First, I declare an interest as a member of the GMB. My wife also works for a trade union.
We often hear the cry from Conservative Members that the turnout in union ballots is not high enough. We have before us a mechanism that would at least assist with that, by getting more people to participate in e-balloting. I have seen some pretty poor excuses for statements, but today’s statement about why we cannot introduce e-balloting for trade union ballots must win the prize for the poorest argument.
This Government pride themselves on wanting to be an e-Government on everything from driving licences to the new universal credit, which can only be accessed
online. The Minister said the Government need to be convinced that e-balloting would be secure, but in response to numerous interventions from Labour Members, he did not articulate the reasons why he thought the process was in any way insecure. I would respect his position more if he came up with reasons and said what the problems are. The idea of a review is clearly the classic civil service “kick it into the long grass” approach.