Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendments 2 and 9, in my name, have a simple aim: to bring into alignment the standards for democratic legitimacy which the Government apply to themselves, and on which their claim to a democratic mandate rests, and those which they wish to apply to the trade unions The Government’s electoral majority rests upon the support of 36.8% of those who voted in the general election last May on a 66% turnout, so representing some 24% of the total electorate, at least of those on the register. For neatness and convenience, I have rounded the figures to 35% and 25%, recognising that the Labour Government of 2005-10 were accepted as legitimate on 35% of the vote Amendment 8, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Mendelsohn, rounds the figure of the turnout down, to 20%, rather than up, to 25%. Here we have far higher standards set out for the legitimation of ballots by trade unions than are set out by the current constitutional arrangements for legitimating government—50% of those voting and an even higher barrier, 40% of those eligible to vote. No British Government have passed this second hurdle in the past half-century. No Government for more than 60 years have represented more than 50% of the electorate, except of course the coalition Government of 2010-15, considered illegitimate throughout their life by a great many on both the Labour and Conservative Benches There is a very serious and constitutional point at stake here. The new Government claim they have a strong democratic mandate. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, underlined this in the first debate this evening. On that basis, they are now pressing through a substantial legislative programme, including a number of radical free-market proposals which were successfully resisted under the preceding coalition. This Bill is a mixture of free-market and authoritarian principles. Trade unions are an important part of civil society, balancing the power of employers and investors in the market. The battle to establish the rights of trade unions to combine was a significant part of the development of British democracy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I am happy to say the Liberal Government then did a great deal to support that Trade unions, like employers and investors, need to be regulated but—again like employers and investors—they are legitimate actors in a market that is rooted in an open and democratic society. Authoritarian free markets, of the sort favoured by some right-wing economists and briefly practised in some South American states, require civil society to be suppressed. But none of us, including those 24% of voters who supported the Conservatives in last year’s election, wants to convert the UK into an authoritarian state I ask the Government to recognise the limited and conditional character of their mandate to govern. They require the consent and acceptance of the 75% of UK voters who did not give them their support in last May’s election. The Government hope to govern for a full five years. If after two years they find themselves facing the usual mid-term disillusionment, made deeper by a likely economic recession, while they press ahead with an agenda about which significant parts of the electorate are unhappy, then the discontented will take to the streets and smash windows. We already face a public mood of deep disillusionment with conventional politics. The Government should be careful not to deepen that disillusionment further and provoke public anger Many of us will remember the confrontation between the Conservative Government and the trade unions in 1973-74, when the then Prime Minister attempted to assert his constitutional authority and union leaders replied that their total membership was larger than the number who had voted Conservative in the previous general election. The unions are much weaker now, of course, but then so is the Conservative Party—down from the 1 million members it had when Edward Heath was leader to, apparently, 150,000 now. It has far more money, of course, but far fewer members. The number of votes it won in last year’s election, as well as the proportion of the votes cast, was also much lower. To quote the noble Lord, Lord King, we are governed by an active minority against an idle majority We all recognise that the Government are opposed to constitutional reform, in particular to electoral reform, which could raise the barrier before an incoming Government could claim a mandate to govern. But, by that token, and recognising the weakness of their mandate, the Government should be cautious about imposing new barriers on union decisions. We know that there is public anger out there about our failures as a political class to impose sufficiently strong regulation on the banking industry, and the absence of prosecutions and punishment for those in the banking industry whose actions triggered the crisis of 2008-09. I meet that anger on the doorstep every time I go out canvassing in Yorkshire. To impose a combination of tougher regulations and higher barriers to legitimate action on trade unions, in contrast to the light touch on bankers and others, will only feed that underlying popular hostility and disillusionment I move the amendment, and speak to Amendment 9, in this spirit. The Government should recognise their own position, treat trade union ballots by the same standards as parliamentary ballots and recognise that a Government with a limited mandate must compromise with the institutions of civil society. Trade unions are an important element in our civil society. I beg to move.