Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Lord McAvoy
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, which is always a warning, in this House, that worse is to come. I simply say that I could not believe the speech he made. I would like to think and hope that he got somebody to write it for him, because I thought that the intellectual content was as close to zero as one could get. Of course, I understand, sitting on the Bench he is sitting on, his acute dislike of our present parliamentary system and first past the post, but, of course, that is the situation in which we live.
That is the situation in which noble Lords on the Opposition Benches have stood for office, have won office and have run this country. At times, members of the noble Lord’s party did the same; they formed a coalition because they had enough seats to count under the first past the post system. This, on the other hand, is as if we were to say that no Government were to do anything the least bit controversial because they did not have an overall majority all the time. I am trying to think how many times when I stood for election I ever got 50% of the vote. I think I did on one or two occasions. Against that background, it is as if we were to say to the people who if there is another tube strike will be walking 10 miles to the office, to the people who never make their operation because they cannot get there in time, to the people who never see their loved one who they hear is in a serious situation in hospital but who cannot get there in time, “Sorry, we really cannot do anything which might give more confidence to the Government and to Parliament and recognise your concerns.”
Someone who was an observer from outer space, or in the Gallery here, and who heard the deeply moving speech by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, brilliantly delivered, as it always is, might ask, “What is he actually talking about?”. Oh, it was just to say that if you are going to have an important vote to bring people out on strike, it is unreasonable to say that at least one in two of the union members should actually vote. Some noble Lords may not have had a chance to look at this amendment. This amendment says that it is outrageous to say that one in two of the union members have to turn up for the vote, irrespective of what they decide to do. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, says that it should go down from 50% to 35%, so that it is one in three.
Lord McAvoy (Lab)
Can the noble Lord give us the percentage of the people in the United Kingdom who voted Tory at the election?
Lord King of Bridgwater
That is the great fallacy. I have heard the argument about 50%, but that is the point I am addressing: how many people got elected with 50%? The question of a strike is a binary choice. It is not the same as having five or six candidates standing in a by-election or an election. I do not know how many noble Lords have actually stood as candidates for election but a number who are in this Chamber at present have. They will know that if you have a number of candidates, the chances of getting 50% of the vote are unlikely. Are we saying that is a good background against which you would have to go around and say, “Just a minute: we have cleverly worked out that 24% voted for us. Can we find another 3% from some other party and other 10% from somewhere, and then—my goodness—we could make some policy”? That is not the way this country has worked. The answer is that the system we have of first past the post is the basis on which government works.