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Mr. Djanogly: I am not entirely sure that, in the course of our helpful discussion, the Minister got round to explaining the security arrangements for the CAC or the person who deals with the information.
Mr. Sutcliffe: I will do that in writing, and circulate it to all Committee members.
Mr. Bellingham: I have a couple of points to put to the Minister. The debate has been useful, and it has flagged up some important issues, to which the Committee was right to devote time. We are not talking about removing the right of any individual to be properly considered, or the rights of the trade union or the CAC to obtain details about a person and to find out whether he wants to participate in a ballot. All that we are talking about is protecting the person's home address. What happens if a particular employee does not want his home address to be revealed? He might not be in a company that is in a controversial field. It could be that he just does not want his home address to be revealed to anybody. Can that person be protected?
Mr. Sutcliffe: I will double-check, but I think that the individual has to provide information about his name and address to the employer. These are issues relating to employer's insurance and other matters affecting the employee's rights. I will check on them and come back to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Bellingham: The point is that some employees might want to insist that their address for all communications be that of the business. I can think of many reasons why they would not want their home address to be revealed if they have specifically requested it. For example, they may be under the witness protection scheme, or trying to escape the clutches of the Child Support Agency. However, it is important that their rights are respected if the individual has specifically requested it.
The Chairman: Order. There will be an opportunity to go into the matter in more detail in respect of clause 5. I have allowed the debate on the security element of the proposal to be stretched because it is important and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take that into account.
Mr. Bellingham: I will take it into account, Mr. Stevenson. In the light of our discussion and of some of the Minister's comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
<<26>>Clause 5
Union communications with workers after acceptance of application
Mr. Bellingham: I beg to move amendment No. 18, in
clause 5, page 5, line 24, at end insert—
'(9) The CAC must at all times keep a list of persons considered to be suitable independent persons, which it must make available to employers, relevant workers and unions immediately on an application under sub-paragraph (2).'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 19, in
clause 5, page 5, line 24, at end insert—
'(10) Unions, the employer and relevant workers shall have the right to veto the decision of the CAC following the appointment of the CAC of a suitable independent person. In this event, the CAC must appoint an alternative person as soon as reasonably possible.'.
Mr. Bellingham: We are making very good progress under your chairmanship, Mr. Stevenson, which is extremely encouraging. We are racing ahead.
Clause 5 is a long clause about union communications with workers after the acceptance of the application. The amendments would add new subsections (9) and (10) to the clause. More detail is needed about who the independent persons are. I am not an expert, unlike some members of the Committee who know a lot about how these procedures work, but I do not have a real feel about the sort of people who have applied to go on the informal panel, or about the performance that has so far been achieved. The Minister said that there was an 80 per cent. satisfaction rate, but it was on a small poll of interested parties.
It would be helpful if the Minister told us who these suitable independent persons are. Is there a long waiting list to go on the panel? Is there a ready supply of such people? What sort of people are they? Are they academics, business men, retired trade unionists, ex-Conservative councillors or ex-Labour councillors? How does one get on the list? Does one have to be approved as an expert in labour relations? It would be useful to have more details. The Minister could enlighten us further on these matters. Amendment No. 18 is sensible and fair.
Mr. Sutcliffe: I shall read out a list of the appropriate independent persons. They are the Association of Electoral Administrators, Election.com Ltd, Electoral Reform (Ballot Services) Ltd, which ran the 2001 Conservative leadership election, the Involvement and Participation Association, Popularis Ltd and Twenty-First Century Press Ltd.
Mr. Bellingham: Presumably, we are talking about members of those particular groups. It would therefore be useful to know how many people there are to choose from. However splendid those people might be, it is possible that the employer, the relevant union or the employees might not be happy with the individual in question. If that were the case, it would be fair for the CAC to accept their opinion and to appoint someone different.
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The amendment would give complete parity. It is constructive, pragmatic and fair. It does not detract from subsection (1) and the subsections related to it, but would add two extra subsections that made the appointment procedure much fairer. I doubt that the provision will be used, except in extreme circumstances. However, in some cases, there might be controversy surrounding an individual and, if so, why should not unions, employees or employers be able to object?
On subsection (9), we ask that the CAC should at all times provide a list of persons considered to be suitable and make that list available to all concerned. The Minister might say that that list is available anyway, but the amendment would ensure that that was the case.
Mr. Djanogly: Amendment No. 18 is important not only because it would provide that a list of independent persons should be kept, but because it implies that there should be transparency in the CAC, so that confidence in it is maintained. The list of such people, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk made clear, should be available not only to employers, but to unions and relevant workers. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister how the Secretary of State selects the pool of suitable independent persons, and about the controls that are exercised over who does the job. There is an important personal element in selecting a suitable person for a particular case.
