Clause 43 - Union learning representatives
Employment Bill
3:30 pm
Mr John Healey (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Education and Skills; Wentworth, Labour)
I was asked a question and I responded.
I shall respond to some earlier points raised by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. The first concerned union membership and density in different parts of the economy. I do not have such a precise breakdown to hand, but I can easily locate it and will get back to him. The point for the Committee is to understand the limitation of the clause. It will operate only where unions are recognised. Clearly more union learning representatives may be able to take advantage of the rights in the public sector than in the private sector, and more union learning representatives and members are likely to take advantage of the new rights in large companies than in small ones, because that is the general patterning of trade union membership.
The union learning representatives, and the rights that the clause gives, will operate only where recognition agreements with trade unions exist, where the role of the union is established and accepted, and where similar rights are already exercised by other union representatives and procedures in place for the practical application of those rights. I contend that the degree of disruption that has been suggested would be unlikely to happen in the case of union learning representatives, were we to extend rights to the new category of lay union official.