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Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

My hon. Friend is quite right. He has perhaps anticipated my fourth point. I was about to say that fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, there is the question of the paying public, who would be the ones most affected by the changes. I am concerned that if the law is changed, we will see a return to the dark days of the 1970s. I am concerned for my constituents in Bury North—for the working mum who is forced to make last-minute arrangements for child care because teachers have gone on strike; for the small business man who is waiting for a customer's cheque to arrive, and who faces the ruin of his business because the postmen have gone on strike; for the taxi driver who needs to renew his licence, and faces the loss of his livelihood because he is preventing from renewing it because the officials in the town hall are on strike. I could go on and on; there are so many categories affected. Earlier, we touched on the family who save for, and look forward all year to, the one holiday that they have, and who are then denied the opportunity to go because one small group of workers has withdrawn its labour and gone on strike. The law as it stands cannot be that difficult to comply with. The 2009 ““Annual Abstract of Statistics”” issued by the Office for National Statistics has details of how many working days were lost through labour disputes by industry in 2009. It shows that in transport, storage and communications, 657,000 working days were lost. In public administration and defence, 325,000 working days were lost. The figure was 31,000 in education; 16,000 in manufacturing; 5,000 in health and social work; 4,000 in other community, social and personal services; 2,000 in construction; and 2,000 in other industries and services. So it is not impossible to comply with the law as it stands. All those industrial disputes were able to proceed, quite lawfully, under current legislation. Let me conclude by saying that the Bill risks taking the trade union movement back to the 1970s and '80s. I submit that it represents a huge missed opportunity to modernise the trade union movement. It tries to simplify existing legislation, but it runs the risk of creating new uncertainties. It introduces the concept of ““substantial compliance””; and, as I say, lawyers must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of spending more time in court. Those words would have to be tested in the courts, because we know nothing of what they actually mean. The Bill does nothing about the underlying problem that it seeks to solve. It does nothing to help the trade unions, or those engaged by them, to conduct the ballot in accordance with the letter of the law. After all, the issue is the will of Parliament and ultimately, therefore, the will of the people. The level of compliance is set where it is because that is where the public want it to be. For the sake of hard-working families who fear having their everyday lives disrupted by a return to the disastrous days of some three decades ago, we should not allow the Bill to proceed. Having considered the merits and principles of the Bill, I am not persuaded that it is a sensible way forward. I am not convinced that the changes it seeks to make would, in any way, shape or form, improve on the existing law. Indeed, I would respectfully submit that the provisions would introduce a whole new area of uncertainty into trade union law, and that would be bad not just for the trade unions and employers, but for our economy. In short, it would be bad for Britain. For all those reasons, I propose voting against the Bill, and I urge the whole House to do likewise.