Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-25
Topic: Labor
Anthony Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Prosser on her amendment. I can pay her no higher compliment than I wish I had thought of it myself. I was a junior Minister in the previous Labour Government, who supported the concept of employee engagement. As I understand it, the present Government continue to support that concept. The amendment gives the Government an opportunity to put something positive into the Bill that is direly needed As it stands, the Bill is really a lost opportunity. It does not address the real problems facing British industry: low productivity, which has already been referred to by my noble friend; skill shortages; and a lack of management training, which she also referred to. There are so many examples of the value of constructive engagement between employers and employees involving trade unions. Unionlearn was referred to in a previous debate. Health and safety was given a thorough airing on a previous day in Committee. There are examples of where industries have been in serious trouble, as the automotive industry was, where the trade union movement has shown itself more than capable of being involved in very constructive engagement. My noble friend referred to Royal Mail. I could give your Lordships numerous examples from British Telecom, where I was involved. I declare my interest as a lifelong trade unionist. Unions can make a really positive contribution to government policy I will quote a couple of examples that do not involve trade unions because we know that there are plenty of workplaces where they are not involved. There was an article in the Evening Standard on 11 September last year about Sacha Romanovitch. It said: "Sacha Romanovitch is a breath of fresh air. It’s not only that she’s the first female boss of a major City accountancy firm", it is the things that she has introduced. It continues: "The new chief executive of Grant Thornton, in effect their senior partner … has already announced a John Lewis-style profit sharing scheme and a cap on her own salary. Her pay will be limited to 20 times the firm’s average salary—compared with the average FTSE 100 chief executive on 149 times"— whether they are all worth it is a moot point. The article goes on to say that, "profits will be shared among all 4500 staff instead of the most senior, and the profit share will come from boosted profits generated by more collaborative working" I stress that last phrase because that shows the benefit of it. Another example, which I saw in the Times in April last year, is a company called Gripple, which makes agricultural wire joiners in Sheffield. It is an interesting company. According to the article, "it employs 500 people and has a turnover of more than £50 million. Hugh Facey, the entrepreneur behind the business, is as original as his invention. He doesn’t run the business to make money for himself, he claims"— I have not had a chance to check that out but I will give him the benefit of the doubt for the rest of the things he does— "but to provide jobs to local workers" Goodness knows we need that in British industry. The article continues: "Rewards are shared throughout the company, because every employee has to own shares in the business, giving them a collective stake of 36 per cent—and a say in how it is run" It is that last point that I want to emphasise: another good example of employee engagement Some of the Government’s policies are right. I am with them on their approach to apprenticeships. We might argue about the detail but their drive to increase the number of apprenticeships is a very worthy objective. It would be much easier if, instead of discussing this Bill, we had a Bill that talked about involving trade unions in that campaign to increase the number of apprenticeships, which is why I talk about a lost opportunity I cannot help reflecting on my experience of negotiating with senior management in BT—and this applies to many companies throughout the UK—and their love of employing external consultants. They would think nothing of employing McKinsey for a few million pounds. I said to them on many occasions, "I am not going to tell you that you should not do it—I know you won’t take any notice—but while you are doing that it just might occur to you that you have about 140,000 consultants, and you are paying them anyway. If anybody can tell you what’s wrong with various parts of the company and how to improve productivity and profits, it is your employees. You ought to start listening to them far more than you do at the moment", and I gave them many practical examples. My noble friend Lady Prosser pointed out a significant fact in British industry: the level of management training is really abysmal. We still have a long way to go on that. The need for employee engagement is paramount I am sure that we will have some comments from the Minister about the wording of the amendment. I do not think that my noble friend Lady Prosser or I say that everything is perfect. The amendment has been pitched at the fact that this is a Trade Union Bill and we know that there are significant areas of interest where trade unions are not involved. The core principle of the amendment is valid. It says: "The Codes of Practice issued by the Secretary of State for the purpose of promoting the improvement of industrial relations must encourage all employers"— I stress "encourage"— "in both the private and public sectors, to establish mechanisms via trade unions that encourage and enable effective employee engagement in industrial relations" There is a real opportunity for the Minister to prove that the Government are in fact in listening mode and to inject something positive into the Bill. I will end on a quote. I cannot match the intellectual capacity of my noble friend who quoted Chekhov—or at least, I could not find a quote that was apposite—but I thought this one would do. It comes from a song written by a couple of my favourites, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer: "You’ve got to accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative" That is my advice to the Minister and I look forward to her response.