I have already quoted from the Government’s election manifesto, but there is another quote on the same page about the role of the House of Lords, which is highlighted. It says:
“We will ensure that the House of Lords fulfils its valuable role as a chamber of legislative scrutiny and revision”.
And—dare I agree with the Government?—that is our role today. It says much about your Lordships’ House that through our Select Committee and the related debates we have examined this issue in such detail and have this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and colleagues before us today. We all know that in the other place there were not such detailed debates, at this or any other stage of the Bill, on this specific issue. I have reflected with other noble Lords on why this would be the case. I wonder whether it is because we in this House—a point made, I think, by the noble Lord—are not constituted as a wholly political Chamber. Therefore, we are not so party political or, indeed, partisan. We have examined this issue in a completely different way: we have put facts first and then judgment. It is because of our respect for that process, and the exemplary and thoughtful work of the committee, that we are prepared, in that spirit of compromise, to support the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in the whole of his amendment. I hope that the Minister will be able to match that commitment today.
6 pm
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, Clauses 10 and 11 implement our manifesto commitment for a transparent opt-in process for union subscriptions. We had substantial discussion last week in this House about these clauses following, and informed by, the excellent work undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his Select Committee. I share the tributes paid by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, to the committee, its staff and the speed of its proceedings.
These clauses are about the relationship between trade union members and their unions. They are not about the relationship between union members and political parties. The relationship between trade union members and their unions should be based on transparency and choice—an active choice, not a theoretical choice buried in fine print.
There are a number of areas where I believe progress has been made and where there is consensus. Principally, the Select Committee accepted that members should be asked to make an active choice when contributing to a union’s political fund. In looking to achieve wider consensus, the Select Committee has looked for a middle ground. I appreciate these efforts, but I believe that when it comes to the treatment of existing union members the proposals have not gone far enough. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for which I thank him warmly, would not extend opt-in to existing members, only to new members. My noble friend Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, one of the hard-working members of the committee, put it well when he talked about this being a wrecking amendment in that respect.
The Select Committee concurred with the Government’s view that the current approach has not operated with enough transparency. All members are not consistently informed about their rights. If it is deemed right that new members are required to make an active opt-in choice, I do not understand why the same principle does not apply to existing members.
It is not acceptable in many areas of daily life automatically to deduct payment for a cause or purpose that has not been actively consented to. We see that in consumer law, financial services, marketing communications and the way charities approach potential donors. I have not heard a compelling reason why we should treat all union members differently.
We debated at length last week the wider and distinct agenda of political party funding. Some have argued that pursuing only a partial opt-in system can be justified, given the lack of consensus on party funding reform—the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, mentioned this. It is a difficult problem to crack and I shall not seek to repeat what was said in the discussion last week. Our trade union reforms are about the transparency arrangements between a union and its members. I quote again from page 19 of the Conservative manifesto:
“We will … legislate to ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for union subscriptions”.
The Select Committee agreed that we had not cherry-picked from the 2011 report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and recognised our democratic mandate to introduce an opt-in process, irrespective of agreement or not on party funding.
Lord Dykes (Non-Afl): I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and apologise for intervening early in her remarks. Her reference to a manifesto commitment is of course a valid point, except that we all know that manifesto commitments are abandoned quite frequently by parties in the course of events and do not proceed, that the manifesto is based on a Government elected by 24% of the electorate and that only some 0.4% of population read any of its paragraphs.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: Well, I believe that manifesto commitments are important. This is an important and clear manifesto commitment. If I may continue, I will seek to respond to points that noble Lords have made.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, spoke about union membership turnover. I cannot accept his argument that we should not allow existing members to be covered because, over time, all individuals would be covered. Obviously, turnover is faster in some industries than others. I know and am very fond of USDAW, which represents shop workers, where turnover is high, but the noble Earl’s approach would deliver a two-tier position, while moving to opt-in is what we have a democratic mandate to implement.
I turn to three key elements of the noble Lord’s amendment: that new union members would be required to make an active opt-in choice; giving a new role for the Certification Officer; and—perhaps most important of all, because several people have mentioned them—the transition and communication arrangements.
On the treatment of new members, I can of course support the introduction of an opt-in requirement. The amendment would achieve this by giving new members a clear choice on the application form. It is appropriate to make this choice clear at the point of joining. It is the point at which a member is making their first financial commitment to the union, and they should be told what the commitment covers in sufficient detail to make an informed choice. The amendment also provides that new members should be informed that their decision will not impact unfavourably on any other aspect of their membership. I believe that is also an important measure to support making an informed decision.
Turning to the proposed new role for the Certification Officer, I appreciate that the amendment tries to enhance information for union members about their right to opt out of a political fund. We are in favour of better communication, but I believe that we are past the point of trying to make the current opt-out work better. We tried that in 1984, and I agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham. We presented evidence, which the Select Committee appeared to concur with, that the current approach has not operated with enough transparency. Even for new members, the amendment would not require that they should ever again have to opt in while they remained with the union.
I also believe the proposal to expand the remit of the Certification Officer to set out a code governing union communications is inappropriate. We heard concerns during Committee about the new burdens we are placing on the Certification Officer, and I do not believe that expanding his role is necessary or sensible.
I want to move on to the proposals for transition and electronic communications, on which I believe there is more consensus in the House, and about which I have indicated on previous occasions that I am open-minded. I have listened carefully to the issues raised regarding transition and the fact that members should be able to make their choice electronically.
There are two different transition periods: first, the period between Royal Assent and when Clause 10 applies to trade unions, which is important to allow
unions time to prepare by, for example, changing their rulebooks; secondly, the period, mentioned in the Bill, for existing members to opt in under the new arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, expressed concern about what he called a “guillotine”—members automatically being opted out after three months. I have said that I am in listening mode on the implementation of this clause. As I have explained, I need to consider how each period of transition is delivered, but I think, together, they provide a good opportunity.
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, would also make electronic communications an accepted mode of communication between unions and their members on political fund provisions. I recognise the force of the argument made by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and others in favour of the use of email and electronic communications, and I have said that I would reflect further on this.
We note that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, gives the Certification Officer a role in relation to transition arrangements as well as annual communications. We will continue to engage with the Certification Officer, whom I intend to meet before Third Reading. We all agree that the transition must be done in a way that is successful for unions and for their members.
If noble Lords are prepared to accept my wider arguments on the case for opt-in applying to existing members, I would like to bring back for consideration before the Bill leaves this House provisions on a more generous transition period, as proposed by my noble friend Lord Hailsham and others, and on electronic communications. The Bill will, we believe, secure consistency and equity across all members of unions with political funds. The default position will be that all members will be able to exercise a positive choice. This will improve transparency, choice and debate within a union of how political funds are spent. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Burns: My Lords, I am grateful for all the contributions to this debate. I am not surprised that so much of it has concentrated on the issue of the opting in of existing members versus the opting in of new members. I understand the concern about that, but there is an enormously important practical issue at stake here: how do you get existing members to exercise an informed choice? It is clear that that choice can be forced in respect of new members because people have to fill in a membership form on which you ask them the question. When it comes to persuading existing members to respond to mailshots, it is actually very difficult, as anyone who has ever been involved in trying to run an exercise of this type will know. The response rates are typically very low. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, the average payment we are talking about here is £4.80 a year, which is not exactly the sort of thing that gets people leaping out of their chairs, having reminded themselves they should be filling in a form.
Those of us who have been involved with financial services, as I tried to make clear in my earlier remarks, know full well that this is a problem for the industry. The emphasis is put on new buyers and what happens at the sales point. It is much more relaxed about what
happens to those people have previously bought a product, as long as they are reminded of what their rights are.
I deny that this is a wrecking amendment. Over time, I have argued, increasing numbers of people will come into these arrangements. In some areas it may be slow, but in the end it will happen. I am grateful to the Minister for her response about the transition issue and electronic communications, which is very welcome, but I am sorry that there has not been more movement on this point. I believe that my amendment meets the manifesto commitment. Nowhere in that commitment is any distinction made between new members and existing members. I believe that what I have proposed is proportionate and avoids the trap of being drawn into a war on political funding, which I also believe is very important.
I shall only say this once: there is no one who is more surprised than me to find myself in this position today on this particular subject. Having said that, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
6.13 pm
Contents 320; Not-Contents 172.
CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.
Adams of Craigielea, B.
Addington, L.
Adonis, L.
Ahmed, L.
Allan of Hallam, L.
Allen of Kensington, L.
Alli, L.
Alton of Liverpool, L.
Anderson of Swansea, L.
Andrews, B.
Armstrong of Hill Top, B.
Armstrong of Ilminster, L.
Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, L.
Bach, L.
Bakewell, B.
Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, B.
Balfe, L.
Barker, B.
Bassam of Brighton, L.
Beecham, L.
Beith, L.
Berkeley, L.
Berkeley of Knighton, L.
Best, L.
Bhattacharyya, L.
Bichard, L.
Billingham, B.
Blackstone, B.
Blunkett, L.
Boateng, L.
Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, B.
Boothroyd, B.
Bradley, L.
Bragg, L.
Brennan, L.
Brinton, B.
Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.
Brookman, L.
Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, L.
Browne of Belmont, L.
Burnett, L.
Burns, L. [Teller]
Burt of Solihull, B.
Campbell of Pittenweem, L.
Campbell-Savours, L.
Cashman, L.
Chandos, V.
Christopher, L.
Clark of Windermere, L.
Clarke of Hampstead, L.
Clement-Jones, L.
Collins of Highbury, L.
Cormack, L.
Corston, B.
Cotter, L.
Craigavon, V.
Crawley, B.
Cunningham of Felling, L.
Darling of Roulanish, L.
Davidson of Glen Clova, L.
Davies of Oldham, L.
Davies of Stamford, L.
Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.
Dholakia, L.
Donaghy, B.
Donoughue, L.
Doocey, B.
Drake, B.
Drayson, L.
Dubs, L.
Dykes, L.
Elder, L.
Elis-Thomas, L.
Erroll, E.
Evans of Temple Guiting, L.
Falconer of Thoroton, L.
Falkland, V.
Falkner of Margravine, B.
Farrington of Ribbleton, B.
Faulkner of Worcester, L.
Featherstone, B.
Fellowes, L.
Foster of Bath, L.
Foster of Bishop Auckland, L.
Foulkes of Cumnock, L.
Freyberg, L.
Fritchie, B.
Gale, B.
Garden of Frognal, B.
German, L.
Giddens, L.
Glasgow, E.
Glasman, L.
Goddard of Stockport, L.
Golding, B.
Gordon of Strathblane, L.
Gould of Potternewton, B.
Grantchester, L.
Greaves, L.
Greenway, L.
Grender, B.
Grey-Thompson, B.
Griffiths of Burry Port, L.
Grocott, L.
Hameed, L.
Hamwee, B.
Hannay of Chiswick, L.
Harries of Pentregarth, L.
Harris of Haringey, L.
Harris of Richmond, B.
Harrison, L.
Hart of Chilton, L.
Haskel, L.
Haskins, L.
Haughey, L.
Haworth, L.
Hayman, B.
Hayter of Kentish Town, B.
Healy of Primrose Hill, B.
Henig, B.
Hilton of Eggardon, B.
Hollis of Heigham, B.
Hope of Craighead, L.
Howarth of Newport, L.
Howe of Idlicote, B.
Howells of St Davids, B.
Howie of Troon, L.
Hoyle, L.
Hughes of Woodside, L.
Humphreys, B.
Hunt of Chesterton, L.
Hunt of Kings Heath, L.
Hussain, L.
Hussein-Ece, B.
Hutton of Furness, L.
Irvine of Lairg, L.
Janke, B.
Jay of Paddington, B.
Jolly, B.
Jones, L.
Jones of Cheltenham, L.
Jones of Moulsecoomb, B.
Jones of Whitchurch, B.
Jordan, L.
Jowell, B.
Judd, L.
Judge, L.
Kennedy of Cradley, B.
Kennedy of Southwark, L.
Kennedy of The Shaws, B.
Kerr of Kinlochard, L.
Kerslake, L.
Kestenbaum, L.
Kilclooney, L.
King of Bow, B.
Kinnock, L.
Kinnock of Holyhead, B.
Kinnoull, E.
Kirkhill, L.
Kirkwood of Kirkhope, L.
Knight of Weymouth, L.
Kramer, B.
Lawrence of Clarendon, B.
Lea of Crondall, L.
Lee of Trafford, L.
Lennie, L.
Lester of Herne Hill, L.
Levy, L.
Liddell of Coatdyke, B.
Liddle, L.
Lipsey, L.
Lister of Burtersett, B.
Listowel, E.
Livermore, L.
Low of Dalston, L.
Ludford, B.
McAvoy, L.
McConnell of Glenscorrodale, L.
McDonagh, B.
Macdonald of Tradeston, L.
McFall of Alcluith, L.
McIntosh of Hudnall, B.
