deal with? The mischief is big money and corporate enterprises, yet this Bill does nothing to address such lobbying. All it does is impose a financial burden on unions that rely solely on subs from their members.

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The Government are often accused of being out of touch and only looking after the rich and powerful. Surely it is about time they sent out the message that actually they do care about the ordinary person and are perturbed that their living standards and wages are going down. The Prime Minister was not willing to acknowledge those issues at Prime Minister’s questions. The issue of living conditions was put to him time and again, and he was asked about the living wage, yet he refused to answer or to acknowledge the fact that people’s living standards have gone down. We are talking about the same people who have to pay their trade union subs out of their own pay packets. And before anyone says, “Why are they giving the trade unions their hard-earned money?”, I will tell them the reason. In the workplace, the only person a worker can rely on if things get hard is their trade union representative.

Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con): Having left school at 15 and been a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, before going on to found two businesses, I can tell the hon. Lady that small businesses always need to look after their employees, because they rely on them so heavily. If a business gets a good employee, it needs to keep hold of them, so there is a lot more care in the workplace than she is suggesting. Would she accept that?

Yasmin Qureshi: I accept that there are many responsible employers, small as well as large, but the hon. Gentleman will know that many are not responsible. He must also know that there are workplace situations where people have problems, and we cannot take away from that. For most people, the reason they give their hard-earned money to the trade union movement—it is not compulsory: nobody in the workplace has to be a member if they do not want to—is that if there is a problem in the workplace, they will have someone to go to. We know from our country’s history that, over the years, issues of sex discrimination, equality legislation, and health and safety have often been dealt with by members going to their trade unions.

Andrew Gwynne: My hon. Friend is coming to the nub of some of the concerns about the provisions we are debating. Some of the information now being sought is sensitive, personal information, and in some of the workplace situations that she is describing, there is a concern—perceived or, in some cases, actual—about people being victimised because of their association with trade unions or, worse still, blacklisted.

Yasmin Qureshi: I completely agree with what my hon. Friend says about blacklisting and intimidation.

When people have a problem, they go to their trade union because that is the only body in the workplace that can assist them. Let us remember some of the issues that the trade unions have been arguing for over the years. Conservative Members constantly heap abuse on the unions—they talk about Unite and the other unions—but let me remind the Committee of some of the things the unions have campaigned for throughout their history.

The trade unions campaigned for proper wages. What is wrong with that? What is criminal or immoral about that? When the industrial revolution started, wage levels

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were very low, given the work that people had to do. Wages have gone up over the years, but even now it is impossible for most people to survive on the minimum wage. The unions are therefore campaigning for a living wage. What is wrong with that? I am proud of the Labour party’s links with the trade unions, and of the fact that we are actively involved with them. At the end of the day, trade unions represent ordinary working people. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South said earlier, these are the people who cook and serve the food, who work in shops and who clean our streets, our offices and our toilets. They do the worst possible jobs. They also work in the NHS and the education system.

Mr McKenzie: Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason for including clause 36 in the Bill is completely transparent? It is clear from the contributions from those on the Government Benches that its purpose is to use up union resources, union time and union funds. It is a veiled attack on the trade unions.

Yasmin Qureshi rose—

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. Before the hon. Lady replies to that point, may I suggest that she will want to return to the subject of audit certification?

Yasmin Qureshi: I will come to that, Sir Edward. The need for certification will cause financial harm to the unions, and we do not need it. It will not deal with the mischief that the legislation on lobbying was supposed to address. All it will do is impose an unfair financial burden on the trade unions, which rely on the subscriptions of ordinary members.

Derisory comments are constantly being made about the trade unions, but it is important to remind ourselves what they are arguing for. I get letters from unions lobbying me. For example, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers contacted me when there was talk of Sunday working during the Olympics. I also get letters from trade unions about pension rights, maternity rights, the minimum wage, health and safety, living conditions and better terms and conditions. What is there to be ashamed of about those things? What is wrong with a body arguing for those things?

Why are Conservative Members always having a go at the unions? They make it sound as though the unions are some kind of sinister organisations, but they are not. They are full of ordinary working people, and they have always fought for working people’s rights. The Conservatives should be championing the trade unions, rather than making derisory remarks about them and insulting them in the Chamber. This legislation is a clear example of their vindictive attitude towards the trade unions. The unions do not have a lot of money in the first place, but what they have will now be wasted on this unnecessary bureaucratic burden. The obligation that the Government are proposing will not deal with the mischief that the lobbying Bill is trying to deal with. That mischief relates to big business, to sinister deals and to cash being passed in underhand ways. That is what we are trying to deal with, but the Bill categorically fails on every single level.

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This last part of the Bill illustrates the Government’s pure vindictiveness, and it has no purpose. We should all reject it. All Members of Parliament should vote against this Bill, and particularly against part 3. If Members really care about working people, as they all say they do, they should not allow this additional and unnecessary burden to be imposed on the trade unions. It will not deal with the mischief that the Bill was supposed to address.

Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con): It is a real pleasure to follow the impassioned speech of the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), although I must point out that no one has a monopoly on caring about working people. I shall confine my remarks to clause 36.

I have discovered over the past three days that I am probably one of the most optimistic Members of the House, because I believe that the purposes of the Bill are very different from those suggested in some of the narratives that we have been hearing. Clause 36 introduces a clear duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I note with interest that if a union has fewer than 10,000 members, it can self-certify. Only unions with more than that number will need to certify.

I appreciate that there has been a certain amount of jolliness in the Chamber—

Ian Murray: Jolliness?

Stephen McPartland: Some Members have been teasing the Conservative party about its refusal to publish its membership figures. Clause 36 clearly states that unions with fewer than 10,000 members can self-certify. However, a Conservative party association with more than a certain amount of money will have to send its information to the Electoral Commission. That information will include membership numbers, but if they are below a certain level, there will be no need to send it. This part of the Bill therefore contains very similar provisions to those that are already in place for members of political parties, as well as trade unions.

It has been suggested that no complaints have been made under the present arrangements for a number of years. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) mentioned the possibility that people who were not union members were unable to make a complaint at the moment. I stand here as a friend of the unions. I am happy to work with them, and I am proud of the union members who come to see me, whether as union members or members of local communities or organisations. A number of members of my family are members of unions. I am also happy to work with the national unions on a range of issues—

Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab): Are you a union member?

Stephen McPartland: I am not actually a member of trade union, and I never have been. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are tempting me to stray from the point. Within a few weeks, however, there will no doubt be an announcement and I will be working closely with one of the national unions, and I might well join it as a result of the work that we do together.

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The perception of clause 36 is that it is a massive attack on the trade union movement, but that is not its purpose.

Katy Clark: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are one of the only European countries that does not have a right to strike. Clause 36 comes on top of a whole range of other pieces of trade union legislation, much of which has been designed to be used in the courts by employers trying to get injunctions to stop strike action. Often, when those cases come before a full court, the employers are unsuccessful, even though they might have been successful in getting the strike stopped at the initial stage. Does the hon. Gentleman think that this clause has been designed to create yet another hurdle for the trade unions to get over before they can take lawful industrial action?

Stephen McPartland: The short answer is no. Clause 36 introduces a duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I genuinely cannot imagine that many of the unions will be bothered by it. The reality is that they all want to know where their members are so that they can communicate with them. Most unions do not send letters out to their members simply asking them to take strike action. They also want to sell them services and to make the union a part of their lives.

Ian Murray: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I shall pass a membership form to him before the end of the debate. Amendment 103 allows for clause 36 to be implemented. All it does is give the certification officer the power to take out vexatious claims and to decide whether the draconian and expensive measures in the rest of the Bill should be enacted.

2.30 pm

Stephen McPartland: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Local councils around the country have to confront a number of issues with vexatious claims and are currently struggling under the freedom of information rules introduced by the previous Government. It may well be an issue that needs to be looked at further. It is a law of unintended consequences, however, and if there have been only six complaints in the last 10 years, I cannot imagine that there would have been many vexatious claims.

