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Employment Bill [Lords]

I simply disagree. The hon. Gentleman is not right. Proposed new section 238AA(2) and (4) would mean that staff are entitled to full pay when conducting industrial action, removing any disincentive from taking such action. Proposed new section 113A to the Employment Rights Act 1996 would make it impossible to make redundancies wherever industrial action occurs, even if the whole business would collapse as a result. Requiring employers to provide the detailed information necessary for ballots would place an unfair administrative burden on them during tough times. Moreover, the new clause would shift responsibility for conducting a proper ballot from the unions to employers, effectively giving the union someone else to blame if there are flaws in their paperwork or ballot conduct. In general, the new clause has a number of fundamental flaws. It calls for the continuation of employment as well as an award for damages where an individual has been dismissed for industrial action. That is in effect a double bite at the cherry—an opportunity that would not be offered to normal employees in any other unfair dismissal proceedings. Hon. Members who have tabled the new clause either hope to carve out a preferential niche for striking workers or they should have consulted more widely on it.