It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), with whom I have worked in the trade union movement in my region for far too many years.
Clause 37 is all about the implications of appointing an assurer. As other Members have said, we have to draw to the Government’s attention the irony of the enormous added burden that the clause will impose on trade unions, given that we work in the most regulated part of the voluntary sector. The provision is absolutely unnecessary and is politically motivated. I had to say that before I turn to the two amendments I am most concerned about.
Why do people join trade unions? Sometimes it is because their friends join, and sometimes in their workplace it is just the done thing to join. Some people join to have an insurance policy in case they get into trouble or picked on. Many join when they are first employed and want to maintain their membership as they get promoted up the ladder.
In workplaces where the majority are in a trade union, there are no secrets. Everybody knows who is in the union and it is common for both the lowest paid and most senior members of staff to be in the trade union. When I was a lay rep, I negotiated on behalf of my members and the senior manager I was negotiating with was a member of my branch of my trade union. That is common when a workplace has a high density of union membership.
However, in other workplaces, people who rise up the ladder and become senior managers may not want their managerial colleagues or the work force to know that they are in a trade union. Do not think that it is just those at the bottom end who do not want people to know that they are in a trade union.
People are also at their most vulnerable when there is no recognition in a workplace. Sometimes their jobs are under threat. People get victimised out of the door because the management have found out that they are union members; I have seen that on numerous occasions as a union official. As we discuss the clause, we have to look at the real world and how things work in practice, rather than at what is, frankly, an academic diatribe.