Trade Union Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:00 pm on 27 October 2015.
I would not normally seek to speak on the latter clauses of a Bill, but I rise to make a point and to give the Minister one last chance to answer. The Bill’s provisions are clearly extensive, and a number of them are on extraordinarily shaky legal grounds. Will the Minister clarify whether the Government have set aside funds to consider any legal challenges that might arise once the legislation comes into force?
I think I have pretty much answered that question already. We have not made a specific provision for public expenditure. Indeed, we expect public expenditure to be reduced by the introduction of the levy, which will ensure that the costs of the certification officer that currently fall on the taxpayer will fall on those regulated—the employer associations and trade unions.