Employment Bill [HL]

I did not expect to be supported by the present attitude of the TUC, but I want to make it perfectly plain that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who has dragged union bashing and anti-unionism into the debate, can give it up as far as I am concerned because it simply does not apply. It does not enhance his argument, and his argument is not acceptable to the TUC. I gather that, in any event, the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, has made the point that this has got to be kept open and cannot be drafted in a very specific way. The Strasbourg court could have found the other way if the proceedings had been unfair or there had been some tremendous disadvantage to the worker. It could have found the other way for 101 other reasons on the facts of that case. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, is in on the essence of what I am trying to do. You cannot draft tight; you have to set out a principle that, of itself, allows a totally fair decision on the balance of the facts of the case. I am very comforted—and I need a bit of comfort at times—to know that the TUC does not think that what I am proposing is totally dotty.