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Mr. Heald : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dobson : Not for the moment.
The Tory Government, however, inhabit a world where big business can do no wrong. The Government decided that if the views of Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports did not conform to the law, it was right that their views should become the law, so we have this amendment.
Mr. Heald : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dobson : I will in a moment.
I ask the Secretary of State to make public all representations made to him, his predecessors or any of his colleagues or officials by Associated Newspapers or Associated British Ports or anyone on their behalf. Will he tell us what threats were issued and what promises were made? Will either company contribute in future to Tory
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party funds? I admit that these companies and others like them may not have a vote at the Tory party conference, but they do not need one. By arm twisting in secret, they have got the Tory Government to change the law and strengthen their position by taking away the rights of their employees.Mr. Heald rose--
Mr. Skinner : The hon. Gentleman has a handout from his Front Bench.
Mr. Heald : This is actually a letter asking me to phone my wife.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : Order. I am sure that the message from the hon. Member's wife has nothing to do with the debate.
Mr. Heald : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports the decision has been made? There is nothing in this for them because the proposal starts from now. It does not affect the past.
Mr. Dobson : There are plenty of times when I am glad that I am not a lawyer and I am even gladder, if there is such a word, having heard that contribution from one who is. That is one of the daftest interventions that I have heard in this place--and I have heard some daft ones.
The amendment is before us now because the Court of Appeal upheld the position of people who had worked for many years at Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports. We are illustrating what will happen to others if the House agrees to the amendment, only in future such action will have the endorsement of Parliament. If the amendment is agreed and the Government make it lawful to bribe and fine employees for seeking to be represented by a union, will any action short of dismissal be against the law? Will there be no limit on what employers can do?
In future, as a result of the amendment, employers will be able to promote and demote, not on merit but on the basis of an employee's willingness to sign away his rights. Employers will offer longer holidays or shorter hours only to those who conform. Non-conforming employees will be the ones who are redeployed from a good location to a bad one in an unpopular part of the country. They will be the ones set to work in the worst conditions, doing the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. They will be the ones who are made to work awkward shifts or permanent nights.
The Tories are introducing victimisation by Act of Parliament. As a result of the amendment, employers will also be able to deny profit sharing or bonuses to people who want to be represented by their union. Unscrupulous employers will also be able to threaten the pensions and other benefits of employees.
If employers are to be allowed, by law, to bribe and fine, is there anything that they will be prevented from doing in the future? Under the new Tory law anything goes. Employers will be able to exercise any duress on their employees to make them deal with their bosses on their own, without the help of their union.
Mr. David Young (Bolton, South-East) : The Government's action causes great constitutional concern because it is clear that, if courts decide anything that is offensive to the Government, the Government will then
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change the law. Are we not moving towards a one-party or fascist state, where the courts become the puppet of the state and the Government?Mr. Dobson : My hon. Friend has raised an extremely good point. The reason why the Government are so opposed to the European Community having any say in our employment legislation is that, in the case of laws that start with the Community, if the Government are found to be breaking them, they must put those laws right. They cannot just change court decisions on a whim, as they have done in this case. What is happening is part and parcel of the Government's move to derecognise trade unions. They started with GCHQ, as the Secretary of State said, with their step-by-step approach. They have kept up the pressure. Their object is to weaken not just trade unions, but the bargaining position of employees.
Unions came into being because individual employees realised that they were in a poor bargaining position when up against a corporate body with enormous assets and legal privileges. That is as true today as it was in the past. The lack of parity between employers and individual employees was recognised as long ago as 1908 by Winston Churchill, who said :
"Where you have a powerful organisation on both sides you have a healthy bargaining which increases the competitive power of industry and thus forces a progressive standard of life But where you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad employer undercut by the worst." Putting people on individual contracts is to make a mockery of the idea of parity of bargaining. Just look at the bargaining position in the two cases that went to the Court of Appeal.
Associated British Ports must be a wealthy organisation because it pays the boss more than £233,000 a year in salary alone. It has a turnover of £310 million and pre-tax profits of £97 million. Teddy Palmer, Brian Stedman and Eddie Wyeth did not have such resources at their disposal. All that they had to bring to the bargaining process was their skill and experience. If they did not accept the terms offered by Associated British Ports, the alternative was to try to get another job. I must point out to the Secretary of State that that is not much of an alternative in Southampton, where, even according to the Government's fiddled figures, more than 13,000 people are on the dole. That was not much of an alternative for three men, whose average age was 50, in a city where one in five men are officially out of work. There was no parity of bargaining there and the Secretary of State knows it, but he wants the newly privatised bosses to get their own way.