MacKenzie of Culkein, L.
Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.
McKenzie of Luton, L.
Maclennan of Rogart, L.
McNally, L.
Maddock, B.
Mandelson, L.
Manzoor, B.
Mar, C.
Marks of Henley-on-Thames, L.
Massey of Darwen, B.
Mawson, L.
Maxton, L.
Mendelsohn, L.
Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.
Mitchell, L.
Monks, L.
Moonie, L.
Morgan, L.
Morgan of Drefelin, B.
Morgan of Ely, B.
Morgan of Huyton, B.
Morris of Aberavon, L.
Morris of Handsworth, L.
Morris of Yardley, B.
Morrow, L.
Murphy of Torfaen, L.
Newby, L.
Nicholson of Winterbourne, B.
Nye, B.
O'Loan, B.
O'Neill of Bengarve, B.
O'Neill of Clackmannan, L.
Ouseley, L.
Paddick, L.
Palmer of Childs Hill, L.
Pannick, L.
Parminter, B.
Patel, L.
Patel of Bradford, L.
Pendry, L.
Pitkeathley, B.
Plant of Highfield, L.
Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.
Prescott, L.
Primarolo, B.
Prosser, B.
Purvis of Tweed, L.
Puttnam, L.
Quin, B.
Radice, L.
Ramsay of Cartvale, B.
Razzall, L.
Rebuck, B.
Redesdale, L.
Rees of Ludlow, L.
Reid of Cardowan, L.
Rennard, L.
Richard, L.
Roberts of Llandudno, L.
Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.
Rogan, L.
Rogers of Riverside, L.
Rooker, L.
Rosser, L.
Rowlands, L.
St John of Bletso, L.
Sandwich, E.
Sawyer, L.
Scott of Foscote, L.
Scott of Needham Market, B.
Scriven, L.
Sharkey, L.
Sharp of Guildford, B.
Sheehan, B.
Sherlock, B.
Shipley, L.
Shutt of Greetland, L.
Simon, V.
Smith of Basildon, B.
Smith of Finsbury, L.
Smith of Gilmorehill, B.
Smith of Leigh, L.
Smith of Newnham, B.
Snape, L.
Soley, L.
Steel of Aikwood, L.
Stephen, L.
Stevenson of Balmacara, L.
Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Stone of Blackheath, L.
Stoneham of Droxford, L.
Storey, L.
Strasburger, L.
Suttie, B.
Symons of Vernham Dean, B.
Taverne, L.
Taylor of Blackburn, L.
Taylor of Bolton, B.
Taylor of Goss Moor, L.
Temple-Morris, L.
Teverson, L.
Thomas of Winchester, B.
Thornton, B.
Tomlinson, L.
Tonge, B.
Tope, L.
Touhig, L.
Triesman, L.
Truscott, L.
Tunnicliffe, L. [Teller]
Turnberg, L.
Turnbull, L.
Tyler, L.
Tyler of Enfield, B.
Walker of Gestingthorpe, L.
Wall of New Barnet, B.
Wallace of Saltaire, L.
Wallace of Tankerness, L.
Warner, L.
Warwick of Undercliffe, B.
Watkins of Tavistock, B.
Watson of Invergowrie, L.
Watts, L.
West of Spithead, L.
Wheeler, B.
Whitaker, B.
Whitty, L.
Wigley, L.
Williams of Elvel, L.
Willis of Knaresborough, L.
Wills, L.
Wood of Anfield, L.
Woolf, L.
Woolmer of Leeds, L.
Young of Norwood Green, L.
Young of Old Scone, B.
NOT CONTENTS
Ahmad of Wimbledon, L.
Altmann, B.
Arbuthnot of Edrom, L.
Ashton of Hyde, L.
Astor of Hever, L.
Attlee, E.
Baker of Dorking, L.
Barker of Battle, L.
Bates, L.
Blencathra, L.
Borwick, L.
Bourne of Aberystwyth, L.
Brabazon of Tara, L.
Bridgeman, V.
Bridges of Headley, L.
Brougham and Vaux, L.
Browning, B.
Buscombe, B.
Byford, B.
Caithness, E.
Callanan, L.
Carrington of Fulham, L.
Cathcart, E.
Cavendish of Furness, L.
Chadlington, L.
Chisholm of Owlpen, B.
Colwyn, L.
Cooper of Windrush, L.
Cope of Berkeley, L.
Courtown, E.
Crickhowell, L.
De Mauley, L.
Denham, L.
Dixon-Smith, L.
Dobbs, L.
Dundee, E.
Dunlop, L.
Eccles, V.
Eccles of Moulton, B.
Elton, L.
Evans of Bowes Park, B.
Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Fall, B.
Faulks, L.
Finn, B.
Flight, L.
Fookes, B.
Fowler, L.
Framlingham, L.
Freeman, L.
Freud, L.
Gardiner of Kimble, L. [Teller]
Gardner of Parkes, B.
Garel-Jones, L.
Geddes, L.
Gilbert of Panteg, L.
Glentoran, L.
Gold, L.
Goodlad, L.
Goschen, V.
Hailsham, V.
Harding of Winscombe, B.
Hayward, L.
Henley, L.
Heyhoe Flint, B.
Higgins, L.
Holmes of Richmond, L.
Hooper, B.
Horam, L.
Howard of Lympne, L.
Howard of Rising, L.
Howe, E.
Hunt of Wirral, L.
Inglewood, L.
James of Blackheath, L.
Jenkin of Kennington, B.
Jopling, L.
Keen of Elie, L.
Kirkham, L.
Lamont of Lerwick, L.
Lansley, L.
Leach of Fairford, L.
Leigh of Hurley, L.
Lexden, L.
Lindsay, E.
Lingfield, L.
Livingston of Parkhead, L.
Lothian, M.
Lupton, L.
Lyell, L.
McColl of Dulwich, L.
MacGregor of Pulham Market, L.
McGregor-Smith, B.
McIntosh of Pickering, B.
Mackay of Clashfern, L.
Magan of Castletown, L.
Maginnis of Drumglass, L.
Mancroft, L.
Marlesford, L.
Masham of Ilton, B.
Maude of Horsham, L.
Mawhinney, L.
Mobarik, B.
Montrose, D.
Moore of Lower Marsh, L.
Morris of Bolton, B.
Moynihan, L.
Naseby, L.
Nash, L.
Neville-Jones, B.
Neville-Rolfe, B.
Newlove, B.
Noakes, B.
Norton of Louth, L.
O'Neill of Gatley, L.
Oppenheim-Barnes, B.
O'Shaughnessy, L.
Palumbo, L.
Patten, L.
Perry of Southwark, B.
Pidding, B.
Plumb, L.
Polak, L.
Porter of Spalding, L.
Powell of Bayswater, L.
Prior of Brampton, L.
Rawlings, B.
Redfern, B.
Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.
Ribeiro, L.
Ridley, V.
Risby, L.
Robathan, L.
Rock, B.
Ryder of Wensum, L.
Sanderson of Bowden, L.
Scott of Bybrook, B.
Seccombe, B.
Selborne, E.
Selkirk of Douglas, L.
Selsdon, L.
Sheikh, L.
Sherbourne of Didsbury, L.
Shields, B.
Shinkwin, L.
Skelmersdale, L.
Smith of Hindhead, L.
Spicer, L.
Stedman-Scott, B.
Sterling of Plaistow, L.
Stirrup, L.
Stowell of Beeston, B.
Strathclyde, L.
Stroud, B.
Suri, L.
Tanlaw, L.
Taylor of Holbeach, L. [Teller]
Tebbit, L.
Trefgarne, L.
Trenchard, V.
Trimble, L.
True, L.
Tugendhat, L.
Wasserman, L.
Wei, L.
Wheatcroft, B.
Whitby, L.
Wilcox, B.
Willetts, L.
Williams of Trafford, B.
Young of Cookham, L.
Younger of Leckie, V.
6.31 pm
Lord Stoneham of Droxford: I am glad that the amendment has been passed but obviously we will wait to see the Government’s reaction. We therefore reserve the right to come back on this but, in the mean time, I shall not move Amendment 11.
Clause 11: Union’s annual return to include details of political expenditure
12: Clause 11, page 7, line 32, leave out from “union” to “exceeds” in line 34 and insert “paid out of its political fund in any calendar year”
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con): My Lords, my amendment seeks to clarify the nature of the transparency sought within political funds. I believe that my amendment simply ensures the transparency that was intended but is not covered in the current wording of Clause 11. Noble Lords will recall that I asked the Minister to consider this matter during the debate on the Burns Select Committee report. I believe that the intention of Cause 11 is to ensure that expenditure from the political fund is fully disclosed so that members of the union who choose to opt in can see how their money is being spent.
We heard from evidence given to the Select Committee on 4 February by Mr Iain McNicol, general secretary of the Labour Party, that less than 50% of the trade union political levy is actually sent to the Labour Party. I believe that is correct and supported by the facts. The amendment deals with the rest of the money in the political fund that is not spent on political parties.
Following encouragement from noble Lords opposite, I have examined the accounts of the political fund of two of the largest unions: UNISON and Unite. They are somewhat vague. UNISON notes that its membership’s contribution is some £6.6 million in the political fund in its most recent set of filed accounts, but does not really break down how this is spent. It lists as national expenditure—it just uses the words “national expenditure”, with no further detail—the sum of £2.9 million, and that is the largest single item. Quite intriguingly, it discloses at the end of the year that it holds on its balance sheets some £8.2 million of reserves within the political fund. Whether we do opt-in or opt-out, that £8.2 million still sits in the political funds to be allocated at the union’s discretion.
Unite has £7.7 million of income in its political fund and simply states that, of this, £1.17 million is classified as political fund expenditure. Again, there is no further clarification. Intriguingly, that union had £14.9 million of reserves on its balance sheet for the political fund exclusively.
Given the substantial sums involved it would seem only fair that those who choose to opt in, here on in, have some idea how this is being spent. The problem is that Clause 11 restricts the disclosure requirements to expenditure falling within Section 72(1) of the 1992 Act.
This section essentially focuses on money spent to or by a political party, and only to or by a political party. It does not cover any other payments by the political fund.
No one is suggesting that there should or would be any control or influence whatever over how the money is spent, but simply that there should be transparency over these payments for the members. Indeed, I am sure that there are many instances of payments from the political fund that would not be in any way controversial and would be welcomed by all of us in this House. For example, money spent on HOPE not hate, sponsored by the GMB and the National Union of Teachers, which seeks to campaign against the British National Party, could not be seen as controversial. However, other expenditure might be considered more controversial, such as support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Many people might be surprised to see that some unions support this, given the many manufacturing jobs that depend on the nuclear industry.
While we do not know the amounts, we know that there has in the past been specific funding for particular think tanks, and, controversially, campaigns to lobby local councils to divest their government pension schemes from companies linked with Israel. Unions that, for example, are affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign would have had to make a payment to achieve that affiliation. It seems only right that members should be aware of this and the amount. Some might wonder why their money is being used in this way. For completeness, I disclose that I am a supporter and member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, but this is a very small part of the issue.
In every area of our society, there is greater consumer choice and transparency in how other people’s money is spent. Amendment 16, which follows, discusses whether the sum of £2,000 is appropriate. I said in Committee and at Second Reading that I personally did not think that £2,000 was high enough. Leaving that aside, I hope the Minister will accept the amendment, which does no more than achieve the greater transparency that we all believe is sought by the clause. I beg to move.
Lord Robathan (Con): My Lords, I shall be very brief in supporting my noble friend Lord Leigh. I wish to bring up one point. In the last debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, reflected that the amounts we are talking about are trivial—less than 5p per member contributing to a pension fund a week. That is trivial, but the point is that the amount we are talking about is nearly £24 million a year, or nearly £125 million over the life of a Parliament. We should realise that these are not small amounts. They have an impact on the causes that my noble friend mentioned, and on donations to political parties or whatever. It is important that we bear in mind that this is a large amount of money and we should not dismiss it just because most people do not know that they are even paying into it.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, the Government are committed to greater transparency for all contributing union members in the use of union political funds. Not only should members have a choice whether to
contribute, but it is only fair and reasonable that union members know how their political funds are used. As my noble friend Lord Robathan said, this is important because the totals can be large. We want members to make informed decisions about whether they want to contribute to such a fund. Increased transparency will also increase debate within unions about what the political fund is used for.
My noble friend Lord Leigh raises an interesting point about the level of transparency provided for by Clause 11. In particular, I understand that his amendment seeks to ensure that all expenditure from the political fund is subject to enhanced reporting requirements. I accept the principle of the point that my noble friend makes and I am sympathetic to his proposal. Our intention is that members should understand how the political fund is spent. It is important because, as I have already said, members need to know this if they are to make informed decisions about whether to opt in or opt out.
