Employment Bill [Lords]

One cannot but admire the speech that we have just heard. I agree with everything that was said by the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), and I thank the Government for making this concession after hearing what was said in the House of Lords. They have a big majority in this place and they could have stuck to their guns, in which case we would probably have had ping-pong. It should be noted that they recognised the existence of an alternative way that is clearly better than their original proposal. I want to make two points. The first concerns the Court judgment. It should be borne in mind that the Court held that the relevant provision in United Kingdom law which prohibited a trade union from expelling a member for membership of a political party failed to strike the right balance between the right of the union to freedom of association and the right of the individual to freedom of association. We have to recognise that human rights must sometimes be accorded to people with whom we find it difficult to sympathise. That is the measure of human rights. It is very easy to grant human rights and civil liberties to people with whom we agree all the time, and whom we find pleasant and amenable. It is much harder to stretch the definition, and the test of whether we have the right human rights culture is whether we extend it—when it is reasonable to do so—to people with whom we encounter difficulties. As is made clear in a report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the judgment stated:"““The UK had gone too far in its protection of the… member against measures taken against him by his union, at the expense of the right””" of members to choose. We noted:"““The ASLEF judgment unequivocally recognises that trade unions enjoy, under Article 11 ECHR, a right to freedom of association which includes the prima facie freedom to set up their own rules concerning conditions of membership. The judgment, however””—" this is why I oppose the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd)—"““is equally clear that this right of trade union autonomy is not unlimited: the Court clearly envisages a positive obligation on the State under Article 11 ECHR to protect the freedom of association of the individual against abuse of a dominant position by trade unions.””" In our recommendation, we argued that safeguards were needed in addition to those in the original Bill"““to strike a 'fair balance' between, on the one hand, the Article 11 right of a trade union to control its membership and, on the other, the Article 11 rights of the individual, including the right not to be excluded or expelled from a union arbitrarily or in circumstances that would result in exceptional hardship.””" Those words are taken from the judgment.