Employment Bill [Lords]

I do not think that I shall comment on the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield, except to acknowledge it, which means it will now appear in the Official Report. Under the Bill, or my new clause, it would always be possible for the rules to be drawn up to exclude people in a way that most of us would regard as being unfair—that is right. But it would require an open debate in our society, of the kind we are having today, about the exclusion of fascists, and about whether it is right and proper to exclude members of the Labour party, the Conservative party, Christian Scientists or whatever. I must say this, however: no trade union has ever gone down that road. Neither the hon. Member for Huntingdon nor any of his friends can give me an example of where trade unions have sought to expel someone for being a member of the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats or any other mainstream political party. This is a very specific situation. We must not prevent the House from giving trade unions the proper capacity to do what they ought to on behalf of their members by raising the bogus spectre of unions abusing a power they have never sought, or sought to abuse.