Employment Bill [Lords]

The new clause is simply seeking to ensure the co-operation of the employers who hold that information, and it would be in their long-term interests to comply with such a provision. I apologise for having dealt rather flippantly with the point on education made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd). He provided a very good example of an area that contains an enormous range of establishments, resulting in balloting incurring very high costs. The Electoral Reform Society and other organisations must be making a fortune out of that. I must declare an interest at this point, because my wife works for the society, but that is another thing altogether. It would be relatively easy for individual schools to supply information to a union, and for co-operation to be established in that way. That is all that new clause 1 seeks to achieve. It seeks to ensure that employers are engaged in assisting unions to keep their records up to date, which would enable proper democratic ballots to take place. My hon. Friend mentioned Unison, and that is a good example. One of the worst things that can happen is for someone not to receive their ballot papers. They feel aggrieved at having been unable to participate in the decision and, if industrial action does take place, they feel that they have not been party to that final decision.