Legal Services Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman simply digs a bigger hole for himself. The simple truth is that, as my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw and for North Durham (Mr. Jones) demonstrated, there was a remedy, which has been sought and taken in some cases. To that extent, there was no relevance in the charge made by the hon. Member for Huntingdon. I hope he will accept that that leads us to the view that this is rather more a splenetic attack on trade unions than a considered assault on real events upon which a case could be made for the need for further regulation of trade unions. Neither the hon. Gentleman, in the remarks of his that I heard, nor the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) gave us any examples of where there is a problem caused by representatives of trade unions—shop stewards or others—that would be remedied were the amendments to be accepted. That is a very important point. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister takes this strongly on board, because it would be absurd to move unions along a track that is not necessary at this time. The majority of trade unions now subcontract out, to solicitors or elsewhere, the provision of their legal services, so they would be beyond the impact of the Bill. A small number of trade unions still maintain an in-house professional legal service but, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, such services are regulated in any case. We would end up with the absurd situation whereby if two shop stewards from two different unions were advising members of their union in the same workplace on the same series of events, the union that contracted out its legal services would be able to do that without any concern whatsoever, while the union that did not would find itself in a much more restricted position and would be unable to provide the same service to its members. It would be absurd to have that difference in standards between trade unions. Many words have already been spoken about this. Let me conclude by saying that it will be viewed as scandalous by ordinary trade unionists throughout the country that trade unions are being attacked not because of any real offence that has existed in the past and would be remedied by these amendments but because, once again, the Opposition parties are combining to attack free trade unions in our society. That is very regrettable, and I hope that it will be registered by the public. I notice that the Opposition have not managed to assemble enormous support for this on their own Benches; I hope that that, too, will register with the public. On that basis, I hope that the House will resist the amendments as being unworthy and irrelevant.