My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. As the Minister gave his assurances about how seriously the Government take blacklisting, which has been so interestingly revealed recently, not least by my noble friend Lord McAvoy, I was minded that we might have found an actual role for an assurer. That is an assurer whose job it is to try to make sure that people in the construction industry are not blacklisted. Despite the increase in fines, the issue is finding out what people are doing. Somebody who went in to have a look at payrolls, private e-mails, and so on, could probably find that out.
That is a problem that the Minister acknowledges exists. We have not got a problem in the area of union membership and union membership records—or not one that is easy to do very much about, particularly in industries that are casualised. I will just say that the nature of the assurer in the union context is almost, “I’ve got to be reassured that your systems are okay”. That will be a rather adversarial position; not a consensual one, as the Minister is presenting it. It will be adversarial, especially when people are not exactly sure what will happen to the information. Why do they need that information if there is no trouble and no complaints?
The Minister’s point is that the certification officer and the scrutineer have access, so why not an assurer? The difference is in the nature of the relationship. The assurer would have a much more adversarial position than the one that those two have. Essentially, the assurer is saying, “I don’t really trust your records until I have had a very good look”. That is our major problem with it.
I will withdraw the amendment, but we will no doubt return to the matter later in our proceedings.