Trade Union Bill

The measures in the Bill aim to modernise the relationship between trade unions and their members...

The Minister will remember our many conversations about this in Committee. He says that he is not...

I have greatly enjoyed debating the many detailed clauses of the Bill with the hon. Gentleman ove...

The Minister will no doubt have seen the evidence from the Electoral Reform Society that the inci...

The hon. Gentleman will have to be a little patient, because I am going to come on to talk about ...

I understand the position that the Minister is setting out, but I am struggling to understand his...

With the greatest respect, I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that that is an internal elect...

The Minister sounds almost guilty of double standards on this issue. He says that he has accepted...

If Opposition Members will just give me a minute, they will be able to hear my argument. Then the...

Will the Minister give way?

No, I am now going to satisfy Opposition Members by setting out my argument, after which I will b...

I am interested to hear what the Minister says about that. The last Labour Government piloted e-v...

If the hon. Gentleman is correct and if there is no problem, the review will conclude so and will...

rose—

No, I am not going to give way again; I am going to carry on with my argument. The review will re...

Before the Trade Union Bill reached the House of Lords, the Minister wrote a letter to ministeria...

Madam Deputy Speaker, I can assure you that my relations with the Socialist Workers Party or its ...

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I am happy to give way and will do so first to the hon. Gentleman.

The Minister said before that online voting was okay for the election of the Tory candidate for M...

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman heard my previous answer and he must recognise that these are s...

rose—

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman; he has had a go. I will give way to the hon. Members f...

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to speak. He says that it might be pointless to hav...

The hon. Lady is a fan of “The X Factor” and so are many of us, but she will recognise that, impo...

Will the Minister give way?

Of course. I did say that I would give way to the hon. Lady.

Will the Minister be specific and say how electronic voting is less secure than postal voting, wh...

No, I will not be specific, because we are going to set up an independent review involving people...

On the point being made by the Opposition about the Conservative party’s online voting, I found i...

I did not have that issue, but that does show that there can be issues with online voting, as the...

rose—

Have I not given way to the hon. Gentleman already? I will give way one more time and then I will...

Is the Minister seriously suggesting that whoever is the Conservative party candidate for London ...

I am quite happy to explain again that it is not a statutory election.

The review will allo...

The Minister has invited us to contribute to the review. I wonder whether he will accept electron...

The hon. Lady makes a good point—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Gl...

As my hon. Friend knows, I am in favour of electronic voting, but the route that he is taking is ...

I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution on this and other important matters. He has mad...

The Minister is being very generous. In the aforementioned leaked memo to which I referred earlie...

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I never comment on articles in the Sociali...

Specifically on the point about devolved powers, is it not the case that in that letter the Minis...

The hon. Lady, who made an admirable and, for me, rather challenging contribution to our delibera...

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If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I wish to explain what we are now proposing, because it is...

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Let me finish this bit, because I am trying to explain what is different about what we doing. I w...

And me.

Of course.

It is our intention that exercise of the reserve power will not even be consider...

A person who enjoys facility time will spend a lot of that time trying to manage huge reorganisat...

The hon. Gentleman is right. What is reasonable can vary according to the organisation and the si...

What my hon. Friend is trying to make explicit is that, across the trade union movement there are...

I am very happy to confirm and applaud what my hon. Friend said. In truth, I would be as worried ...

In order to try to help the House understand why you feel that there is a need for this cap on fa...

I am not at all sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether you feel that there is a need for a cap, but ...

Order. Let us clear that up. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) will get used to...

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that for your sake I should clarify that.

The ho...

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No, I will finish. We know that when we introduced a similar provision in the civil service, we f...

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Well, okay. I have such a soft spot for the hon. Gentleman.

The Minister is indulgent. I appreciate his generosity. Given some of the rhetoric from some of h...

I do not. After all, I am the Minister and I will be in charge of this until the Prime Minister d...

I am a bit confused about what the cost will be of a Minister or civil servants sitting down and ...

I do not accept that it will be expensive. Although there are no data because the transparency cl...

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I have been generous and I will be generous again, but I shall try to make some progress.

A...

I want to make it clear right at the outset that we remain opposed to this Bill. Despite some of ...

Is there not a slight concern that this is just a delaying tactic by the Government, who do not i...

I know the Minister, and I take him at his word when he says that that is not his intention and t...

As someone who, along with other colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltem...

