I congratulate and thank my noble friend Lady Prosser for introducing this amendment and will set out why it is particularly important. It was a sheer pleasure in the previous debate to listen to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and to the good sense that came from all parts of the Chamber. I hope that the Government are very much in listening mode and can perhaps hear a case for change. I will set out why the Bill merits some sort of change.
An interesting feature of the coalition Government was that every year, we would read in the papers and in blogs that Conservative Ministers would present this very Bill to Liberal Democrat Ministers. Each year, they would say, “Together, we could do in the Labour Party, which would undoubtedly be to our benefit”. Each year, to their considerable credit, the Liberal Democrats would block the Bill. I am sure that some noble Lords present today were witnesses to this annual event. It was no surprise that the Government, given the opportunity, chose to use a huge legislative
sledgehammer to target—and in some ways to torture and weaken—their perceived enemies or to make life a little difficult.
This is unfortunate, not just for the well-being of those who are perceived to be the enemies but because it highlights that the Bill has yet to pass a strong public interest test. During our debates, we looked at the “will the sky fall in?” test. It probably will not, but we have certainly not met the “unattractive consequences” test. We have had a good debate about the impact on the regions and on devolution, and whether or not this will weaken the union; I do not think it has met the test that it will not. We also had a debate about what the point of this is, and looked at whether it passes the test of minimising the harm it might cause.
However, the Bill does need to pass the “making a positive difference” test—not just to trade union members but to the public and the national interest. This is what this amendment is about: the role and work of trade unions in a modern society. As a businessman, I would say that this is also about the massive opportunity we have to use workforces and trade unions for better purposes. The Bill has a stunning lack of meaningful objectives, such as targets, goals or definable and provable outcomes. We have seen repeatedly that there is no evidence to establish that there is a problem to justify the solutions. There is no cost-benefit analysis and no meaningful consideration of the consequences of its measures. It lays regulation on obligation on cost on restriction on complication on Whitehall centralisation. It really is time for a bit of light.
The amendment also passes a very important legislative test, which is that it tempers the Bill with proportionality, purpose, principle and practicality. I strongly believe that Government Front Benchers in this House have clean fingerprints on the design of this Bill. They are respected in this House and do credit to a tradition in their political party and to our country’s political culture and traditions—the debate we had earlier attests to that. I have been very encouraged by the debates during Committee and the strong consensus for changes to the Bill in so many areas, but I fear that the dull hand of the other House will compress the capacity of our House to ameliorate the Bill and that the power of the arguments made so ably by so many will not receive the proper response. I hope Members there are listening not just to what we say about the measures they have introduced, but to this very welcome addition.
In that capacity, I am very pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, in her place. She of course plays a very important role as a special adviser with a particular responsibility, supporting the Minister of State for Skills in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on trade union reform—a kind of facility time for the Conservative Party. It is very important for the message to be conveyed to the Minister and to those who have held the debates in the other House that there is an opportunity here to do something which restores a bit of balance and addresses the great tragedy of the Bill, which is that it is not about reform for a great purpose.
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I hope the Government will take a moment to reflect, through this amendment, on the shape of the
Bill and will consider it a very useful addition. The Bill has been designed to address the issues of the past. As someone who has been a long-standing advocate and sponsor of reform of the Civil Service and public sector performance, I think we will miss a great opportunity to define a forward-looking approach in keeping with our current condition and with what we know will work well for today and the years ahead—where maximising the performance of the workforce is our central purpose and where we can successfully address the challenges ahead with the sensible involvement of employees.
Ministers may not trust trade unions, but employees have trust and confidence issues with employers. In the most recent Edelman Trust Barometer, just over half of UK employees say they trust their own employer. This is the crucial area we have to deal with. Employees are a company’s greatest asset, and effective organisations are able to maximise performance by optimising employees’ performance. But this needs great managers and great leaders, which is a crucial part of the Bill that is missing. Especially in the public sector, employees are the greatest route to the solutions that Ministers want, as opposed to delivering diktats from Whitehall.
I draw the attention of all noble Lords to my noble friend Lord Carter’s magnificent report on achieving efficiencies and the benefits of economies of scale in the NHS. It is a masterly report, which makes this argument completely. In it, he states that the NHS has,
“arguably the greatest concentration of intellect and talent of any UK business, but there is little evidence it has been fully engaged to solve the efficiency and productivity issues”.
Commenting on his report, the Financial Times said that “the key” is what management does to recognise what employees,
“already know, or can find”,
in terms of,
“the answers to poor performance and high costs, if only managers will let them”.
A modern approach is to build engagement, maximise skills and adaptability, create purpose and direction and make people feel part of something that properly lives up to the values it claims to espouse.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Prosser on another element of her elegant amendment. Its drafting should be commended for two reasons: it is workable and it is within scope. Regrettably, the attempts that I and other members of the Front Bench made to provide the House with a workable amendment fell foul of the clerks, who felt that anything that addressed management was outside the scope of the Bill. What more perfect a metaphor could there be for the Bill’s flaws? Getting engagement right is in the private sector a source of competitive advantage and should in the public sector be a source of collaborative advantage.
I congratulate ACAS on its work in developing and pioneering ways for manager and industrial relations to develop; I regret that some of its role was weakened and taken away. The Bill does little to move us forward or even to encourage and incentivise trade unions towards what our modern economy needs. Our long-standing poor productivity owes more to the performance and tasking of management than any other single indicator. Getting that right unleashes huge potential
gains in individual productive capacity: we have the evidence in industries across the UK. There is so much potential for a forward-looking approach to provide considerable benefits in the public sector, in which our acute problems of productivity, sickness, absence and disputes take two, three or even five times longer to resolve than they do in the private sector.
The Government always want to get more for less. Engagement, not coercion, is the only way. I urge them to restore some balance to the Bill, to embrace the future and to support the only thing that has been debated that is proven to improve workplace relations and has economic and productive benefits. I hope that they take this opportunity to do so.