My Lords, I thank the Minister for the clarity of his introduction and express my intense pleasure at being listed to speak between two of my judicial heroes—the noble and learned Lords, Lord Mackay and Lord Brown.
For a long time, the police federations and other unions have been pressing the case that many of their members will suffer pension detriment by reason of some of the proposals found in this Bill. Previous speakers, in particular my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton, have spoken of some of the unresolved issues, but the point to which I wish to draw the attention of the House is the failure of government to negotiate—or at least to consult with a view to reaching agreement—with the relevant police federations to remove or adequately compensate for the further detriments arising from the Bill.
The Police Superintendents’ Association has been making representations to the relevant Treasury Minister —not the noble Lord, of course—for months. I am told that it has been, in effect, stonewalled. In a letter to the relevant Minister dated a week ago, Chief Superintendent Dan Murphy of the PSA asked for confirmation that the Minister had ignored the PSA’s continuous request for the Government to informally engage with the PSA to resolve the taxation detriment suffered by its members and to formally consult with the PSA to resolve taxation detriment, and listed a number of other failures. He concluded by saying that the Police Pension Scheme advisory board was not satisfying the requirements for full and meaningful consultation, and cited some evidence to support that.
I do not wish to contest the merits of these allegations with the Minister, but they are serious. Pensions are not a matter for unilateral employer determination. International obligations to bargain collectively and to consult are engaged. I cite Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights as interpreted by the court in Demir and Baykara v Turkey. The same right is found in Convention 8 of the International Labour Organization, and Article 6.2 of the European Social Charter 1961 imposes on states the duty
“to promote, where necessary and appropriate, machinery for voluntary negotiations between employers or employers’ organisations and workers’ organisations, with a view to the regulation of terms and conditions of employment by means of collective agreements”.
Article 6.1 requires the promotion of consultation as well.
The UK has ratified all these provisions. It is true that each contains an exemption in respect of workers, such as the police, engaged in the administration of the state, but that is a limited exemption and does not extend to the right to bargain collectively. That was made clear in a judgment of the European Committee of Social Rights adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 8 October 2014, in a case called European Confederation of Police v Ireland, which held that the Irish police association could not be excluded from public sector pay bargaining. In fact, collective bargaining and consultation are rights of particular importance for our police, who are prohibited by the Police Act 1964 from joining trade unions or going on strike, and whose freedom of association is limited to the police federations established by statute.
I am sure it will not be said that pensions are not pay and not, therefore, susceptible to collective bargaining. Pensions are of course merely deferred wages—part of what lawyers call the “consideration for work done”. They are a classic focus for bargaining. The international provisions that I refer to are of particular relevance because, by Article 399(5) of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement—the Brexit deal—the Government bound the UK as follows:
“Each Party commits to implementing all the ILO Conventions that the United Kingdom and the Member States have respectively ratified and the different provisions of the European Social Charter that, as members of the Council of Europe, the Member States and the United Kingdom have respectively accepted.”
I hope the Minister will commit to an amendment that requires full collective bargaining with the police
federations to meet the pension concerns of their members, before committing the House to regulations to implement the Bill.
7.24 pm