INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (No.2) (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976

HL Deb 09 December 1976 vol 378 cc685-91

3.26 p.m.

The MINISTER of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Melchett) rose to move, That the draft Industrial Relations (No.2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 9th November, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, when discussing the Industrial Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 earlier this year, my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge explained that it was the Government's policy that workers in Northern Ireland should enjoy the same rights under the law as had been afforded workers in Great Britain under the Trade Union and Labour Relations Acts and the Employment Protection Act. My noble friend informed the House that while some of those rights were dealt with by that order, the remainder would be catered for in subsequent legislation which was being urgently prepared. That further legislation is contained in the draft order which is now before the House.

The order closely follows the similar provisions which are contained in the Employment Protection Act, and for that reason I hope your Lordships will allow me to deal with the various articles reasonably briefly. Articles 3 to 8 introduce a system of guarantee payments. Under these provisions an employee will be paid a normal remuneration—up to a limit of £6 per day—for any complete working day when the employer does not provide the employee with work to do. The provisions also limit the number of days which attract payment to five in any one quarter, beginning on 1st February, 1st May, 1st August and 1st November.

Articles 9 to 13 afford statutory protection to employees who are suspended from work on medical grounds. Under the terms of these articles, if employees, who are otherwise capable of work, have to be suspended from work because of the provisions listed in Schedule 1, they will be entitled to their normal remuneration from the employer during their suspension, up to a limit of six months. Articles 14 to 32 establish three new statutory rights for pregnant employees: First, dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy will, with certain expectations, be treated as "unfair dismissal" for the purposes of the No.1 Order; secondly, the right to payment during confinement; and, thirdly, subject to certain conditions, the right to return to work after confinement.

I propose to detail only the provisions concerning maternity pay, which are contained in Articles 15 to 17. These articles confer on a pregnant employee the right to be paid remuneration during her period of absence from work due to pregnancy. In general terms, this will amount to nine-tenths of her normal week's pay less the amount of standard rate of National Insurance maternity allowance, which is at present £12.90 per week. Payment will be made for up to six weeks and will be subject to certain qualifying conditions which are laid down in the article. These are that the employee must have continued her employment with her employer up to the eleventh week before her week of confinement, that at that time she must have had at least two years' continuous service with her employer and she must give her employer at least three weeks' notice of intention to stop work. Although payment will be made in the first instance by the employer, the employer will be able to claim a refund from Northern Ireland Maternity Pay Fund. This Fund, which is established by Article 19, will be financed through Secondary (Employer's) Class 1 National Insurance Contributions. Employers who have paid maternity pay will be entitled to claim a full refund of that payment from the Fund. Thus, the cost of maternity pay will be shared by all employers and not just those who employ mainly female labour.

Articles 33 to 36 protect an employee against victimisation—other than dismissal—by an employer on the grounds that the employee participated in the activities of an independent trade union. If an employee suffers such victimisation, he or she has the right to seek a remedy through an industrial tribunal. Employees who are dismissed because of trade union activities are, of course, already protected by the law.

Articles 37 to 42 deal with the right to time off work for certain trade union duties and activities, public duties, and to look for work. Article 37 obliges an employer to permit an employee who is an official of an independent trade union to take reasonable time off, with pay, to carry out certain industrial relations duties. Articles 38 and 39 impose a similar obligation in respect of employees who are members of an independent trade union, or hold certain public offices, except that there is no compulsion to pay for the time off. Article 41 requires an employer to permit an employee who has at least two years' service and is under notice of dismissal because of redundancy, to take reasonable time off, with pay, either to seek work or make arrangements for training.

Article 43 supplements the insolvency provisions of the No.1 Order by treating certain payments made under both that order and this one as "wages" and thus ensures that they become priority debts in the case of insolvency. Articles 44 to 47 entitle all employees to a written, itemised pay statement which must provide certain specified details. In cases of dispute or default arising from all of the individual rights I have mentioned, the employee will be able to seek redress through industrial tribunals.

I turn now to Part III of the order, which deals with disclosure of information for collective bargaining purposes. Article 50 places a general duty on employers to disclose to representatives of an independent trade union certain information for collective bargaining purposes, and Article 51 places restrictions on the employer's general duty and describes certain types of information which the employer may withhold. Articles 52 to 54 are concerned with remedies in cases of failure to disclose information. In general terms such failure may be reported to the Department of Manpower Services which is obliged to consider conciliation action; if such action fails, or is thought to be pointless, the Department must then refer the case to the Industrial Court. The court can ultimately decide the terms and conditions which will apply to that employment.