In most small workplace environments, a large proportion of the employees are not union members. If they are, they are often members of a variety of different unions. Most of those employees do not want to cross a picket line and have no intention of doing so. That can be a real emotional struggle for them; I saw that a lot when I was growing up in Liverpool. If a person is being called out on strike by union members in the area but does not want to strike, I think it is perfectly acceptable for such an employee who is not a union member to be expected not to cross the picket line. However, it is perfectly acceptable for them to question whether the ballot was accurate. There is personal and social pressure put on people and it is understandable.

Mr Anderson: The person that the hon. Gentleman is talking about has that right now. There is no point in this Bill, because the provisions are already in place: the individual can already do exactly what the hon. Gentleman

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says. Legislation was deliberately set up that way by Governments in the 1980s to undermine the ability of unions to take industrial action. It is already law; we do not need this new law.

Stephen McPartland: The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful intervention. I grew up in Liverpool in the 1980s and I remember a great deal of industrial action. I survived. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon said that the purpose of the Bill is to take things back to the 1980s so that that exists as the status quo now. I am not particularly interested in the ideological arguments going back and forth across the Committee. I genuinely believe that the purpose of clause 36 is to help people who feel that they want to make a complaint but cannot. I heard the shadow Minister talk earlier from the Dispatch Box about the possibility of a charge of £1 or £2 being exercised in respect of clause 36. I imagine that most trade unions would hate that because it would probably cost more to administer the charge than it would to send off the certificate.

The basic purpose of clause 36 boils down to transparency; it innocently says that trade unions need to know where their members are. There is a massive reality gap here. We all know from the electoral register, which we deal with every single year in all our walks of life, that the number of people moving in and out of constituencies when they move home is huge.

Ian Lavery: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the points he is raising are already covered by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992? Everything that he is talking about is already covered.

Stephen McPartland: I am delighted that hon. Members believe that everything I have said is already covered by various Acts. I am even more pleased that they are not objecting to what I have said.

Yasmin Qureshi: The hon. Gentleman referred to the ’80s, but there has been a great deal of trade union law since that time that deals with all the issues that he has raised. He should take it from me that the particular provision we are debating does not deal with any of the matters with which he was concerned; as I say, the laws governing that already exist.

Stephen McPartland: I am delighted to hear that hon. Members believe that the issues I am raising have already been dealt with. That is fantastic news. However, if those issues are already dealt with, I see no reason for people to be arguing that there is no reason for this part of the Bill; I see no reason to be against it. There seems to be a lot of anger being expressed.

Not all Government Members have an issue with trade unions or trade unionists. Whenever anybody mentions the words “trade union”, it seems as if we have to have an ideological argument between the two sides of the House. I do not agree with that. We should look at the facts, and the facts relating to clause 36 are very simple: there is a duty to provide a membership audit certificate if a union has more than 10,000 members; otherwise people can self-certify.

John Cryer: There is a genuine point—the hon. Gentleman may or may not have taken it on board—about the big general unions. Because of the changing nature

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of work and the increasing casualisation of the work force, it is possible for unions to lose as much as 12% of their membership during the course of a year, so they will have to recruit 12% just to stand still. Under those circumstances, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman can imagine, keeping bang-up-to-date records is extremely difficult.

Stephen McPartland: I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The biggest challenge those unions face—it is perhaps a reason that the Bill might help them focus more resources on the issue—is simply the fact that people move home. It is not a matter of losing members of the trade union movement; it is simply a matter of trade unionists moving house between different areas. That creates a massive turnover. We all have experience of moving house and know we have to pay the Royal Mail a fee to redirect our mail for a year. Moving home is a big issue; it is one of the key problems surrounding the clause. Clause 36 encourages the focusing of more union resources on tackling the problems of membership turnover.

Katy Clark: Has the hon. Gentleman had an opportunity to look at how much this will cost the trade unions? Does he know how much they will have to spend on this exercise?

Stephen McPartland: The hon. Lady will be delighted to know that I read the impact assessment, so I understand that it will cost approximately 6p per member, which does not seem to be exorbitant. [Interruption.] I am sure we can argue about that when we get to a different part of the Bill, but I am going to keep my remarks focused on clause 36 as our Chairman would like—namely, the duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I keep repeating the point that clause 36 deals with a duty to provide a membership audit certificate. I do not see what the problem is with providing such a certificate. I cannot imagine why the unions would object to it.

Mr McKenzie: The hon. Gentleman is most gracious in taking interventions. He said that he agreed that legislation might already be in place to deal with the problem. His argument was to ask why we should vote against the provisions if they are already in place, but why would he vote for duplication?

Stephen McPartland: I am not voting for duplication. I am going to vote for this part of the Bill. I am being informed that legislation is already in place, but I was probably at school at that time. I would love to accept what the hon. Gentleman and Opposition Members say, but I am not able to trust them. That is why I am going to vote for this part of the Bill. It is nothing personal. It is just that there has been a lot of discussion going back and forth across the Committee, but I like to vote on the facts, and the facts before me today relate to this part of Bill.

I am sure that the Chairman will be grateful to know that I am about to bring my remarks to a close. We should try to reduce some of the rhetoric. This is not an ideological argument and the provisions are not a massive attack on the trade union movement—nobody wants to see that. Trade union members are fantastic members of our society, and the trade unions have been a fantastic vehicle for societal change throughout the ages. I am

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happy to work with them on a variety of occasions— working alongside them, for example, at charity events in my constituency or when the national unions work on issues that are important to their members such as fair pay, tax transparency or a range of other issues.

John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab): It is pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). He declared himself an optimist about the purposes of this part of the Bill and clause 36 in particular. The problem with the Bill, as well as with this particular provision, is the gap between the declared purposes and the provisions themselves. In clause 36, the problem is that the purposes are not clear at all.

In its confused content and its incompetent and chaotic handling, this whole Bill reminds me of a previous piece of legislation that the Leader of the House introduced—the Health and Social Care Bill. I led the opposition to that Bill. It was a Bill without allies and with a remarkable range of critics that saw Lord Tebbit and the trade unions finding common ground. The Leader of House, when he was Health Secretary, was forced to pause, review and reflect upon that Bill. The same problems with this Bill surely call for the same solution.

Let me now deal specifically with clause 36 and the amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, told us that his Committee had considered the White Paper, the forerunner of the Bill, and that there had been no mention of part 3 or of trade unions. He said that, according to his calculations, this part of the Bill—including clause 36—had been published the day before the summer recess, eight working days before we were required to consider it in Committee today, and he rightly pointed out that the task of scrutinising these provisions would therefore fall to the other House.

I am not prepared to accept that, and the Committee should not be prepared to accept it either. It is part of our duty in a Committee stage such as this to exercise scrutiny in the House of Commons, but we have been unable to do so. We have been unable to do so because of the time scale, because of the lack of any wider consultation, and indeed, as we have heard this afternoon, because of the Government’s failure to provide the Committee even with some of the most basic documentation before asking it to consider the Bill. Such a degree of confusion and incompetence on the part of Ministers is unacceptable.

Andrew Gwynne: I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend’s critique of the Bill and, in particular, with what he is saying about clause 36, but is not the position even worse than he is suggesting? The Government have failed to explain to the House why the changes are necessary in the first place. We have not got a clue what problem they are trying to solve.

John Healey: I shall respond to my hon. Friend’s intervention in a moment. I want my speech to reflect what has been said in the debate so far, and the point that he has made has already begun to emerge during our discussion of clause 36 and the amendments.

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Another point has emerged as well, and it constitutes a direct challenge to Ministers. The face of the Bill bears the following declaration from the Leader of the House:

“In my view the provisions of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights.”

Members of Parliament and legal experts outside the House have rightly asked whether article 8 of the convention, in particular, is not confounded by the provisions of clause 36. The clause gives the certification officer, or any investigator whom he may appoint, sweeping powers of access to very personal individual information about trade union members, which could contravene article 8 and the right to privacy. As I think the Committee will appreciate, union members are rightly concerned and sensitive about the issue, given the recent history of blacklisting and discrimination on the basis of trade union membership or activity. What I should like the Minister to do when he responds to the debate—

The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake): She.

