Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Balfe
I shall be brief. I begin where the noble Lord, Lord Hain, ended, which is with the leaked letter. The points put by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, were extremely well made. There are clearly a whole number of issues within the Bill. If we are to believe the leaked letter, which I probably do, and as we are not going to vote tonight, I hope that the Minister will look very carefully at all these amendments with a view to coming back and assuring the House that, if we asked to sustain our opposition to them, she has firm advice from the Attorney-General that that will stand up in court. I am not afraid of our occasionally going to the Supreme Court to clarify matters—I think it is probably necessary in a devolution settlement—but we should be on firm ground. If we do go to the Supreme Court, we should have a recommendation from the Attorney-General that he is quite satisfied that legally we are in the right in what we do.
When it comes to things such as deductions of contributions at source, about which at another opportunity I shall make some very clear points, if devolution means anything, surely it does not mean that we are going to ask Cardiff hospital, for example, to stop deducting the subscriptions of their union members if that is done at no cost to public funds and is seen as beneficial to industrial relations in Wales. What does devolution mean if simple things like that cannot happen? Maybe they cannot happen but, if that is the case, I hope that the Minister will be prepared to publish and share with us the views of our Attorney-General as to why this is a sound clause.