We will reflect and come back on that point of principle at Third Reading, giving careful consideration to how we deliver our transparency reforms in the most proportionate way. In the mean time, I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Leigh of Hurley: I thank my noble friend the Minister for agreeing to review and to come back at Third Reading and, accordingly, beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
13: Clause 11, page 7, leave out lines 35 to 42 and insert—
“(2) The union’s return for that year under section 32 shall include such information as may be specified by the Secretary of State in regulations made by statutory instrument, following consultation with the Certification Officer.
(2A) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
Lord Burns: My Lords, this amendment also relates to the Select Committee. Clause 11 will require unions with political funds to provide much more detail of their political expenditure in their annual returns to the Certification Officer who oversees trade union administration. There was some confusion in Committee about exactly what the clause requires and about the significance of the £2,000 threshold, so it may be worth examining the detail of the clause.
The clause will require any union which spends more than a total of £2,000 per year from its political fund to declare the recipient, amount and nature of every payment, no matter how small. I repeat, there is no de minimis; the £2,000 is not a declaration threshold for each individual payment. It is also worth saying that the £2,000 figure is so low as to be almost meaningless: the 2014-15 annual report of the Certification Officer shows that all but two unions with political funds will be caught by the clause, and the two that will not be are tiny—the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers and the
Association of Revenue and Customs. If the limit were £50,000 a year, a further five small unions would be excluded.
While the Select Committee received much less evidence on this clause than on Clause 10, we were concerned by the Certification Officer’s predictions of the amount of extra work that it would cause for both unions and the Certification Officer himself. In the debate last week I used an example to illustrate the potential bureaucracy which the clause will involve, and I repeat it: in principle, this clause, coupled with Section 72(1) and (2) of the 1992 Act, will mean that a union will have to declare the reimbursement of a bus fare to one of its members who attends a Labour Party conference, including the name of the member and the amount of the bus fare.
So while the committee agreed that union members were entitled to more detail about the political expenditure of their unions, and transparency is important here, we also believed that the details of the clause needed to be looked at again. Accordingly, we proposed that the Government should, before the Bill completes its passage, consult the Certification Officer and come back with revised proposals which better balance accountability and proportionality. Amendment 13 seeks to implement this recommendation: it retains the general requirement in the Bill for unions to provide more information in their annual returns, but it also requires the Secretary of State to consult the Certification Officer before specifying the detail of the scheme in an affirmative instrument. This will enable both Houses to satisfy themselves that the final scheme is proportionate. I reiterate that this amendment simply enables the Government to think again about the detail. I beg to move.
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Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab): My Lords, I support Amendment 13. Paragraphs 101 to 107 of the Select Committee report dealt with our unanimous concerns—this is one of the unanimous parts of the Select Committee report—that Clause 11 would be disproportionately burdensome, especially when considered in relation to the size of the political fund contribution from members, which is an average of 9p a week. This is particularly burdensome.
Paragraph 141(e) declares our unanimous view:
“The reporting duties in clause 11 should be revised after consultation with the Certification Officer, to ensure that they are not disproportionately burdensome”.
This amendment will give effect to that unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee—I look forward to noble Lords on the Government Benches supporting the views that they agreed to.
Looking at the evidence given to the Select Committee, the Certification Officer on 9 February said, in oral evidence:
“The impact of Clause 11 will cause me a great deal of work … I can see that it will cause unions quite a lot of difficulty, for very practical reasons”.
“Trade unions give money from their political funds at not only national but regional and branch level, and there is a job of collating to do. If there is sometimes use of a trade union room for general political purposes, who is the recipient? There is an
issue of doubt there. Each payment has to be categorised under one of the six headings in Section 72 of the 1992 Act. A lot of those overlap, so which category is it put into? … In my experience, uncertainty gives way to litigation”.
Is that the intention of the Bill?
The impact assessment, which has come in for quite a bit of criticism, says at paragraph 266:
“We therefore assume it will take a day of a trade union official’s time each year to provide the details of the specific expenditure from the political fund”.
It is on that basis that this clause is in the Bill. It is completely disproportionate and not based on any kind of proper impact assessment. Yet the next government amendment ploughs on irrespective of that.
I wonder whether anyone associated with writing the Bill has any idea how trade unions work. Trade unions have external, independent auditors who ask questions. Noble Lords on the Benches opposite who have dealings with a company will know the kinds of questions; they do not ask any different questions when they are looking at the accounts of unions. Those accounts have to go to the union conferences. The members at the union conferences analyse and debate those accounts and when it comes to the political fund, they have to list the affiliations that the union has. They have to discuss the policies of support that the union has. So transparency is already there. I wonder on what the Government are basing their argument about transparency.
The government amendment, which I hope the House will not accept, has no relevance to dealing with the disproportionality and does not assist transparency. There has been no consultation at any point with the Certification Officer—he told us that in his evidence, in direct answer to a question. There has been none with the trade unions, to which this clause will particularly apply and for which it will cause problems. Yet the Government are trying to say, “We know all about how these funds work and we are trying to get transparency”. This is a very small amendment; it does not prevent the clause going through but simply asks for consultation with the Certification Officer. I hope that the House accepts the amendment.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. When the committee met we noted that this clause was not a manifesto commitment. Accordingly, there is not that complication as one seeks to apply common sense. The committee was lucky to receive a written submission from BIS as to what Clause 11 was intended to do. It stated:
“Clause 11 provides for additional transparency over the expenditure of the union’s political fund. It places a requirement on unions to provide more detail about political expenditure … This information will allow union members to make an informed choice about whether they wish to contribute to the fund”.
We were lucky also that Nick Boles in his evidence said several times—I have picked just one instance—that we must make sure that this is,
“not designed to trip people up”.
The difficulty—I think the Select Committee was unanimous on this—was that the current clause did not “scratch the itch” that was outlined by BIS but certainly amounted to “tripping up”, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Baroness,
Lady Dean, have just given. I feel that the amendment we have put forward does scratch those itches. I therefore urge the Minister to accept it as it is proportionate, effective and balanced.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, the Government are committed to greater transparency for union members in the use of political funds. Members can then make an informed decision as to whether they want to contribute.
I am pleased that the Select Committee has also endorsed the principle that the current level of reporting is insufficient and that union members are entitled to a reasonable amount of detail about political expenditure.
On the amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Tyler, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, the aim of Clause 11 is to make sure that all unions meet a minimum standard of transparency. The current provisions in Clause 11 ensure that where unions spend more than £2,000 per annum from their political fund, they provide a breakdown of expenditure.
I do not believe that we should start from the position proposed in this amendment, which is to place all the detail on the level of reporting in secondary legislation. Placing these requirements on the face of the Bill helps to reduce uncertainty about what is intended—a consideration which often appeals to noble Lords.
As I said in the Select Committee debate last week, we will reflect on the technical recommendations of the committee in relation to Clause 11. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, pointed out that the provision could mean that a union would have to declare the reimbursement of a bus fare to one of its members who attended a Labour Party conference. That was never our intention. We are not trying to trip people up, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, suggested.
On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, the Government have always been clear that the transparency requirements in Clause 11 are important so that members can exercise an informed choice. The proposal for a review would delay this transparency and I cannot see its rationale. However, I have said that I am open to continuing the conversation on how best to achieve improved reporting of political expenditure in the most proportionate way, and on making the requirements of the provision less onerous, with a view to coming back to this issue at Third Reading. As I said earlier, I am already planning to see the Certification Officer, which I am sure will be helpful.
Finally, I turn to the government amendment. I am grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its careful scrutiny of this clause. It has noted that the power to substitute the £2,000 threshold in Clause 11 can be used not only to raise the amount but also to lower it again to an amount not less than £2,000. Raising the threshold would reduce the reporting requirements on unions. However, if, in the future, a Government wished to reduce the threshold back again, the reverse would happen and the reporting requirements on unions could increase considerably. I have listened carefully to concerns voiced by the committee. Our
amendment ensures that any decision in future to lower the threshold would be subject to the affirmative procedure, and therefore subject to full parliamentary scrutiny. I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Dean—if I have understood her correctly—that this would increase burdens. I hope that she agrees with me now that I have explained what is intended by this amendment.
Lord Tyler: As a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I acknowledge the point the Minister has just made. But would it not be rather extraordinary if she is effectively asking the proposers of the other two amendments that are relevant to this clause to wait to hear what she will do at a later stage of the Bill, while she pursues her own amendment? Would it not be better to take a comprehensive view on all these amendments and the whole of this clause at Third Reading? Otherwise, there is a real danger that they may not all be compatible. We may accept her amendment—if the House decides to do so—but may not be able to deal with the other points which she acknowledges still need further consideration. Would it not be appropriate for the Minister to withdraw her amendment?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I am just checking whether, if I withdraw my amendment, I can then retable it if, after consideration, that seems appropriate. I understand that if I make my intentions clear—which sounds like a good principle—I can bring it back. I will certainly withdraw it today and look at the provision in the way that I have suggested. But I give notice that I will return to it because it is an important provision that tries to respond to the concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, on which I know the noble Lord serves.
I have said that I will reflect further on the technical reporting requirements to ensure that they do what we intend. I have set out why I do not believe that a further review of reporting requirements on top of the excellent work done by the Select Committee is necessary and I have agreed to hold the government amendment over to Third Reading. In the circumstances, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Lord Burns: I fear that I am even more confused than I was when I started. I fully understand why the Minister says that it was never the intention to do what I described might happen with this bus ticket. But I am not clear what she is suggesting that the Government will do about this, given my interpretation of this clause. I have checked this many times. We have been through all sorts of procedures to try to find out whether it really says what we think it says, and no one has yet come forward and said to me, “No, that’s not what it says. Our legal advice is that it says something different”. So I assume from the noble Baroness’s remarks that she will come back to this and suggest amendments that will make sure that the lack of intention, as it were, is corrected.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I can confirm that.
Lord Burns: I thank her very much. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendments 14 to 17 not moved.
Clause 12: Publication requirements
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab): My Lords, we turn now to Clause 12, which would require public sector employers to log and publish how much time is spent on facility time, which allows union and safety and learning reps to do their jobs. We still maintain that Clause 12 is based on no evidence of need and no demand by public sector employers. However, we are not today contesting that clause but only new Section 172A(9) on page 9 of the Bill, which extends this reporting requirement to bodies well beyond the public sector, to include a body,
“that is not a public authority but has functions of a public nature and is funded wholly or partly from public funds”.
In Committee, we challenged what this meant, and why Ministers would want to interfere with the managerial decision-making of an independent body, especially ones funded only partially by public money. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded that the measure could encompass charities, and others have mentioned arts and cultural bodies. There was general concern about ministerial diktat to private organisations, especially given that Clause 13 enables Ministers to override management’s right to manage, by capping facility time. One letter from the Minister stated that the Bill—contrary to its wording—would cover ONS-defined public bodies, which would catch housing associations and various other organisations.
Another letter said that it had,
“never been the government’s intention to capture private or voluntary sector providers of contracted out public services or charitable organisations”,
despite what the Bill says. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, then said that they would look at the issue again. Indeed, yesterday the Minister wrote saying that the Government had revisited this and they now thought that lines 16 to 19 would mean any FOI-able body with at least 50 employees. Most noble Lords will not have a list of those bodies; mine, however, arrived this morning.
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The Government still have some way to go, I think, to settle on a robust, clear definition of which employers this really quite major requirement should fall on. Our desire is for absolute clarity on this, so that nothing in the Bill will suddenly land on some unsuspecting organisation’s lap. We would, therefore, like to work with the Minister and his colleagues to reach a settled, clear definition of which bodies are to be covered as well as some clarity—whether in regulations or the Bill—on what “partly funded by public money” means. I am sure that it is not any body that gets 5% of its funding from local authority or government money but we probably need to know.
To get this part of the Bill into a proper, workable state—while the FOI list might well be a start, it has some way to go—we would be happy to withdraw the amendment if the Minister either undertakes to bring back something that is more workable at Third Reading or accepts that, if we cannot reach that in dialogue, we would be able to do that after discussions. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con): My Lords, I begin by saying that I have read the previous debates and have met a number of your Lordships; I thank those I met for their time. I acknowledge the misgivings that have been expressed about this policy and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for extending the hand of friendship and co-operation on this. Before I address the point on scope, I repeat a key point to your Lordships that I wish no one to forget: it is not the intention that facility time is to be banned. As has been said—I repeat again—trade union representatives provide a valuable role in many organisations and facility time will always have a role to play throughout the public sector.
On scope, we are clear in our aim to cover core public bodies—employers that the taxpayer would expect to be covered by public sector transparency regulations. To meet this aim, our approach is to include public sector bodies in the regulations only if they meet the following policy aims. First, bodies that we wish to capture are already listed in Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002—I refer to both of them as FOIA. We believe that whether a body is in scope of Schedule 1 to FOIA is a good indicator of whether they are a public authority for the purpose of Clause 12. However, to include all the employers on Schedule 1 to FOIA would be too wide for our aims. I totally take the point that the noble Baroness makes about small organisations. We will filter organisations out of this list where their inclusion would not be appropriate. The regulations will place obligations only on employers with more than 49 employees and at least one trade union representative. FOIA Schedule 1 includes several bodies that do not currently meet this criterion and will thus not be obliged to follow the publication. They will, however, appear in the regulations and it will for any such body to appropriately exclude itself if it does not meet the criteria. This is in recognition of the fact that the size of organisations and their trade union membership is likely to fluctuate over time.
