Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Forth. I gather that a money resolution in respect of the Bill is to be heard in the Chamber, so I should be grateful if the Minister clarified why that decision had been taken, said why we were not told before and explained the background to that move.

Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point of order. In my opening remarks on Tuesday morning, I mentioned that the Government were considering how the union modernisation fund is to work. I hope that the detail of our amendments will be made available to members of the Committee by Tuesday of next week. Subsequent to that there will be a need for a money resolution, which will be discussed on the Floor of the House whenever that can be facilitated.

Mr Eric Forth (Bromley & Chislehurst, Conservative)

I thank the Minister.

Mr Jon Cruddas (Dagenham, Labour)

This morning, I sought to raise three issues about the clause: first, concerns about ''solely or mainly'', which have been widely rehearsed in today's debate; secondly, the limited remedies available, on which the Minister gave quite a positive response; thirdly, points that relate to proposed new section 145B(5) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which says:

''A worker may present a complaint to an employment tribunal on the ground that his employer has made him an offer in contravention of this section.''

Only individuals to whom inducements are offered can raise the issue at an employment tribunal. My concerns arise from practices to undermine the union. As far as I can see, the union can take action only if it is aware of such practices and only then to support an individual to whom inducements have been made. Furthermore, the member must be prepared to go a tribunal.

A clever employer who seeks to undermine the union will not offer inducements to members of the branch committee, trade union activists, shop stewards or lay officials. Rather, he will approach members who are, shall we say, less active. It takes a lot of coverage for a worker to come forward, activate the relevant procedures and stand up against an employer in those

circumstances. We might even imagine a scenario in which perhaps 10, 15 or 20 people in a bargaining unit or at a plant or workplace have accepted inducements to walk away from the union, but in which the union can do nothing unless someone is prepared to come forward and initiate the procedure outlined in proposed new section 145B(5).

Can the Minister clarify the situation? If what I have described is accurate, could the issue not be considered in a code of practice on unfair labour practices, such as the one we started to discuss on Tuesday afternoon? The proposals as drafted seem to offer a remedy to the individual but not to the union, even when the actions of the employer are aimed at challenging and undermining the union.

Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)

Thank you, Mr. Forth, and welcome to this afternoon's proceedings. We had an informed debate on the amendments to the clause, so I do not intend into great detail on the issues now. I should like to respond to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas) made about why the individual is specified and not the union, although I would prefer to deal with unfair labour practices and intimidation at the appropriate points in the Bill.

Existing rights operate in the way that my hon. Friend suggested and we believe that those rights belong to individuals and not the organisations to which they belong. Unions help their members to bring cases, which is one of the reasons for bringing in the union. However, having considered the relevant judgment closely, we do not believe that it implies that unions should be able to make a claim on their own behalf. The issues that my hon. Friend raised need to be considered in another context and we shall return to them later in the Bill.

The debates this morning were quite intense and involved. The clause stems from the judgment made by the European Court of Human Rights in 2002 in the Wilson and Palmer case. That judgment showed that aspects of our trade union law breached article 11 of the European convention on human rights on freedom of association.

The Government take their international obligations very seriously. From the outset, we said that we would amend the law as necessary to achieve compliance and we acted quickly, through the review of the Employment Relations Act 1999, to consult interested parties on the implications of the judgment. Clauses 23 to 26 contain our proposals to ensure that British trade union law fully complies with article 11.

Among other things, clause 23 makes it unlawful to offer union members an inducement to forgo key union rights. It was precisely such behaviour that gave rise to the Wilson and Palmer case. Workers in that case were offered cash inducements to have their contractual terms determined outside the scope of the collective agreement.

Those events occurred in the late 1980s in the climate of adversarial employment relations that the then Government were keen to promote. We, of course, favour different employment relations based on partnership and mutual respect at work. It is

noteworthy that such employer behaviour is much less evident today. The clause seeks to create a clear entitlement for union members to use the services of their union. It will no longer be possible for employers to punish individuals for asking their union to make representations on their behalf; a major advance.

This is a long and complicated clause, which inserts six new sections into the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. I explained at some length in earlier debates what the main sections achieve. The clause will make it unlawful for employers to repeat the sort of behaviour exhibited in the Wilson and Palmer case and reinforces existing rights to trade union membership in accordance with our obligations under the European convention on human rights. Our discussion on the words ''solely or mainly'' was interesting and I will monitor what happens, as we do when Bills are enacted and implemented. The points made this morning by my hon. Friends were well made, and we will pay close attention to what happens.

The clause is important. I understand the Opposition's arguments and their need to press the matter to a vote because they disagree. I welcome the comments made this morning by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) that the Government have at least tried. I believe that we have gone further than that and have produced a workable solution on which we fully consulted. I hope that the Committee will support the clause.

