Lord Deben (Con)

My Lords, I wonder whether we are having a discussion for 2025, or one that is deeply mired in history. I find myself in some difficulty listening to either side of this discussion. I say very strongly that trade unions have been, and are, very important, but I also hope that people who watched the annual conference of the National Education Union, all of whose officers have the support of the Socialist Workers Party, may ask why a union like that should have spent more time talking about Gaza than it did about school attendance. We cannot be entirely happy about the circumstances of all trade unions, and this Government are going to have to face those trade unions pressed from that way. On the other hand, I deeply disagree with the attitude we have just heard about trade unions being destructive. Trade unions have been very constructive in many circumstances, and this is something we should recognise. My problem with the Bill, and my reason for coming to this debate to support my noble friend’s amendments, is related to what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton—who opened the Back-Bench remarks—said about trade unions: that they were not forced on anyone. They were created by people coming together to work for better attitudes, better conditions and better pay for working in those circumstances. If people want to do that but want to be independent and not subject to their employers—as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, fears—and if they do not want to be called a trade union, then we ought, in 2025, to give them the powers to make the same kinds of arrangements with employers as a trade union. If we do not do that, this is going to be the one area where this Government will say there shall be no competition or opportunity for people to make a different decision about their future. We ought to give people that opportunity, and we ought to protect those people by making sure that it is given to them only if they are independent, pay for it themselves and have chosen that particular mechanism. I say to the Labour party Front Bench that none of us who work—as I still do, happily—right across the board with all kinds of companies can think of today’s industry and commerce as if it were like yesterday’s. There are new circumstances and new ways of doing things, and the Bill ought to recognise that. If all it does is solidify the past, we will have missed a great opportunity.