Next, in the event that at some point in the future the Government were to identify a body that is not in Schedule 1 to FOIA and not capable of being added, we would seek to capture such a body, relying on the powers in Clause 12(9), only where the body has not been set up to function in a predominantly commercial, competitive, or market-facing way; has more than 49 employers and one or more trade union representative; and has functions of a public nature and are funded wholly or partly from public funds. Furthermore, if the Government wish to add new bodies that pass these tests, they propose to amend the Bill so that the powers in subsection (9) are exercisable by affirmative resolution. This House would then have the chance to scrutinise and debate any regulations that the Government
bring forward to include these bodes that are not public authorities but carry out functions of a public nature.
In the light of the noble Baroness’s wish to consider the content of my letter and potentially revisit this issue at Third Reading to discuss it further and I hope that the approach set out my letter, which the Government intend to stand by, will enable us to avoid revisiting this issue in depth at Third Reading. I have already also referred to the Government’s commitment to make the extension of the list an affirmative resolution procedure before the Bill leaves this House. On this basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel free to withdraw her amendment this evening.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town: I thank the Minister for that. I think we have made progress. The Bill will probably need to be amended to take account of the approach that the Government are now taking. On the basis of our looking forward to future discussions and returning to this, we hope very quickly, at Third Reading, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kerslake: My Lords, the effect of this amendment would be to remove from the Bill the reserve powers proposed to be given to the Secretary of State to intervene in individual public bodies in respect of their facility time arrangements. In moving this amendment, which is also supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins and Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, I declare my interests as president of the Local Government Association and chair of King’s College Hospital.
I will not spend a long time making the case for the value of trade union facility time, because the Government are not contesting this. Suffice it to say that they are part and parcel of ensuring effective industrial relations and enabling trade unions to play their proper role in collective agreements with employers. The benefit comes as much to the employer as it does to the trade unions. I am clear that I could not have delivered the scale of change that I did in Sheffield without having trade union representatives funded through the facility time arrangements. Having them available to engage in the negotiations on behalf of their members was crucial. The Government are saying that the costs should be transparently known and proportionate to the benefits—I agree. However, this is fully secured—this is a critical point—through Clause 12. There is no need for the reserve powers contained in Clause 13.
It is worth spending a minute looking at the reserve powers given to the Secretary of State in this clause. They will enable the Secretary of State to specify not only the percentage of an employer’s pay bill that such arrangements will cost—to specify a cap— but also the percentage of an individual employee’s
working time that can be taken as paid facility time. This will apply to all public bodies including those in the devolved nations. As we have heard, that ends up with a wide definition. Let us be clear about this: the Secretary of State will be able to specify the percentage of time that a trade union official in the City of Edinburgh Council and Essex County Council can spend on their paid duties. This will entirely cut across whatever collective agreements happen to be in place already in those authorities at the time. This does not make sense at any level. If the public body is controlled by central government then it is already within the Government’s gift to take action. They already have the ability to influence this. If, however, the public body is a local authority, it has its own democratic mandate and is answerable to its own electorate for the cost. Given the immense financial pressures now on local authorities, do we really think that they are incapable of making this judgment?
We rightly invest enormous responsibilities in local government. There is widespread recognition that local authorities have managed the substantial reductions in their budgets over the past six years as well as, if not better than, any other part of the public sector. Indeed, through the devolution deals, the Government plan to give them more powers and responsibilities. Yet we do not think that they can be trusted to manage a cost that comes to less than 0.2% of their pay bill.
The Government have pointed to the power of transparency to deliver savings on their own facility time costs. It must surely be right to let the same process take its course in other parts of the public sector. Their only defence of this clause in Committee was that it might come in handy at some time in the future. That is not an adequate defence for such a centralising provision. I beg to move.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB): My Lords, as a co-signatory to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, I declare my interests as an emeritus professor of Plymouth University and a non-executive director of the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.
As the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, we agree with the Government about the value of appropriate amounts of facility time, which we all acknowledge are essential to effective industrial relations and health and safety at work. The benefits of facility time come not only to the trade unions and employers but to the public, including patients and students, when good, sometimes even novel solutions are found to changes in working practice through collective discussion between managers and employee representatives.
For example, a management team that I led could not have delivered the effective changes in nursing and healthcare education in the West Country without having had trade union representatives funded through facility time. In that instance, we moved from 17 small sites to a four-centre hub-and-spoke model. This saved in excess of £3 million per annum, recurring, for the NHS budget—without a single working day lost. During the year in question union representatives’ facility time and managers’ time were a worthwhile investment in securing a cost-effective solution for the future.
The reserved powers for the Secretary of State outlined in Clause 13 should not necessarily be needed. Good managers should be facilitated to make decisions about the amount of trade union facility time that is appropriate for the business in hand at that time, whether in the NHS or other publicly funded services. Just as trust is necessary between managers and unions, it is necessary between government and leaders and managers in the public sector.
The Government are saying that costs should be transparent and relevant to the benefits. I have given a personal example of this approach and fully support the concept that this should be achieved. However, I do not believe that the reserved powers contained in Clause 13 are proportionate or necessary. Good managers will oversee and provide transparent data on facility time and should be held accountable for doing so without the need for Clause 13. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has made a sound argument for the deletion of Clause 13, with which I concur.
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Lord Dykes: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, for moving this amendment, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, for what she has just said. Once again this indicates that on the unaffiliated or Cross Benches there has been a considerable collective contribution of good suggestions to restore a sense of balance and proportion into what was far too ideological a matter in the original drafts of the documents that eventually became the Trade Union Bill launched by the Conservative Party in government.
I am advised by the research I sought to do that these matters are very important from the point of view of ordinary, routine, daily trade union activity with employers in the context of the public sector and private company entities in which they work. The main activities in the practical usage of facility time include: negotiating improved pay and conditions for members and the wider workforce and accessing specialist union training on employment rights; accompanying individuals in their disciplinary or grievance hearings; carrying out health and safety duties; training people who are not yet trained on health and safety matters; and promoting learning opportunities and opportunities for further intellectual activity in the entities in which they work.
Those are routine matters, not matters that, I am sure, in the original draft text in Conservative Central Office, before it became the Bill launched by this Government—on the basis of only 24% of the population—were ideological clauses based on the belief that there was some kind of union racket in this facility time element. That simply is not the case on all the evidence we have. Once again I hope that the Government will be tempted to see reason on this and accept the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab): My Lords, I support Amendment 20 and the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I will concentrate my brief remarks on the provisions in the Bill that relate to safety reps, and in doing so I declare my interests as president of RoSPA and a vice-president of the LGA.
Concentrating on health and safety reps is not in any way meant to undermine the broader thrust of the amendment as it applies more generally.
As a preamble, I reiterate points raised in Committee about the importance of TU safety reps and the positive impact that they have on the safety culture of their employers. There is an abundance of evidence about the importance of effective health and safety systems and that these systems work best when trade unions and employers work together. That is why the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act gave legal backing to union safety reps and why, rather than seeking to undermine or weaken the system, the Government should be concerned with its promotion and enhancement.
I would argue that the Government are in error in including health and safety reps’ time as facility time. Facility time is time off from an individual’s job granted by the employer to enable a representative to carry out their trade union role. We have heard why this should not be constrained in the manner proposed in the Bill. A safety rep, however, although appointed by a trade union, does not fulfil a trade union role as such. It is a specific legal position with defined functions, and the regulations state that in this capacity it must represent all workers in a workplace, not just union members.
This comes about not only from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act but by Article 11 of the 1989 EU framework directive which deals with consultation and participation of workers. The directive specifically states:
“Employers must allow workers’ representatives with specific responsibility for the safety and health of workers adequate time off work, without loss of pay, and provide them with the necessary means to enable such representatives to exercise their rights and functions deriving from this Directive”.
There is no limit on this, but it would have to be reasonable. The UK regulations use the phrase “as shall be necessary”, which will obviously vary from workplace to workplace and from time to time. The exercise of reserve powers under Clause 13, which are triggered by consideration of the information requirements of Clause 12, would be entirely inconsistent with the directive, which focuses on the need for adequate time off to exercise rights and functions. The latter must have regard to the circumstances of individual workplaces, which, as I say, can vary from location to location and from time to time.
Moreover, the legal requirement under the directive is for the employer to comply in allowing time off. This is as it should be, because it is generally the employer who creates the risks which have to be managed. It is not for the Government to second-guess in respect of either public sector workplaces in aggregate or individual workplaces in particular. Can the Government spell out for us the circumstances in which they envisage using these reserve powers to limit the time of safety representatives otherwise agreed between an employer and a trade union? What evidence do they have that there is an abuse of the system as the law stands? The Minister in the other place, Nick Boles, is on record as acknowledging that:
“An employer must allow them”—
“as much paid time off work as is necessary or reasonable to perform their statutory functions, and we absolutely do not propose to change that rule”.—[
Official Report
, Commons, Trade Union Bill Committee, 22/10/ 15; col. 352.]
In that case, why they are potentially subject to reserve powers in Clause 13 and why will the Government not remove those powers?
There is one other point. The Bill applies only to trade union representatives. The Minister will be aware that there are two sets of regulations covering workplace representatives: the 1977 regulations, which apply only to trade union reps, and the 1996 regulations, which apply to representatives for workplace safety in non-unionised workplaces. If the Bill is passed in its current form, the Government will be able to restrict time off given to trade union representatives in the public sector but not to non-trade union ones. Is this the intention and why do the Government seek to discriminate against trade union reps in this manner? Can the Minister tell us how this measure is consistent with the fairness obligation that was set out at the start of our proceedings?
Lord Bridges of Headley: My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions this evening. I will try to keep my remarks relatively brief but hope to explain why I believe this measure is both proportionate and reasonable. First, as has been said, the reserve power may never need to be used. Our intention is that the transparency measures that I have outlined before, as noble Lords know full well, should encourage employers to moderate their spending where necessary. To pick up on the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, made, managers will, for the first time, be able to easily compare their spending with others in their sector. However, if for some reason inefficient spending is not addressed, it is only right that there is a reserve power to ensure that wasteful use of taxpayer funding does not continue.
Noble Lords should remember that even if this power were to be used, as I have said before, facility time will not be banned, as the Government note the considerable contribution that it makes. That brings me to the process that would have to be followed if these powers were to be exercised. First, as the reserve powers are subject to the affirmative resolution process, this House would have the opportunity to debate and scrutinise any cap that may be proposed. Secondly, crucially, implementation of the reserve powers must be rational and evidence based. Ministers must have regard to the relevant information to make their decision. If Ministers do not do so, they invite upon themselves the prospect of judicial review proceedings. The cap is a power of the last resort, and cannot be applied without due and proper consideration of all relevant factors.
I now turn to what might trigger the cap. The reserve powers are most likely to be triggered in one of two circumstances. First, if unjustifiably high patterns of spend were found to persist in certain parts of a sector, that would signal a need to investigate further why they were happening. If the answer were to be that particular parts of a sector needed to do more to control spending, a decision may be taken to apply a cap to that sector or part of that sector. Secondly, if a
significant proportion of the cost of facility time is spent on trade union activities as opposed to duties—a key difference—across a sector, we may question why expenditure for which there is no statutory entitlement is being given such priority. We may conclude that such spending does not reflect reasonable prioritising of public funds and suggest applying a cap at a level we believe is reasonable.
If either of these situations were to arise, the Minister must present the case for using the reserve powers to Parliament to secure affirmative resolution. Before the Minister can do that, as I have said, they will have gathered trend data showing patterns of spend to support a rational, evidence-based case for why a cap should be made at a particular level. If Ministers do not feel they have sufficient data to arrive at a decision, they may also choose to consult the relevant sector. This House would of course have the opportunity to debate that cap.
I note the concerns that this is anti-localism but if a cap were to be imposed, it would still be up to local managers to decide how to manage facility time within the cap: for example, by deciding how they should prioritise trade union duties as opposed to activities. Working within budgets, while still meeting statutory duties, is not a novel concept in the public sector.
Turning specifically to devolution, I would argue again that this matter of industrial relations is entirely within the legislative competence of the United Kingdom Government. If an organisation is publicly funded, it should be held to account for how taxpayers’ money is spent. Taxpayers in Scotland and Wales have the same right to transparency about how much money and resource is dedicated to industrial relations—a reserved matter—as taxpayers in England.
