Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-16
Topic: Labor
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): This is an important debate, and I thank noble Lords who have taken time to contribute. I think that the sense of the House is clear, and I would say that electronic communications are the future—as I have said on many occasions, on other matters. Society is changing, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, explained so eloquently, which is why the Government are promoting the programme of digitalisation, supporting the British-based creative economy, with apps such as Lyft share—and, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, there is the use of the internet across government services. So there is a lot of support for the introduction of electronic balloting for decisions by trade unions. I have to say that I have a great deal of sympathy with these sentiments, and I am not going to argue with the substance of much of what has been said I am afraid that I cannot agree to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. It seeks to require that an independent review is commissioned within six months of this Bill becoming an Act and that the Secretary of State publishes a strategy for the rollout of electronic balloting after consulting relevant organisations. We do not think that that is the right approach. The fundamental problem that we have with it is that if the review found problems, the Secretary of State would nevertheless be committed to pressing ahead with e-balloting regardless The common ground we have is that we agree in principle with the concept of electronic balloting. As my noble friend Lord Callanan said, we already have the ability to bring it into effect for statutory trade union decisions, including industrial action ballots. The power is contained in Section 54 of the Employment Relations Act 2004. Where we differ, I think, is on the issues of timing and security, and I will outline the issues that are currently holding us back from exercising that power right now To respond to my noble friends Lord Forsyth, Lord Deben and Lord Cormack, there are risks. They cannot just be ignored. The consequences are serious, particularly for strike ballots, because strikes have such far-reaching consequences for union members, who may lose pay for the days they are on strike; for employers, whose businesses are adversely affected; and, of course, for the public, whose daily lives are disrupted Perhaps I should at this point thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, for repeating his question regarding the bizarre example. I should of course have come back to him in Committee. It is an extreme example when exactly 50% of workers turn out for a ballot for industrial action in an important public service. It is right that we ask for 40% of eligible members to support strike action before it can take place in important public services on which millions of people rely, as I have said. Recent events show that the threshold can be achieved when union members feel strongly about live issues To return to the issue of electronic voting, we must ensure that there is the utmost confidence in ballot processes. The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy quoted the Open Rights Group summing up concerns over the security of online voting: "Voting is a uniquely difficult question for computer science: the system must verify your eligibility to vote; know whether you have already voted; and allow for audits and recounts. Yet it must always preserve your anonymity and privacy. Currently there are no practical solutions to this highly complex problem and existing systems are unacceptably flawed" The key challenge is how to be sufficiently confident about both the security and the confidentiality of the votes—so let me try, step by step, to explain the problem. First, there is the need to confirm identity. Computer expert Dr Kevin Curran reported to WebRoots Democracy, for its recent report on secure voting, on the difficulty with ensuring a system that is secure enough to ensure voter verification. Professor Robert Krimmer says in his contribution to the WebRoots report that ensuring that the system is sufficiently secure "is really tough". He was particularly concerned about the practicality of testing a system that incorporates individual voter verification Secondly, there is the need for confidentiality. This is an active field of research. Electoral Reform Services acknowledges the challenges of the secrecy of the vote, which is critical if we are to ensure a truly secret ballot. It is important that no one—neither the union nor the employer—can see how a member has voted. Noble Lords may argue that electronic voting is as secure as postal voting, but I am not convinced. It is potentially easier to gain access to huge quantities of electronic votes, which it would be physically impossible, or certainly much harder, to do with postal votes. Mi-Voice, an organisation that develops secure transactional applications, has stated that while, "it is possible to de-couple the identity of the voter with the vote cast … this … represents one of the biggest challenges to e-voting providers" Thirdly, there is the issue of security. Dr Curran also exposes the significant risk that exists of cyberattack, explaining that approaches which had worked just a few years ago are now useless and that we can expect many more attacks. The Electoral Reform Services report, while recognising that it is right and proper to give consideration to the use of e-balloting, recognises a number of difficulties. For example, how can people securely vote if their computer is infected with viruses? Although antivirus software exists, it has to be kept up to date in order to be properly effective. I know from my own unhappy domestic experience just how important this is. So the system relies on people following best practice advice, and it can only protect against known issues. The WebRoots report also indicates that the Du-Vote system, which is being developed at the University of Birmingham, could resolve the issue, but not until about 2020 or 2025 Finally, there is integrity. The risk is of voter coercion. I will not test your Lordships’ patience by suggesting that this is a problem that is unique to an electronic method of voting but obviously it is an issue that affects it, and is serious. This issue does not solely affect the UK—