Clause 18
Employment Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Huntingdon, Conservative)
We are still on clause 18 and we are looking at ways in which more security can be put into the clause to protect the rights of employees. Amendment No. 17 aims to limit how far back into a member’s past a trade union is entitled to look to find reasons to exclude or expel. I accept that this is a question of balancing interests proportionately and in a common-sense fashion. However, the views and opinions that we hold in our youth are often bred of some degree of naivety and optimism for the world and those who inhabit it. Likewise, youthful ideals may have made some of us intolerant of others, but with time, some people change. Their views change and actions are adapted.
For instance, we must all accept that membership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as a student in the 1960s should not automatically enable a 50-year-old to be expelled from a trade union that represents workers in the nuclear industry. Without great caution, it seems that this could be extended further. What happens if an over-zealous parent had a teenage child signed up to an extreme party membership? Should the beliefs of the parent be used to punish the son? Of course not.
This provision seems at odds with a person’s human rights. The amendment seeks to address the wrong by saying that the party membership must have been within the last 12 months. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South made a powerful case, albeit slightly earlier than he was meant to, as to how unacceptable it would be for his party membership some years ago to be taken into account now. He may wish to come back and finish his remarks.
Amendment No. 18 goes to the definition of a political party. I have previously stated how we view this clause as an attack on civil liberties in many ways, but that we recognise the need to address the issue by virtue of the European convention on human rights. As things stand there is no definition of a political party in the Bill, so we need to ask at what point a person’s political views constitute membership of a political party. If someone votes for the Socialist Workers party, or strongly or openly espouses some of its views, but is not a member of that party, could that person be banned from union membership? This is why we see the key issue as being conduct, not party membership. This whole area could be a recipe for disaster.
Furthermore, to all hon. Members who are worried about the British National party today—I agree that we all need to be worried—I say that they are missing the wood for the trees. We should keep in mind that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) supported the original legislation here in order to protect communists and their fellow travellers from being hounded out of unions. The hon. Member for Broxtowe made the same point in relation to a German union.
We can talk about countering the BNP but we should not think that this legislation is necessarily the format to use. Many other organisations could be caught in the net. Given the position we find ourselves in, we need to regulate carefully who will be caught in the definition of political party. That is why we suggest that we limit the expulsion right to members of political parties that are registered. When a similar amendment was moved in another place, the Minister noted that the employee may belong to a foreign party. The amendment now caters for that eventuality.
Perhaps the amendment’s drafting is not perfect, but I find it difficult to believe that the Government will be unable to draft an appropriate definition of a political party. When we come within the wide parameters of democracy, the spectrum of beliefs is very broad and the question is where we draw the line and who draws it. While exclusion for membership of the BNP may seem reasonable, at what point do we stop? Baroness Miller said:
“Could, for example, a union involved with workers in the nuclear or coal-mining industry exclude a member of the Green Party?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 January 2008; Vol. 697, c. 671.]
I fear that we may end up with trade union witch hunts in which hon. Members who show even the slightest diversion from a party line find themselves out on their ear. The Orwellian undertones are frighteningly apparent in their potential.
Secondly, once splits appear along political lines, how soon will it be before we see the internal fragmentation of trade union membership? What will stop those with differing political leanings from creating their own splinter groups? Increasingly, politics is an issue-driven playing field. The traditional affiliations of parties have been blurred and the electorate has become a more homogenised group as the parties head to the middle ground. That will present further problems should trade unions be able to bar membership on the basis of membership of the Countryside Alliance, Greenpeace or Amnesty International. How are we to categorise such groups? Are they political parties for the purposes of this Bill? As the fractures materialise, there could be further claims. We will then end up back here debating the same points after another slap on the wrist from Strasbourg. For those reasons, I am happy to move the amendment.