Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)

My Lords, Amendment 215ZA is in my name and seeks to insert a new clause following Clause 56. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult relevant stakeholders, including representatives of both employers and trade unions, on the use of digital communication methods as part of trade union access agreements under Clause 56. Furthermore, it would require that the outcome of that consultation be published and that the provisions of Clause 56 may not come into force until that has happened. Let me say at the outset that this is a moderate, practical and entirely necessary amendment. It does not challenge the principle of union access. It does not frustrate the core intent of the legislation. What it does is inject a degree of transparency, rigour and, crucially, consent into a provision that, as it stands, risks doing significant unintended harm to employers and employees alike. I refer to the remarks made last week by the noble Lord, Lord Katz, during Committee. I thought they were illuminating and, frankly, somewhat concerning. The noble Lord assured us that the Government intend to consult further on the digital provisions. But here is the critical point: the legislation as currently drafted allows Clause 56 to come into force before that consultation has occurred and before any regulations are laid. In effect, this Committee is being asked to pass a framework of legal obligations that have real-word consequences for access to workplaces and digital systems without knowing the rules that will underpin them. This is legislation in reverse, because it enables powers first and critical definitions and safeguards later. Let us take the words of the noble Lord, Lord Katz, directly. He said that “the precise details of how this will work in practice will be set out in secondary legislation following further consultation”. But secondary legislation, as we have discussed many times over the course of this Bill and others that this Government are putting through, is not subject to the same scrutiny as primary legislation. It is not amendable. It can be laid quietly and approved via negative procedures. That is why we must build the consultation obligation directly into the primary legislation. Without it, we risk leaving employers, particularly small and medium-sized employers, exposed to obligations they neither understand nor have had the opportunity to influence. The noble Lord acknowledged that digital access was not included in the original drafting of the Bill and so was not debated during the Commons Committee stage. It was inserted at a late stage in the legislative process. When pressed on this by my noble friend Lady Coffey last week, the noble Lord could offer no justification for the timing or the rationale behind that late change. Instead, we were told that “in 2025, the idea that access to a workforce would not include digital channels is, frankly, fanciful”.—[Official Report, 5/6/25; cols. 984 and 985.] Again, those were the noble Lord’s words. That may well be the case, but policy made on assumptions and generalities is not good policy. What exactly will “digital access” mean in practice? Will unions be allowed to email employees directly? Will they be granted access to internal mailing lists? What about secure internal platforms or workplace intranets? Will employers be compelled to share employee contact details or act as intermediaries in the distribution of union materials? What safeguards will exist to protect commercially sensitive information, particularly in small firms that operate on a single device or a shared system? My noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley also raised a very pertinent point last week. He said: “The Government are asking the House of Lords tonight to pass legislation that will allow a third person the right to access an employee’s computer … without any controls, references or parameters”.—[Official Report, 5/6/25; cols. 984-85.] That is not mere rhetoric but a credible reading of the Bill in its current form. If that is not the Government’s intent, we need clarity in law, not just reassurance from the Dispatch Box. The noble Lord, Lord Katz, tried to deflect concerns by pointing to data protection legislation, but as many in this Committee know only too well, data protection laws regulate the use of personal data; they do not in themselves govern the parameters of access rights under trade union law. Nor do they address the central concern here: that employees and unions need agreed, defined rules of engagement for digital contact in the context of access rights. Indeed, the Government’s apparent position is that all this can be worked out later. That is simply not acceptable. When legislation interferes with the operation of businesses, the integrity of secure systems and the balance of power between employers and unions, it is not enough to say, “Trust us to sort it out in regulations”. Let me also address the claim that consultation will happen eventually. Of course we welcome that promise, but good process means consulting before rules take effect, not after. It means asking those affected what is reasonable before forcing them to comply, and that is all this amendment does. It would require the Secretary of State to consult relevant stakeholders, including trade unions and employers; that the outcome of that consultation be published in the interests of transparency and trust; and that the relevant part of the legislation, Clause 56, cannot come into force until that is done. That would give everyone fair notice. It would ensure meaningful engagement and prevent the scenario we are currently hurtling towards: a system through which access rights could be imposed by the Central Arbitration Committee, including digital access, without any shared understanding of what that entails. Access must be delivered in a way that is workable, proportionate and appropriate in each workplace context. In many modern workplaces, digital contact is indeed the most effective route, but in some environments, especially among some SMEs, it also represents a point of vulnerability both for the operations and for data security. I beg to move.