I want to follow on from the excellent exposé by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) of the rationale for the concerns of the Opposition and others. To be frank, I thought that we had won this argument. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) has said, we had a debate on blacklisting several months ago, in which there was cross-party understanding of the vulnerability that people feel in the work force. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central has said, that vulnerability relates not only to blacklisting, but to victimisation.
I raised the issue in 1997 and in 2003. We got some legislation that was not effective and then I convened the first meeting of the Blacklist Support Group, which brought together in 2008 all those workers with blacklisting cases that they wanted to pursue. One of the breakthroughs for us was the raids undertaken by the Information Commissioner, under the Data Protection Act, that exposed the scale of blacklisting, with nearly 4,000 people on at least one list. People are anxious for us to ensure that any future legislation does not set up a system that could make them vulnerable again.
It could be argued that some of our amendments are a belt-and-braces approach, but this is about restoring confidence. The tragedy in the past—I do not mean to be hypercritical of any organisation by saying this—was that it was not just employers exchanging blacklist information. We now know that it was also coming from the police and security services and, actually, some renegade trade unionists, who passed information to employers who then went on to compile a blacklist. That is why, if we are to establish a new system that gives the certification officer a wide range of responsibilities and that appoints—in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery)—the bizarrely named
assurer and inspectors, we need to ensure that there is a belt-and-braces approach so that they are properly tasked with abiding by the duty of confidentiality. That is why our amendments are so critical.
Amendment 107 states that it is important that the assurers
“have a duty of confidentiality to the trade union”.
It is critical that the trade union has confidence that those officers have such a duty. It is also critical, as amendment 108 sets out, that when those individuals are appointed, their qualifications are known and they are qualified to do the job. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck does get the job and the wage from Len McCluskey. I am sure that he is completely qualified to do the job. There needs to be some assurance that the people who are appointed are qualified to do the job. In addition, there must be a process by which assurers can be dismissed if they breach confidentiality. That is also dealt with in the Opposition amendments, which would assure people that their concerns about the use of this information for blacklisting and victimisation are taken seriously in the Bill.
I share the concerns about line 28 on page 41, which states that the duty of confidentiality involves taking “all reasonable steps”. That is not acceptable because it is not powerful enough. Amendment 118 would replace those words with “all necessary steps”. We must ensure that any action that is taken goes beyond reasonableness; it must be necessary and effective.
Further down page 41, the circumstances are set out in which a member’s name and address are permitted to be provided. The list includes the member’s consent, but that seems to be overridden by a range of other situations in which the certification officer may provide names and addresses .