Part IV of the order deals with various miscellaneous and supplementary provisions. I think that I should mention only two of these—Articles 55 and 60. Article 55, by amending the No.1 Order, empowers the Labour Relations Agency to issue Codes of Practice to promote the improvement of industrial relations. In addition, however, the Article obliges the Agency to include in its Codes of Practice practical guidance on disclosure of information and time off work. Such guidance will, of course, be relevant to the provisions of this order. Article 60 enables reciprocal arrangements to be made with Great Britain and mirrors a similar provision in the Employment Protection Act 1975. It thus emphasises the underlying principle behind the order which is that Northern Ireland workers shall enjoy the same employment rights as workers in Great Britain.

Of the Schedules, I would draw attention only to Schedule 3, which replaces Part I of the Terms and Conditions of Employment Act (Northern Ireland) 1963. It provides machinery whereby a claim that an employer is observing terms and conditions of employment which are less favourable than the recognised or general terms and conditions for that employment can be referred to the Department of Manpower Services for conciliation action; where this fails, the claim can be referred for ultimate decision by the Industrial Court. I think that all sides of the House would agree that workers in Northern Ireland should be no less protected under the law than their counterparts in the rest of the United Kingdom, and I therefore hope your Lordships will approve this draft order. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft Industrial Relations (No.2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, be approved.—(Lord Melchett.)

3.36 p.m.

Lord BELSTEAD

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining the terms of this order but the criticisms made in May of the No.1 Order when it went through the House are as applicable to this order as they were several months ago. The fact that we have had two substantial orders covered by major legislation as far as Great Britain is concerned—and this order and that of May cannot, of course, be amended—I believe strengthens the argument that the provisions contained in the two orders ought to have been drafted in the form of a Bill. However, that is over and done with now, but for the second time I ask the Government to take that point on board for the future.

The review body that represented both the Northern Ireland CBI and the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions was asked by the Northern Ireland Minister for Health and the Social Services of the time—this was over five years ago—to make recommendations about industrial relations in Northern Ireland to be based on voluntary, not statutory, principles, and both sides of industry on the review body agreed that that was the right thing to do.

I regret that this order, taken with the previous one, runs totally contrary to those wishes—wishes expressed by a Northern Ireland Minister and agreed by both sides of industry in Northern Ireland. My hope is that the Government can satisfy the House about some of the obvious apprehensions that arise upon the present order, even though most of the proposals are, in themselves, desirable. The point is, can they be afforded? First, as the Quigley Report on the economy of Northern Ireland, produced recently at the wish of the Government, particularly emphasised, there are the increasing costs to industry in Northern Ireland, costs which have risen faster there than they have in Great Britain. Energy is a very good example. Can it be wise to lay further obligations on employers if the Government wish to attract further investment to Northern Ireland? I ask that as a general premise.

In this respect, I should like to refer to the only Schedule to which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, referred—Schedule 3. There, in paragraph 2 (a), there is reference to bargaining about wages and conditions on the basis of comparison with other employees. The noble Lord may care to write to me about this rather than answering when he replies this afternoon, but I should like to know whether the comparison is to be with areas throughout the United Kingdom or whether it is to be a comparison with other areas within Northern Ireland. Of course it is the objective of anyone who is interested in Northern Ireland to see the wages gap between the Province and Great Britain narrowed. Indeed, this has been going on throughout the last ten years or so. But if the interpretation of this part of Schedule 3 is that the comparison to be made is one with the United Kingdom as a whole, I really must point out to the noble Lord that that will he inflationary and a threat to many jobs throughout Northern Ireland.

Turning to another part of the order, in the debate on the No.1 Order in another place, Mr. Roland Moyle said in effect that he would seek to obtain agreement between both sides of industry about the provisions for the disclosure of information, which come towards the end of the order and which would, one assumes, have been settled by agreement by both sides of industry on the review body on a voluntary basis rather than having been settled by subordinate legislation. However, when one looks at the order one finds that the provisions for disclosure of information in it appear to be absolutely identical with the provisions of the Employment Protection Act. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the consultations, which presumably is what Mr. Roland Moyle meant, were ever held, and, if they were held, what were the views put forward by the CBI and the trade unions in Northern Ireland?

Lastly, I hope that the Government have some estimate of the extra costs which the two orders taken together (if I may be allowed to bracket them together in this debate on the second order) will cause. The noble Lord in his very thorough speech made no mention at all of costs, and so far as I know his Secretary of State and his colleagues in another place have given no figures about this aspect of these two orders. I find it hard to believe that industry and commerce in Northern Ireland will be able to take on very many more substantial expenses and survive; and of all the questions which arise on this order, I believe that the question of increased costs is the most crucial.