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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lyell): I understand that there is a Division in the House. The Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
[The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 5.1 to 5.13 p.m.]
Baroness Miller of Hendon: I was speaking to Amendment No. 209 and I think I had dealt with the first paragraph, ending "the union's learning representative". If it does not make sense, the Minister will undoubtedly tell me that I should start again.
I said "partially" because the amendment does not prevent the representative being appointed but merely means that an unapproved representative is prevented from having the time and facilities provided for in subsection (1). It is essential that the employer should have some say in who is to have access to his staff. The person appointed might very well be someone with whom the employer is at loggerheads. Considering the influence that the learning representatives will have on the other workers and the amount of time of the business that will have to be given for his activities, it is only right that he should be someone in whom the employer has confidence. It will be noted that the amendment requires the employer to be reasonable and also not to delay approval of the proposed representative.In Amendment No. 211, I have proposed the deletion of subsections 4(b) and 4(c) because my Amendment No. 212 in my next group sufficiently covers the qualification of the representatives.
In Amendment No. 213, I have proposed in this new subsection to exempt an employer who has obtained and maintained the coveted Investors in People status from this whole concept of learning representatives. That particular status of Investors in People is far from easy to obtain, and to obtain it an employer has to have a substantial training programme both as regards the job employees are required to do and ensuring that the general basic educational infrastructure, if I may call it that—I mean literacy and numeracy—are up to standard.
I do not believe that a union learning representative will be able to provide better training than that which an employer who is an Investor in People can provide. It is therefore unreasonable that, in addition to the expense and effort that the employer has put in in order to obtain the Investors in People status, he should also have the expense and disruption that this particular section will cause him.
In Amendment No. 214, I have proposed to leave out subsection (6) because I believe that my Amendment No. 212—which as I mentioned before is in the next group—requiring a nationally recognised qualification, is more extensive. I do not doubt that the ACAS code would be acceptable, but I do not believe it should be the only qualification.
In Amendment No. 215 to subsection (8), I have proposed that notwithstanding the fact that the clause stipulates that the amount of time off shall be, in a phrase which harps back to my Amendment No. 205, reasonable in all the circumstances, there should be a cap on what reasonable time may be. The amendment does provide for the employer to agree to any extra time off.
Amendment No. 218, the new amendment to the proposed new subsection (2B) at line 41 on page 47, is to insert the word "reasonable" to qualify the time off, and I have explained this previously. I am gratified that the Government accept the idea of reasonableness, as they did in subsection (8). I remember the numerous times during the debates in the Committee on the National
Minimum Wage Bill the Government consistently rejected the word on the grounds that it was too prescriptive.In Amendment No. 219, there is a serious deficiency or omission to subsection (5), which confusingly introduces a new subsection (5) elsewhere. What is wanted is more than mere election by the union, or more if he carries out the duties. To be accredited it is essential that he acquires the relevant qualification himself.
Finally in this group is Amendment No. 220 in which I have proposed the complete deletion of subsection (6). In it the Government propose yet another example, a ruling by ministerial decree. Having produced the Bill after extensive consultation, and after having produced an extensive menu in subsection (2) for an employee to take time off for the purposes of being the learning representative, the Secretary of State now also demands the right to change all that at the stroke of his pen. By any test, subsection (2) is quite comprehensive—I would say totally comprehensive. I cannot imagine what extra needs the Secretary of State could find that are not already catered for. I invite the Minister to tell me what circumstances he believes are not already covered. If he can think of one, I invite him to add it to the subsection right away so that it can be where it ought to be; that is, in primary legislation.
I am not impressed either that the Government are asking for this sweeping power to vary a major part of the Bill under the negative procedure. Let the Minister be specific now if he really has something in mind, otherwise I believe this provision is not needed in the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Lea of Crondall: I would like to mention one or two reasons why this series of amendments taken together would drive a coach and horses through the Government's clause. The first point I shall make relates to Investors in People. The trade unions have done a great deal of work to support Investors in People. I do not know the statistics off the top of my head but I would not be at all surprised if there was not a very big correspondence between establishments and firms where unions are recognised and those that get IIP status, and that is not surprising. In fact, those matters are not in conflict with each other; they are complementary. For many years in the TUC there was a programme of encouraging firms to go for IIP status as it improves quality, performance in the workplace and so on.
