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Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I urge Opposition Members, when they debate this issue—not just today but during the weeks, months and years to come—to think about where the trade union interest actually is. The fact that a body of case law has been developed, much of which, as I said earlier, has found in favour of trade unions, is creating certainty. It is clarifying what was previously uncertain. If we changed the law now in the radical way proposed—it is certainly not modest—we should have to go through that whole process again, which would increase uncertainty, and do precisely what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington says he is trying not to do. Outside the trade union movement, which understandably has its own interests to pursue, I hear no clamour for the law to be changed in the way proposed. It seems that the average worker and even the typical union member do not see the law as unjust; still less is it seen as unfair by the general public. They do not want to see public services disrupted because striking has been made easier—quite the reverse. They want trade unions to help us to manage the painful adjustment that is needed to put this country's finances in order. The supporters of the Bill argue that the law is too complex. According to them, it places too many procedural obligations on trade unions and as a result it is difficult for unions to comply with the last dot and comma of the law's many provisions. It follows, they say, that trade unions must be given more wriggle room to ensure that they can operate within the law. According to the Bill's sponsors, the existing disregard, which provides some wriggle room, needs to be extended. Again, I have to ask what has changed to make life so intolerable for trade unions. This legal framework has maintained its shape, give or take some refinements and amendments, for 20 years or more. Surely both trade unions and employers should be accustomed to it by now. They should know its requirements and they should know what needs to happen at every stage of the process to achieve compliance. Let us remember that we are not talking about matters that are devolved to ordinary members or to local representatives of trade unions to organise unaided on their own. If that were the case, those local representatives perhaps could not be expected to know every provision of the law, but that is not the position that we face, or it should not be the position that we face. Rather, the taking of industrial action is a very serious matter and no sensible union would permit strikes to proceed without the specific authorisation of the union's leadership and the involvement of its professional cadre of workers at every stage of the process. By and large, that is what happens.