Thank you, Ms Primarolo. You are absolutely right. That would have tempted me to discuss the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) producing amendments to other Bills in Committee and then not following through on the Floor of the House.
I was talking about the Government’s failure to produce any evidence, which I think feeds into amendment 103, because it is critical to the operation of the entire part, in relation to clause 36. My second point about the Department’s consultation is that it has not published or responded to any of the responses. The only information that Members of the House have seen is when people who have responded to the BIS consultation have self-published them, and I do not think that is good enough.
Trade unions are already heavily regulated, not just with regard to membership, but in other areas, too. No other membership organisations, voluntary sector groups, businesses or, indeed, political parties in the UK are subject to equivalent rules. There are already extensive regulations through the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act of 1992 and the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998—a fact that the Government seem to have wholeheartedly disregarded in bringing forward the Bill—and the responsibility trade unions have to the Information Commissioner.