My hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point on the privacy issue. It seems that those on the Government Benches might somehow be surprised to learn that there are still employers who do not welcome trade union membership or activity among their employees, and they would be delighted to have these records at hand. As we have heard, the Conservatives will not reveal how many members they have.
These proposals will mean significant additional bureaucracy for unions. We have heard about the costs of that, and they will escalate considerably for an organisation with 1 million or more members. The Government’s intentions are transparent. As we have heard from Government Members, they want to tie the hands of the trade unions. They want to put a ball and chain around the train unions’ ankles and to hamper their activities. This comes from a Government who said they wanted to cut red tape, and yet here they are imposing it on others.
I have not heard any general objection from the TUC to unions being able to provide regular membership figures to the certification officer. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who has now left the Chamber, suggested that the certification officer is toothless, when it has been some six years since he visited the certification officer and he was unable to give any idea as to how many times the certification officer had been challenged for lack of action or for being toothless. After all, we know that the trade unions supply membership lists to ACAS, especially when triggering recognition of a ballot in the workplace. I have often found out that the reluctance to hand over accurate lists comes from the employers; they have refused to supply ACAS with lists of their employees to match things up with the trade unions so that they could verify that they indeed had the membership numbers to trigger a ballot. Trade unions have never held back their membership lists; they are happy to give them over, but only if they have privacy for their members and the assurance that the lists will not be handed over. ACAS, of course, gives them that assurance.
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These changes will affect the 149 trade unions, of which, as we know, only about 16 are affiliated to the Labour party. The changes are clearly uncalled for and, as I have said, they are designed to hamper the unions and tie them up with red tape, which the Government have consistently said they want to get rid of. They came into power saying that they would eliminate as much red tape as possible.
The Government are not using the Bill to tackle the real problems of lobbying. Just about every member of the British public is asking what problem this part of the Bill is designed to tackle, and Labour Members have repeatedly asked that question. We are unable to discern the problem that this part is meant to remedy in its entirety. As we have heard, unions already have a statutory duty to maintain a register of members’ names and addresses so far as is reasonably practicable. Many members move house or pass away. The lists are as accurate as membership lists can be, as the trade unions do update them. No membership organisation of any size can ever have a perfect membership list, as such a list will contain errors. It is up to the individual members to make the union aware of changes. How often have we not passed on a change of address, getting around to doing so only later?