Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)

My Lords, Amendments 215 and 332 are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. They insert a right for trade union members to switch off—to ignore contact from union representatives outside their own working hours. Let me be clear at the outset that we on these Benches do not see this as an unimportant, “nice to have” option. It is a necessary safeguard in the context of a Bill which is probably doing more than any legislation in living memory to grant privileges to trade unions and inflate union power and will encourage aggressive recruitment regardless of whether or not workers want it. This amendment goes to the very heart of a deeper question we have to ask ourselves: whom is the trade union there to serve—the worker or itself? If we are honest, the Bill increasingly seems more interested in empowering the institution than protecting the individual. The Bill certainly tilts the playing field, not towards workers as individuals but towards union structures as institutions, and it does so with no meaningful safeguards, no checks and balances, and no regard for the fact that many workers today want something very different from what the traditional trade union model is capable of offering. The Bill is not neutral nor balanced, and it is not simply updating outdated frameworks or modernising collective bargaining: I believe it is a deliberate attempt to revive old-school trade unionism in a dramatically changed industrial context by granting unions not legitimate rights but privileges, whether or not the workers want them. Through expanded access rights, new entitlements and a raft of concessions, the Government are artificially breathing life into organisations that are, frankly, no longer representative of most working people. Union membership has been declining for decades, not because of external barriers but, I believe, because of internal obsolescence. The nature of work has changed, and expectations have changed, yet trade unions have not. Instead of accepting that reality, this Government have decided to push unions back into the workplace, not by making them more attractive but by giving them more power. We know what happens when institutions are given power without accountability: they use it and, often, abuse it. This amendment is therefore a response to that risk. It says clearly and unapologetically that, even if the Government want to empower unions, individual workers should still be able to set boundaries, especially in their own time. The pressure that comes from union representatives is not always welcome, and it is certainly not always proportionate, especially now that, under the new powers granted by the Bill, I am sure we will see a rise in out-of-hours messaging, campaign pushes, late-night emails, WhatsApp group bombardments, friendly reminders to attend meetings or urgent invitations to back a ballot. It will be relentless, not because it has to be but because unions will be under pressure themselves to prove their relevance, grow their numbers and mobilise more quickly and visibly than ever. The burden of that spurious urgency will fall squarely on the ordinary—often reluctant—member, who will have joined the union for protection, not politics, and who just wants to do their job and get on with their life. That member deserves a basic right: the right to draw a line. This amendment gives them that right. It says that, outside your working hours, you cannot be expected to respond to union communications, not because you are hostile to unions or are trying to undermine solidarity but because your time is your own—and because respect for the individual must come before deference to the organisation.