Compensation Bill [Lords]

I declare an interest as the independent chairman of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers, which has an interest in the Bill but not this part of it. The first Bill that I tried to put through the House, nearly 30 years ago, was opposed by solicitors because they said that they needed none of the regulation that I was suggesting for them. The issue involved was that of fake directories where solicitors used to write letters to frighten people into paying bills that they had no duty to pay and had not incurred. I remember the anger and opprobrium cast at me by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) and his then hon. Friend who is now in the other place, Lord Clinton-Davis, when I suggested that some solicitors might need such controls. I therefore have a long history of not being entirely enthusiastic about solicitors and their being unregulated by people outside. I agree with many of the elements of the Bill and consider it a valuable contribution in many ways. I therefore hope that it will not be taken amiss if I suggest that there is a problem in relation to trade unions that has been misunderstood by many. First, trade unions and their members, as defined in all our minds, come under a category that is already subject to regulation. We should not regulate—or try to do the same thing—twice, as that is both otiose and annoying. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) has made an important point. Some aspects of the way in which the exemption is to work do not give adequate protection to the consumer. I say to the Minister that it is important for the Government to be seen to be even-handed when dealing with trade unions. I am sure that she is trying to be so, but perception is vital in relation to that issue. If she is not to be thought to be partial, she must be seen to treat trade unions in the same way as she might treat other organisations. Without straying outside the debate, the Government ought to strive not to be seen to be swayed in a partial manner. I therefore ask her to reconsider her approach so far. We must protect even members of trade unions by ensuring that the code of practice is—at least in the limited way suggested by my hon. Friend—justiciable. If the Minister thinks that it is important to have a code of practice, it is manifestly true that it ought to be able to be enforced. To have a code of practice that cannot be enforced is merely a fig leaf and is subject to the likelihood that people outside here will feel that the Government are being partial. Secondly, I thought that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) put the argument clearly, and the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) was a bit hard when he said that he went on. Actually, he did not repeat himself once, and everything that he said was of interest to this House, which was not the case with the shorter speech of the hon. Member for Hendon. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw’s point was not contrary to trade unions—he was saying that there are circumstances in which the protection of members, or those called members, of trade unions, was not sufficient, and that people were misled and dealt with unacceptably. It was right to bring that to the House’s attention. As it came from a Member who has such a history of support for the trade unions, it seemed to me that it was not properly treated by those who suggested that he was being antagonistic to trade unions. What he was saying, and what I am saying, is that good trade unions deserve the support and protection of a properly written law that enables them to feel properly defended against the activities of those who bring trade unions’ name into disrepute. Not only do we want to be assured about the meaning of ““member””, which is important, but that people who are embroiled in circumstances in which the trade union acts as a claims organiser—but not as a trade union—to someone who is not a trade unionist will not have their protection removed. That is all that we ask. As the Minister has refused to include trade unions within the definition—for reasons that, I think, are comprehensible—the easiest solution is to accept the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire. Those amendments are not meant in any way as antagonistic to trade unions but as protection for the customer. That is perfectly reasonable. There seems to be a cross-party view on this matter. It arises from a desire to ensure that people outside perceive the Bill to be even-handed, a desire to protect every one of Her Majesty’s subjects so that they all have equal rights of protection, and above all a desire to make certain that decent trade unions are not besmirched by the activities of what have turned out to be two trade unions in particular circumstances. I should have thought that those were interests common to us all, and if the Minister is unable to move in our direction, I believe that the Government will lay themselves open to the charge of partiality even if, deep down, that was not their reason for behaving in this way.