---

Employment Bill [Lords]

I agree. My central point is that trade unions should be able to regulate their own rule books. Members should be allowed democratically to decide the rules under which they operate. I welcome the Bill's provisions, but I ask the Government to look again at the issues I have raised and consider simplifying the operation of trade unions. The Minister for Energy will be aware of the negative impact of recent European Court of Justice decisions on trade union freedom and collective bargaining, which will no doubt be debated on other occasions. We need to look at those issues again; the principle should be that the nation state determines rules on the operation of trade unions and the right to strike, which is not a legal right in the UK. Much of the Bill relates to the national minimum wage, on which a number of proposals have been put to the Government. I suspect they will be the basis of amendments to the measure. The first relates to exemptions for young workers, which have already been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. The Government have asked the Low Pay Commission to look into the issue again, but we need to say strongly in this place that we view an annual wage of £6,630 for a 37 and a half hour week as a poverty pay rate. We want a rate for the job. Furthermore, people should not be discriminated against on the basis of age. A person doing the same job as an older person is entitled to the same wage. In my constituency, I have heard of a number of cases of young workers supervising older workers—for example, in the hospitality industry—yet the supervisor is on a lower wage, because at present that is justifiable legally.