Employment Bill [HL]

I intervene to say how grateful the Committee is for the brevity with which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, introduced his amendment. He described himself as an optimist by nature, but I think the optimists on this occasion are the Government in trying to get the Bill through its Committee stage in two days. It looks as though we are approaching a fourth day to finish it off. I think the noble Lord would agree that we are not going to finish it tonight if we want to finish by six, which seems to be the rule. In my submission, the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights is not binding. We do not have to legislate on this. Therefore, our preferred position would be that Clause 17 does not stand part of the Bill. That is something that we would wish to pursue at a later stage. I accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, put it, there are different, conflicting rights under the convention; in particular, the conflict between Articles 10 and 11: the freedom of expression and the freedom of association. In our view, and certainly in the proud history of this country, freedom of speech is possibly the most important one at this stage. Therefore, in due course, we would want to support, as I made clear, the deletion of this clause. Failing that, going back to the options put before us by the Government in their consultation document, we think that option B, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is preferable. If we cannot strike out Clause 17, we would consider very strongly supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, rather than what is proposed by the Government.