Clause 32 - Guidance
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
We move on to clause 32, which deals with the guidance that the Secretary of State may issue. We are quite used to perversion of the language being an inevitable by-product of some parliamentary drafting, but the clause does not deal with guidance in the sense that most people would understand the meaning of the word. The Secretary of State is able to issue guidance to which the negotiating body must have regard. That is not a gentle steer, it is a clear requirement to do or not to do something.
Amendment No. 113 would remove subsection (2). Subsection (2) states that the negotiating bodies must have regard to any guidance issued under the clause. By removing the subsection, the guidance becomes guidance: an indication of what the Secretary of State feels is appropriate. It would be a steer rather than something that has to be had regard to when the negotiation process is under way. It is consistent with the approach that I have taken throughout the Bill that we have to defend the independence of the fire and rescue authorities as separate employers. They are not a branch of central Government. The extent of the arrangements gives the Secretary of State effective control of the negotiating procedure without being directly a part of it.
Amendment No. 114 would introduce a more objective test of whether a negotiating body is such a body under the terms of the Bill. At the moment, the definition of a negotiating body in subsection (3)(b) places great weight on whether the arrangements under which that body is constituted
''appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate arrangements for the negotiation of the conditions of service of employees''.
The amendment would seek to reduce that to a requirement that the body is constituted for the purpose of negotiation of the conditions of employment of those employees. In other words, it would be a recognition of the de facto situation. If a body is, de facto, a body representing employees in the negotiating process, it should be recognised as a negotiating body under the provisions.
I think that that is all I want to say at the moment, other than to note that the Secretary of State determining that the constitution of a body is appropriate is not the same as a test that requires a body to be constituted in the customary way for such a body. The requirement seems to be highly arbitrary and I hope that the Minister will say something about the purpose of this curiously phrased subsection.