Clause 23 - Inducements relating to union membership
Employment Relations Bill
11:15 am
Mr Jon Cruddas (Dagenham, Labour)
Briefly, I will not cover the points that I made earlier about the remedies. As hon. Members have said, the issues are complex. I should like to raise some points about the Wilson and Palmer cases. In the Palmer case—the docks case—the employer's response was that what had been done was not an inducement against the union and had nothing to do with union membership but was an inducement to fashion flexibility at work. The ''sole or main'' provisions could still allow a certain flexibility of interpretation that undermined the rational objective of the entirety of the proposals. I welcome the fact that the Minister will keep the provision under constant scrutiny to ensure that the objective is not undermined by a particular interpretation of ''sole or main purpose''.
It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.