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Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, Amendments 263 and 330 standing in my name require the Secretary of State to conduct a consultation on the effects of the provisions in Part 4 on the operation of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and to report on the outcome and any proposed changes. It is a modest proposal, even a restrained one, but, make no mistake, it is a necessary amendment and a crucial one.

What we have before us in Part 4 is not the result of careful planning, measured engagement or evidence-based policy. No, what we have instead is a so far unconsulted set of sweeping reforms to trade union law inserted on Report in the other place with little scrutiny and even less transparency. I believe it is extraordinary that provisions of such weight, which could dramatically alter the balance of industrial relations right across the country, should arrive in this House having not been through a proper public consultation. The provisions would allow the Secretary of State to rewrite fundamental aspects of how trade unions operate, how they are recognised, how they interact with businesses and how ballots are conducted. This is not a footnote to the Bill. This is, I believe, a redrawing of the boundaries of employment law and industrial relations. It has been done without engaging employers, without informing the HR community and without giving those who will be most directly affected any chance to prepare.

We must ask ourselves who, precisely, was consulted. It certainly was not business. It was not those employers, large and small, who will be forced to navigate the implications of this legislation. We are left to presume that only the trade unions were consulted, or at least advised, because the changes serve their interests almost exclusively. They have access to workplaces in ever-broadening circumstances. There is the weakening of

independent oversight by stripping powers from the certification officer; the dilution, or in some cases outright removal, of long-standing ballot thresholds that were introduced to protect the legitimacy of industrial action; and the potential for significant changes to trade union recognition processes that could alter the employer-union relationship fundamentally—all to be done by secondary legislation.

That point cannot be emphasised enough. These changes are not in the Bill. They are hidden in the detail that is to be brought forward later through regulations, through statutory instruments, through mechanisms that allow for no amendment and only limited debate. That is no way to legislate on matters as fundamental as the recognition of trade unions or the conditions for lawful industrial action. These are not administrative details. These are foundational questions of how workers and employers interact under the law. They deserve full, open, transparent scrutiny. They deserve proper consultation.

Perhaps most galling of all is that even when the Government speak of consultation, they do so with inconsistency and confusion. I draw your Lordships’ attention to two statements by the Minister for Employment Rights in the other place, Mr Justin Madders. On 7 May he stated unequivocally:

“No decision has yet been made by the Government as to whether or when to exercise this power. Therefore, there is no planned timetable for consulting on it at present”.

No decision, no timetable, no consultation—yet less than a month later, on 3 June, the same Minister declared:

“The Government will consider what criteria to assess whether to lower the recognition threshold in due course, including through the public consultation process”.

We go from no consultation to a planned consultation in the space of four weeks.

This is not just a contradiction. It is, sadly, becoming a symptom of a Government who are making policy on the hoof and who are unable or unwilling to provide clarity on matters of legal and constitutional significance. Let us talk plainly about what that power is. It is the power to reduce the threshold for trade union recognition to just 2%. No justification is offered for that number. There is no White Paper, no consultation document, no cost-benefit analysis, no report from ACAS, no statement from employer organisations or trade bodies, not a single name that the Government can point to that supports the reduction of that recognition threshold to just 2%.

Yet here we are, with Ministers potentially claiming this power to change that threshold by statutory instrument, out of reach of substantive parliamentary control. Why is it 2% and not 20% or 50%? If the Government believe that a change is needed, surely a change should be in the Bill and the rationale should be available to all stakeholders, including this House. If the Government are not prepared to provide that rationale, surely we are entitled to suspect that it has not been thought through.

How will employers respond to these changes? What of the small businesses, the charities, the start-ups, the growing firms that have never had to deal with trade union recognition processes before? They are not anti-trade

union. They are simply unprepared, yet under these proposals they may soon be required to accommodate access, to facilitate recognition and to engage in statutory processes for which they have no guidance, no support and no warning. These employers are being thrown into an environment of legal uncertainty, an environment shaped not by consultation or consensus but by expediency. It is also abundantly clear that the Government have shown little interest in listening when they have, in the past, consulted.

On those parts of the Bill where consultation has occurred, however limited, the views of employers and professionals have largely been ignored. We are hearing consistently that business voices are being drowned out and that legitimate concerns about workability, proportionality and unintended consequences are being brushed aside. What then is the purpose of consultation, if it is treated as a procedural formality rather than a genuine dialogue?

Let me repeat again for emphasis: on trade union recognition itself, there has been no consultation. It was confirmed in the other place. To move forward with such a major change in industrial relations law without even the courtesy of asking stakeholders their views is frankly an abdication of responsible governance.

I do not stand here as someone hostile to trade unions: far from it. I recognise their historic role and their ongoing contributions to workplace fairness and safety. But fairness has to go both ways. Changes of this scale must be fair, transparent and built on consensus, not stealthily inserted into a Bill and then pushed forward by ministerial decree. That is why the amendment matters. It seeks only to do what the Government should have done in the first place. It seeks to restore process and balance where neither is currently present. I urge your Lordships to support it, not out of ideology or political interest but out of principle, out of a shared commitment to deliberative democracy and out of basic respect for all those who will live and work under the laws we make in the House. I beg to move.