Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

May I say to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, for whom I have the utmost respect, that he did not take interventions during his opening remarks? As many of my hon. Friends made clear, that would have assisted the progress of the Bill. I think that new politics is about engagement in debate, and I hope that he will engage in that way in future.

We need to consider the details and the rationale behind the Bill. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington tried to make a case for changing industrial action law. He considers the current legal framework to be intrinsically unfair and thinks that because it is complicated, it gives rise to great uncertainty and unnecessary legal challenges against trade unions. Industrial action law has been a bone of contention for most of the last century or more, and hon. Members have referred to past discussions. When we look at the history, we see many key moments. We need only think of Barbara Castle’s “In Place of Strife” to remind ourselves how divisive and politically damaging to certain Governments this issue can be. Then there was the bruising period of the 1980s and early 1990s, when the Conservative Governments of those days introduced a succession of laws to establish a new legal framework to regulate and democratise the taking of industrial action. I believe that those reforms were long overdue, but it is worth reminding the House that they were resisted every inch of the way by the Labour party when it was in opposition.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have been trying to follow what the Minister is saying, and it appears to me—I do not know whether you have the same impression—that he is deviating a long way from the terms of the Bill. He is giving his view of the history of industrial relations in the 1980s and early 1990s, when he should be addressing whatever concerns the Government have about my hon. Friend’s Bill.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am listening to what the Minister has to say, and if I consider that he is out of order, I will certainly call him to order. However, I know that he will want to relate his comments more directly to the Bill.