My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendment 90A. If Clause 12 was about transparency, for which I have a great deal of sympathy, Clause 13 is essentially about compulsion—top-down “Whitehall knows best” micro-management. That is what it adds up to. If transparency has the desired effect, which the Government argue it will have, it is difficult to conceive of why there is a need for Clause 13. If this was seen as such an unacceptable expenditure in Sheffield, Doncaster or Brighton, the electorates would be able to make their decisions accordingly.
Let us take first the example we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. There are arguments in favour of full-time trade union officials and arguments in favour of part-time ones. I have worked in different organisations with different models. What I would never presume to know is which one is right for any particular organisation, and I cannot conceive of circumstances in which the Government would know the right model. The second point I would like to make is that the requirements in relation to facility time would not vary just between organisation and organisation; they will vary in time as well. If a local authority is going through a major restructuring, it is perfectly reasonable—I have done this—to agree to extra time for trade unions in order to enable them to play their part fully in that change. If a cap is introduced, flexibility in the process is taken away.
It is not clear whether Clause 13 will apply to individual public bodies, individual local authorities or groups of local authorities. It seems to allow for all possibilities, so it would be interesting to hear from the Minister which she thinks it would be. But if we are talking about groups of local authorities, you will almost certainly get it wrong in either direction. If the cap is set high then people will not unreasonably take it as being the marker that the Government think is appropriate. If the cap is set too low, you will undermine the effectiveness of negotiations and the proper running of affairs in a local authority. All of this adds up in my mind to an example of centrist government at its very worst and I think that it should be dropped from the Bill. At the very least, local authorities should be given the flexibility to make this decision for themselves. If we believe that they are capable of leading economic development, running social care and being responsible for developing new housing supply, we must surely think that they are capable of deciding what the right level of trade union facilities is for them.