Baroness Cash (Con)

My Lords, I support Amendment 147, which is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Conscious of time passing this afternoon and the fact that we have a lot to get through, I will make two points. We debated this at some length in Committee, but it is clear that the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly affirmed that the freedom of association under Article 11—which is now, of course, incorporated into our own law—includes the right not to be forced into a political association or compelled to subsidise political causes, as well as the right to do so. To ensure that we have the right cases on the record, I note that in Young, James and Webster v the United Kingdom, in Sørensen and Rasmussen v Denmark, and in Sigurjónsson v Iceland, the court found that even indirect compulsion —which is an opt-out mechanism, as one of those cases found—where individuals are financially or contractually locked into supporting ideological activity, even temporarily and regardless of how short that period may be, is incompatible with Article 11. Worse than that, these principles have been shown, through a lot of research, to damage the well-being of employees. Union affiliation with a political party increases the perception of coercion, according to a field study conducted by Taylor and Bain in 2019. The intrusion of party-political activism into the workplace, whether through political fund default enrolment or visible partisan campaigns—or, incidentally, even just union communications—has been shown to undermine employee well-being, trust and cohesion. It impacts on mental performance, and we should note the problem that this country already has with sickness benefits. To do this and to regress to a position of an opt-out will have the most negative and wide-reaching of effects, so I support the amendment.