Associated Newspapers is so wealthy that its highest paid director was paid more than £500,000 last year. It has assets of £500 million and pre-tax profits of £76 million. I am sure that very few people would believe that one solitary journalist had parity of bargaining with that company, which owns the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard and which supplies teletext to ITV. Those two companies are not, of course, the only ones that are derecognising unions. In the publishing industry, Reed Elsevier, the printing and publishing company, is busily trying to put all its British employees on individual contracts and to end union recognition. There is not much parity of bargaining there. Even before its merger with Elsevier, Reed International was so wealthy that it paid its
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chairman £391,000 and had net assets in excess of £1.4 billion. It is ironic that the new combined company can pursue its course of action only in Britain. The Elsevier part of the operation is still based in Holland, where the company is required by law to recognise unions and operate works councils.Another major British company, Shell UK, is trying to put its employees on individual contracts and derecognise the unions. Shell is such a rich organisation that it pays its directors more than £1 million. Its net assets total more than £3,500 million. No parity of bargaining exists between Shell and its individual employees. Even with collective bargaining, such a company has always had the whip hand.
Mr. Bill Etherington (Sunderland, North) : I am enjoying my hon. Friend's speech. Has it occurred to him that one reason for trying to keep employees wages down might be so that many of the illustrious companies can add a little more to the Conservative party coffers, even though we do not know the exact amounts?
Mr. Dobson : As far as I know, there is no evidence, yet, that Polly Peck is derecognising unions. I must admit, however, that I am not familiar with employment protection laws in northern Cyprus. The Lord Chancellor might be, however, because he paid it a special visit.
Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley) : Considering that the debate is about the position of trade unions and the rights of individuals, can the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether he believes a system of one man, one vote should be introduced for the election of the Labour leader and Labour Members?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The proposed one man, one vote for the Labour party or anywhere else has nothing to do with the debate.
Mr. Dobson : The problem is that, in the companies I have mentioned, it has been decided that one man, the chairman, has one vote and he votes in both sides of the negotiations.
If the amendment goes through, every company that wants to derecognise unions will be given a free hand by the Government. All forms of bribery and coercion will be made lawful. It is all part of the wretched Government's craven approach to international competition. They no longer believe that we can compete with Germany, Japan, Holland or Belgium on quality.
Whatever personal ambitions may drive individual members of the Cabinet, when it comes to the future of our country the Cabinet Room has become an ambition-free zone. Instead of competing with the best on quality, the Tories have thrown in the towel. The future that they offer for Britain is to compete not with the best on quality but with the cheapest on price. The Tories want to drive down wages. They want British people to continue to work the longest hours in Europe and to take the shortest holidays.
Mr. David Hunt : I am sorry to interrupt such a carefully prepared speech. I greatly appreciated the opening generous remarks of the hon. Gentleman. He asked me a specific question about Associated British Ports and Associated Newspapers, but he will recollect that I was not Secretary of State at the time when those cases came to court. I have checked, however, and I am advised that no representations of any sort were made by either ABP or
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Associated Newspapers before the Government decided to act. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his accusation. Instead of relying on such a heavily prepared script, will he address the issues that I raised in my opening remarks?5 pm
Mr. Dobson : The right hon. Gentleman has not answered all my questions or those that I asked on behalf of other people. He is getting a bit like the bosses of the companies : he prepares his speech, but apparently does not like it when I prepare one. We listened to him for three quarters of an hour and did not get one inch further forward. I am proceeding with my speech as I prepared it.
Mr. Hunt : I will also use the words, "or any other persons on their behalf". Of course, the hon. Gentleman had a right to prepare his remarks. All I am asking is that, at some stage during his reply, he addresses the issues that I raised.
Mr. Dobson : Although the right hon. Gentleman is a Secretary of State, he must learn that, to be in order, one addresses the subject of the amendment. One does not necessarily have to address all the issues raised by Conservative Members. I am addressing what I believe to be the major issues that arise from this disgusting amendment. I shall continue to raise such issues insofar as they remain in order. In order to reduce wages-- which is the only way that the Government believe we can compete--the Government need to weaken the bargaining position of British people at work. They do not do that simply by threatening them with a dole queue of 4 million. The Tories are determined to casualise employment in Britain, and the proposals are part of that casualisation process.