Amendment No. 19 would extend the provision by giving the unions, the company and relevant workers the option to veto the appointment of a particular individual as a suitable independent person. I am sure that, in the vast majority of cases, the person selected will be suitable. However, there may be some situations in which one of the parties concerned objects to the appointment of a particular person. It might be that that person has a history in the particular sector that is not liked by one of the parties, or that they are thought to have some conflicts of interest in the case in question. Therefore, we feel that there should be the possibility of a veto. In such a situation, the CAC should appoint an alternative person as soon as reasonably possible. The amendments are straightforward and practical and should be acceptable to all parties involved in the process.
Mr. Sutcliffe: I shall respond to amendments Nos. 18 and 19 together, because they both concern clause 5, which will give the union the right to communicate at an earlier stage with the relevant workers—the workers in a proposed or agreed bargaining unit. The union will be able to communicate with those workers from the point at which the CAC accepts its application. The statutory procedure already provides for unions to access the relevant work force during the ballot period. Access can take two forms. First, the unions' written material can be sent to the work force
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by an independent person appointed by the CAC. Secondly, the unions are entitled to arrange workplace meetings.
By and large, those arrangements have worked satisfactorily. There have been few disputes about arranging such access, and businesses have not been disrupted as a result. The work force know more about the union's position, and are better placed as a result to make an informed decision when casting their votes.
Of course, that access is limited to the short period of the ballot—usually about 20 days. It is also late in the process. On average, ballots occur about four or more months after an application has been lodged with the CAC. The unions have argued that they should be entitled to some form of access at an earlier stage in the process. They point out that employers have unfettered access throughout the life of an application, and have many more weeks to put across their arguments.
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The Government see the force of those arguments. Clause 5 therefore provides arrangements to ensure earlier access for the union. That access will start at the point when the CAC accepts a union's application as admissible. That is a sensible point at which to require access. Everyone will then know that the union's application is a runner and meets the basic criteria of the procedure. It will entail the sending of written material to workers' home addresses via an independent person.
It seems that Opposition Members are concerned about who those independent people might be. I gave them a list of appropriate companies and bodies. They are selected by public competition and are assessed on a variety of criteria, including their internal security systems and confidentiality procedures, to ensure that they are fit to undertake those tasks. They have to go through a rigorous process to be appointed.
I want to clarify an issue raised by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk about the withdrawal of home addresses. I would not accept anyone having the right to withdraw their home address to try to escape from the Child Support Agency. It is vital that people honour their obligations. He chose a bad example, and I am sure that he will withdraw it. However, the question is whether it is reasonable for individuals to withhold home addresses. The CAC can have a view on that and, if a reasonable explanation is given, it can consider it.
Amendment No. 18 seeks to ensure that the CAC makes available to the employer, the union and the relevant workers a list of those persons or organisations qualified to act as independent persons for those purposes. I am sure that the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk will be pleased to be able to refer to the list. It includes the company that dealt with the Conservative leadership election in 2001—Electoral Reform (Ballot Services) Ltd.
During the ballot stage, a qualified independent person is appointed to conduct the ballot and to send written communications on behalf of the union to the workers in the bargaining unit. The Recognition and Derecognition Ballots (Qualified Persons) Order 2000,
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statutory instrument 2000/1306, which was amended by SI 2002/2268, sets out the conditions that must be satisfied by an individual or a partnership in order to be a qualified independent person. Further, it names six professional balloting organisations as qualified independent persons. That information is obviously publicly available, and the organisations listed underwent a rigorous selection process for inclusion on that list. I hope that my explanation satisfies the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk about the quality and competence of those people.
Amendment No. 19 seeks to allow any of the parties a right of veto over the appointment of a particular independent person. Such an addition, I believe, is unnecessary. As I mentioned earlier, the independent persons are all professional balloting organisations with track records—in many cases, long ones—in conducting and scrutinising a range of ballots and elections. Those organisations take their independence extremely seriously. It is vital for their professional reputation that they are perceived to be impartial in the conduct of their functions.
Qualified independent persons have been sending written material on behalf of the union since the statutory procedure began in June 2000. 1 am not aware of any complaints about their handling of such communications. Of course, if any improprieties were ever to come to our attention, we would act swiftly to investigate and, if necessary, amend the order to which I referred to remove a person from the list. Indeed, the law states that, in order for someone to be an independent person, there must be no grounds for believing that that person's independence could be reasonably called into question.
Amendment No. 19 is therefore unnecessary. It is also undesirable. A right for any party to veto the appointment of a suitable independent person would introduce unwanted delay to the process. Indeed, an unscrupulous employer or union could, under the amendment as drafted, string out the process by simply vetoing the CAC's appointments repeatedly.
Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 are not necessary. Moreover, amendment No. 19 could be harmful by introducing delay. I hope that, in the light of that explanation, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
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