A valid concern was raised about the effect of a very restrictive cap, were one to be placed on facility time spending, and what that might do as regards health and safety obligations. I cannot envisage any circumstances under which this Government would introduce such a restrictive cap that important statutory obligations could not be met. We would certainly take account of what was necessary to ensure such union duties could be properly performed. After all, to do otherwise would leave the Government exposed to challenge by judicial review. For that reason, we do not expect there to be any conflict with employers being able to meet their statutory duties, but we are not going to dictate to them the minutiae of how they may do that. As a final reassurance, if required, the Bill contains the power to make exceptions to the cap if required to meet statutory obligations.
At the end of the day, by removing the cap entirely, the Government would be able to point to where taxpayers’ money could be saved or better spent, but be unable to do anything about it. Government needs the power to act in a reasonable and accountable way. Under our proposals, this House will have the opportunity to scrutinise any cap, were one to be introduced. Ministers must have regard to relevant information to make their decision; failure to do so risks judicial review. Union duties such as health and safety will remain a statutory obligation. With that in mind, I ask that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton: Before the noble Lord sits down, could he just deal with the point about the difference between non-trade union reps being covered under one set of regulations and trade union reps under another? Why is that discrimination being allowed in the Bill?
Lord Bridges of Headley: My Lords, we need to make sure that taxpayers’ money is properly accounted for, wherever it is spent. My understanding is that that is the rationale behind this.
Lord Kerslake: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving his response and for the contributions to this debate, which have been most valuable. This provision can be described only as overweening central power, with no justification whatever. The Minister said that public bodies—in the main, local authorities—should be accountable for what they spend. Yes, they should be, but to their local electorate. That electorate will be able to see exactly how much the authority spends and what they get for it, and to form their own opinion. Do we seriously think that the process of democratic control cannot deal with less than 0.2% of the pay bill? It is, I am afraid, absurd and it has not been defended.
I will make one last point before we go forward on this. The Minister said that there would be flexibility within the cap to decide what arrangements there would be. Within this clause, there is provision for the Secretary of State to say: “I don’t like the fact that you are doing 100% time, trade union representative: I would like to change it to 50%, or maybe 25%”. There is not even the ability to make the decision on the deployment of whatever cap is created. This is overweening centralism, so I beg to test the opinion of the House.
7.30 pm
Contents 248; Not-Contents 160.
CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.
Adams of Craigielea, B.
Addington, L.
Adonis, L.
Ahmed, L.
Allan of Hallam, L.
Alli, L.
Alton of Liverpool, L.
Anderson of Swansea, L.
Andrews, B.
Armstrong of Hill Top, B.
Armstrong of Ilminster, L.
Bach, L.
Bakewell, B.
Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, B.
Barker, B.
Bassam of Brighton, L.
Beecham, L.
Beith, L.
Berkeley, L.
Best, L.
Billingham, B.
Blackstone, B.
Blunkett, L.
Boateng, L.
Boothroyd, B.
Bowles of Berkhamsted, B.
Bradley, L.
Bragg, L.
Brennan, L.
Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.
Brookman, L.
Browne of Belmont, L.
Burt of Solihull, B.
Butler of Brockwell, L.
Campbell of Pittenweem, L.
Campbell-Savours, L.
Cashman, L.
Chandos, V.
Clark of Windermere, L.
Clarke of Hampstead, L.
Clement-Jones, L.
Collins of Highbury, L.
Corston, B.
Cotter, L.
Crawley, B.
Cunningham of Felling, L.
Davidson of Glen Clova, L.
Davies of Oldham, L.
Davies of Stamford, L.
Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.
Dholakia, L.
Donaghy, B.
Donoughue, L.
Doocey, B.
Drake, B.
Dubs, L.
Dykes, L.
Elder, L.
Falkner of Margravine, B.
Farrington of Ribbleton, B.
Featherstone, B.
Foster of Bath, L.
Foster of Bishop Auckland, L.
Foulkes of Cumnock, L.
Gale, B.
Garden of Frognal, B.
German, L.
Giddens, L.
Glasman, L.
Golding, B.
Gould of Potternewton, B.
Grantchester, L.
Greaves, L.
Grender, B.
Griffiths of Burry Port, L.
Grocott, L.
Hamwee, B.
Hannay of Chiswick, L.
Harris of Haringey, L.
Harris of Richmond, B.
Harrison, L.
Hart of Chilton, L.
Haskel, L.
Haughey, L.
Haworth, L.
Hayter of Kentish Town, B.
Healy of Primrose Hill, B.
Hilton of Eggardon, B.
Hollins, B.
Hollis of Heigham, B.
Howarth of Newport, L.
Howells of St Davids, B.
Howie of Troon, L.
Hoyle, L.
Hughes of Woodside, L.
Humphreys, B.
Hunt of Kings Heath, L.
Hussain, L.
Hussein-Ece, B.
Janke, B.
Jay of Paddington, B.
Jolly, B.
Jones, L.
Jones of Cheltenham, L.
Jones of Moulsecoomb, B.
Jones of Whitchurch, B.
Jordan, L.
Jowell, B.
Judd, L.
Kennedy of Cradley, B.
Kennedy of Southwark, L.
Kennedy of The Shaws, B.
Kerr of Kinlochard, L.
Kerslake, L. [Teller]
King of Bow, B.
Kinnock, L.
Kinnock of Holyhead, B.
Kirkhill, L.
Kirkwood of Kirkhope, L.
Knight of Weymouth, L.
Kramer, B.
Lawrence of Clarendon, B.
Lea of Crondall, L.
Lee of Trafford, L.
Lennie, L.
Liddell of Coatdyke, B.
Liddle, L.
Lipsey, L.
Lister of Burtersett, B.
Livermore, L.
Ludford, B.
McAvoy, L.
McFall of Alcluith, L.
McIntosh of Hudnall, B.
MacKenzie of Culkein, L.
Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.
McKenzie of Luton, L.
McNally, L.
Maddock, B.
Manzoor, B.
Marks of Henley-on-Thames, L.
Masham of Ilton, B.
Massey of Darwen, B.
Maxton, L.
Mendelsohn, L.
Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.
Monks, L.
Moonie, L.
Morgan, L.
Morgan of Drefelin, B.
Morgan of Ely, B.
Morgan of Huyton, B.
Morris of Aberavon, L.
Morris of Handsworth, L.
Morris of Yardley, B.
Morrow, L.
Murphy of Torfaen, L.
Newby, L.
Nicholson of Winterbourne, B.
Nye, B.
O'Neill of Bengarve, B.
O'Neill of Clackmannan, L.
Paddick, L.
Palmer of Childs Hill, L.
Parminter, B.
Patel, L.
Pendry, L.
Pitkeathley, B.
Plant of Highfield, L.
Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.
Prescott, L.
Primarolo, B.
Prosser, B.
Purvis of Tweed, L.
Puttnam, L.
Quin, B.
Radice, L.
Ramsay of Cartvale, B.
Randerson, B.
Razzall, L.
Rebuck, B.
Redesdale, L.
Rees of Ludlow, L.
Rennard, L.
Richard, L.
Roberts of Llandudno, L.
Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.
Rogan, L.
Rogers of Riverside, L.
Rosser, L.
Rowlands, L.
St John of Bletso, L.
Sandwich, E.
Sawyer, L.
Scott of Needham Market, B.
Scriven, L.
Sharkey, L.
Sheehan, B.
Sherlock, B.
Shipley, L.
Shutt of Greetland, L.
Smith of Basildon, B.
Smith of Finsbury, L.
Smith of Newnham, B.
Snape, L.
Soley, L.
Stephen, L.
Stevenson of Balmacara, L.
Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Stone of Blackheath, L.
Stoneham of Droxford, L.
Strasburger, L.
Suttie, B.
Taverne, L.
Taylor of Blackburn, L.
Taylor of Bolton, B.
Taylor of Goss Moor, L.
Teverson, L.
Thornton, B.
Tomlinson, L.
Tonge, B.
Tope, L.
Touhig, L.
Triesman, L.
Tunnicliffe, L. [Teller]
Turnberg, L.
Tyler, L.
Tyler of Enfield, B.
Verjee, L.
Wall of New Barnet, B.
Wallace of Saltaire, L.
Wallace of Tankerness, L.
Warwick of Undercliffe, B.
Watkins of Tavistock, B.
Watson of Invergowrie, L.
Watts, L.
West of Spithead, L.
Wheeler, B.
Whitaker, B.
Whitty, L.
Wigley, L.
Williams of Elvel, L.
Wills, L.
Winston, L.
Wood of Anfield, L.
Woolmer of Leeds, L.
Young of Old Scone, B.
NOT CONTENTS
Ahmad of Wimbledon, L.
Altmann, B.
Arbuthnot of Edrom, L.
Ashton of Hyde, L.
Astor of Hever, L.
Attlee, E.
Balfe, L.
Bates, L.
Blencathra, L.
Borwick, L.
Bourne of Aberystwyth, L.
Brabazon of Tara, L.
Bridgeman, V.
Bridges of Headley, L.
Brougham and Vaux, L.
Browning, B.
Buscombe, B.
Byford, B.
Caithness, E.
Callanan, L.
Carrington of Fulham, L.
Cathcart, E.
Cavendish of Furness, L.
Chadlington, L.
Chisholm of Owlpen, B.
Colwyn, L.
Cope of Berkeley, L.
Cormack, L.
Courtown, E.
Crickhowell, L.
De Mauley, L.
Deben, L.
Denham, L.
Dixon-Smith, L.
Dobbs, L.
Dundee, E.
Dunlop, L.
Eccles, V.
Eccles of Moulton, B.
Elton, L.
Empey, L.
Evans of Bowes Park, B.
Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Fall, B.
Faulks, L.
Finn, B.
Flight, L.
Fookes, B.
Fowler, L.
Freeman, L.
Freud, L.
Gardiner of Kimble, L. [Teller]
Gardner of Parkes, B.
Garel-Jones, L.
Geddes, L.
Gilbert of Panteg, L.
Glenarthur, L.
Gold, L.
Goodlad, L.
Goschen, V.
Greenway, L.
Harding of Winscombe, B.
Hayward, L.
Helic, B.
Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, L.
Holmes of Richmond, L.
Hooper, B.
Hope of Craighead, L.
Horam, L.
Howard of Lympne, L.
Howard of Rising, L.
Howe, E.
Hunt of Wirral, L.
Inglewood, L.
James of Blackheath, L.
Jenkin of Kennington, B.
Jopling, L.
Keen of Elie, L.
Kirkham, L.
Lamont of Lerwick, L.
Lansley, L.
Lawson of Blaby, L.
Leigh of Hurley, L.
Lexden, L.
Lindsay, E.
Lingfield, L.
Lothian, M.
Lupton, L.
Lyell, L.
MacGregor of Pulham Market, L.
McGregor-Smith, B.
McIntosh of Pickering, B.
Magan of Castletown, L.
Maginnis of Drumglass, L.
Mancroft, L.
Marlesford, L.
Maude of Horsham, L.
Mobarik, B.
Montrose, D.
Moore of Lower Marsh, L.
Morris of Bolton, B.
Moynihan, L.
Naseby, L.
Nash, L.
Neville-Jones, B.
Neville-Rolfe, B.
Newlove, B.
Noakes, B.
Norton of Louth, L.
O'Neill of Gatley, L.
Oppenheim-Barnes, B.
O'Shaughnessy, L.
Patten, L.
Perry of Southwark, B.
Pidding, B.
Plumb, L.
Polak, L.
Porter of Spalding, L.
Prior of Brampton, L.
Redfern, B.
Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.
Ribeiro, L.
Risby, L.
Robathan, L.
Ryder of Wensum, L.
Sanderson of Bowden, L.
Scott of Bybrook, B.
Seccombe, B.
Selborne, E.
Selkirk of Douglas, L.
Selsdon, L.
Sheikh, L.
Sherbourne of Didsbury, L.
Shields, B.
Shinkwin, L.
Skelmersdale, L.
Smith of Hindhead, L.
Spicer, L.
Stedman-Scott, B.
Stirrup, L.
Stowell of Beeston, B.
Stroud, B.
Taylor of Holbeach, L. [Teller]
Tebbit, L.
Trefgarne, L.
Trenchard, V.
Trevethin and Oaksey, L.
Trimble, L.
True, L.
Tugendhat, L.
Wakeham, L.
Wasserman, L.
Wei, L.
Wheatcroft, B.
Whitby, L.
Wilcox, B.
Willetts, L.
Williams of Trafford, B.
Young of Cookham, L.
Younger of Leckie, V.
7.43 pm
Consideration on Report adjourned.
Renewables Obligation Closure Etc. (Amendment) Order 2016
Motion to Approve
7.44 pm
Moved by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That the draft Order laid before the House on 25 January be approved.
Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con): My Lords, the draft instrument closes the renewables obligation 12 months early to solar PV generating stations at 5 megawatts and below from 1 April 2016. It would apply both to new generating stations and to existing stations that wish to add additional capacity up to the 5 megawatts threshold.
