Lord Hendy (Lab)

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in the debate on my amendment. I have a couple of words by way of reply. I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that the P&O Ferries scandal was not the basis of the argument that I advanced to the House but simply an egregious example of the absence of the right to take secondary action. Noble Lords will recall that that case involved some 800 seafarers who were sacked instantaneously and replaced immediately with agency crews recruited in third-world countries. In doing so, P&O Ferries knowingly and intentionally broke the law. It could do so because it knew exactly how much compensation it was liable for, and it paid it. The unions, on the other hand, were unable to call on fellow workers in the Port of Dover and other cross-channel ports to support them in an industrial dispute to reverse that decision. The seafarers themselves, of course, were on the stones; they were unemployed. A strike by the direct workforce would have been completely pointless. I mentioned it because that is the last example of the ILO commenting on the UK ban on secondary action. It said that the Government and social partners should sit down together and endeavour to negotiate some form of permissible secondary action. The ILO has been consistent on the position since 1989, repeatedly saying that the 1990 law to which my noble friend Lady O’Grady referred was incompatible with Convention 87. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, pointed out various circumstances, which I will not debate with him now, that would make the return of secondary action in this country unacceptable. The point is that special circumstances are not a legitimate justification for a state not to comply with its international obligations. That point was made clear by the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General in a speech that he made about a month ago, but it is a fundamental principle of international law. Finally, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, who commented on the suggestion that the phrase “connected with” ought to be brought back, that phrase is the one that was deployed in the original drafting of the Trade Disputes Act 1906. I thank my noble friend Lady O’Grady for her support and for reminding the House of the fragmentation in employing enterprises, often precisely to achieve and exploit the bar on secondary action, to weaken workers. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Hunt, for their comments. To the Minister, my noble friend Lord Leong, I make three quick points. First, I am afraid I do not agree with his comparative law analysis. I have done some work on this over the years, and it is not the case that the countries that he mentioned bar secondary action—at least, not all of them do, although the United States does. Secondly, I accept, as I did in Committee, that we are not in breach of Article 11 of the European convention, but I simply cannot see how it can be argued that we are not in violation of ILO Convention 87 and the European Social Charter’s Article 6.4. The supervisory bodies have said so over and over again. Thirdly, of course I recognise the Government’s position, and my noble friend will not be surprised to hear that I do not intend to test the opinion of the House. I respectfully ask to withdraw my amendment.