Indeed, as regards some of the benefits of the union learning approach, we have heard consistently over the years that there should be regulatory impact assessments of anything that puts costs "burdens" on business. I do not know whether the noble Baroness is aware of this but according to the data I have the regulatory impact assessment of this clause in the Bill comes up with the following results on a cost/benefit basis. The benefits will rise in a bracket of £70 to £140 million a year as it builds up—and I clarify that is
pounds, not euros. I believe these days one has to specify which it is—with costs of £6 million rising to £26 million. The cost/benefit ratio is roughly six to one.I do not know whether my noble friend the Minister can confirm this but if one looks at the general results of regulatory impact assessments a six to one ratio on benefits and costs is pretty good. I would have thought it was at the high end of the range. The Opposition's job is to be the loyal opposition and so on but it would have been helpful if we could have heard a bit more recognition of the fact that the measure we are discussing can bring considerable benefits. However, the amendment would certainly drive a coach and horses through it. Amendment No. 213, as I read it, simply states that one does not need to comply with the requirements we are discussing if one has IIP status, implying that IIP status would flourish despite such an overriding of union rights.
I have a couple of other points to make. I believe that Amendment No. 210, which is not grouped with the amendments we are discussing, is, as it were, implied in Amendment No. 209. I refer to the right of an employer to refuse the measure we are discussing. Is that right?
Baroness Miller of Hendon: It is in the next group.
Lord Lea of Crondall: In that case let me stick with Amendment No. 209 as I will not be speaking again on this matter. Amendment No. 209 gives the employer, if not a veto, a certain right of saying yea or nay to a particular person and so on. As regards union safety representatives—and of course there is a good degree of analogue here, it is not as if this is total rocket science—we know roughly how the system bedded down after one or two teething troubles and the matter we are discussing will bed down in a similar sort of way. One cannot deny the fact that union representatives are elected through whatever complicated arrangements are designed to meet the democratic rules of the particular union concerned. As I say, the matter we are discussing would bed down in the same sort of way as the matter of health and safety reps bedded down. My final point is that it is not the case that union offices are an ideal place to undertake this in every case. In certain parts of the country that would, indeed, be the case, and many union establishments would enable it to be carried on very well on union premises. However, I believe that employers are being over-anxious about the general framework of this approach. It has been thought through fairly well. I hope that the Minister will perhaps reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that what the Government have in mind here is to help to pick up, and give a benchmark to, the rest of the economy.
There is a paradox in all of this. As the noble Baroness said, large firms are, to use a type of caricature, unionised, and the small firms are not. Statistics show that generally large firms have higher levels of productivity and higher levels of commitment to this type of arrangement. It is not that we do not want small firms to go forward with such
representatives. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, would not say that the solution would be to make union learning representatives mandatory in small firms. I would support her if she did say that, but I doubt whether that is her intention.We must recognise that here we are trying, as we have done in many other areas of industrial relations, to improve the benchmark through a quite ingenious system. But I hope very much that it will act as a benchmark to be copied in other sectors. Thus, the type of discrimination or two-tier economy to which the noble Baroness alludes would not come about. That would be the arrangement to which other people would need to aspire in their own training arrangements, recognising that European comparisons show that we are not starting with a very good record on training.
I know that that is a Second Reading point, but I believe that many of the implicit assumptions behind some of the remarks addressing the amendments go back to the philosophical problem which the CBI and the noble Baroness have with this issue. It seems that management's right to manage, if I may use an old formulation, is infringed. We should take the opportunity to say that this should be seen as a considerable and positive step in the British economy towards improving our training performance. Everyone agrees that more breakthroughs are needed for that performance to go forward in order to meet the international competitive level.
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