Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. I think he said twice that the Government recognise and support the principle but he said three times that it is too difficult to do anything about it. I used to have a boss at Ford Motor Company who had three files on his desk—““In””, ““Out”” and ““Too Hard””. I wonder what the state of the Minister’s desk is if he thinks this issue is ““too hard””. As the Minister rightly said, the circumstances of this issue are almost too important to ignore. He has reasonable grounds for being concerned as to how he should deal with it but, equally, he said we can start with the law. Why does not the department start with the law as it stands and try to apply that to the principle of the case at Manchester United, about which we have been talking openly? In that situation, they were not professional girls employed by any of the agencies concerned but we do not know whether they were recruited by the personnel executives of the agency or by its younger staff. The story is that a fee of £100 was paid to each girl for attendance, some £50 of which had to be given back to the recruiting agent as a thank you for the ticket, which then became quite a saleable commodity in and around the clubs of Manchester that night. In those circumstances, that would be a clear breach of the law because the agents had accepted a fee from the parties seeking the job. That is outlawed by the law confirmed on 17 December. The Minister could start with that and investigate the issue. If it turns out to be the case, he should start proceedings. He would then have some sympathy from us because he would be working on the law as it stands and trying to make it work. To do otherwise would bring it into disrepute. I accept that the Government are not going to do anything about it at this stage. But the circumstances are so important that the Minister should undertake to come back and tell us where and when it will be the right place to do something about it. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 18 [Exclusion or expulsion from trade union for membership of political party]: