Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, in this instance the Brussels procedures are the Strasbourg court. It has spoken, and I respect its conclusions. I am arguing for the conventional and traditional route that we have always applied to our industrial relations procedure in this country. It is a principle of natural justice that if you are charged with, and are to answer, an offence, you have a right to know what the charge is. I stand by the principle that you are entitled to fair representation and to scrutinise the results by way of an appeal. I do not in any way, shape or form, cast any aspersions on what the Strasbourg court might or might not have said. The response of the British Government, your Lordships’ House and another place will resolve this issue. In these circumstances, the responsibility rests with us. In your Lordships’ House today, I argue for what we believe to be fair and just, measured against what Strasbourg might have said.