My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Monks, for responding to my invitation, which the Committee understood, and I hope that the noble Baroness, whose very proper and powerful speech I fully understood in connection both with the question of the technical amendment she had and the general point that she made as well, will also understand. I thought I might just intervene.
We are in a bit of living history at the moment—I suppose that is how some people would describe me at this time—but it also involves another Member of this House who, sadly, for personal reasons cannot be here tonight; I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. He and I share responsibility for the actions that we took, in that he was Secretary of State after the election in 1983, inheriting a Conservative manifesto commitment that trades unions must take steps to ensure their members are fully aware of their statutory rights concerning the political levy and are able to exercise them freely. That was in the Conservative manifesto of 1983. Norman Tebbit, as he then was—the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit—who was then Secretary of State for Employment, proposed that, in the absence of such steps by the trades union movement to ensure that members were able to exercise their statutory rights concerning the political levy freely, the Government would introduce measures to guarantee the free and effective right of choice whether to pay the political levy.
Owing to the unfortunate resignation of our, sadly late departed and lamented, noble friend Lord Parkinson, there was a reshuffle in the Government and I then became the Secretary of State for Employment, inheriting these discussions which continued with Mr Lionel Murray—Len Murray, as everyone knew him, who then became Lord Murray. In the Trades Union Congress correspondence that I have, which was kindly provided by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, I see that he is “Lionel Murray”. I must say that his keeping of the TUC correspondence is very much better than my own personal records, which has been a great comfort. The correspondence is from General Secretary Lionel Murray, Deputy General Secretary Norman Willis and Assistant General Secretaries Kenneth Graham and—a promising newcomer—David Lea, who bears a striking resemblance to the noble Lord, Lord Lea, on the Benches opposite.
The position at that time, when I saw the representative of the Trades Union Congress, was that unless we could be sure that every possible step had been taken to ensure that union members were aware of their rights, and had the opportunity to opt out, we would feel it necessary to act in this case. After considerable consultation within the trade union movement—I received a very full submission—I received a copy of the directions that were sent to the general secretaries of all affiliated unions, TUC regional councils and the Wales Trades Union Council. Those recall the conversations with the previous Employment Secretary,
“to explore the steps that trade unions themselves might take to ensure that their members are fully aware of their statutory rights”.
It goes on to say:
“On 19 October, the General Council’s Employment Policy … met the Employment Secretary, whose central criticisms were that some unions with political funds did not take adequate steps to
ensure that their members knew that they could contract-out of paying the political levy or how they could do so, and that the practical arrangements for enabling members to contract-out were of doubtful efficiency”.
The submission that came to me goes on to describe the arrangements proposed.
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The situation then was that a letter was sent with the TUC’s statement of guidance, which said:
“Unions should draw up an information sheet about their political fund which should … state why the union has a political fund; … make clear that under the law a member has a legal right, if he or she so wishes, to opt out of payment to the political fund”.
The statement of guidance makes the interesting point that the information sheet should,
“make clear that members who ‘contract-out’ of paying the political levy must not by virtue of being exempt be excluded from any benefits of the union or placed under any disability or disadvantage compared with other members … except in relation to the control of the management of the fund”.
The statement goes on to say:
“This information sheet should be supplied to … new members on their admission to the union … any existing member on request to his or her branch, district or head office; and … all union members as soon as practicable after any ballot on the establishment of, and on the continuation of, the political fund”.
That is the basis on which I then wrote to Mr Murray, the general secretary of the TUC, saying:
“I have now had an opportunity to consider carefully the Statement of Guidance which you and the Chairman of the TUC’s Employment Policy and Organisation Committee submitted to me at our meeting yesterday”.
I said in this letter—I will not read it all into the record —that I believed that,
“the Statement sets out clearly the actions trade unions should take to ensure that their members are fully informed about their rights in relation to the political levy and to ensure that they are able to exercise them without difficulty or disadvantage”.
Writing to Mr Murray, I said:
“You told me that the Statement of Guidance would be put to the General Council for adoption in its meeting on 22 February. I welcome this and I can confirm that provided the Statement is adopted by the General Council and issued with its committed support, I would not propose to bring forward amendments to the Bill to change the present basis of the law regarding the payment of the political levy”.
I wrote that 32 years ago. I thought that that was the right approach at that time. I did it in good faith and I accepted the assurances of the TUC—Baron Murray and the noble Lord, Lord Monks, who is present today—in good faith. The question to the Committee is: was that observed or did it lapse? Why has this issue reappeared now—exactly the issue we dealt with 32 years ago? I am not unsupportive of the amendment that the Leader of the Opposition moved about whether it should be over a much longer timescale, if it is to come in, because I also recognise that the early introduction of this could have very substantial, damaging effects.
I do not normally quote Mr Jack Dromey, but in winding up on Third Reading of the Bill in another place, he claimed:
“When I was treasurer of the Labour party in 2006, against the background of the secret loans scandal and the Hayden Phillips process, it was put to me, ‘Jack, if we impose a cap on donations of £5,000, it will bankrupt the Tory party.’ I said no to
doing that because it would be immoral for one party to abuse its power to bankrupt another party”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/15; col. 345.]
However, when I look at the records—this is where I genuinely plead a certain degree of ignorance—some of the information coming to me suggests that that undertaking given to me 32 years ago, on which I agreed not to proceed, has not been honoured; not in any dishonourable way, but in the lapse of time, perhaps in a situation, with change of Governments, where it was no longer thought to be so important. I just wonder why this situation has come again and how serious that issue is.