John Healey: What I should like the Minister to do when she responds to the debate is give the Committee a commitment that she will publish, or place in the Library of the House, the legal advice on which the Leader of the House’s statement on the front of the Bill is based, so that we can lay that concern to rest.

Let me now turn to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). In his excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) asked what was the problem with which clause 36, and part 3 as a whole, had been designed to deal. Even the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) rightly asked the same question, albeit in different terms. He asked what intention was behind the provisions in clause 36. Our debate so far has clearly shown that there is no evidence of a problem, that there is no public call for these changes, and that there is no principled case for them. We can only conclude that the intention, or the purpose, of the clause is to tighten the legislative leash on trade unions and their ability to take proper, lawful industrial action.

2.45 pm

I must inform Ministers that last year industrial action was at an almost record low. The level was very low throughout the 13 Labour years, but last year it was only a quarter of the level that it was in 1996, the last year of the last Tory Government. In other words, four times more days were lost through industrial action in 1996 than was the case last year. Wide-scale industrial action is not a problem in this country, and for that reason any case that might honestly be built and presented on the basis of industrial action would clearly be flawed. My hon. Friends who are members, and active members, of trade unions would certainly agree with that.

Mr Binley: I am slightly confused by the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks, given what we have heard from many leading trade unionists about the possibility of strikes over the next six months. Does he not recognise that that poses a sizeable danger to the country’s economy,

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or is he telling me that the strikes will not happen because what the trade union leaders are saying is a sham?

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. I hope the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) will not stray too far down that road, and will return to the subject of the clause and amendments. He has performed very skilfully so far.

John Healey: Indeed so, Sir Edward.

As a former member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the steps, linked to the clause, that any union needs to take before contemplating industrial action are already highly complex. They are legally specified, and they set a number of very high hurdles for any group of trade union members who wish to consider industrial action. As for his general point, it is often the determination of union members to take industrial action if necessary, and as a last resort, that causes employers to see sense, negotiate properly and, in many cases, solve the problems at hand.

Let me sum up the position. The number of days lost to strike action is at a near all-time low. Industrial action is always a last resort. The series of legislative steps that any group of trade union members must take before engaging in lawful industrial action are already highly complex, lengthy and tightly specified in law, but clause 36 will make that specification much tighter, and will make it much more difficult for unions to take such action. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) pointed out, there is no legal right to strike in this country, and any industrial action lays a trade union open to being sued for inducing and encouraging members to breach their employment contracts. It is only the immunity from being sued, which comes from following all the steps specified in existing legislation, that will be made more difficult by the provisions in clause 36.

Too often in recent years, employers—not just large employers such as Balfour Beatty, Serco and London Midland—instead of dealing with the grievance at hand, and instead of consulting, negotiating and discussing the problems that they face with their own employees and dealing with the dispute, have looked for legal ground to try to prevent any industrial action through the law courts. The duty in clause 36 to provide the membership audits and certificates, and the potential investigations on the back of any complaints under the auspices of the certification officer, are likely to make it much easier for employers to find legal grounds and to take legal action to prevent union members from taking proper, legitimate industrial action. Clause 36 will create a mountain of data and paperwork which will be at the fingertips of employers well in advance of any particular risk of industrial action or dispute.

Yasmin Qureshi: Is that not exactly what the Government intend, so that, apart from causing financial difficulties, this Bill can be used by employers to hit out at employees?

John Healey: I think my hon. Friend is right, but our problem is that we are having to intuit the intention behind these provisions and this clause because the Government have not supplied evidence of a problem,

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have not supplied a purpose for these provisions, and have not supplied any reason for this unreasonable tightening of the legislation.

John Cryer: My right hon. Friend talked about legal action being taken against trade unions. The other problem is that an employer has six years in which to take that legal action. I can remember dealing with cases where a legal firm said, “Let the ballot and industrial action go ahead because we then have six years during which, at any point, we can take legal action against the union.”

John Healey: My hon. Friend has more experience in this area than I have, and he is right to point that out, and he might have gone on to say, “And what a stark disparity with the legal requirements on trade unions to take any industrial action they may have balloted upon within days, not years, and then to give further fresh notice to the employer before the start of that industrial action.” The legislation is already hugely unbalanced and is, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) argued, ripe for reform—although I think he and I would disagree on the nature of the reform that is required.

The Opposition’s arguments against this clause and my particular objections are clear, and our amendments highlight them. Regardless of what the Government are prepared to say about its purpose now, it is designed to tighten the current legislation binding trade unions. It is designed to make it more difficult for trade unions to take proper legal, legitimate industrial action and in particular for members facing problems in their workplace to stand up to an employer as a last resort and say, “You’re treating us in such an unfair, discriminatory and unacceptable way that we are prepared to take industrial action as a last resort.” If we allow this provision and this part of the Bill to proceed unamended it will become much more difficult for ordinary people as union members in the workplace to stand up for themselves through their union against their employer.

Mr McKenzie: I will restrict my remarks to clause 36 and to supporting our amendments. As we have heard over the past few days, this is a bad Bill and it would be poor legislation. Part 3 and clause 36 have clearly been ill thought out and ill conceived by the Government—but they have clearly thought through what they want to achieve. These measures would achieve their goals, but, unfortunately, they are not the goals a lobbying Bill should set out to achieve.

To compound things, this Bill is being rushed through Parliament at a speed that would make Usain Bolt envious. Opposition Members repeatedly ask, “Why the hurry? Why can’t we take a bit of time to scrutinise this Bill and get it right?” There has been no consultation on the Bill either, which has been highlighted.

Mr Anderson: My hon. Friend asks, “Why the hurry?” Does he agree that it is because the Government hope to get this Bill on to the statute book so that for 12 months from 8 May next year lobbying groups and trade unions will find that their hands are tied in criticising the Government’s record and reminding the people of this country what a dire mess they have got them into? They are trying to hide that from the public.

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Mr McKenzie: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This Bill and clause 36 have come under sustained criticism from just about everyone except those on the Government Benches. This part of the Bill has led to my inbox being filled—and, I am sure, other Members’ inboxes, too. The messages I have received have come not only from trade union activists, but from people throughout my constituency who are concerned about what this Bill, and this part of it in particular, will mean for them.

This part of the Bill seeks to change the legal requirements in relation to trade unions’ obligations to keep their lists of members up to date, as if it would somehow be of benefit to unions not to keep their membership records up to date. Trade unions continually communicate with their members, as I know as a trade unionist myself; I continually receive mailings from my trade union. They clearly know who their members are and how to contact them, therefore, so the claims made by Government Members that their records might be incorrect or they might have phantom members are beyond belief.

There are concerns about membership data and security and the possibility of the blacklisting of trade union members. There are data protection issues, therefore, and what about people’s right to privacy? In the 1980s I was employed in the private sector and my employer at that time would have been delighted to get its hands on a list of the trade union members among its employees. Instead, it had to put feelers out and, believe it or not, engage people to take photographs.

Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab): In some cases where employers are not the best employers, these provisions will leave trade union members very vulnerable, and certainly more vulnerable than they are now.

Mr McKenzie: My hon. Friend is right; that would be a consequence of this Bill. In the past, unscrupulous employers would go to any lengths to find out which of their employees were trade union members. I recall being photographed entering trade union meetings by my employer. It would have saved a great deal of money if it had been able to get its hands on these lists.

“Reveal your membership,” the unions are told, on the basis of demanding accuracy.

Dr Francis: I have made this point previously, but I want to make it again in the context of what my hon. Friend is saying. The Deputy Leader of the House has been seen denying this from a sedentary position, but yesterday he did not adequately respond to a question I asked about the Government’s failure to produce a human rights memorandum on this Bill. If they had produced one, they would have had to address this fundamental question of privacy.

