Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and of course I welcome the new team to the Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, will recall that we had pretty much the same debate in 2016, albeit that we were facing in different directions. The noble Lord, Lord Burns, referenced the debate on 23 July, which was day 4 of Report, about disclosure of payments made from a political fund. This is key, because if union members are going to have, in effect, an opt-in/opt-out arrangement changed, they need to know what the political fund is used for. When I pushed the Government on it, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said: “My understanding is that the political funds will be required to continue to spell out how they are spending the money, but not for sums under £2,000”. I challenged her, and said: “I am sure the Minister would not like to have on record something that does not seem to be correct. I think she means that amounts under £2,000 need not be disclosed”.—[Official Report, 23/7/25; col. 281.] The noble Baroness ignored my comment, and we carried on to a vote on whether payments made by the political fund should be disclosed to the certification officer and members of the union in respect of their own money, as has previously been the case. On 29 August, over a month later, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wrote to me with what was described as a corrections letter, which, while lacking in my opinion an appropriate apology, confirmed my assertion that this Bill removes the duty of unions to disclose the detail of expenditure from their members or anyone else. Accordingly, it allows the union bosses to spend their members’ money from the political fund exactly how they like, with no one able to see where the money is spent. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, just said that political funds are controlled by their members; he then said that those funds are accountable to members. I take issue with that. My concern is that the vote on this issue took place on the basis of information and assurances given to your Lordships’ House at the Dispatch Box which the then Minister—not the current Minister, I emphasise—has now admitted were factually incorrect. It may well have swayed some noble Peers. This seems a very unsatisfactory situation, as it allows a vote to have taken place on incorrect information and assurances. In the end, my amendment was defeated by 18 votes out of 360 Peers’ votes cast. I ask the Minister to explain this situation from the Dispatch Box so that we have a clear record of what has happened and so that legislation may be revisited at a later date. I ask noble Peers to bear this in mind when considering whether to support the noble Lord, Lord Burns.