Speeches by Madders.

“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. As always, I will start by referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Following the reference to illumination, I hope to shed light on the advantages of a fair work agency. We have heard a fair amount of criticism from the Opposition…”

“The shadow Minister was quite right to refer back to our earlier debate on flexible working. Today, he certainly is the man with the golden pun, but this set of rules is slightly different: it still allows the intelligence services to be dealt with, whereas I think his proposal would have excluded the intelligence serv…”

“I am sure if we had a Division on that, there would be some interesting comments. It can be difficult to keep up, but your understanding of the current grouping, Sir Christopher, is as mine, which is always an encouraging start. Turning to clause 79, all the existing employment rights enforcement bodies have powers to …”

“I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but this is about how we intend to deal with industrial relations and the workplace in future—the tripartite arrangement, where we get everyone in the room, so they can agree or put different points of view. As has been demonstrated successfully by the Low Pay Commission, that r…”

“The shadow Minister is of course right—we do need to get this right and engage with businesses and trade unions about the detail. That is what we intend to do. Question put and agreed to. Clause 46, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 47 Conditions for trade union recognition Question prop…”

“Those are of course two entirely separate requirements. At the moment, trade union members can choose to opt out of contributing to the political fund at any time. Clause 48 sets out clearly how they can do that by post, email or other electronic means. As my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles so eloquently …”

“The shadow Minister talks about this being a rule that applies to every other section of society. Is he saying that the principle should apply to every membership organisation, be it the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Royal National Lifeboat Institut…”

“rose—”

“I am not sure that we need to know about the shadow Minister’s memberships. I have two points: there is not legislation requiring this, and when trade unions raise subscriptions they will send a similarly worded letter out. The analogy the shadow Minister has drawn already takes place.”

“There is.”

“The clause is relatively simple in that it seeks to repeal section 15 of the Trade Union Act 2016 by amending the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to remove section 116B. Section 15 of the 2016 Act required trade unions to pay public sector employers where they administered payroll deductions f…”

“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I wish you a happy new year. As always, I will start by referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I shall attempt to navigate this mega-grouping of clauses, amendments and new clauses. Clause 50 will amend section 168 of the Trade U…”

“I will respond briefly to some of the points that have been made. I was asked why we need to put equality representatives on statutory footing. I think the hon. Member for Torbay gave just one example of the ongoing issues of discrimination in many workplaces up and down the country but, of course, this Bill also seeks…”

“I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point but I refer him to the impact assessment, which sets out the cost of these individual measures and their cumulative impact. For facility time, the amount is very small indeed. It has been green-rated by the Regulatory Policy Committee, and studies by the predecessor Department of…”

“Clause 46 formally provides trade unions with the right of access to workplaces where an access agreement is reached between a trade union and an employer following negotiation. This will make it easier for union representatives to recruit and organise and potentially secure a collective bargaining agreement with an em…”

“The shadow Minister tempts me to set out the kind of detail that I really cannot supply at this stage. Clearly, a consultation document will ask a series of fairly broad questions. Given that we will deal with pretty much every workplace in the country, the consultation will cover a range of different set-ups, business…”

“I acknowledge the points made by the shadow Minister, but of course, as he has already anticipated, my response is that all of that will be determined in secondary legislation following a consultation. That is the right approach. The sort of detailed questions he is rightly posing are best dealt with in secondary legis…”

“Proposed new section 70ZF(4)(a) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 allows the Secretary of State to prescribe circumstances in which it would be reasonable for the Central Arbitration Committee to determine that a trade union is not to have access to a workplace. Amendment 80 is a minor te…”

“I beg to move amendment 80, in clause 46, page 54, line 11, leave out from “circumstances” to “a determination” in line 13 and insert— “in which it is to be regarded as reasonable for the Central Arbitration Committee to make”. This amendment would clarify that, if circumstances are specified under subsection (4)(a), t…”

“The clause makes amendments to the statutory trade unions recognition process, which is administered by the Central Arbitration Committee. Hon. Members will possibly not all be aware of the current statutory recognition process, so I will just take a moment to detail that. Where an employer refuses to recognise a trade…”