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Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is trying to lead me astray. Mr Deputy Speaker asked me not to carry on talking about history, but I disagree entirely with the hon. Gentleman's point. On the specifics of the proposals, we have to look at the Bill in its context. We need not go back to the great strikes of early history. I was thinking initially of Achilles sitting in his tent and about whether that was a first example of industrial action and the withdrawal of labour, and about whether we should get on to Patroclus and so on, but I thought that would be too abstruse at this time in the afternoon. However, the Bill is important because it would take us back to the industrial relations of the 1970s and 1980s, so the immediate historical context is of tremendous importance. I remember growing up—I was a child once, although I never normally admit to it. We had a wonderful debate the other day with all sorts of people saying they had once been 16. I sat here wondering whether I had ever been 16 and hoping that it had passed by quite quickly. However, when I was a child, I saw the streets, including Leicester square, used as a dumping ground for rubbish because of strikes. They were strikes that had been called not with any democratic oversight, but because unions had the ability to bully their members. The great lady, Margaret Thatcher—Baroness Thatcher, Lady of the Garter—came in and pulled this country up by the scruff of its neck. She introduced legislation, which was opposed every time by the socialists—they opposed everything she did—to democratise the trade unions and bring them under the control of their members and to allow this country to be run by its democratically elected Government, rather than by the grand, godfather-like bosses of the trade union movement. Anything that takes us back to those days would be desperately unfortunate and risk our seeing the same number of strikes that we saw in the 1970s and 1980s and the destruction of British industry. Our car manufacturing was destroyed by strike after strike called from mass meetings. Do hon. Members remember those mass meetings? Do they remember watching them on the television? Do they remember the voice votes controlled by a few bullies? A hand or two would go up, but they would never be counted. That was the type of behaviour we had in this country before the laws that Margaret Thatcher introduced. That put us back on to a proper footing, where prosperity could arise, commerce could take place and business could flourish. We saw the launch pad built for an amazing economic performance that was no longer being destroyed by the trade unions.