Mr McKenzie: My hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point on the privacy issue. It seems that those on the Government Benches might somehow be surprised to learn that there are still employers who do not welcome trade union membership or activity among their employees, and they would be delighted to have these records at hand. As we have heard, the Conservatives will not reveal how many members they have.

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These proposals will mean significant additional bureaucracy for unions. We have heard about the costs of that, and they will escalate considerably for an organisation with 1 million or more members. The Government’s intentions are transparent. As we have heard from Government Members, they want to tie the hands of the trade unions. They want to put a ball and chain around the train unions’ ankles and to hamper their activities. This comes from a Government who said they wanted to cut red tape, and yet here they are imposing it on others.

I have not heard any general objection from the TUC to unions being able to provide regular membership figures to the certification officer. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who has now left the Chamber, suggested that the certification officer is toothless, when it has been some six years since he visited the certification officer and he was unable to give any idea as to how many times the certification officer had been challenged for lack of action or for being toothless. After all, we know that the trade unions supply membership lists to ACAS, especially when triggering recognition of a ballot in the workplace. I have often found out that the reluctance to hand over accurate lists comes from the employers; they have refused to supply ACAS with lists of their employees to match things up with the trade unions so that they could verify that they indeed had the membership numbers to trigger a ballot. Trade unions have never held back their membership lists; they are happy to give them over, but only if they have privacy for their members and the assurance that the lists will not be handed over. ACAS, of course, gives them that assurance.

3 pm

These changes will affect the 149 trade unions, of which, as we know, only about 16 are affiliated to the Labour party. The changes are clearly uncalled for and, as I have said, they are designed to hamper the unions and tie them up with red tape, which the Government have consistently said they want to get rid of. They came into power saying that they would eliminate as much red tape as possible.

The Government are not using the Bill to tackle the real problems of lobbying. Just about every member of the British public is asking what problem this part of the Bill is designed to tackle, and Labour Members have repeatedly asked that question. We are unable to discern the problem that this part is meant to remedy in its entirety. As we have heard, unions already have a statutory duty to maintain a register of members’ names and addresses so far as is reasonably practicable. Many members move house or pass away. The lists are as accurate as membership lists can be, as the trade unions do update them. No membership organisation of any size can ever have a perfect membership list, as such a list will contain errors. It is up to the individual members to make the union aware of changes. How often have we not passed on a change of address, getting around to doing so only later?

Ian Murray: My hon. Friend is making an incredibly compelling speech about the deficiencies of clause 36 and he is right to do so, because the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 states clearly that the onus is on the member to tell the trade union that they have changed address. If the member does not tell the union that, the membership list is therefore deficient.

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Mr McKenzie: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

Recent revelations about blacklisting and everything that is happening in that respect are a worry to many trade union members, who would see these membership lists as being available to be passed around with ease, with all the consequences that that entails. I think that the entire Committee is united in condemning blacklisting, so why are we being asked to assist the ease by which information can be gathered to continue the practice of blacklisting? If hon. Members had seen the trawls that the people who compile these lists go through, they would realise that we are making it very easy to put a list together, pass it on and make money out of branding other people as “trade union activists” and so on. I ask the Government to reconsider this part of the Bill and to adopt our amendments.

John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab): I think we misinterpreted the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), because what he said was extremely supportive. He went to what my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) described as the crux of the Bill, asking why it is here. The hon. Gentleman was asking his own Front Benchers, “What the hell are we doing?” As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) and others have asked, what mischief does this part of the Bill seek to address? I really tried to find out what the Government’s thinking is, so I looked at what they said in the consultation paper, which was published in July. The first reason they put forward for this move was as follows:

“As membership organisations, it is important that trade union decisions reflect the will of all their members.”

If that is the case, does it mean that we are now going to legislate in respect of all membership organisations? Sir Edward, you are a member of the Roman Catholic Church and if we are going to do that, we might well introduce legislation to see whether the Catholic Church is following the laity’s views.

Why does this provision apply to trade unions alone? Next, the Government identify trade unions for this special legislation because:

“Trade union activity has the potential to affect the daily lives of members”.

With the greatest respect, so too does the activity of the Roman Catholic Church, the CBI and the Institute of Directors. So why are we focusing on this particular membership organisation? As has been said, the reason is that this legislation is really about trying to impede the operations of the trade unions in this country. Government Members might argue that this measure has minimum cost and minimum imposition of roles and responsibilities on trade unions. The impact study makes an assessment that there will be only 6p of additional cost, although that is still 6p. However, it also says, straightforwardly, that the risks are that this will displace core trade union work. It will do that; trade unions will have to devote their time and energies to this and it will therefore displace their core trade union work of representing their members. So it is about impeding the real role of trade unions.

Julie Elliott: Does my hon. Friend agree that this part of the Bill is unnecessary legislation and that it is just an attack on trade union members going about their daily

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business and being active trade unionists? It is an attack on ordinary working people standing up for their rights in the workplace.

John McDonnell: That is exactly what it is. I am speaking on the clause standing part, as well as to the amendment, Sir Edward, because we have to understand what this clause means. I cannot, for the life of me, interpret it other than in the way my hon. Friend has just done. It is an attack specifically on the role of trade unionists and their rights to fulfil their responsibilities.

We have seen the operation of challenges to membership lists in respect of industrial relations and, in particular, of industrial action being taken and determined by members. The history is that the employers have used the existing legislation and interpreted it so that any minor discrepancy about a membership list is used in a rush to court to seek an injunction to prevent industrial action from taking place. Some examples have been given, but I have been involved in a number of activities associated with trade unions where even though there has been a 99% overwhelming decision in favour of industrial action, one or two members out of thousands have been missed off the ballot and so an injunction has been awarded. Therefore, the industrial action, along with the will of the members, has been prevented from being implemented. We tried to overcome that through legislation in this House—I tried to put such legislation through on three occasions, but it got talked out every time—but we have just overcome it in the courts. We have received a decision in the courts that enables minor infringements not to be taken into account and the decision of the overall will of the members to be acceded to.

However, the Bill opens up a whole new vista of potential legal challenges. As colleagues have said, it relates not only to industrial action, industrial activity, ballots and so on; it could relate to the whole operation of the union. Employers could trawl over membership lists, go off to the certification officer and then we could get to court, where the challenge will be about how the union operates overall. So lawyers will be able to tie up trade unions in legal actions for years to come, preventing them from undertaking what the impact study calls their “core” trade union work of representing members.

I ask Government Members: what is the motivation for this measure? Some of that has leaked out. They have listened to what has happened in recent months—the anger there is among working people about the cuts to their wages, the zero-hour contracts and the undermining of employment rights. People are beginning to react. They do not usually react at the depths of a recession, doing so when they are coming out of one and when the living standards of some are rising. So we are talking about a recovery for the rich but a recession for the rest. That is when people get angry and when industrial action takes place—that is when strikes happen. It is also when trade unions need to be representing their members. So I think this measure is part and parcel of the Government preparing for the potential for industrial activity over this coming period. It is another mechanism by which they will do everything they possibly can to undermine the rights of trade unions and their ability to operate effectively in representing their members. It is so short term, because all it will do is anger people even more and as these impediments build up, although they

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are relatively minor at first, people will become more angry. Then, we will have wildcat action—action that is uncontrolled—because people are so furious at how they are being treated by their employers in collusion with the Government.

Let me make one final point, because I want to understand. If the argument is that the clause is about ensuring that membership organisations are open, transparent and accurately reflect their members’ views, and if it is about organisations that have an impact on the general life of our society, why does it not refer to the CBI, the Institute of Directors and all the other trade associations? They are membership organisations and they have as much of an effect on the daily lives of our population as trade unions, yet they remain completely unregulated. That portrays to me the in-built bias of this Government against trade unionism and working people. That is why we must vote against clause stand part.

The amendment is moderate, and simply says that if the certification officer identifies a problem we should implement the provision—I have similar amendments on the implementation of the Bill, which we probably will not reach. That is all my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South is saying: if there is a grievance or a problem let us by all means have some action, but not unless a problem is identified. That is a relatively moderate, pragmatic way forward. If the Government do not accept the amendment, that will completely endorse the view that this is bias motivated by prejudice against trade unions and trade unionism.

