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Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

My hon. Friend is right. My concern is that if this legislation were allowed to proceed in this form, that sort of slipshod behaviour might be allowed to continue in future. I submit that one reason why a line of cases has been brought before the courts is that employers have upheld the will of this House and have sought to secure full compliance with what was originally intended. I stress again the importance of what was intended not by the 1992 Act but by the Employment Relations Act 1999, which was introduced by the Labour Government. In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said—I agree with him—that we begin to understand the full effect of this proposal only by looking at the legal framework in which employees and employers operate. The starting point is the contract of employment itself. Under such a contract one individual, the employee, provides his or her services or labour for the benefit of another, the employer. In return, they are paid for the labour they provide. The work is manual labour in some cases or it could be ““white collar”” work, as we call it, or it could be providing expertise on a particular subject. It follows that withdrawal of that labour is a very serious matter and, unsurprisingly, the law attaches serious consequences if someone breaches that agreement, as it does with any other breach of contract,.