Employment Rights Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I place on record my thanks to the four maiden speakers and to the three former TUC general secretaries who have joined us for this debate, not to mention the last speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Prentis, whose union was always very helpful to me when I was David Cameron’s envoy to the TU movement.

I declare an interest: I am the president of BALPA, the pilots’ union, which is a TUC-affiliated union. I do not think I would be giving many secrets away if I said that the majority of our members probably vote Conservative at most elections.

Most people do not join trade unions for political reasons; they join because they want to be looked after and to have someone to consult if times get rough. The other thing is that most of them join because you get a good discount on your car insurance and a free legal advice service. My subs to AUEW-TASS, which is now part of Unite, were covered completely by the amount of money I got off my car insurance.

Just to rub it home a little bit, the legal service was excellent. My children went to a private school. We once got into a bit of trouble with the bursar, who was trying to pull a fast one. I rang the union legal service, and a very helpful solicitor drafted me a letter. I said, “I dare say you’re not used to helping your members challenge private schools”. I always remember his reply. He said, “Sir, we are not here to judge the members; we’re here to help them”. Those two facts about unions are a great comfort to many ordinary people who have to work for their living.

I have known quite a lot of Prime Ministers. The only Conservative one that I thought was on the right track was Ted Heath. If things had turned out differently, this party might well have a somewhat different relationship. I got to know Ted quite well after he retired because he used to enjoy coming to Brussels. They are so obsessive there about political balance and I was about the only Labour Party member willing to sit next to him at dinner, so we had lots of very interesting conversations.

I welcome this Bill—I am probably the only one on this side who does—because I think it clears up a lot of anomalies that need clearing up. I served 25 years in the European Parliament and I saw European trade unionism, based on the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, where you respect the rights of workers. It is as simple as that. But I do think that, if we are going to move forward, those in the TU movement will have to change. They have to get Conservatives into the annual congress; they have to make them come and explain what they are up to, not have them as the hate figure on the wall. The TU movement itself has to look at how it deals with the one-third of its members who vote for the Conservative Party. That is as much of a challenge as our challenge to pass this law and make things better for the workers.