Mr Malcolm Bruce (Shadow Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, Trade & Industry; Gordon, Liberal Democrat)

Some issues of balance have been properly debated but, as a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe, I want to uphold judgments made by the European Court of Human Rights, and can testify to the fact that the United Kingdom is assiduous among members of the Council of Europe in amending our law to comply with those judgments. Only objections made by other countries have made that difficult, such as in the case of Gibraltar, but we resolved the problem even then. It is right for the Government to take the opportunity to bring our law into line with judgments made by the ECHR.

The Wilson and Palmer also involved the National Union of Journalists, of which I am a member—not that that will do me much good—and I was directly involved in a similar dispute in which I was confronted with what I believed to be an abuse of human rights. An employer said, in effect, ''Notwithstanding the fact that there is an established bargaining unit, a negotiating arrangement and a recognition of the union, the management have unilaterally decided to cease those arrangements. Instead, we require every employee to sign an individual contract with us, or we will terminate their employment.'' There was no resolution to that dispute, and the entire journalistic work force of that newspaper were sacked. I should add that that newspaper did not report my existence for the next two and a half years, although many unemployed journalists with nowhere else to go set up a lot of weekly newspapers in my constituency and wrote fulsome reports about me. I was re-elected,

although I am not saying that the two things are connected.

I find it difficult to believe that it is good employer practice to want to induce people to leave a union, and I wonder what the motivation might be. We need a clear indication of how the balance adjusts and how their proposals would remain consistent with the obligations under the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.

I am sure that our Conservative colleagues, whatever their views about the issue and however unhappy they are about it, would not demur from the long-standing, established tradition that all Governments in the UK have fully respected the judgments of the European Court, even when those decisions were not always comfortable for those Governments. Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights cannot function if founder members such as the United Kingdom do not support its findings and we have consistently done so. For those legal reasons and because of the need to bring the subject back in a way that is compatible with the ruling should there be genuine concern about the employer's decision, I will be unable to support the Conservatives if they wish to push the clause to a Division. Should they wish to reconsider, it might be possible for us to discuss the issue more fully at a later stage.

Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon, Conservative)

As this is a set of new provisions, I should be grateful for clarification on a few points from the Minister.

First, new section 145A extends the right of workers not to have an offer made to them by their employer where their employer's ''sole or main reason'' is to induce the worker

''to make use . . . of trade union services''.

I understand that this is a new provision. I should be grateful if the Minister explained what is encompassed by the reference to making use of union services and what led the Government to want to extend it for that purpose.

Secondly, I should like some clarification on proposed new section 145(E)(4)(a) and (b). The Minister will have to forgive me, but I have read the clause on a number of occasions and I still find it pretty unintelligible. I would be grateful if he could clarify what those paragraphs involve.

Thirdly, various hon. Members have referred to the European Court of Human Rights. The notes to the Bill set out the reasons as arising from the Wilson and Palmer case, where the court concluded that UK trade union law was incompatible with the European convention on human rights.

The explanatory notes also state:

''The Government believe that the principle underlying the decision of the Court extends beyond the facts in Wilson and Palmer''.

In his earlier remarks, the Minister referred to a consultation on that issue. I should be grateful if the Minister explained what the ''other comparable circumstances'' referred to in the notes were, and why he believed that the decision of the Court should be extended to them in those circumstances.

Without going over the many and detailed arguments that we had this morning, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk that the clause would not work in its current state. Its decisions on when inducement takes place will be too restrictive on employers and on employees. It will provide unwarranted and inflexible regulation on businesses; not least in terms of the fixed penalties, but also for the other reasons that we discussed. I shall be supporting my hon. Friend in voting against the clause.

Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) for explaining his involvement in this issue and for going through the circumstances of the case with which he was involved. I am sure that that was at the time when adversarial issues were prominent in the then Government's attitude towards industrial relations. The context of today's debate has been the changing nature of what we are trying to achieve through the Bill and past Bills to bring partnership and people together.

I am loth to go in to the detail that the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) wants, as he says that he will vote against the clause anyway. I do not see the purpose of going in to the issues he has raised in any great depth. He is clearly fundamentally opposed to the clause, and my explanation on all these—[Interruption.]—

Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon, Conservative)

Will the Minister give way?

Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)

I am not going to give way, because the Committee is making good progress and doing well. I tried to be helpful to the hon. Member, but it is very difficult when a Member says, ''Whatever you say, I am going to vote against the clause.'' We have had an excellent debate this morning, we can touch on some of the issues the hon. Gentleman referred to during the amendments that are coming up, and we will get the explanations during that period.

Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon, Conservative)

I respectfully say to the Minister that that is an unacceptable answer to my valid questions. The fact that my hon. Friend stated quite clearly that we saw the clause as unacceptable in its current form does not mean that we will not look at the form in a different context, or that we will not want to review it between now and Third Reading. It is a live issue for us however we vote, as presumably the Minister and his friends will vote it through. I ask that he respond to my questions.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 2.