Inside The Lords: press freedom, workers' rights and a much-needed break

Claire Fox signs off for the summer from parliament - but politics continues in the real world.

At last it’s the end of term inside the Lords - to say that there’s a bad atmosphere in parliament is the understatement of the year. It’s really dawned on me in the last week how large the gap is between the discussions in the palaces of Westminster versus what’s happening outside in the real world. This was exemplified by a question on hotels in use by asylum seekers in Epping and other parts of the country. I didn’t intend to speak as it was just a 10-minute discussion, but I couldn’t believe that I had sat through a range of contributions from all political parties, all keen to praise the police and denounce malign misinformation, yet nobody mentioned the concerns of local people. Right at the end I managed to sneak in a question, and judging by the minister’s response I’d upset the applecart.

Earlier in the week there was a very interesting debate on newspaper ownership. Last year the House of Lords passed a motion preventing foreign states from owning any more than a 5-per-cent stake in British newspapers (this was in relation to the Middle Eastern interest in buying The Telegraph and the Spectator). At the time, this was passed unanimously across the House, but since then there seems to have been pressure put on the Labour government to water down the law, arguing that because newspapers can’t attract domestic investment the law was too rigid. Regardless of one’s views on the substantive issue, behind the scenes, the Labour government has implemented a statutory instrument - unaccountable by the way - in secret, in response to a ‘consultation’ to change this new status quo. This is incredibly undemocratic and led to some fiery and passionate speeches in defence of press freedom and against executive power being wielded in secret. But, yet again, no-one mentioned an obvious elephant in the room: the contemporary scandal of press freedom and secret cover-ups, namely the super injunction placed on the Afghanistan list leak. There seems to be cross-party consensus not to mention this embarrassment – it’s been quietly forgotten. So, again, I got up and made sure it was noted.

In contrast, a debate on free speech organised by Lord Lebedev was enjoyable to take part in - it was refreshing to discuss free speech without being tut tutted at.

We have just finished the report stage of the Employment Rights Bill, which has its own free-speech controversy in the so-called ‘banter ban’ - employers could be taken to tribunal if their employees took issue with, for example, some jokes made by punters in one of their bars. I agree with about a quarter of the Bill, which does contain some proper substance of protection for workers. But the rest benefits trade-union bosses and trade-union bosses only. For example, union bureaucrats in the Lords absolutely opposed a very modest proposal to allow workers to bring a supporter along to a disciplinary hearing - a carer or a family friend etc - meaning that many workers will have to face these alone, as fellow employees might be too scared of their own disciplinary hearings. Just think of cases like Sandi Peggie…

We had a very long row about trade union political funds, where I asked whether unions at least should have to try to convince members to sign up, rather than automatically deducting money? What if political funds end up being more about EDI priorities than workers rights?

On top of all of this, the government has afforded itself a new power - giving the Secretary of State the ability to take an employer to a tribunal, even if the employee doesn’t want to proceed. The state will now be able to act on behalf of workers without their consent. Even the Law Society has queried why this extraordinary power-grab was needed, especially when employment tribunals are already creaking under the weight of a huge backlog. So why would the government add to the waiting list? After I spoke, the Lib Dems let it slip that they had been in talks with the government and now understood this clause was all about acting on behalf of vulnerable employees who especially needed the state to step in for them. The examples they used of vulnerability were predominantly migrant workers and those who don’t speak English. Apart from anything else , it seems overly paternalistic and insulting to overwrite the autonomy of these groups. And, as none are mentioned in legislation, it is also outrageous that any problems faced by vulnerable workers are being weaponised to allow the state to usurp all workers’ freedom to say no to, for example, lawfare - and give power to the state to decide what’s in workers’ best interests. Sadly, they used the rule book to stop me asking these questions.

The Labour government are unpopular in the country, the Conservatives are in decline and no one seems to care, the Lib Dems are cosying up to the government and there is a general atmosphere that, because there’s little power to be found outside the chamber, Labour are resorting to exerting control by an overzealous technocratic wielding of rules, time limits and procedure - all to curtail parliamentary scrutiny. This is very dangerous for democracy. I can’t tell you how delighted I am to be escaping this place for the summer - and to get stuck in to working with the team at the Academy of Ideas on this year’s Battle of Ideas festival. Unlike in the palaces of Westminster, our debates aren’t afraid of what the public wants to discuss.

Elsewhere this week I was on Politics Live, on the BMA strike, whether we should recognise Palestine and the migration crisis - and on Newsnight, which my review of the week was limited to only a short debate on the Asylum Hotel issue (so just a few clips below). The real world doesn’t go on recess, even if the Lords does, so get your tickets to the Battle of Ideas festival and I’ll see you in a few weeks.