Ian Murray: My hon. Friend is making another compelling speech. He mentions organisations such as the Church, the IOD and the CBI; is he as astonished as I am that while this draconian measure is going through to restrict trade unionism even more in this country the Conservative party will not even tell us how many members it has?

John McDonnell: I fear when Governments start seeking to regulate civil society generally. That is what the clause does: it is a step along the path of regulation of wider civil society organisations. What else? The Countryside Alliance? We might be up for that, just to see where the money comes from, but there are a range of organisations whose rights, privileges and privacy we want to be respected for reasons of basic civil liberties. Why are trade unions being singled out in this manner? The Bill is being targeted and comes at a time when the Government are predicting that they will be faced with trade unionists who are very angry about not being able to share in what is supposed to be an economic recovery. It is about the exercise of trade union rights.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) mentioned the legality of the Government’s legislation. Let me be clear that our Governments have been condemned by the International Labour Organisation and other international organisations for two decades now because of their trade union legislation. It is not just about the right to strike; it is about certain basic and fundamental trade union rights. The clause, yet again, imposes further duties that I believe to be completely contrary to ILO conventions. Yet again, this country will be isolated in the world and

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condemned for its attack on trade union rights, which are incorporated in all those international statutes and conventions as a basic human right.

In summary, that is why I oppose clause stand part and support the moderate, pragmatic amendment. If we reach that stage in our consideration of the Bill, I will discuss the amendments I have proposed, which basically say that if the Government want the legislation—which we do not support—to go forward, they should at least have some form of trigger, such as a complaint or concern that has been raised and assessed. If there has been a complaint and there needs to be further action, fair enough. That is not the case at the moment and I think that this is just biased prejudice against trade unions and trade unionism overall.

John Cryer: First, let me say what a compelling speech my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) just made. He made some strong points—this is about the evisceration of the industrial and political opposition over the next few months because the Government can see some serious problems on the horizon emanating from the policies they are pursuing. They want to neutralise any resistance to those policies and their consequences through the Bill and other measures.

I have a series of questions on this clause that I would like the Minister to deal with. My first question has been asked before, but it is specific. What specific complaints about union record keeping have been made and by whom over the last, say, three years? Secondly, as an addendum to that, what evidence is there that unions are not keeping accurate records? As we have heard before, under the 1992 legislation there is already a duty on trade unions to keep their records up to date. What has changed since then? What enormous problems are associated with trade union record keeping that have led the Government to their current position and to change things in such a radical way?

3.15 pm

Thirdly, what assessment has been made of the impact on the privacy of trade union members? I have many constituents, as I am sure we all have, who are members of trade unions but whose employers do not know that. I have had many conversations with constituents over the past three years in which I have said to them that they do not need to inform their employer that they are a member of a trade union and can keep it secret if they are worried about future problems at work. Does the Minister think that the increased access to trade union records and activities will give people in that position any great confidence that their details will remain private, or should they start to worry that all sorts of people, potentially including their employers, might get access to those records and perhaps start to use them against them? The change in the nature of work means that that is an important element of how trade unions and the world of work operate. The days when we had great concentrations of employers, all of whom were often union members, are gone. These days, we often have smaller work forces and only a handful might be trade union members. That group of people might not want their details to be exposed to public view.

Andrew Gwynne: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that many trade union members, for whatever reason, do not wish their employer to know that they are a

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member of a trade union but very much value their membership. Does he agree that those members’ concern is that their personal information might get into the hands of their employer and could be used against them in the workplace, particularly for future blacklisting?

John Cryer: That is a very good point. We have had all sorts of debates in this place on blacklisting recently; it is a problem that goes back many decades and persists in many sectors today.

My next question for the Minister is whether there has been any assessment specifically of the effect of the future legislation on the sectors of the economy that are particularly casualised. I am thinking of construction, agriculture, hospitality and catering. In construction and agriculture, particularly, the fluid nature of the work force means that it is difficult to keep accurate records of membership.

I have worked for three trade unions in the past and trade unions, more now than at any time in their history, devote enormous resources—as many as they possibly can—to organising records and keeping them up to date. As I said when I intervened on the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), large general unions, particularly Unite and the GMB, can easily lose 12% of their membership, particularly at a time such as this. Their membership tends to stand still because they can recruit another 12% in the same sectors to take the place of those members who have been lost because of jobs being lost, factory closures and so on, but just to stand still they have to recruit 12%. The level of churn means that it is difficult to keep records up to date, no matter how many resources are devoted to record keeping. Of course, up-to-date records are dependent on members informing the union that they have moved house, for instance, or changed occupation. That does not always happen.

Katy Clark: I congratulate my hon. Friend on how he is presenting his case. He is correct that unions put a huge amount of resources into trying to keep accurate membership records, especially because of the number of legal challenges that employers take against them in the courts. Does he agree that the changing nature of the work force, with the increase of zero-hours contracts and under-employment that means that people have more than one part-time job, makes it even more difficult for unions to keep accurate records?

John Cryer: I completely agree with my hon. Friend. There is also the situation involving payroll companies. If such a company offers to take over an employer’s payroll responsibilities, the duties to pay pensions, national insurance and sick pay are divested to that payroll company, meaning that that semi-detached element in the workplace is responsible for maintaining many records, which makes keeping everything up to date even more complicated and difficult. Another aspect is the casualisation of the workplace, because there are some sectors of the economy in which full-time permanent employment is almost being abolished. Again, that situation will make it more difficult to comply with the Bill’s strictures.

John McDonnell: My hon. Friend makes a crucial point about the difficulty of communicating with trade union members. I have been a branch secretary, so

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I know that it is difficult enough to communicate with just a branch. The key aspect of the Government’s motivation in previous legislation has been to address balloting procedures, which I understand to a certain extent, because there is a need to ensure that there is an accurate record of membership when taking a ballot. However, what is sinister about the Bill’s proposals, with reference to the Government’s assessment, is that they are about ensuring that the general public and employers are

“confident that voting papers and other communications are reaching union members”.

The Bill therefore covers a wider range of activities than just balloting, so there could be challenges from employers and others about just whether a trade union had adequately communicated with its members, by post or other means, about any matter.

John Cryer: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether any other section of civil society is as heavily regulated as trade unions. Unions will be subject to even more regulation because every piece of communication with members will be covered by statute, which represents an extraordinary intervention into people’s lives.

Will the Minister tell us how the 1992 Act relates to the Bill, and especially to clause 36, because that Act makes provision for keeping accurate and up-to-date records? Will she tell us what has specifically changed since the implementation of that consolidation Act that has brought about an enormous problem that now must be dealt with?

Julie Elliott: Given the regulation on trade unions’ membership records that already exists, does my hon. Friend agree that unions probably are the most regulated membership organisations in the country and have the most accurate records? What is the need for extra regulation, other than to constrain the legitimate actions of trade unions?

John Cryer: I could not agree more—my hon. Friend puts it far better than I could.

Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con): I speak as someone who, like many Conservatives, believes in trade unions’ right to use their economic power collectively. However, is the hon. Gentleman saying that trade unions should be subject to less regulation than at present?

John Cryer: Yes, I am. I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman believes in the collective strength of trade unions, and I am sure that he will be known in Dover as Red Charlie after that comment.

The trade unions are subject to enormously heavy regulation, so I do believe in less regulation. Successive Governments have carried out all sorts of investigations into the burdens of regulation on every sector of the economy, but I agree with the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) that there should be an investigation into the regulatory burdens on trade unions. As a trade union officer in a past life, I have seen such burdens, and while I would be out of order if I talked about my experiences, they were extraordinary. I suspect that a number of Government Members would be surprised to hear how heavily regulated trade unions are.

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Charlie Elphicke: While I support trade unions’ use of legitimate economic power, taking the step of using that serious power can have great economic consequences. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that power should be exercised within a framework that has been carefully set out so that the people at the top of trade unions cannot abuse it?