At present, people who want to work full time are being forced to go part time. Millions of people--mainly women--are left with no right against unlawful dismissal unless they have worked for five years. People with family responsibilities are being told that they face the sack if they do not work all the hours that God sends. People who thought that they had a career have been called in by their bosses and told that they can have a two or three year contract--and must take it or leave it. People have been told that, under their new contracts, they can find and fund their own pensions. As a result, people at work are feeling more and more threatened and insecure. I am talking not about any old people, but about the people of this country who are being treated worse at work than any other people in western Europe. It is disgraceful to have to say it, but they are being treated in that way by British-owned companies at the behest of the British Government. It is not Nissan or Toyota which behaves in that fashion-- generally, the multinationals do not behave badly. They know the obligations expected of employers in Europe. They are accustomed, at least in Europe, to complying with international standards and are familiar with dealing with Governments who discharge their international obligations.
The Opposition's next objection to the amendment is that they believe that the proposal will infringe the right to form or join a trade union set out in the European convention on human rights. We believe that it will
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infringe the right to organise which was set out in the Council of Europe's social charter. We believe that it will infringe the guarantee of the right to collective bargaining set out in the treaty of Rome, and the obligation to develop a dialogue between management and labour required under the Single European Act, which was pushed through the House by the use of a guillotine motion by Mrs. Thatcher's Government. It will breach the International Labour Organisation convention, which provides protection against anti-union discrimination and specifically outlaws deprivation of wages or limitation on wages for taking part in union activities.Just in case the Euro-sceptics on the Conservative Benches are not impressed by the mainly European obligations that I have listed and believe that such protection is confined to Europe, I should add that, in Japan, the right of workers to organise, bargain and act collectively is guaranteed by the Japanese constitution. The Opposition believe that if workers in the rest of the European Community and Japan receive the benefit of decent employment protection laws, British workers should receive the same. The Government have come up with two justifications for the change in the law. They have argued that their proposal is not an attack on the right of employees to be members of a trade union. The Tories say that the proposal only prevents union members from trying to make use of their membership. That argument was rejected by the Court of Appeal, which quoted with approval an earlier decision quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). That decision, which is worth repeating, stated :
"the activities of a trade union officer in negotiating and elucidating terms of employment is the outward and visible manifestation of trade union membership."
It also stated that the argument now used by the Government would emasculate legal protection. Later, the Court of Appeal described as unreal the argument that being a union member meant nothing more than having a membership card. How right it was : having a union card but not being allowed to use it would be as unreal as having a credit card, but not being allowed to use it. In those circumstances, both cards would be neither use nor ornament.
Although Conservative Members may prefer to forget what they said at the general election, I am sure that my hon. Friends need not be reminded that the Tory party manifesto stated that the Labour party would disrupt industrial peace by weakening the courts. It is not the Labour party which is weakening the courts today. The Tories also said that the workers' rights in which they believed were those which enhanced individuals' status and opportunities. David Wilson, Teddy Palmer, Brian Stedman and Eddie Wyeth are all individuals. What about their status and opportunities? What about the status and opportunities of the thousands of individuals who will now be subject to lawful bribery and brow-beating if the amendment is passed? The Government have also claimed that the amendment is necessary to clarify the law. Presumably they would like us to believe that Associated Newspapers and Associated British Ports were innocently misled into their law-breaking campaign of bribery and corruption. Most people would find that hard to believe. They would find it even harder to believe if they knew about the battery of lawyers that each company has deployed on the case.
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The law is clear ; the wording is plain. However, if for the sake of argument we were to conclude that the law needed to be clarified, that does not mean that it needs to be clarified for the benefit of employers and the disadvantage of employees. It could be clarified in another way. Parliament could make clearer still the fact that bribery is against the law. That is what was previously meant and what the law should mean now.We believe that British people should have more rights at work than they have now. In times of rapid industrial change, uncertainty and insecurity, people at work need more protection, not less. Their need for trade unions grows rather than diminishes in times like the present. When individual employees are being picked off at leisure by unscrupulous employers, the right of employees to act together to protect one another should be strengthened, not weakened. We believe that the Government should end derecognition by changing the law. We believe that, as in the rest of the European Community, employees in Britain should have the right to be represented through trade unions, and that that recognition should be obligatory where there is substantial support among the employees. That idea works as we can see from the rest of the EC. Decent employment laws do not hold back countries or economies. Decent employment laws apply in the seven EC countries which have a higher standard of living than Britain. Decent employment laws apply in the seven EC countries which export more per head of population than does Britain. Decent employment laws apply in every other EC country which have a better trade balance with the rest of the world than Britain has. Decent employment laws go with economic success, high pay and prosperity. The Government's policies of promoting casual employment and insecurity go with economic failure, low pay and poverty. The amendment shows the Tory party at its worst, capitulating to secret pressures from its rich and powerful supporters to the disadvantage of ordinary people who have to work for a living. It is wrong in principle, it will be harmful in practice, and it will add to the growing insecurity of everyone at work. It is an assault on free trade unions and seeks to shift Britain's industrial relations back to the previous century rather than move them forward to new, better and more productive relationships for the century to come. This elected House should represent the interests of people at work and tell the House of Lords, "We do not accept this amendment."
