Important Public Services (Border Security) Regulations 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-01-24
Topic: Labor
Jonathan Mendelsohn (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I associate myself with the contributions that have been made. They have been pretty outstanding and have got to the very nub of the issues I thank the Minister for coming forward. We have had some very engaging discussions on other issues, and it is unfortunate that he has to deal with this issue in this particular way. I hope he is absorbing what we are saying and will respond adequately to it, but we do not hold him personally culpable for what has come before us It is important to understand that the conventional wisdom is that the Act was originally in the manifesto merely as some barking mad idea to negotiate away when the coalition was formed and that it would not stand. It is unfortunate that the circumstances evolved as they did and we ended up with something that was so partisan and vengeful. The debates that we had in this House were very significant; indeed, the size of the majorities against the Government’s proposals—certainly, there were calls for some balancing measures for the democratic mandate so accorded—was very large, and expressed the deep concern across the whole House at these measures. We ended up passing legislation not because people were happy or because they understood it but because there was broad agreement in the legislation, in discussions with Ministers and in assurances to the House that, in the spirit of trying to pass this legislation, there would be balancing measures. It is unfortunate that the partisan approach has returned with these instruments. It is important to understand that that is at the very heart of the statutory instruments I spent some time—after the Act had been passed, regrettably—looking at the nature of the strikes and what caused them, and analysing some of the strikes that took place in private companies and the public sector. The issue that came up during that time was that in most of these cases it was not that there were a series of workers who just militantly desired to withdraw their labour; there were massive issues of competency of management. In fact, although I did not do an exhaustive piece of research and I cannot say I necessarily had an adequate sample, in 85% of the cases that I looked at you could identify management failures, especially in the public sector, where arbitrary decisions are announced and workers are displaced because there is no consultation or preparation. In those circumstances, we have to understand that measures need balance To take the example of disputes at Southern rail, at the heart of that dispute is a contract that does not work. I know the Minister has been in business before. On many occasions we have seen the consequences of poor contracts. A variety of the issues at the very heart of why there is a difficulty in resolving a problem where there are problems of the competency of management are about contracts. It is wrong always to look through the wrong end of the lens. We are looking to the Government to restore the sense of balance that we believe we had when this Act was passed I read the Prime Minister’s speech at Davos when she talked about the notion of the rights and the voice of people who had not been adequately covered by these sorts of things, and the importance of strong institutions. In that context, I just do not understand why the institutions that the Government seem continually to want to stress, attack and undermine are those that represent working people. It is just not the right sense of balance It is our belief that trade unions are a force for good and equality in our society, especially in the increasingly insecure world of work. We remain fundamentally opposed to an approach that establishes restrictions on industrial action without balancing provisions to ensure that participation can be increased.