Clause 18
Employment Bill [Lords]
2:00 pm
Pat McFadden (Minister of State (Employment Relations and Postal Affairs), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)
My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye is right on one point—whichever way people move on this issue, somebody is ready to tell them that they have gone too far or not far enough. That goes with the territory. To govern is to choose. Our responsibility is to try to get this right.
The thrust of the amendments is that there should be more conditions. The question is whether we have gone too far in respect of this power, and that is the judgment that we have had to make all the way through. I said in my first comments this morning that the Government changed our view as the debate went on in the other place. We canvassed two options—a broader option, to which the hon. Gentleman is encouraging us to return, and an option broadly in line with the clause as it is now. On balance, we have taken the view that although both those options would meet the legal requirement to legislate in line with the ECHR judgment, we should give unions the power that the judgment recommends. However, there was also a strong case for due process and safeguards in the exercise of the power, and that is what the clause tries to do. Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will have their views on whether it does so perfectly.