John Cryer: Of course I agree, but there has always been a legal framework for taking industrial action. The idea that anyone ever takes industrial action—not only strike action, but action short of strikes—lightly is a myth. That just does not happen in the real world.

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. The hon. Gentleman has been very well behaved so far and has stayed entirely in order, but he has been led astray by the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). He should now return to the clause.

John Cryer: I am told that the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) regularly leads people astray—[Interruption.] I do not mean that; I am joking.

As has been said repeatedly, we were first led to believe that this measure would be a lobbying Bill, but since then parts 2 and 3 have been added. We had been promised a lobbying Bill for three and a half years, but all sorts of things have been bolted on to that. Why was there no consultation paper on not only part 2, which we dealt with yesterday, but part 3 and provisions such as clause 36? Why could not the Government have issued a consultation paper so that people could have contributed to the process, rather than ramming the Bill through in a few days, despite introducing it just before the recess? These measures should have been thought through carefully and a consultation process to which people could contribute should have been held, but that simply did not happen.

Mr Doran: I declare an interest as a member of the GMB union, which has funded me in the past, and as secretary of the trade union group of Labour MPs. I wanted to say that because, like most of my colleagues, I am tired of the way in which trade unions are demonised, especially by the Government, who are putting as many obstacles as possible in the way of trade unions carrying out their normal and reasonable functions, as is apparent from part 3 of the Bill. The points that hon. Members have made about this group of amendments, which we have been discussing for some time, are relevant to virtually every other provision, because we need to hear from the Government why part 3 is necessary, which is the point on which I shall focus my speech.

I have had some experience of working with the certification officer. In 1993, when the unions were approaching the 10-year ballot for their political fund, I was appointed by a group of trade unions—more than 30 of them—to run the campaign, along with a colleague, Derek Gladwin, who became Lord Gladwin. Sadly, he is now dead. We ran that operation, balloting more than 6 million trade unionists. I did it in close co-operation with the certification officer and I learned a little about the way in which certification officers operate.

If we look back at the history of the regulation of trade unions, it is fairly clear that trade unions are used to regulation and the requirements of regulation.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) pointed out forcefully the very small number of complaints from members about the processes and about the way in which the unions operated— 10 complaints, I think, since the 1980s. Given the numbers involved, that is remarkable.

3.30 pm

It is difficult to answer the question why the Bill is necessary. The first legislation was in 1871. That legalised trade unionism, and it gave unions the option to register as trade unions. The vast majority of the major unions eventually did so. It is interesting that the term “trade union” in those days included employers associations. Somewhere or other that has been lost in all the processes and all the amendments made to the legislation over the years, culminating in the consolidation of trade union and employment law in the 1992 Act, which was referred to earlier.

It is interesting to look at certification officers and how they have seen their role. As I mentioned in an intervention, I organised a conference some years ago at which the certification officer of the time spoke about his functions. As he saw it, his function was to deal with complaints made by members that a trade union had failed to maintain an accurate register of members, and to see that trade unions kept proper accounting records, had their accounts properly audited, and submitted annual returns for the investigation of the financial affairs of trade unions and for ensuring that the statutory requirements concerning the actuarial examination of members’ superannuation schemes were observed. I have not had the time to check the detailed provisions of the 1992 Act, but it seems to me that it encapsulates everything that the Government want to do, and that that is within the existing powers of the certification officer and the system.

We have a major problem in this country, and it is a problem for all the political parties. I believe it is a serious problem and that the country pays a high price for it. For some of our near neighbours, the Germans and the Nordic countries, there are certain areas where all the parties agree, and they are all social and community areas, including rights at work and the operation of trade unions. We have a system where one Government come in and want to rip up everything that has gone before—not just in respect of trade unions, but in many other areas—then another Government come in and do the same in their turn.

I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Employment Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1997 when we came into power. Trade union issues were seriously discussed in the DTI and round the Cabinet table at that time, because we did not want just to take a lurch back. Matters were discussed seriously with the trade unions in advance and they knew what was coming.

It was decided, first, that in any area where a trade union member had the right to ballot, that right would not be removed. That was sacrosanct—a red line. Secondly, it was decided that we needed to review trade union laws and to do so comprehensively. There was no point in putting only our side of the case and banging ahead with the sort of stuff that we are seeing now—Beecroft, as has been mentioned, the constant erosion of workers’ rights and constant efforts to undermine trade unions.

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We decided to call in the TUC and the CBI and to ask the director general of the CBI and the general secretary of the TUC, Adair Turner and John Monks, to go away and look at all the issues that needed to be considered. They were asked to come back and tell us what they agreed on, what they disagreed on but could negotiate, and what they positively disagreed on. I remember sitting in the Secretary of State’s office when Adair Turner and John Monks made their report after months of consideration. We were all staggered by what they had done, because the CBI and the TUC had agreed on much more than we ever imagined. We set a programme based on the facts, the evidence and the thorough inquiry by the people who are the experts in this game—not the politicians, but business and the representatives of the work force.

Andrew Gwynne: My hon. Friend is setting out what I think is the correct approach to dealing with trade union matters. He mentioned earlier the role of the certification officer. From his wide experience of trade unions, is he aware of any problems with the current role he has set out? If not, does he share my conclusion that this is merely a politically motivated attack on trade unions going about their legitimate day-to-day business?

Mr Doran: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am trying to be polite to the Government. I must say that I have not had any contact with the certification officer for some time, but I know from the years when I did have contact that there were problems—it would be unfair to say that there were not. When I was in the job, a number of trade unions were very unhappy with the changes that had been made in 1984 and were not complying. I know from my contact with the trade unions that that is all resolved, and the record speaks for itself. The certification officer does a job that is required of him. Some people might think that he requires too much of the trade unions, but the fact of the matter is that they have accepted the regulation and work within the rules as they are.

Charlie Elphicke: The hon. Gentleman is giving a fascinating description of the certification officer’s role in providing membership audit certificates. The Leader of the Opposition has suggested in recent days that perhaps there should be an opt-in for the political fund. Does the hon. Gentleman support that, and does he think that that could have been included in the clause?

Mr Doran: I always support my leader.

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. Members cannot just make something up and say that it should be in the clause; they must relate the debate to what is in the clause already. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has been here quite long enough, should learn how to behave properly.

Mr Doran: I hope that I took it in good part, Sir Edward.

The decision on the legislation that was to proceed was taken under the process I have mentioned, and everything agreed between the CBI and the TUC was implemented. At its heart was the need to take the heat out of industrial action. We looked at a whole range of

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areas. One key area was the problem of recognition disputes, when unions had built up a membership in a company and wanted recognition. Many such disputes ended up in the courts and in difficult strikes. We wanted to take the heat out of all areas of conflict. All of that was implemented in the Employment Relations Act 1999. The evidence was a dramatic reduction in the number of strikes—my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South mentioned the number, but I cannot remember—and that has been maintained. I do not think that there is any question about that.

During the Conservative years, and the previous Labour years, to be honest, the level of strikes was far too high. That legislation and that process brought that to an end, and at the time both sides were happy. Even before that legislation was implemented to set in place a process for dealing with recognition disputes, and the effort was to take them out of the courts and minimise conflict, over 1,000 new recognition agreements were signed by both sides.

One of the major problems with this Government is that they have a one-sided approach that demonises trade unions and in every way possible places barriers in the way of the trade union movement. There is no realisation of what happens on the ground. Most trade unions are there not to strike or disrupt the employer, but to protect their members. As part of the process I mentioned, we did a lot of balloting and held focus groups to find out why members signed up to unions. The important thing for most of them was the insurance policy that they got—the fact that the union would support them if there was an argument with their employer, and in particular would pay for the lawyers in an unfair dismissal case, for example. That is what members bought into.

One of my concerns about the Government’s approach is that the harder it becomes for trade unions to operate properly, as trade unions should be allowed to operate in a democratic system, the more members will become tired of the system and have no proper recourse for their grievances. I do not often agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on these issues—

John McDonnell: Yes, you do.

