Member

My amendment today is a further attempt at meeting the Government by acknowledging that they are committed, at this stage, to returning to the opt-out model that will favour more members paying in a political contribution. However, I am seeking to minimise the barriers to members opting out by requiring that they be able to do so, if they so choose, by ticking a box on the application form they complete when they join a union. I stumbled across this proposal following an examination of the application forms of some unions. Under the existing post-2016 arrangement, trade unions with political funds have been very happy to allow new members to opt in on the application form to contributing to the political fund. They clearly feel that this helps to reduce the impact of the default option. The Government insist that they want to make it as easy as possible for members to exercise the right to opt out under their new proposal, but they will not go this far.