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Employment Bill [HL]

Is the Minister aware that most of the arguments against what he has just said were deployed by the Government themselves in their argument before the European Court of Human Rights? If he reads that judgment he will see why those arguments will not do. He might also wish to reflect on the fact that the court itself said, in paragraph 52 of its judgment that, "““in the absence of any identifiable hardship suffered by Mr Lee or any abusive and unreasonable conduct by the applicant, the Court concludes that the balance has not been properly struck””." Would the Minister not therefore agree that it is extremely important to deal with what is left out—that is, a case in which there is identifiable hardship or abusive or unreasonable conduct by a union? In the light of that, if we took the Minister literally and the Government followed his speech, that could be exploited by the BNP. Is that not something that should be further thought about rather carefully?