Employment Bill [HL]

I agree with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, has said. I hope, for a barrister, I shall be extraordinarily brief. First, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, is right in saying that Clause 17 is outside the Long Title, which makes clear that the Bill is, "““to make provision about the right of trade unions to expel or exclude members on the grounds of membership of a political party””." Clause 17 is about that. Secondly, I do not think that it is right, as was suggested, that we could leave out Clause 17. If we just left it out, the Government would be failing in their obligation to give effect to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. Article 46 of the European convention expressly says that states have to abide by a judgment to which they are party. This is a judgment binding in international law and the Government have quite rightly introduced an amendment to give effect to that judgment. Thirdly, I have already spoken at too much length at Second Reading and previously in Committee to the same effect as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on why there need to be adequate safeguards against abuse. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, was kind enough to say that he would, if we had to bring the amendment back at Report, support something along the lines of the amendment to which we have already spoken—Amendment No. 27—which sought to introduce safeguards. I have a bit of further news. I have had the great benefit, together with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, in meeting the Minister, Pat McFadden, on a second occasion this week, to discuss this matter with him and his expert advisers. The Government have not yet committed themselves to a particular solution, but he authorised me to say that they do not have a closed mind—in other words, that they are open-minded—and I believe that to be true. One reason why we in my party are keen to build in safeguards rather than leaving it to the common law and litigation relying on common-law principles, as one used to when there was a closed shop, is that we believe that the BNP specialises in using litigation of a mischievous kind to further its political objectives. Therefore, it is not in the interests of the trade union movement or the wider society to have a situation in which there are no safeguards written into legislation by Parliament. We could argue as to whether those safeguards should have been written into it in the first place, in 1993, but that is beside the point; the point is that those safeguards were then written in by a Conservative Government with Labour support and they would simply be abolished by this Bill. The real question is of what kind of safeguards there are that would make it harder for the BNP to bring mischievous litigation in tribunals or courts, including the Strasbourg court. I hope that the Government will join the opposition parties in the search. Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, may think, I have no doubt that the Conservative Party, when confronted with the actual problem, would press for safeguards in exactly the way in which we are pressing for them—and, I would hope that members of the Labour Party and the trade unions would also be pressing for them—for the reasons stated so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth. I do not need to remind anyone in Committee that he is a special witness to what is needed, having been an extremely distinguished and powerful general-secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, and I believe that it is not sensible for the TUC or affiliated unions to be in the position of saying that they do not want safeguards written in but want to leave it to the Queen’s courts to solve any problem. That is not a sensible position. Leaving aside the wording of the amendment, I suggest for the benefit of advisers who are present that what is needed is something along these lines: at the end of subsection (4A) of the 1992 Act, one could say that the measure ““does not include membership or former membership of a political party where the values and ideals of the party are incompatible with a rule or objective of the union; the decision to exclude or expel was taken fairly and in accordance with the union’s rules and written procedures; and the consequences of exclusion or expulsion would not result in exceptional hardship””. Those words are my attempt to give effect to what I think is the judgment of the court. If those safeguards were written in and the union were to pursue them in practice—