Mr. Peter Bottomley : The amendment proposes to change the part of the Bill that is headed :
"Rights in relation to union membership".
It is clear that it has to do with wrongs in relation to union membership.
It was recently said that
"talk of undermining freedom of association was poppycock". I should like to share with the House the decision of the industrial tribunal. Paragraph 60 of its report states :
"The Tribunal was satisfied that in the context of this case and on the facts we have found the respondents' purpose was so to reduce the power of the union as to negate it totally. If this had not been their purpose they would have recognised the union for matters other than wage negotiations if they had so wished."
To say that what the amendment proposes is not an attack on free association is undermined by those words.
On page 16 of his Court of Appeal judgment, after the quotation
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"The purpose was not in dispute--it was to end collective bargaining' ",Lord Justice Dillon said :
"That was indeed the stated purpose of the employers, and it is common ground that collective bargaining' was not intended to be limited to collective bargaining about pay."
We have on reasonable authority, on behalf of the Government, the statement that discrimination against individual workers on grounds of trade union membership will remain illegal. Paragraph 61 of the industrial tribunal's judgment states :
"The Tribunal considered that the respondents were fully aware that by depriving the union of any function in the work place (save on health and safety) they were effectively rendering the union powerless and thus membership pointless."
I remind the House that the case before the industrial tribunal was under a section dealing with deterring an individual from union membership. It is difficult to square that with the statement that discrimination against individual workers on the ground of trade union membership will remain illegal.
My understanding of the words to be inserted before clause 13 of the Bill by what is referred to as the Ullswater amendment is that they would forbid an industrial tribunal to hold that an employer had acted illegally if the consequence of his action would be held by that tribunal to have the purpose of deterring an individual from union membership.
Those of us who want to support the Government--as I normally do, though in this case I want to keep the law as it is--have been told that if an employer can show that it is reasonable to have another purpose, an industrial tribunal will not be able to hold that that which is now illegal will remain illegal.
I could quote at length from the Court of Appeal judgment, which upholds without difficulty the industrial tribunal's findings of fact and law. I shall not do that, but shall merely quote from paragraph 62 of the industrial tribunal finding. It states :
"The Tribunal did not consider that the respondents"--
that is, the employers--
"could hide behind their right to de-recognise the union so as to deny successfully their ultimate purpose which was to effect the wholly foreseeable consequence of deterring individual journalists from being union members."
Of course, the case goes far wider than that because for "journalists" we could read "any employees".
5.15 pm
In his judgment, Lord Justice Dillon considers the four points that the employment appeal tribunal considered. He says that the employment appeal tribunal found a distinction or a difference that did not amount to much.
The question was : what was the purpose of the employers in derecognising the union, ending collective bargaining and changing the terms and conditions of their employees? It was held, with the agreement of the other members of the Court of Appeal, that the industrial tribunal was entitled to find that the purpose was as stated in paragraph 60 :
"so to reduce the power of the union as to negate it totally." The evidence quoted by Lord Justice Dillon is sufficient to support that finding, which does not square with the statement Appeal is "poppycock".
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If I wanted to disagree with the Court of Appeal's judgment, I should say, "It has stated the law, which is its right, unless that is overturned by the House of Lords, but I should prefer the law to be different from what it appears to the Court of Appeal and the industrial tribunal." Although my background is not comprehensive, I would argue that people have understood the law for about the last decade.I was taken on as an industrial relations officer by the British Steel Corporation in 1968. I spent a year working with industrial relations and personnel specialists throughout the corporation, which was substantially larger then than it is now. I had dealings with Government Departments and worked in an office that dealt with local and national trade union relations, personnel and social policy. I was fairly low down.
