Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendment 149A—and Amendment 149, spoken to very ably by my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow. He is absolutely right about the qualifying percentage. Not long ago, I was thumbing through my copy of the Labour Party rules, as you do; the template rules of the Labour Party. I noticed that regional executive council meetings of that party have a quorum of 33% in terms of any decisions made in the deliberations of that committee. If the Labour Party is going to impose a less than 50% and certainly less than 33% marker for decisions being made internally, it is odd that it does not take a similarly robust attitude towards important decisions that affect many workers in industrial landscapes and industrial relations. Amendment 149A addresses a very perverse consequence—the decision, in terms of Clause 72, to remove proper organised supervision of industrial disputes in the industrial landscape that we have at the moment. It is pretty odd that there does not appear to be a rationale for this. It seems sensible and prudent for us to be in a position where trade union officials are responsible for ensuring that there is an orderly management of industrial disputes. No case has been made by Ministers, in Committee or at Second Reading, for why it is necessary, other than demands from the trade unions to remove that part of previous legislation.