Solar PV is an important part of the low-carbon energy portfolio. It has seen very strong growth in recent years, due in no small part to support from the renewables obligation and the feed-in tariff schemes. Almost 40% of the UK’s solar PV capacity over 3 gigawatts was installed during 2015 alone. Hand in hand, the costs of installing solar PV have reduced dramatically. According to data from Bloomberg, the capital cost of a ground-mounted PV system fell by about 60% between 2010 and 2015.
In many ways, this progress is good news, making a valuable contribution to our renewable electricity generation, but the amount of deployment has also raised concerns about its impact on the levy control framework—the budget which caps the amount of support paid for through consumers’ energy bills. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that there is a need for government to act responsibly when there is a risk of exceeding such a budget. That is why we have introduced a number of measures to deal with the projected over-allocation of renewable energy subsidies. In these measures, we have aimed to strike the right balance between the interests of consumers and those of developers.
This time last year, under the coalition Government, we were considering a similar order relating to the early closure of the renewables obligation scheme to large solar farms—those over 5 megawatts. Solar farms at this large scale were deploying much faster than previously expected, and we were rightly concerned about the impact this speed of deployment could have on the levy control framework. At the time, it was decided not to extend the closure to projects at 5 megawatts or below because the evidence suggested that these smaller schemes posed less of a risk to the costs of the levy control framework.
Noble Lords will recall, however, that in the debate last year—under the coalition Government—it was made clear that the deployment of smaller-scale projects would be closely monitored. If deployment was shown to be growing more rapidly than could be afforded, measures would be considered to protect the integrity of the levy control framework. That monitoring revealed that, if we did not act, up to four times more new solar capacity would be eligible for support this year and next under the renewables obligation than we previously estimated—within a range of 2.4 to 3.8 gigawatts, compared to the 600 megawatts to 1 gigawatt that had been estimated. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that in such circumstances, the need for further action is essential.
In taking this action to complete the early closure of the renewables obligation to solar, we have aimed to strike the right balance between protecting bill payers and protecting developers who have made significant investments, while being conscious of the need to decarbonise our energy infrastructure. That is why the order makes provision for a number of grace periods, which mirror those offered last year as part of the large-scale closure. Stakeholders have welcomed this consistency. One respondent to our consultation said:
“Technologies must be treated equally as far as possible and the requirements outlined are in line with those proposed for early closure of the RO to solar above 5 megawatts”.
One of the grace periods was designed to protect developers who could show that a significant financial commitment had been made on or before the date on which the proposals were announced. This required evidence that a planning application had been made, among other things, as a proxy for the financial commitment.
Following the consultation, we are changing the criteria to clarify that we intended to protect projects that had made a valid planning application, in line with planning legislation across Great Britain. This is
because we received evidence during the consultation from many planning authorities that some developers were submitting incomplete planning applications just to meet the cut-off for eligibility for the grace period.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD): I am interested in what the noble Lord is saying. He seems to be saying that if there is clear evidence of a significant financial investment being made before a planning decision was made, developers will qualify for the grace period. Why is he not currently doing the same for onshore wind, where the cut-off seems to be far more arbitrary?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: The parallel here is with the schemes above 5 megawatts and the undertakings then given to look at this in the same way in the light of increased deployment, which has certainly happened. I appreciate the point—it is different, there is no doubting that—but this is a continuation of what happened with schemes above 5 megawatts. That is the reason for the treatment we are going for.
When we closed the renewables obligation early to large-scale solar farms last year, we saw a rush of projects accrediting to beat the closure date. More than 1.5 gigawatts of solar were accredited in March 2015 alone. That is equivalent to around 5,000 football pitches. This time round, we had evidence to suggest that costs of solar PV had fallen further and faster than previously anticipated. I have already mentioned the steep fall that there has been. We have therefore proposed excluding new solar projects at 5 megawatts and below from our grandfathering policy if they do not meet the significant financial commitment criteria. This has been necessary to avoid locking in possible overcompensation in the event of a similar rush of projects accrediting before 31 March 2016. This change in policy would mean that projects which are not grandfathered would not maintain their support level if a banding review determined a lower level of support. This proposal was necessary as a cost control measure. We confirmed this change in policy last December, and at the same time started to consult on the results of the banding review. We are currently considering the consultation responses; the consultation finished at the end of January. Subject to the outcome of that process, changes would be implemented through a separate amendment to the renewables obligation order 2015 later this year.
On the impact of the order, our analysis indicates that the early closure proposed in it will save between £60 million and £100 million per year from consumer bills: over the 20-year period of the obligation, that is £1.2 billion to £2 billion in real terms over the lifetime of the projects. Over 8 gigawatts of solar is already deployed and we estimate total solar deployment under the levy control framework subsidy regimes will reach 12.8 gigawatts by 2020, following this closure, taking account of what we are doing today and the action taken in the recent feed-in tariff review. Without this intervention, we estimate that it would be very close to 20 gigawatts, or some 8 gigawatts above what we projected. The electricity market reform delivery plan is our best estimate of what we need to hit the renewables 2020 target, which set out an intention to deploy between 10 and 12 gigawatts at the upper end. In fact,
even with these changes, we are on track to exceed that range. This further underlines the need to take action now to prevent further solar deployment under this scheme.
Before I close, I should mention that we have taken the opportunity in this order to remove an inconsistency between the renewables obligation closure order 2014 and Article 91 of the renewables obligation order 2015. This had been drawn to our attention by stakeholders. This technical amendment makes it clear that an operator of an offshore wind station benefiting from a closure grace period can apply to Ofgem for registration of offshore wind turbines until 31 March 2018. I do not think that that is controversial.
This Government are committed to combating climate change, but in the most cost-effective way for bill payers. In tackling climate change at home, British families and businesses are better off inside the European Union. It provides a more stable and long-term framework to attract investment in UK clean energy projects, helping to keep bills down, create new jobs and boosting our energy security. Accordingly, the costs of solar are continuing to fall, and we expect solar to be delivered without subsidy over the coming years. However, since solar PV has been such a success in the United Kingdom, by summer 2015 the costs imposed on bill payers associated with support for renewable and low carbon electricity generation were forecast to reach £9.1 billion in 2020-21, significantly above the target of £7.6 billion. These costs, if they reached that level, would lead to increases in consumer bills. It is therefore only right that we have looked at ways to protect value for money and affordability under the levy control framework.
I hope that noble Lords will agree with me that on balance, the approach we have taken is the right one, closing a demand-led scheme and taking action on overcompensation while still allowing solar to deploy under the revised feed-in tariff scheme. This will ensure that solar PV is supported in a way that offers better value for money for consumers. I commend this draft instrument to the House.
Baroness Featherstone (LD): My Lords, I fear that the Minister and I are not going to agree on this. However, it is not very long since we debated the ending of the feed-in tariff order, and I am sad to be here again so soon to enable a debate in which we on these Benches can express our dismay and alarm at the destruction being visited on what was a thriving world-leading industry in renewables—in this particular case, the ending of the renewables obligation for solar PV under 5 megawatts.
I shall not rehearse all the arguments that I made in that debate. I failed to get the Government to publish the calculations on the levy control framework, in which they prayed in aid a projected overspend as the rationale for their harsh and unforgiving bonfire of the renewables. Nevertheless, I appeal to the Government once again for transparency in relationship to the LCF, and ask that the figures are made public, so that the credibility of the Government’s case can be properly assessed.
We lost the battle against the extraordinarily steep and abrupt removal of the feed-in tariffs for solar, wind and hydro. We have tried to get this Government
to understand not only the seriousness of this in terms of moving towards a low-carbon future that allows us to meet our legally binding targets, but also the depth to which investor confidence has been undermined in the renewables sector and the long-term, negative impact on the economy that this has caused. It is very disheartening to see so much of the good work achieved by the coalition Government unravelled by this one.
What is clear is that this work, which saw the tripling of electricity from renewable sources and made Britain the fastest-growing green economy in Europe, was clearly led by only one side of the coalition, the Liberal Democrats, and not embraced at all by the other. It was galling to listen to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time today claim that 99% of solar on roofs came under a Tory-led Government. That sticks a little bit in the craw. Since the end of the coalition, this Government are ending support for onshore wind power; sharply reducing support for other renewable technologies, including solar PV and anaerobic digestion; ending renewable energy’s exemption from the climate change levy; reducing the incentives to purchase low-emission cars; privatising and selling off the Green Investment Bank; scrapping the Green Deal with no replacement; weakening the zero-carbon homes standard; adding community energy to the list of sectors excluded from receiving tax relief; ditching the £1 billion budget for pioneering carbon capture and storage; ending the renewables obligation early—the subject of today’s debate—and on and on and on. It is a litany of destruction.
When the Secretary of State announced, following the 2015 election, that she would “unleash a solar revolution”, we on these Benches naively thought that she meant a revolution that supported solar—but each action that has been taken has proven the opposite. That takes us to the statutory instrument before us today, which closes the renewables obligation to solar PV installations smaller than 5 megawatts on 1 April 2016. It will have a detrimental effect on rooftop solar and community energy schemes, which will be left without support, and will cause a significant reduction in investor confidence across the industry—solar and beyond.
Rooftop solar, the cornerstone of the solar strategy produced in April 2014, is now in dire straits. The tariff that has been set for the 1 to 5 megawatts solar band is much too low to incentivise rooftop deployment in that size range, leaving larger rooftops with essentially no route to market. The large-scale rooftop market is potentially the most significant and cost-effective solar market. This market is dominant across Europe and is expected to reach grid parity first, yet the UK is not taking it seriously. The rooftop renewables obligation for solar at less than 5 megawatts must be reinstated to allow these commercial projects to go ahead until March 2017 with the forward visibility they require.
Also marched up the hill by the last Government and then abandoned by this one were community energy groups. Many opportunities were created for local communities to share in the economic benefits of local renewable projects, and yet the rug on larger solar power projects is being pulled from underneath them. It is vital that ground-mounted renewable
obligations should remain open to community groups and to developers doing shared ownership or community investment schemes.
Another crucial aspect is the need for strengthening of the grace periods, to which the Minister referred. They are indeed a bone of great contention. Let me give the Minister one example from a leading UK solar company setting out the practical effect of the 22 July 2015 grace period qualification deadline. It was unknowable to the industry even 24 hours in advance: 22 July was the first anyone knew about it. This company had a project that was 95% ready to submit as a full planning application but was not intending to submit it until about a week after the consultation was published. When the 22 July consultation was published, it scrambled like mad to submit it, but the application now straddled 22 and 23 July because some key documents could not be sent in until the morning of 23 July.
8 pm
As the Minister said, it was not until 7 December 2015 that DECC firmed up the July 2015 grace period qualification cut-off date, and Sections 2F and 2G in the order will apply retrospectively to 22 July 2015. So this company now has £1 million tied up in a project which many not qualify for anything, solely on a technicality that it could not control, despite the fact that the planning application was 100% valid and less than one day late—albeit that the lateness was not its fault. What on earth are the Government thinking by penalising British SMEs in this way when they have invested in and developed projects in good faith and on the assumption that government commitments to maintain investor confidence in the UK renewables sector through a stable renewable obligation regime meant something?
As the Minister said, in the consultation in July last year the intention was clear that the qualifying grace period after disclosure would match that offered in the closure of the larger-scale renewable obligations the previous year. In fact, it was specifically stated. Sadly, in the final decision published in December, the position was changed to require a valid planning application as of 22 July, not a submitted planning application. This leads to a change to the original proposal. If, as the Minister said in his opening statement, it was to prevent a rush of companies that were not really ready trying to reach the finishing line, that is not an answer to the serious businesses that have committed real money to doing what the Government were asking of them.
Finally, as part of the July consultation, the Government proposed removing grandfathering for future solar renewables obligation projects with immediate effect. This is the guarantee that once a project is invested in and built, the level of support will not be changed. Companies do their sums on this basis, and it is a vital aspect of subsidy support. This principle underpins confidence to invest in new projects. Any company that makes an investment on one basis and suddenly finds that the set of financial assumptions it has used have changed is going to be very wary of any similar investment. This crucial aspect is being removed in all those projects which had been pre-accredited
before that decision was taken and where there was a delay getting connected to the grid. Grandfathering is also being removed from any projects that applied for planning since July 2015 but before closure.
Investor confidence has been significantly damaged simply by the proposal to remove this guarantee—not just with solar, or even with energy, but potentially with all infrastructure. Increased risk increases the cost of capital. This vastly overshadows the relatively small amount of money that the Government seek to save through this proposal. It is less than £50 million per annum. It is estimated as between 50p and £1.20 per household. Energy UK estimates that £200 billion of private-sector investment in the energy sector is needed by 2020, of which £43 billion has been met. A 2% political risk premium on the remaining £157 billion of investment will equate to £3.14 billion per annum, dwarfing the saving of £50 million that the policy intends to make.
