Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-11
Topic: Labor
Richard Balfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I start with a declaration of interest that does not usually come from this side of the Chamber. This month I celebrate my 50th continuous year of membership of the TUC-affiliated trade union movement. I am the president of the British Dietetic Association, which is a TUC-affiliated union, and I am an adviser to BALPA, which still has blessed memories of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and more recent memories, of course, of my friend the noble Lord, Lord Monks. So I speak with some sort of background I was struck by the level of consensus that I detected in the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn. The role of this Chamber is to revise, and there are certain areas of the Bill that could well be revised without us departing from the manifesto commitment of the party on this side of the House. I noted that the noble Lord made reference to the 1980s and compared it to today; what he did not say, of course, was that the last Labour Government kept in place all the legislation that was passed by their predecessor, by my noble friend Lord King and other Conservative Secretaries of State. I would predict that the central part of this Bill, on thresholds in public sector services, will not be repealed when the Labour Party, as it eventually will in a democracy, comes back to power. They will probably stay, because the point has been made—my noble friend Lord King made it—that there is a distinction between the industrial workforce and the public sector There is no doubt in my mind that a number of public sector strikes have been deeply unpopular. I have a briefing from the Mayor of London—I do not know whether the Opposition have had it—which says that, of the 26 disputes in London which have led to Tube strike action since 2008, 19 would have been prevented under this new legislation in relation to workers in essential services. That is quite a high figure, but of course it also presents an organisational challenge. There is a tendency, which people sometimes slip into, to think that trade unions are somehow led by people who are not followed by their workers. One has only to look at the strike that is going to take place tomorrow to see that you get quite high turn-outs for industrial action in ballots. One sometimes must reflect, as the noble Lord, Lord Monks, mentioned, that in a dispute there may be two sides to a story and that both sides need to sit down and talk to each other. That is the whole purpose of ACAS I would also say to the trade unions that they need to get out of their sectarian silo. I am sorry to keep on referring to the noble Lord, Lord Monks, but he has been the secretary-general of the European TUC. He will know that, outside this country, it is very unusual for the entire trade union movement to be dedicated to the support of just one party. That is not good for the trade union movement, particularly when we know that one-third of its members actually vote for the Conservative Party. Of course, a good number of the others do not vote at all and a handful, I am sorry to say, vote for the Liberal party. I think both sides of the Chamber can agree that that is not what either of us would like, but it is none the less the case. I say to the trade union movement: reach out. You could have a Conservative Government for some years yet. Good relations and the interests of the members of the trade union movement are not served by the blanket refusal that you get on the part of some unions—I single out Unite particularly—although not all of them, to engage in any sensible dialogue with the governing party. That is not sensible. It is not good news for the members of that union.