Obviously I cannot comment on how long the Minister will remain in his post—we will see what happ...

The hon. Gentleman comes right to the point. He does not have to rely on the good will of this Mi...

I do not know whether future Prime Minister Gove will appoint the Minister to the Cabinet—we shal...

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you advise me whether it is in order for the House ...

I am not sure whether that is good or bad for the House.

I am happy to leave the Minister alone for the rest of the debate, apart from on the issues we ar...

What is having to review all this information going to cost the taxpayer? The Minister skated ove...

Indeed. Given that the Government’s stated purpose in doing this is to look after the interests o...

I should like to speak to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2. I hope my comments are met in the s...

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many trade unions have thresholds in their rule books to ensure ...

I accept that, but as the hon. Gentleman says, the threshold is not uniform, and in the public se...

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my trade union a...

Given the increase in postal charges in recent years, does my hon. Friend agree that it also cost...

Yes, I agree. I also take the view that postal balloting prolongs the length of a dispute because...

First, I declare an interest as a member of the GMB. My wife also works for a trade union.

...

I do not want to take up time because lots of Members want to speak, but may I draw the hon. Gent...

I know this Government love things foreign, but may I tell the Minister, with great respect, that...

That has been said not just by the Electoral Commission, but by the Electoral Reform Society, whi...

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Minister backed himself into a corner by saying that ...

I wish to challenge the Government about the way in which they are handling the Lords amendments....

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will just quickly declare an interest first. I am a member of Unite and of the GMB, and was a U...

Does my hon. Friend agree that the evidential basis for the entire Bill has been non-existent thr...

I thank my hon. Friend for making those points, and in particular, the point that levels of indus...

Order. If we are all brief, nearly everybody will get in.

At every stage of this Bill I have asked what great calamity there is in our land’s industrial re...

I shall be brief. I welcome the Government’s shift in position, particularly on check-off. I do n...

This is supposed to be about modernising —that is the word the Minister used—ballots, but it is r...

My hon. Friend and I know, as does anybody who has been involved in these things, that for the pa...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. If instead of talking to the TaxPayers Alliance to...

I realise that time is short, so I shall be brief. Welcome as it is that the Government have been...

Is it not amazing that a party that tells us all that it is in favour of the free market has in t...

It certainly presents itself as an extremely draconian Bill whose drafting involved no collaborat...

Let me begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial I...

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

Lords amendments 3 to 6.

L...

The amendments improve the Bill and take account of a number of points of concern raised by Membe...

I call Kevan Jones.

Kevin Brennan.

I am sorry—Kevin Brennan.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. There is a great physical similarity between me and my...

Does my hon. Friend agree that this will not be difficult for many trade unions because on their ...

Given that my hon. Friend has been physically mistaken for me, I am not surprised that our opinio...

May I take my hon. Friend back to his comments about the work of the House of Lords? I echo the w...

I pay tribute to Lord Cormack for his work on the Bill and his words in the House of Lords. He mi...

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the clear intention behind the move from opt out to opt in i...

It is accepted that there is a special relationship between the Labour party and the trade union ...

I welcome the work of the Lords, which my hon. Friend has just outlined. It is quite clear what t...

It is really important to calculate the real cost of check-off. The cost is absolutely nominal, a...

I agree. This shows my age, but the process used to have to be done manually, which meant that th...

I apologise to Chris Stephens. I should have called him before the last speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr ...

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I declare an interest as a member of U...

Is another key role for trade unions that of welfare, and giving workers assistance and help that...

I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience from his own background i...

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is only thanks to trade unions campaigning and funding legal ac...

I wholeheartedly agree, and if we are honest, too often trade unions have to speak up for people ...

I speak as a former trade union lawyer who dealt with the legal cases that my hon. Friend referre...

I agree with my hon. Friend. I have sat on the employer side of the table when working with trade...

The Bill also received forensic scrutiny in the House of Commons, but we could not win any votes....

My hon. Friend has pre-empted me. I was about to congratulate not just my Front-Bench colleagues ...

I would like to put on record the fact that I am a member of the GMB union. It is a great pleasur...

The Unison campaign on the living wage provides a perfect example. We would not have had a living...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Only yesterday, I was encouraged to see so many local N...

I will not detain the House for long, as it has been a long day. I just want to remind the House ...

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but his party is not clean on this, given the money it accep...

I respect the hon. Gentleman, but that is a poor comment, given that I am talking about the party...