We ask that grandfathering be reinstated for all projects. Grandfathering is not covered in the SI, and its reinstatement would require an explicit statement from the Government. It is this that we seek. The Scottish Government have announced that they will retain a grandfathering guarantee for key policies supporting investment in solar farms, despite the proposals from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to end the protection in England and Wales—so England and Wales will be sorely disadvantaged as the industry puts its money where it feels it will be secure. That is a clever move by Scotland, but it is a very stupid move by our Government, if noble Lords will forgive me for saying so.
We on this side are asking Her Majesty’s Government to reinstate the renewables obligation for solar PV under 5 megawatts and to guarantee that existing solar projects will not be affected by future changes to policy. We regret the unfathomable and unprecedented attack on the green economy by this Government, and we will bring it to the nation’s attention at every point of attack. In the context of the recent signing of the wonderful Paris agreement, and in the light of our obligations and legally binding targets, this latest assault on our renewables industry is just that: the latest in a very long line of attacks. It is utterly unacceptable. I beg to move.
Baroness Byford (Con): My Lords, I shall comment on some of the points made by the previous speaker. This Government are certainly behind renewables of all sorts for the future. I hope the noble Baroness accepts that we are working towards the benefits of a low-carbon economy and—she did not refer to this in her contribution—that the costs of producing solar energy have come down. Therefore, one of my questions to her is: if those costs have gone down, is it really right that we should maintain the subsidies envisaged when the costs were higher and, if so, what implications does that have for the people who have to pay for them—that is, the consumers? Does she also accept that, as the Minister said in his opening comments, we ran the risk of exceeding the budgets that were originally planned because of the wonderful response we had and that up to four times more could well be envisaged by the end of that time?
For me, it is a matter of looking at projects as they come up, be they in green energy or any other energy. As far as I am concerned, subsidies have always been there to pump-prime—to help new industries take off and become established. In this industry, that has clearly worked very well, and solar is a huge success. I have one or two very small solar panels on my garage, which do not bring in a big income, but we try to do our bit because we believe in renewable green energy, so we have them.
By considering the grace period, the Government have responded. When we debated this before, a question was raised about it. However, I find this quite hard and I say to the noble Baroness in all sincerity: when the industry has become successful and those costs have come down so much, the question must be whether those subsidies should be continuously maintained when the response we have had suggests that they might not be. Therefore, is it right to expect the consumer still to be paying for that project? The Government recorded that £52 billion has been spent on the renewables sector since 2010. That is a huge amount, as the noble Baroness knows from when she was in coalition. However, unless things are tackled, a balance has to be struck. I suspect she and I will not agree on how that should be done. It is realistic challenge that any Government must face. At the moment, we are in government, and the costs and the response from the industry have done really well. The question is whether the order before us tonight is fair and appropriate. On that, I think the noble Baroness and I will agree to disagree.
Lord Teverson (LD): My Lords, I will be extremely brief. Perhaps I may reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford—whose expertise in all these areas I admire greatly—as well as comment on one of the Minister’s remarks.
First, these Benches absolutely want to reduce renewable tariffs and subsidies as the costs come down. That is a fundamental point. We have a track record of doing that, and that is what we do. However, we are not into executing a particular technology. The way that this has worked is that the Government—interestingly, a Conservative Government—have been moving down the road of choosing technologies. The whole strategy of the energy market reform was to move gradually to a more market-based, less technology-specific situation as time went on—but we are doing the opposite.
We absolutely agree on the levy control framework and lowering costs to the consumer, but what have the Government decided to do? They have decided to invest in the two most expensive low-carbon technologies, offshore wind and nuclear, both of which are hugely more expensive than onshore wind and solar, the technologies that cost the least. So I say to both the Minister and the noble Baroness that if that is what the Government want, they need to change the strategy. They can achieve another strategy at the same time as meeting the carbon emissions target and lowering costs to consumers. That is the way it works—it is arithmetic. So, please, let us go for that.
I return very briefly to the issue of investor confidence. As noble Lords will know, the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change in the other place recently looked at investor confidence in the energy sector. I hate round numbers, because one often does not believe them, but DECC itself estimates that we need some £100 billion of investment up to 2020, not just in generation but in the distribution system as well. As my noble friend said, to achieve that we need real investor confidence. What was the Select Committee’s conclusion? It said:
“It is clear that the confidence of many investors has been dented by the Government’s actions since the election. The sudden, unexpected nature of many of the announcements has unsettled investors who had been used to receiving more forewarning of policy changes. There is a high risk that a hiatus in new developments has been created, pending further clarity on short- and longer-term policy. The Government removed support for renewables due to concerns about costs for consumers. But they have not set out the evidence base for this conclusion or for other decisions, and engagement with the investment community has been poor”.
That is an all-party conclusion in a report on the Government’s action in this area, and the conclusion is to condemn it. The need for investment is huge. We need to make sure that investment is right and that subsidies are low—and we are absolutely for reducing subsidies—but it has led to a hiatus. We no longer have carbon capture and storage or appear to have nuclear, and as far as I can see we do not have a workable strategy to bring in gas—so we have a huge energy problem. We need those investors but we have thrown away their confidence, and through the decisions we have made on renewable energy, by picking expensive winners, we have ensured higher energy costs for the future.
Lord Grantchester (Lab): My Lords, it is becoming an all too familiar situation on energy policy that once more there is another order before your Lordships’ House that severely limits the UK’s renewables industry, the mishandling of which, once more, has left confidence among investors in the sector further damaged.
The draft instrument today contains severe restrictions on the deployment of solar schemes of 5 megawatts or less under the RO regime. For solar it is another blow on top of the 65% cut to the rate of feed-in tariffs that your Lordships debated barely a month ago. As was said then, in the wake of the Paris agreement on climate change, the Government are sending out a terrible mixed message with another sudden and severe policy change, risking cutting off the sector at its knees rather than supporting its gradual glide path to being subsidy-free.
Today we will join the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, in her amendment to the Motion on the order. She is of course correct in her appraisals. Today the Government are not being technology-neutral as regards solar power. Having closed the RO to schemes above 5 megawatts on 31 March 2015, the extension to close the RO to 5 megawatt schemes and below, yet without access to the contracts for difference auction system, means that solar projects above 1 megawatt are now in effect without support, with no route to market.
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The Government will spend just 1% of new expenditure on low-carbon projects under the levy control framework
on solar power in each of the next three years. As solar is next to onshore wind as the cheapest major renewable power source and by far the most popular, this demonstrates a failure to understand the long-term cost benefits and the value for money it provides. According to the Government’s impact assessment, the extra-budgetary impact is likely to be less than £1 on household bills. In the context of the challenges of decarbonisation, while we all wish to keep consumer bills down and to be at least cost, this is being short-term penny wise and long-term pound foolish.
Your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has highlighted the Government’s mishandling and exposed the extent of the industry’s lack of belief in a department, which was not brought out in the Government’s own Explanatory Memorandum. In the two workshops the department undertook not only were overwhelming numbers opposed to the proposed package of measures but respondents questioned the rationale for the proposal because no evidence was provided to detail the breakdown of the LCF overspend, that it was due to solar overdeployment. Furthermore, there was a lack of trust in the department’s deployment forecasting. Not only is the industry challenged with sudden changes but it has no faith in the department’s competence and rationale for the action it is taking.
One of the damaging features of the order is not that the RO is closing from 1 April 2016 but rather that it effectively closed from 22 July 2015, with grace period allowances for projects with preliminary accreditation to be completed. This was the date of the opening of the consultation, so there was no warning before decisions were taken. Many schemes coming forward in good faith, with expenditure having been undertaken, were suddenly ruled out, however credible and beneficial they were.
If all this is not regrettable enough, a few items in this order need to be highlighted as even more regrettable. Once again, I highlight how this order, being an SI, is unamendable, in contrast to the early closure of onshore wind, which is amendable because it is in the Energy Bill. They are eminently similar provisions, yet the most pernicious aspects of this order cannot be changed.
One aspect of the post-consultation decision is to remove grandfathering from solar PV projects at 5 megawatts and below that were not accredited as of 22 July 2015. Rather curiously, this has not been commenced and is not included in this order. This is most confusing. As it was question 4 in the consultation, can the Government please now outline their intention in regard to grandfathering? The Explanatory Memorandum was unclear. Many respondents to the removal of grandfathering considered that without it, projects were uninvestable. Can the Minister clarify the position and state why this was left hanging from the order and whether removal of grandfathering will apply more widely than to solar technology?
Also regrettable is the inclusion of community energy schemes in the order. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, is correct to include this aspect in her amendment. Community schemes widen the benefits of renewable deployment, encouraging individual households which want to do the right thing and do their bit towards combating climate change.
A wider consequence of the order is to underline the unsatisfactory nature of the levy control framework. The Minister will know that there is a call for full transparency on the LCF, given that the Government are using this budget estimate as a defining characteristic in their policy, while its opaqueness undermines the Government’s case in arguing that customers’ bills are being kept down to a minimum. Furthermore, the lack of detail on the LCF from 2020—which at the moment is left unclarified—is another cause for concern to those attempting to plan their inevitably longer-term projects for the future.
This measure damages the progress made towards low-carbon renewables. It is short-sighted, bad for business and bad for the environment. It is also bad for Britain. It is yet another in a series of policy announcements and changes that signal a significant change of direction in low-carbon energy policy. It again raises serious questions for investors—so much so that the Energy and Climate Change Committee conducted an inquiry, which has recently reported and raises severe issues for the Government to address. In relation to this order I will quote one sentence:
“We call on the Government to set out clearly the purpose of the LCF and to explain why the Capacity Market is not currently included, when it is clearly an electricity policy that results in levies on consumers’ bills”.
Damaged investor confidence drives out investment, raises the cost of capital and increases customers’ bills. If the Government are focusing on the levy control framework as the determining factor in low-carbon energy technologies, it is vital that the framework becomes coherent with the utmost urgency. That they have not done so is of the greatest regret.
The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, it is curious to rehearse the same arguments so soon after the recent debate on feed-in tariffs. It is very disappointing in the wake of the success in Paris of COP 21, and the enthusiasm engendered from that about a new level of ambition in response to human-caused climate change. I feel as though the Minister is in a position of defending the indefensible. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, made a very good point about the place of subsidies and pump-priming. Therefore, it is disappointing that the Government are not working more effectively with the renewable energy sector to build on the considerable success of that industry.
In its analysis of the impact of the changes to feed-in tariffs, DECC estimated that there could be a loss of 18,700 jobs. There is no equivalent analysis in relation to the impact of the withdrawal of renewable obligations, but going towards no subsidy will undermine a sector that is moving rapidly to a position of needing less subsidy. The House’s Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has been critical of the analysis of this in the EM by not highlighting the level of opposition to, or the paucity of support for, the proposed changes, or acknowledging the concerns expressed by a large number of respondents about the methodology used by DECC to justify its proposals. The desire for increasingly competitive pricing would be a good deal more compelling if this were a feature of the whole electricity market, but last week the Government’s Competition and Markets Authority drew attention
to the highly uncompetitive features of the market, dominated as it is by the big six companies.
The desire to cap the levy control framework has introduced two thought errors into the Government’s proposals. The first is that, if the costs of decarbonisation are not to fall on already hard-pressed consumers, further support will be needed in addition to the LCF. However, as has already been pointed out in this debate, the additional cost to the consumer is estimated to be less than £1 per annum. This does not feel like the right way to address this issue. The second point is something that I have referred to before. The desire not to exceed the LCF cap means that we are content with hitting mid-range targets, whereas we ought to be seeking to exceed them on renewable energy in order to escalate the process towards decarbonisation. Many Members of the House want the Government to go back and think about this again. The issue is one of creating a strategy for energy that addresses the need, which was identified in Paris, to move rapidly towards a low-carbon economy.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their participation in this debate. I will of course address some of the points that have been raised but, before doing so, perhaps I may just clarify one or two issues.
First, the Government are of course committed to combating climate change, as the right reverend Prelate kindly acknowledged, through our participation in Paris and the marvellous result achieved there. However, we want to do so in the most cost-effective way for bill payers.
The solar industry in the United Kingdom has been a success story and has seen significant cost reductions. The noble Baroness, in opening, did not talk about the Liberal Democrat position on subsidies. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, sought to clarify that, but I think the opponents of what we are seeking to do need to set out what level of subsidy they regard as acceptable at this stage, because, crucially, the costs have come down: so much so that the largest solar developer in the United Kingdom, Lightsource Renewable Energy, has said publicly—it is on its website—that it will be building subsidy-free sites this year. This order does not end solar and, if we can get solar deployment without the subsidy, that raises the question of why we are subsidising it. This Government believe that when the costs of deploying come down—as they have—so should support. This statutory instrument is a necessary step to protect bill payers and to end subsidies where they are not needed.