I gained the qualifications of the Institute of Personnel Management and was later upgraded to a fellow of the institute. I do not think that it was a consequence of that that the then Prime Minister asked me to join the Department of Employment, where, for more than a year, I was an Under- Secretary with responsibility for industrial relations, employment law and matters such as health and safety. Following a change of responsibilities, I took over equal opportunities from Alan Clark. Since that time, I have maintained an interest in those issues.
With the exception of one or two parts, the Bill has my support because it is justifiable. I shall not reiterate any of my speeches on Report or on Second Reading. That which the Minister has tried to defend in the context of this amendment is unjustifiable. If the amendment is accepted, its provisions will be reversed in the same way as the exportation of the Tolpuddle martyrs in 1834 was reversed three years later, I think by a Conservative Government, although when the martyrs returned the Government may have changed. The watchword of those farm labourers from Dorset, who, in practice, were sent abroad because they had formed a trade union, was, "We will, we will, we will be free."
The Court of Appeal has said that employees are free to join trade unions and that whatever other purpose an employer may have, if he takes action that has the effect of totally negating trade union membership, that is and has been unlawful. I think that that is a fair summary of the law.
Whatever other purpose the employers had in the newspaper case and the ports case, what they did was unlawful because it totally negated union membership.
The Ullswater amendment states that we can consider some other purpose and let it overrule the admitted effect of what employers do.
On the last Sunday of Labour government in 1979, there was a Conservative Trade Unionists rally at Wembley attended by 2,000 trade union members and their families. I was the president of Conservative Trade Unionists at that time. Margaret Thatcher was there and many people spoke. We were demonstrating that trade union members and their families were welcome within the Conservative family and could trust the Conservatives to do things that were defensible on the shop floor, in the office and in various other places where people work. I am not arguing against individual contracts for senior people or for people of any grade or level within an organisation. As the industrial tribunal held in paragraphs 60, 61 and 62 that the effect of what the employers did was
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totally to negate trade union membership, that should be regarded in simple terms as a straightforward undermining of freedom of association.Associated Newspapers could have achieved its objective in a way that was not unlawful, although I would not necessarily have approved of what it did. I should be careful about how I put this, but newspapers have had great success in getting employees on to individual contracts whether or not they wanted them. In my view, it would have been possible for Associated Newspapers to achieve its objective without acting unlawfully, but it is not my purpose to give newspapers free consultancy advice on how to achieve their aims ; they have plenty of good lawyers of their own.
The ports employer wrote to me saying that the company
"took legal advice at every stage of the transition to personal contracts".
If it took legal advice and was held by the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal to have done something illegal, I suggest that the company should consider the quality of that legal advice. If it argued that because it is now preparing to apply for leave to go to the House of Lords, let me make the following plea to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
The cost and the financial risk to an employee and a trade union of even getting to the Court of Appeal where one is facing rafts of QCs is high. I would estimate that the cost to one of those applicants, if they had failed in the Court of Appeal, would have been about £150,000.
The law is supposed to be, and always was, clear. It was obvious to the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal. Will my right hon. Friend consider taking over the action if leave is granted by the House of Lords and indemnify the successful applicant? I am not asking for an answer today.
The Government's intention is quite clear, as shown by Lord Ullswater's announcement six days after the Court of Appeal gave its decision, that they would overturn the judgment by the Court of Appeal. Six days is pretty fast in Government terms, especially when two days were a weekend and one may have been a bank holiday ; they could not have had more than four working days. If, from the moment they heard the result or even before the Court of Appeal produced its judgment, the Government's intention had been to nullify any judgment not in accord with their now stated view, there is a case in justice and equity for the Government to say that the Appeal Court decision to award costs to the applicant would stand so that, in any case in the House of Lords at least, the applicants would not be at further financial risk.
The Government made it plain on 6 May, in the debate in the House of Lords on 24 May and again today that they are not at present willing to accept the law as stated by the Court of Appeal. My view is that there is no reason for the House of Lords to give leave to appeal, because the confusion in the minds of the employment appeal tribunal--a perfectly genuine confusion--was in the distinction of words. The Court of Appeal judgment was clear.
Let us move on to what is right and return to the law in a moment. There are two circumstances that trouble or should trouble the House. The first is where there are collective agreements. The employer wants to derecognise the union for a purpose or for all purposes except for health and safety at work, as the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 would not allow that.
