Important Public Services (Border Security) Regulations 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-01-24
Topic: Labor
Benjamin Stoneham (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am pleased to join in this debate. I was involved in the original proceedings on the Act. A number of points have already been made which I do not need to repeat. I should like to concentrate on a couple of aspects, taking through some of the thinking that has already been displayed in this debate As the Government’s own record on contingency planning is very poor—as shown in the European issue—we have to ask whether they have prepared for some of the implications of these regulations. I hope that the Government have consulted ACAS on whether it has sufficient resources to deal with some of the problems to which these regulations will give rise. In the coming year, with inflation rising probably ahead of earnings, the Government are going to experience quite a lot of problems in the public sector. Resolving them will be further complicated by these regulations. They are going to have quite turbulent times. My noble friend Lord Foster quoted what I said in the original debate—that trade unions will have to invest extra resources into getting appropriate support in ballots. That has a danger in respect of strikes. As the Minister will have seen in the doctors’ dispute, where 90% support was achieved in the ballot, it was extremely difficult to get it settled and prolonged negotiations were needed. We will have much more of that in the public sector A further issue is bargaining units. I mentioned in the original debates what I called the winding-engine men syndrome. Those were the people in the coal mining industry who used to work the lifts. They had immense bargaining power. If you have all sorts of legal restrictions on thresholds for strike ballots, all that will happen is that you will have smaller bargaining units and therefore a greater ability to manipulate strike ballots to get the results that you want. It will be more difficult to resolve those sorts of disputes. I hope that the Government have looked at the consequences of what they are doing The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, mentioned electronic ballots. It is in the Act; we passed an amendment that we would have an independent review of electronic balloting. I do not think that anybody who was involved in the debates at that time ever thought that we would implement those regulations. The understanding was that they would not be implemented until we had had the outcome of the electronic balloting review. What is the Government’s thinking on this? What is the purpose of the review and when exactly are we going to see the details of it I should like to re-emphasise—and it is important coming from our party—that this is a very partisan act, certainly on political funding. We deserve to hear from the Government what further action they are going to take on the Burns committee recommendations, which have silently been discarded and forgotten. As we have to agree these regulations, we should know what the Government are going to do. What are they doing on the whole issue of the unfair financing of political parties, in the context of a very one-sided act against the principal opposition party? Everybody knows that this measure is partisan and will lead to a continuing imbalance in our political system The Government try to portray themselves as consulting and as a so-called party of one nation but, frankly, is it not incredibly insensitive to implement these regulations? The officials, or whoever did the consultation, must have known that the union conference system runs from April until July. Everyone knows that. To implement regulations that start in March is clearly therefore going to cause upset. That seems to be totally insensitive and unnecessary, and shows the total contempt that the Government have had for the trade union movement in this country in planning this legislation and in the way they are now trying to implement it.