Before looking at some of the specifics raised in the debate, I want to set out what the costs of the renewables obligation and indeed other renewable policies, such as feed-in tariffs and CFDs, will be over the lifetime of this Government. There seems to be a feeling that we are cutting off all renewable subsidies. That is not the case. The cost on the levy control framework goes up every single year in this Government, and that is after the action we are hoping will be taken today. The total cost in 2015-16 is £5,230,000,000. Next year it will be more than £6 billion. In the succeeding year it will be more than £7 billion. In 2018-19 it will be over £8 billion.
In 2019-20 it will be £10 billion, and in 2020-21 it will be nearly £11 billion. So to those who suggest that somehow, we are turning our face against renewables and ending subsidies, I can say that that is not remotely the case.
I shall address some of the specific points that were raised. As I said, the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, did not talk about the position of the Liberal Democrats in relation to subsidy, but I remind the Liberal Democrats that the coalition Government—after all, it was a department led by a Liberal Democrat Minister—recognised the need to revisit the 5 megawatt and below solar subsidies if we had overdeployment, or if overdeployment were projected. Overdeployment is projected by a ratio of 1:4, so it really needs to be addressed, and this is quite consistent with what the Liberal Democrats said when they were in government. We are taking this action for two reasons. It is not just about the levy control framework; it is also about the subsidy. We do not believe that we should be paying subsidies where they are not needed. The evidence is— I quoted the largest developer—that they are not needed.
The noble Baroness raised the issue of roof-top solar. We do not accept that the feed-in tariffs have been set too low to support commercial roof-top solar. Almost 8 megawatts of installations over 50 kilowatts have secured a feed-in tariff since the scheme reopened in February. That is significant and demonstrates that there is ample opportunity under the existing FIT scheme to do just that.
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I turn to the points made by my noble friend Lady Byford about the subsidy regime. I very much agree with what she said; she put it very crisply and very correctly, if I may say so, that subsidies are not for ever. They are there for as long as they are needed, for pump-priming and for getting things moving, but as the costs come down it is absolutely right that we re-address this. To be fair, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made that point; he may disagree with what we are doing but at least he accepts the need to revisit this and look at when a subsidy is needed and when it is not. That is a relevant debate to be had, but that did not seem to be the debate that the noble Baroness set out initially.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, talked about moving towards a market approach. I am not sure whether that is something he approves of—he is indicating that he does—but that is what we are doing. If the largest solar developer is saying that it is installing solar without the subsidy this year, that is rather relevant to this debate.
It is not as if we are not doing other things in energy and climate change that are needed. We have a considerable innovation budget, and I think most noble Lords will approve of the fact that we are looking at small modular reactors with a significant part of that £250 million innovation budget in this Parliament. That is something we want to get moving, and plans were set out in the Budget Statement today on just that.
I know that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury is very interested in this area and has been very supportive of some of the action the Government
have been taking, including the designated closure of coal and so on. He asked why we are aiming for the mid-range of solar. We are not. After the action we have taken today, and based on the best estimates we get, deployment is still above the top level of the estimate set out under the last Government: it will be 12.8 gigawatts, and the top level of what was considered necessary by the last Government was 12 gigawatts. Therefore, even after the corrective action we have taken, we are still ahead of that.
I understand some of the concerns that have been expressed, but in relation to this measure I can say only that we do not need this subsidy. There is deployment without it, and we would be wrong to subsidise where it is not needed. We would be wrong, as a Government, not to take action on a subsidy where the evidence is that it is not needed.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness: My noble friend Lady Featherstone mentioned investor confidence. My noble friend Lord Teverson and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, referred to the Energy and Climate Change Committee in the other place and its deep concerns about the cumulative effect of government policy on investor confidence, not just in solar or onshore wind but generally. Will the Minister please address the points that were very effectively made about investor confidence?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: My Lords, of course investor confidence is an issue. In the department we meet the industry on a frequent basis—I met representatives of the solar industry just this week. Some of the concerns that are being expressed tonight were not expressed to me on that occasion. Of course there is a healthy dialogue, but I do not recognise some of the wilder statements being made about the lack of investor confidence. Industry will always take a particular issue, and there will be some in industry who will not want to see an end to subsidies—I understand that; why would they? However, as a Government, we have to see how money can be well spent.
It has been a good debate, but I urge noble Lords to reject the amendment and support the order, which is a necessary part of ensuring that we get value for money, do not overdeploy in this area and end subsidies that are not needed.
Baroness Featherstone: I thank all noble Lords for their contributions; I thought that serious and considered points were made on all sides. The Minister said that I did not address the issue of subsidy. I took it as read that we all want to see the end of subsidies, but the issue is the methodology for delivering that. As I explained that at great length during the debate on the fatal Motion that I tabled to annul the feed-in tariff, I did not want to rehearse all those arguments. However, again, as the levy control framework calculations are still not before us, we cannot examine the evidence of the case.
Arguments were made about the costs to consumers. We are all concerned about the cost to consumers, but I laid out the price range involved in the cost of risk. The £1 per annum that would be saved feels a very poor argument in terms of reducing costs when, at the
same time, the Government are so willing to invest in those energy sources that are so much more expensive, such as nuclear and diesel.
Lastly, on the overdeployment of solar, until the Government come forward with a plan illustrating how they are going to reach their renewable targets, we may be reliant on extra electricity because renewable heat and renewable transport are in so much trouble. Therefore, although I appreciate the arguments and agree with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, we are not going to see eye to eye on this issue. I am very grateful for the support of the Labour Benches on this, and for the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, which were well made. I seek to test the will of the House.
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Division on Baroness Featherstone’s amendment.
Contents 153; Not-Contents 144.
CONTENTS
Adams of Craigielea, B.
Addington, L.
Adonis, L.
Allan of Hallam, L.
Alli, L.
Alton of Liverpool, L.
Anderson of Swansea, L.
Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, L.
Bach, L.
Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, B.
Barker, B.
Bassam of Brighton, L.
Beith, L.
Berkeley, L.
Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, B.
Bowles of Berkhamsted, B.
Bragg, L.
Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.
Brookman, L.
Burt of Solihull, B.
Campbell of Pittenweem, L.
Campbell-Savours, L.
Clark of Windermere, L.
Clement-Jones, L.
Collins of Highbury, L.
Corston, B.
Cotter, L.
Crawley, B.
Davies of Oldham, L.
Davies of Stamford, L.
Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.
Dholakia, L.
Donaghy, B.
Doocey, B.
Drake, B.
Dubs, L.
Evans of Temple Guiting, L.
Falkner of Margravine, B.
Featherstone, B.
Foster of Bath, L.
Foulkes of Cumnock, L.
Gale, B.
Garden of Frognal, B.
German, L.
Grantchester, L.
Greaves, L.
Grender, B.
Hamwee, B.
Harris of Haringey, L.
Harris of Richmond, B.
Harrison, L.
Haskel, L.
Haskins, L.
Haughey, L.
Hollis of Heigham, B.
Howarth of Newport, L.
Humphreys, B. [Teller]
Hunt of Chesterton, L.
Hunt of Kings Heath, L.
Hussain, L.
Hussein-Ece, B.
Janke, B.
Jolly, B.
Jones of Cheltenham, L.
Jones of Moulsecoomb, B.
Jones of Whitchurch, B.
Jordan, L.
Judd, L.
Kennedy of Southwark, L.
Kennedy of The Shaws, B.
King of Bow, B.
Kirkwood of Kirkhope, L.
Kramer, B.
Lea of Crondall, L.
Lee of Trafford, L.
Liddell of Coatdyke, B.
Liddle, L.
Livermore, L.
Ludford, B.
McAvoy, L.
McFall of Alcluith, L.
McIntosh of Hudnall, B.
Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.
McKenzie of Luton, L.
Maddock, B.
Manzoor, B.
Marks of Henley-on-Thames, L.
Masham of Ilton, B.
Massey of Darwen, B.
Maxton, L.
Mendelsohn, L.
Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.
Moonie, L.
Morgan, L.
Morgan of Ely, B.
Newby, L. [Teller]
Nye, B.
Paddick, L.
Palmer of Childs Hill, L.
Parminter, B.
Prosser, B.
Purvis of Tweed, L.
Quin, B.
Randerson, B.
Razzall, L.
Rebuck, B.
Redesdale, L.
Rennard, L.
Roberts of Llandudno, L.
Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.
Rosser, L.
Salisbury, Bp.
Sawyer, L.
Scott of Needham Market, B.
Scriven, L.
Sharkey, L.
Sharp of Guildford, B.
Sheehan, B.
Shipley, L.
Shutt of Greetland, L.
Smith of Basildon, B.
Smith of Finsbury, L.
Smith of Newnham, B.
Snape, L.
Soley, L.
Steel of Aikwood, L.
Stephen, L.
Stevenson of Balmacara, L.
Stoneham of Droxford, L.
Strasburger, L.
Stunell, L.
Suttie, B.
Teverson, L.
Thornton, B.
Tonge, B.
Tope, L.
Triesman, L.
Tunnicliffe, L.
Tyler, L.
Tyler of Enfield, B.
Verjee, L.
Wallace of Tankerness, L.
Warwick of Undercliffe, B.
Watson of Invergowrie, L.
Watts, L.
West of Spithead, L.
Wheeler, B.
Whitaker, B.
Whitty, L.
Wigley, L.
Winston, L.
Young of Norwood Green, L.
Young of Old Scone, B.
NOT CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.
Ahmad of Wimbledon, L.
Altmann, B.
Arbuthnot of Edrom, L.
Ashton of Hyde, L.
Astor of Hever, L.
Attlee, E.
Balfe, L.
Bates, L.
Blencathra, L.
Borwick, L.
Bourne of Aberystwyth, L.
Brabazon of Tara, L.
Bridgeman, V.
Bridges of Headley, L.
Brougham and Vaux, L.
Browne of Belmont, L.
Buscombe, B.
Byford, B.
Caithness, E.
Cathcart, E.
Cavendish of Furness, L.
Chisholm of Owlpen, B.
Cope of Berkeley, L.
Cormack, L.
Courtown, E.
Craigavon, V.
Crathorne, L.
Crickhowell, L.
De Mauley, L.
Dixon-Smith, L.
Dobbs, L.
Donoughue, L.
Dundee, E.
Dunlop, L.
Dykes, L.
Elton, L.
Empey, L.
Evans of Bowes Park, B.
Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Fall, B.
Faulks, L.
Finn, B.
Flight, L.
Fookes, B.
Fowler, L.
Freeman, L.
Freud, L.
Gardiner of Kimble, L. [Teller]
Gardner of Parkes, B.
Garel-Jones, L.
Geddes, L.
Gilbert of Panteg, L.
Glenarthur, L.
Gold, L.
Goodlad, L.
Goschen, V.
Harding of Winscombe, B.
Hayward, L.
Helic, B.
Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, L.
Holmes of Richmond, L.
Horam, L.
Howard of Rising, L.
Howe, E.
Hunt of Wirral, L.
Inglewood, L.
James of Blackheath, L.
Jenkin of Kennington, B.
Jopling, L.
Keen of Elie, L.
Kirkham, L.
Lamont of Lerwick, L.
Lansley, L.
Lawson of Blaby, L.
Leigh of Hurley, L.
Lexden, L.
Lindsay, E.
Lingfield, L.
Lothian, M.
Lyell, L.
MacGregor of Pulham Market, L.
McGregor-Smith, B.
Magan of Castletown, L.
Maginnis of Drumglass, L.
Marlesford, L.
Maude of Horsham, L.
Mobarik, B.
Montrose, D.
Moore of Lower Marsh, L.
Morris of Bolton, B.
Naseby, L.
Nash, L.
Neville-Jones, B.
Neville-Rolfe, B.
Newlove, B.
Noakes, B.
Norton of Louth, L.
O'Neill of Bengarve, B.
O'Neill of Gatley, L.
Oppenheim-Barnes, B.
O'Shaughnessy, L.
Patel, L.
Perry of Southwark, B.
Pidding, B.
Porter of Spalding, L.
Prior of Brampton, L.
Redfern, B.
Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.
Ridley, V.
Robathan, L.
Rogan, L.
Sanderson of Bowden, L.
Scott of Bybrook, B.
Seccombe, B.
Selborne, E.
Selkirk of Douglas, L.
Selsdon, L.
Sheikh, L.
Sherbourne of Didsbury, L.
Shields, B.
Shinkwin, L.
Shrewsbury, E.
Skelmersdale, L.
Smith of Hindhead, L.
Spicer, L.
Stedman-Scott, B.
Stirrup, L.
Stowell of Beeston, B.
Stroud, B.
Suri, L.
Taylor of Holbeach, L. [Teller]
Tebbit, L.
Trees, L.
Trefgarne, L.
True, L.
Wasserman, L.
Wheatcroft, B.
Whitby, L.
Wilcox, B.
Willetts, L.
Williams of Trafford, B.
Young of Cookham, L.
Younger of Leckie, V.