Employment Bill [Lords]

Although I wish to concentrate on new clause 6, let me first speak briefly to new clause 4. I agree that environmental representatives are a valuable and relatively new development. Their emergence shows that unions are seeking to develop new services for their members, and trade unions have a valid and legitimate voice on this agenda. I also believe that that voice can contribute significantly to business success. My Department is producing a joint statement with the TUC and the CBI, which will focus on the benefits that lay union representatives can bring to the workplace. That statement will incorporate case study research, and we plan to publish it early next year. The issue in question is whether to place these representatives on a statutory footing. Members may not be too surprised to learn that I believe it is premature to do so, but I welcome their development, and I encourage ACAS and environmental quality representatives to work on guidance in this area. Let me turn to new clause 6 and clause 19. Clause 19 seeks to amend section 174 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to bring UK law into line with the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the ASLEF v. UK case. That is our intention, not the introduction of wider reform of trade union law. I would like to begin by setting out the motivations behind the clause and its intentions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) and other Members have pointed out, the case that gave rise to this clause was about a trade union that desired to expel a British National party member. Abhorrence of the BNP is widely shared in this House, and many of us, myself included, have campaigned against it and will continue to do so. This clause was debated for many hours in the other place, and it was discussed for longer than any other in Committee as well; it has, in fact, been discussed more than any other clause. That is understandable because although the case that gave rise to the clause was about the BNP, as Members have pointed out the provision in question does not mention the BNP and is a more general power to expel or exclude people from trade unions on grounds of membership of a political party. There is an important point here, because Members have raised the issue of conduct, and I want to make it clear to the House that expulsion on grounds of political conduct was already legal before the ASLEF judgment. The change the ASLEF judgment made was, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) has pointed out, to say that our law was incompatible with article 11 of the European convention on human rights on freedom of association, precisely because it did not have these rights of expulsion on grounds of membership of a political party.