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Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

I certainly intend to do that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I hoped it would help the House if I set out some of the context of the debate. I think that people sometimes have amnesia when it comes to what actually happened in the past. It is worth reminding Opposition Members that the laws we have today relate not only to the laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s, but to the changes in those laws made by the last Government. My hon. Friends made it very clear that the last Government reviewed and made changes to this very part of our law, and did not adopt changes such as those that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is trying to persuade the House to support today. They did not want to make any significant changes to the law on ballots and notices. Indeed, the last change of any substance that they made was in 2004. That is probably why the hon. Member for Llanelli was unable to support the Bill. She and the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe)—when he was doing the job that I am doing now—examined the law extremely closely, and found no case for changing it. It has been hardly a secret that trade unions wanted to extend the disregard in section 232B, but I presume that when the last Government examined the law, they decided not to listen to those trade union voices. I am pleased to observe the consistency in the position adopted by the hon. Member for Llanelli. Successive Governments have taken the view that the legal framework of our industrial relations law is basically sound, and this coalition Government certainly share that view.