Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I want briefly to commend the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, for putting this amendment forward. I have a lot of sympathy with it. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has explained some of my reasons for supporting it. I just wanted to note that it is very tempting when rights are being taken away to want to consolidate them via the law and constitutionally. I felt it myself in relation to civil liberties, which I think are under attack: the right to protest and in particular free speech. I keep wishing there was a First Amendment, because then it would be there and they would not be able to attack it. However—this a good faith question—when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, justify it in relation to international treaties, ECHR, the Council of Europe and so on, I started to worry that maybe this would become one of those treaties where it would be, “You can’t touch this” and you would end up treating it technocratically, as it were. Rather than it being fighting for the right to strike, it would be fighting for the principle of the right to strike with ordinary workers, rather than simply referring to defending it in the law. So can the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, even though he does not stand a chance of getting it through, reassure me that this is not just an attempt at ring-fencing a right, but then neglecting to fight for it in real life? I commend him and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for raising this, because I really do feel that rights need to be protected under this Government as much as any other, I have to say.