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International Labour Law

I accept my hon. Friend’s point. The one that I was making is that when it comes to collective bargaining, recognition is subject to national legal systems and to negotiations between specific companies and their employees. The ILO conventions can raise issues about conflicting human rights and my hon. Friend mentioned ASLEF. I should point out that UK law limits the entitlement of trade unions to exclude or expel individuals on the grounds of political party membership. Until recently, we believed that that law struck a fair balance between the rights of union members to govern their union affairs and the rights of individuals to hold political beliefs. Earlier this year, the European Court of Human Rights issued a decision in a case involving ASLEF that concluded that that balance was wrong, and we intend to act in response to that judgment.