Derek McDowell (Labour)

I move amendment No. 32:

In page 8, before section 8, to insert the following new section:

8.—(1) An agreement establishing information and consultation may be negotiated by the employer and the employee representatives (to be known and in this Act referred to as a 'negotiated agreement').

(2) A negotiated agreement shall be—

(a) in writing and dated,

(b) signed by the employer,

(c) approved by the employees,

(d) applicable to all employees, and

(e) available for inspection by those persons and at the place agreed between the parties.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(c), the agreement shall be regarded as having been approved by the employees where a majority of those employees employed in the undertaking who cast a preference do so in favour of the terms of the agreement.

(4) The employer shall ensure that the procedure for the casting of a preference referred to in subsection (3) is confidential and capable of independent verification and of being used by all employees.

(5) A negotiated agreement shall include reference to the following matters—

(a) the duration of the agreement and the procedure, if any, for its renegotiation,

(b) the subjects for information and consultation,

(c) the method and timeframe by which information is to be provided,

(d) the method and timeframe by which consultation is to be conducted, and

(e) the procedure for dealing with confidential information.

(6) At any time before a negotiated agreement expires or within 6 months after its expiry, the parties to the agreement may renew it for any further period they think fit.

(7) If no new negotiated agreement is made by the parties then the Standard Rules set out in Schedule 1 of this Act will apply.

(8) A negotiated agreement renewed under subsection (6) within the period of 6 months referred to in that subsection shall be deemed to have remained in force from the date it would otherwise have expired.".

Amendment No. 32, in effect, repeats section 8 except it leaves out a couple of subsections on which I could perhaps elaborate. The section deals with pre-existing arrangements and how they are to be confirmed. This amendment specifically seeks to provide that where a pre-existing arrangement is not endorsed or, effectively, expires, we revert to the standard rules as provided for in the Schedule. This section as it stands is silent as to what happens in circumstances where a pre-existing arrangement ceases to apply. Rather than allowing, or providing for, a hiatus in such circumstances, we thought it would be useful to provide that the standard rules in the Schedule would come into play.

Perhaps more important is how pre-existing arrangements are endorsed. We touched on this earlier when the Minister of State said they had to be approved by a majority. There is provision in the section for pre-existing arrangements to be endorsed by a majority, as we would wish. It is a basic principle of democracy and of the Bill that if a mechanism is in place in a particular workplace, it should have the support of the employees. Our amendment relies solely on that particular mechanism for endorsing pre-existing arrangements.

We are unhappy about the other two provisions in the Bill as it stands, namely, that a majority of employee representatives should be allowed to endorse the arrangement or that any other procedure agreed to by the parties for determining whether this agreement has been so approved discloses that it has been so approved. I do not know what section 8(3)(c) means. It clearly seems to envisage that there is some other mechanism whereby an agreement can be approved which is not a plebiscite and is not by a majority of representatives, but I would like clarity from the Minister of State as to exactly what it means. The basic principle we seek to establish in our re-draft of section 8 is that any pre-existing arrangement should be put to a ballot of the workforce before it is endorsed.