Clause 26 - Dismissal for use of union services or
Employment Relations Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman outlines his opposition to the Government's position on the judgment. He welcomed our attempts to resolve the situation that arose in the light of it but then says that the Opposition cannot accept what we have done. I tried to explain that the context was that of an employer offering an inducement to an employee or worker and that we wanted to ensure that we met the requirements of article 11. We had an exchange earlier about whether the Government had gold-plated the judgment. I believe that, following the consultation, we sincerely tried to come up with the right way forward. This issue forms only a small part of present employment relations, which, I am pleased to say, the hon. Gentleman accepted had improved and continue to improve. When he makes his outrageous attacks on the Government's industrial relations policy, I will remind him that he accepted that things had improved.
Clause 26 reflects our view of what we need to achieve. The judgment requires us to establish new rights to use union services and not to be offered inducements to relinquish key union rights. We need to extend the protections in section 152 to ensure that it covers the dismissal of an employee for using union services or refusing to accept such inducements.
Clause 26 makes the changes to section 152 necessary to achieve that outcome. It rounds off our response to the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the Wilson and Palmer case. They are workable proposals. We do not believe that they distort the balance more than necessary. We think it the right and proper thing to do in light of that judgment.
We have a difficulty, however, because we clearly do not agree about the response. The definition of union services is clear and in the spirit of what we are trying to achieve, and ''appropriate time'' is dealt with, so that people thoroughly understand what it means. I realise that the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk does not accept that and that he will return to the matter. However, I have done my best to explain why the Government are in the present position. I know that the hon. Gentleman is not happy about it, but the judgment was clear. We have responded to the consultation, and we think that the best part of the process has been adopted in the clause. I hope that the Committee will support it.