QC scales down review of law on industrial disputes over "politicised environment"

The QC appointed by the Government in April to lead a review of the law governing industrial disputes is to produce a significantly scaled-down report, amid concerns about the “progressively politicised environment” in the run-up to next year’s election.

The terms of reference for the review led by Bruce Carr QC of Devereux Chambers were originally to provide an assessment of the:

• “alleged use of extreme tactics in industrial disputes, including so-called ‘leverage’ tactics; and
• the effectiveness of the existing legal framework to prevent inappropriate or intimidatory actions in trade disputes.”

The review had been expected to make proposals and recommendations for change, reporting back to the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

However, in a statement put out on the review’s website today (5 August), Carr said he had “become increasingly concerned about the quantity and breadth of evidence that the review has been able to obtain from both employers and trade unions relevant to its terms of reference”.

The QC added that he was “also concerned about the ability of the Review to operate in a progressively politicised environment in the run up to the general election and in circumstances in which the main parties will wish to legitimately set out their respective manifesto commitments and have already started to do so”.

He continued: “Operating in such an environment is also likely to impact on the ability of the Review to obtain evidence in addition to that which it has already received.

“That being so, I have reached the conclusion that it will simply not be possible for the Review to put together a substantial enough body of evidence from which to provide a sound basis for making recommendations for change and therefore to deliver fully against its terms of reference.

“Any recommendations which might be put forward without the necessary factual underpinning would be capable of being construed as the Review making a political rather than an evidence based judgment, whichever direction such recommendations might take.”

Carr said he had agreed with Business Secretary Vince Cable and the Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude that the review would instead produce a scaled-down report “which reflects on the process of attempting to obtain evidence and which sets out the story as best we are able to tell it from the limited evidence which we have gathered, but will not make recommendations for change”.

The QC said he still intended to produce this curtailed report by early Autumn.