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If individual contracts are to be imposed, or if collective bargaining is to be nullified, my understanding is that the employer has to give sufficient notice and then can say, "From our point of view, the collective agreement has gone and there will be new terms of employment." In those circumstances, an employer should not be able to take action that discriminates between union members and non-union members to the effect of totally negating union membership.The second circumstance would involve an employer whose employees are on individual contracts. Let us suppose that one or two of the employees join a union, or have always been a member of a union, but want to start working together collectively and approach the employer on that basis. If in the individual contracts of employment, out of a pay index of 100, for example, 20 units or one fifth of the employees' salary was paid as a consideration for being on individual contracts of employment, would the employer be able to say to two or more employees who had asked a union to approach the employer asking for collective recognition and bargaining--a perfectly reasonable request--"We are sorry, but because your contract of employment which you signed as an employee and we signed as an employer says that one fifth of your earnings are in consideration of your being on individual contracts, and because your union has now made an approach, you should now give back 20 per cent. of your pay"? Would that be lawful?
As the consideration of being on individual contracts was 4.5 per cent. in the Associated Newspapers case, I should like to have stated with authority what the position would be. I am not a lawyer ; I have only been involved in industrial relations, industrial economics and other practical things. Perhaps a clever lawyer can find a way of making sure there is an instant penalty if ever a union representative appears at an employer's door saying, "We have been asked by some of your work force if you will speak to us as their representatives." I find it very worrying and see it as a possibility of undermining freedom of association.
In my trade union branch we have had occasional campaigns, although I have not taken an active part in them, to get union recognition in the hotel and catering industries, which used to have some minimum protection by wages councils, at least for a minimum hourly rate. We have been told by some Ministers that the abolition of wages councils would lead to an increase in employment. I say in passing that the best estimate was that if we reduced the pay of people on minimum rates by 18 per cent. we might achieve a 1 per cent. increase in employment in those fields.
The implication of the abolition of wages councils was that collective agreements could come in and do as well. The case constantly being offered to the House was of people in the road haulage industry, leaving aside the fact that that industry has some of the strongest union organisation in the country.
People in wages councils industries, or what will soon be ex-wages councils industries, are in the main presumably on individual contracts of employment, as union organisation is not strong in those industries. If a trade union representative, whether a lay representative or a paid representative, goes to the employer and says, "I want to say a few words on behalf of the people you employ," will penalties on those workers be lawful ?
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An employer can say, hand on heart, "It is in the interests of my employees, because it is in the interests of my customers, for all employees to be on individual contracts" and may consider that to be a reasonable belief. It would not be a common one, but it might be held to be reasonable. If not, what is the point of the Ullswater amendment ?I return to what people thought the law had been. That point was made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who spoke about restoring the law to what it was held to be. The Appeal Court has done that. I am becoming more conservative as I spend more years in the House. Perhaps I have spent too long in the House because I am becoming a little stuck in the mud.
The law was commonly held by people in personnel management, in the Industrial Society, among trade unions and among most employers' associations to be that action could not be taken which would, in effect, negate the benefits of union membership, with the exception, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would remind me if I did not say it first, of some rights concerning accidents at work or other problems, in which area he has more experience than I have and union members have more reason to be grateful to him than to me because I have not done such work.
5.30 pm
My right hon. Friend said that he has nothing against trade unions. I accept that. He said that we should not confuse collective bargaining with other things. I have read out the part of the Court of Appeal judgment which elides whatever difference there may have been between us. My right hon. Friend referred to the 1975 debate. In full context, that would probably prove a point that I would want to make, but there is no need to argue about it too much, because we can always return to the fact that the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal produced a judgment saying that the law was what I had believed it to be and what most people had believed it to be. The question that we must put back to the Government is whether the Ullswater amendment clarifies the law or changes the law. I hope that the debate will persuade the Government Front Bench that its effect is to change the law. That point has obviously not been accepted by the Front Bench and it may take some time to do so, but that is the essential point.
If the general view is that the law is being changed by the Ullswater amendment, introduced on a procedural basis in a fairly unusual and abrupt way, I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell the House that he will in some way try to ensure that its effect will be at least suspended until there has been consultation.
I hope that whoever replies to the debate will answer this question : what consultation paper was available in public to the trade unions, the TUC, employers, the CBI, the Engineering Employers Federation and all the other employers' federations and associations before the Government decided on the terms of the Ullswater amendment? I have not been aware of one and I have not seen an open consultation paper on its contents in the press that I read.
One can argue that from 6 May to 24 May was only about two and a half weeks, but open consultation would still have been possible. I ask any hon. Member to intervene and tell me if he or she was aware of any open consultation on the Ullswater amendment.
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