Lord Balfe (Con)

My Lords, I will probably not find a lot of favour on this side with what I am about to say. I remind the House that I am the honorary president of BALPA, the pilots’ union, a union that does not go on strike and does not regard militant industrial action as an achievement. A dispute that leads to a loss of work for our employees is a failure, not a success. I also remind the House that 30% of trade union members vote for the Conservative Party. People might say, “Well, there’s something wrong with them”, but I do not think that there is. The truth of the matter is that there is very little politics in trade unionism. Through several years, I have sat on the executive of BALPA, and we just do not discuss politics. Occasionally, things come up where we have to comply with some regulation or other and there may be a discussion, but the discussion is probably about the cost of complying. One of the things that I have noticed is the huge growth in legal fees that the union is dishing out. We are the nearest that the legal profession has got to a recruiting agency. We always seem to be paying KCs a lot of money to get us round the law. I am not aware that our union has ever broken the law. I hope that we will move forward and regard this Bill as the starting point of a consensual approach to industrial relations. We are all basically on the same side. I mentioned that 30% of trade unionists vote Conservative. In the pilots’ union, it is over 50%. They are not impressed with this “Punch and Judy” approach to trade union legislation in recent years. I appeal to all the House, the Government and the Opposition to work to get a consensual basis for trade unionism. I look across and I see my friend Brendan, the noble Lord, Lord Barber, who did enormously good work at ACAS, and that is the sort of organisation that we need. It attempts to smooth out the problems that we have in industry. At the end of the day—yes, I am going to wind up—our employees want a wage and our employers want a successful business. We recognise that. This should help to build that up, and I certainly hope that it will. I wish the Bill well.