Mr Doran: I try not to.

John McDonnell: Increasingly you do.

Mr Doran: My point is that if people see a weakened trade union movement, they will take matters into their own hands. That is a dangerous situation.

Many companies around this country work well with their trade unions and recognise them properly. Most are large; a significant number of FTSE companies, for example, have good relations with trade unions. I remember a number of occasions when unions have been used to lobby Members of Parliament. Once my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and I made a difficult trip to Sellafield; we were expected to stand on top of a reactor, although we were both too cowardly to do that. We were also gently asked to meet the trade union officials. At that time we were developing an anti-nuclear policy.

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The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. The hon. Gentleman should leave the subject of Sellafield and come back to clause 36, please. The discussion is getting very wide.

Mr Doran: Two hundred trade unionists turned up to lobby us at the meeting we attended. The point I was trying to make, Mr Leigh, was about the relationship between a good union and a good employer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) raised union problems. There are two ways of looking at the matter. Either the Government do not know what the problems are, in which case they are negligent, or they know the problems and want them to be exploited. There are major difficulties in the path of any trade union that wants to keep proper records.

The first difficulty is the churn rate. My hon. Friend said that it was 10% or 15%, but the churn rate for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, for example, is 25% or sometimes 30%. Every year it has to replace 25% of its membership. A lot of members go on to other jobs. They pay their union dues by direct debit and think they do not need to bother to tell the union that they have changed workplace, because they are still working in the same business and paying their union dues. That is difficult for unions. There are lots of practical issues such as that.

The biggest employer in my area is the North sea oil and gas industry, which employs about 30,000 workers offshore and 150,000 onshore. All have different status in the workplace. Many union members are self-employed and many work from company to company. At the moment, there is a massive skill shortage in the North sea. Wages are being ramped up—not a problem in the rest of the country, I know—because people are being enticed to other companies, but still working in the same business, travelling on the same unsafe helicopters and paying their union dues as usual through their bank accounts. Those are all massive problems.

Katy Clark: My hon. Friend’s speech is most interesting. It is incredibly important to put these issues into context. Over recent years, unions have spent millions of pounds trying to ensure that they have the best possible membership records. They have also had to pay many millions of pounds to lawyers in defending those membership records in courts of law. Is that really what we want?

3.45 pm

Mr Doran: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the discussions we had in 1997, the aim was to take industrial relations out of the law courts, yet this Bill is going to put them back in again.

In addition to all the logistical problems, many employers, not just those in the North sea industry—I think this also applies to virtually every shipping company based in Britain—now offshore their workers so that employers national insurance contributions do not have to be paid. The Chancellor has decided that that situation should change, but I am not sure whether he has yet introduced the necessary regulations or legislation. When the employers are not paying national insurance and the workers are moving from system to system, it is very difficult for the trade union to make contact, and that is a major problem.

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There are four major unions for workers on the North sea: the GMB, Unite, BALPA—the British Air Line Pilots Association—and the RMT. Those workers come from all parts of the country. Every one of them is registered with their trade union at their home address, but their workplace is the North sea. It is very difficult for the unions when they have major problems trying to contact their members on the North sea—even when they know they are there, which is not always the case. I saw many problems along those lines when I was involved in trade union ballots, because one of my jobs was to make sure that the unions had up-to-date and adequate records.

This issue has been under discussion in trade union and Government circles for a number of years. It is a great disappointment to me that the Labour Government did not recognise the problem, because it was easy to resolve. If the Minister is seriously worried about it, he could easily implement an obligation on employers to give information to trade unions about their current work force which would be virtually cost-free. It would not place a huge responsibility on employers to ask them to provide that information so that everybody can be sure that there is accuracy, particularly as regards any industrial ballots that may take place. There would be much more good will if the Government went down that route instead of imposing extra bureaucracy on the unions in the way they propose.

The issue of human rights gives rise to valid concerns. One of the trade union legal firms has given legal advice pointing out how intrusive the proposed powers are in relation to the possession of sensitive personal information, including the home addresses and personal contact details, and probably bank details, of unlimited numbers of union members. It says:

“The Bill gives the Certification Officer, his staff, inspectors and newly-created ‘Assurers’ sweeping powers to take and copy individual membership records and correspondence on the basis of having an undefined ‘good reason’. As the TUC has pointed out, it is not the business of the State to know who is or who is not a trade union member and where they live.”

There are serious worries about that. Others have mentioned the problems of blacklisting and so on, which should be taken much more seriously.

Finally, the much delayed impact assessment makes clear that the policy objective is to give greater assurance that unions comply with the existing duty to maintain a register of members’ names and addresses. I repeat the point that others have made: there is no evidence—or at least none that is clear to those of us who are regularly involved with trade unions—that this Bill is necessary. It is clear to the Opposition that it is politically motivated. The Liberal party has a very good record on trade unions and it is very difficult to understand why it is involved in this process.

Ian Lavery: There have been some fantastic contributions to this very important debate on part 3 of the Bill. The most important thing about the Bill has been addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) in his conclusion and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who both said that it could be in contravention of the European convention on human rights. That is a huge issue.

The Bill was published eight working days ago, which has given no opportunity for any clear consultation. Indeed, there has been a complete lack of consultation.

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Usually, those who are affected by a Bill are at least asked to participate in some form of consultation, but that simply has not been the case. The TUC, which is hardly a beacon of militancy, should at least have been given the opportunity to express the views of its 7.2 million members. Others should have been given a similar opportunity.

That lack of consultation and the fact that the Bill is undoubtedly an invasion of privacy and freedom of association mean that there is a huge question mark over whether it is legal. I am convinced that there will be a legal challenge.

Katy Clark: I congratulate my hon. Friend on what he has said so far. Is he aware that Unison commissioned Michael Ford QC of Old Square chambers to provide it with legal advice? It has been shared with the Government and says that

“the Bill probably infringes both Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) with regards to the right to a private life and Article 11…with regards to the freedom of association.”

Will my hon. Friend join me in calling on the Minister to address those issues fully in her response?

Ian Lavery: I am fully aware of all the legal advice—it has been received not just by Unison but by other organisations—which clearly highlights the concerns about the Bill. The legal issue is very important and can be argued to and fro, as is always the case. However, if the legal profession have as many doubts about the Bill as it appears to have, surely it should have been put on the back burner in order to allow for consultation, legal advice and discussions with Members of all parties. Surely that is how we should operate in a democratic society. Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) mentioned, the Bill is not about tidying anything up, but about hammering trade unions. It is about trade union baiting, which the press, the media and the Conservative Government are happy to do on an almost daily basis. That is atrocious, but we see it day after day.

Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab): Is it a surprise that this debate happens to coincide with the week of the TUC conference?

Ian Lavery: Unfortunately, I have been unable to attend the TUC conference for a number of reasons. Of course it is not a coincidence. It is part of the strategy of the coalition Government to attack trade unionists while they are at the trade union conference. Only a few Government Members have been here for this debate. There are only two present at the moment. That shows how much interest they have in the Bill. It is outrageous. This Bill is part of the Government’s clear-cut strategy to attack trade unions in any way that they can.

The real question is, what is the Bill about? I am really looking forward to the Minister’s response. She is a staunch Liberal Democrat. Some might say that she has sold her principles and her party down the river on many issues. Perhaps others would disagree. I am not sure, but my view is irrelevant.

Andrew Gwynne: My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. He is right to point out that clause 36 is neither liberal nor democratic if one is a trade unionist.

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There has been no explanation or critique of the problem that the Government are seeking to solve. Is that not what we need to hear from the Minister?

Ian Lavery: I fully agree with my hon. Friend. We have been in this debate for a number of hours and, despite many interventions from both sides of the Chamber, we have had no suggestion of what part 3 seeks to resolve. That can only mean that it does not seek to resolve anything. It is just bolted on to parts 1 and 2. It does not seek to do anything other than put a huge burden on the local trade unionists who are expected to compile the registers of the work force, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North said.

Those same lay members who do their work on a daily basis have been hammered by the coalition Government in terms of their facility time. That is not a coincidence because up to 90% of public sector workers, particularly those in local authorities, have been hammered in that way. And yet those are the individuals who give up their time to ensure that their trade unions adhere to the legislation, including the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The attack on the trade unions by taking away facility time will make it extremely difficult for those people.

Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being so generous with his time. I agree with everything that he has said. Does he agree that it would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether she has met the TUC to discuss the concerns that he raises? I know that the TUC is keen to talk to the Government about those matters.

Ian Lavery: It would be helpful if the Minister explained who has been consulted in this process—a lot of people would be interested to hear that. My view is that it would not take long to explain how many people have been consulted, because it is only one or two. The trade unions individually and the TUC collectively have not been consulted.

Getting back to the Bill—

The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh): Order. The hon. Gentleman should already be on the Bill.

4 pm

Ian Lavery: I accept that I have again been led astray, Sir Edward. Perhaps I should have said that I am getting back to the meat of the Bill.

In the past two years—it has been blatantly obvious in the past week or so—we have seen that the Liberal Democrats are dead. They have been absolutely blown out of the water. Congratulations to them—they have suicide notes and everything. Last night, they voted against the big society, charities that strive to do their best, and campaign groups like the National Union of Students, which will campaign against the Liberal Democrats in a big way. I hope that, because of how they voted last night, the campaign against them will become increasingly strong. Let us hope they get their just deserts.

Part 3 deals with trade union administration. As Opposition Members have said, British trade union legislation is the most restrictive in western Europe—it

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is anti-trade union legislation. The question is this: what does part 3 seek to resolve? We have received copies of the impact assessment study, but it was not available earlier and, unfortunately, hon. Members have not had the opportunity to read it. A consultation document on the measure is absent from the discussion.

Clause 36 creates a new duty on trade unions to send a membership audit certificate to the certification officer when they see each annual return. If the union has more than 10,000 members, the membership audit certificate must be provided by an independent assurer. Given the current legislation, why is that measure being introduced? The existing system is working. Under the 1992 Act, a trade union has a duty to maintain a register of the names and addresses of its members and a duty

“so far as is reasonably practicable”

to ensure that

“entries in the register are accurate and…kept up-to-date.”

The 1992 Act provides that a trade union should “allow any member”, on request, with

“reasonable notice, to ascertain from the register, free of charge…whether there is an entry on it relating to him”

or her. A failure to comply with the requirements of section 24 can be subject to an application either to the CO or the court.

The certification office annual report 2012-13 states that 166 trade unions submitted returns but not membership lists, recording a total of nearly 7.2 million members, compared with 7,261,000 members the previous year—the largest reduction in membership was in the construction sector. The annual return is to include a copy of the auditor’s report on the accounts, which allows the CO to compare revenue from dues with the numbers reported.

In 2012-13, the returns showed that income from members increased by 1.3% to £873 million. The returns also showed that 90.5% of the total number of members were contributing members, compared with a figure of 89.4% in the previous year.

There is nothing to fix here. Even if we accept the Bill, nothing will be fixed. The saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Trade unions are duty bound to maintain a register of members’ names and addresses—this is important—so far as is reasonably practicable, as per the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. I would have thought that anyone wishing to contribute to the debate had read section 24 of the 1992 Act.

Katy Clark: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his speech. He will be aware that a former leader of the Labour party called Britain’s trade union legislation the most restrictive in Europe. Is he surprised that Government Members are not jumping up to complain about red tape?

Ian Lavery: It is amazing. The Government are looking to cut red tape on industrial relations, health and safety and trade union law, but at the same time the only organisation for which they are looking to increase bureaucracy is the trade union movement. That is a fair point, which highlights what is really behind the Bill: another vicious attack on the trade union movement. In

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the main, it will be the ordinary person at grass-roots level who will have to make sure that the proposed legislation is applied.

Anyone wishing to take part in the debate should at least have read section 24 of the 1992 Act, as that is what the Bill is about. What on earth are we after? Section 24 states:

“Duty to maintain register of members’ names and addresses

(1) A trade union shall compile and maintain a register of the names and addresses of its members, and shall secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the entries in the register are accurate and are kept up-to-date.

(2) The register may be kept by means of a computer.”

Julie Elliott: Is it not true that the certification officer oversees compliance with the 1992 Act to ensure that membership records are kept correctly? Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that there is no need for further regulation or changes to the law to add to this bureaucratic burden?

Ian Lavery: I totally agree with my hon. Friend. That is the point I hope I have established and I will continue to make it.

Section 24(3) states:

“A trade union shall—

“(a) allow any member, upon reasonable notice, to ascertain from the register, free of charge and at any reasonable time, whether there is an entry on it relating to him; and .

(b) if requested to do so by any member, supply him as soon as reasonably practicable, either free of charge or on payment of a reasonable fee, with a copy of any entry on the register relating to him.”

Andrew Gwynne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to Back Benchers. His point is crucial to the decisions we will take today. Is he aware of any suggestion made to the Government by trade unions that they are not able to meet the requirements set out in the 1992 Act and therefore require new legislation?

Ian Lavery: Although the trade unions were not very receptive to the legislation initially, they accepted the change in the law. They accepted that the TULR regulations had to be adhered to, and they have done so—reluctantly, although now it is not too much of a problem. In fact, in many ways it helps trade unions to keep people pressed to ensure that they have up-to-date names and addresses for all members. The trade unions were not receptive at the time; they are happy now. Indeed, I have not spoken to any union or union representative, or even any union member or non-union member—not one person—who has told me that we need more legislation on union names and addresses in the register. Although the unions were not happy about the 1992 Act initially, it has been acted upon and delivered. There are not many complaints, as we have heard, to the certification officer because of problems with the names and addresses in the register or the legislation, so everything seems to be in order. Everything seems to be going ahead, yet the Government have put these proposals before us.

Mr Anderson: Is my hon. Friend award that the TUC briefing says that it has made freedom of information requests to the Department for Business, Innovation

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and Skills, ACAS and the certification officer asking whether anyone has been raising this issue, and that no one has?

Ian Lavery: That is an important point. I have been in front of the certification officer on numerous occasions in my previous employment, on lots of different issues—some not very pleasant, by the way—but there are very few people complaining to the certification officer about this issue. We heard the facts and the figures from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South(Ian Murray), which show that there is no one complaining. The only person complaining is the certification officer, who is saying, “What on earth do you want me to do here? I’m only doing what I’m expected to do. What’s happening?”

Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind): On the onerous duty placed on the certification officer by clause 36 as currently drafted, proposed new section 24ZA(7) of the 1992 Act says:

“The Certification Officer must at all reasonable hours”—

not “times”, but “hours”—

“keep available for public inspection…copies of all membership audit certificates sent to the Officer under this section.”

Can the hon. Gentleman throw any light on the definition of “all reasonable hours”, rather than reasonable times?

Ian Lavery: I personally cannot do that—if I had drafted these wretched regulations, I might be in a position to do so—but the hon. Lady highlights an important point. Perhaps that is something the Opposition could suggest: that there is a difference between this legislation and the certification officer legislation in the TULR regulations.

Section 25 of the 1992 Act addresses a number of problems—Members have referred to this—by setting out how failures can be remedied and how people can apply to the certification officer if they believe there is a failure under the legislation. Section 25(1) says:

“A member of a trade union who claims that the union has failed to comply with any of the requirements of section 24…may apply to the Certification Officer for a declaration to that effect.”

Section 25(2) says:

“On an application being made to him, the Certification Officer shall…make such enquiries as he thinks fit”.

That is reasonable. It means that if someone has a problem under section 24 of the 1992 Act, which deals with the names and addresses of individuals, and if the certification officer believes there is a problem, he may, under section 25(2)(a), make inquiries as he thinks fit, give the applicant and the trade union an opportunity to be heard, under section 25(2)(b), and then