I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

It is an historic occasion. I am delighted that I will joined shortly by the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), who has been absent from illness.

The Bill establishes and fosters a new culture in the workplace, removing the outdated notion of conflict between employers and employees with a sense of new partnership—a partnership of rights matched by responsibilities. It will address the fundamental imbalance in the workplace that we inherited from the Conservative party.

Now more than ever, we need to foster a new culture in the workplace. The world is dramatically changing and the workplace has changed with it. More people are working part-time and on temporary contracts. More women than ever are working. More families depend on two earners. Those new working patterns put new responsibilities on Government, business and employees.

We want people to be partners in change, not the victims of that change. That places a responsibility on Government to ensure minimum standards of fairness and treatment for all in society and in the workplace. That places a responsibility on business to ensure that the task of making a reality of the flexible labour market does not fall solely and exclusively on working people, and a responsibility on employees to demonstrate loyalty and commitment to their employer.

The Bill will do three things: it will promote family-friendly policies; promote a new culture of partnership in the workplace; and ensure equal and fair treatment for all in the workplace, regardless of whether they work full or part-time, for a single employer, or through an agency. Those are all sensible and achievable goals. It is a matter of great regret that the Opposition will not support them.

We are just a little over two hours away from the introduction for the first time in this country of a national minimum wage, which will benefit 2 million of our fellow citizens by taking them out of poverty pay, and ensuring that they will not be exploited. Two million people will benefit from the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, but even more people will benefit from the Employment Relations Bill.

About 135,000 mothers will benefit from our improved maternity provisions. The 1 million people who work through employment agencies will have greater protection. Some 3.3 million people will benefit from our parental leave proposals. More than 6.5 million part-timers will be protected from discrimination.

The Government are acting for all our people, not just a privileged few. The Bill will play an important part in modernising our country, creating a better Britain and a more modern and fair society in which all the people will have rights coupled with responsibilities. The Bill discharges our responsibility by ensuring that we meet our manifesto commitment. We are a Government who deliver on our promises.

The Employment Relations Bill begins a new era in industrial relations, an era based on partnership and on putting aside the divisions and disagreements of the past. It is a new beginning for industrial relations that will benefit millions of our fellow citizens. I commend the Bill to the House.

In rising to oppose the Bill on the Opposition's behalf, may I agree with the Secretary of State on one matter by expressing our pleasure at the fact that the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry is shortly to return from his indisposition. We are pleased that he is able to be with us again.

Now, let me resume normal hostilities by saying that what we have just heard from the Secretary of State was, even from him, a disappointing concatenation of soundbites. The Secretary of State claimed as a credit to himself the imminent introduction of the national minimum wage, but he simultaneously omitted to mention the propensity of both that and of the Employment Relations Bill to destroy jobs by increasing the costs of business. The Government have taken no adequate account of that fact. For all their honeyed words and all their alleged readiness to consult, they are bent on doing damage to British business by imposing costs on it.

The conduct of the Bill has been remarkable. Two reordering motions were required, one on the very first day of consideration. Four major schedules have been tabled during the Bill's proceedings. Consultation and regulations were issued in pre-draft form 90 minutes before we considered them. That does not suggest that the Government understand much of the business about which they lecture real business people.

The Bill will impose statutory collective bargaining. Last time that was done, six short clauses damaged British industry and proved to be unworkable. This time, there are 27 long pages of a schedule, which will damage British industry and which will prove unworkable.

The Bill introduces, for the first time, parts of the European social chapter, which have not yet been fully discussed. The Government have gold plated some of the obligations that they have voluntarily undertaken, adding further to those obligations in ways that will increase costs on British business. The pattern of their policies—including the family-friendly policies—is to put burdens on to business and to reduce competitiveness while increasing costs.

Some loose ends will be left over. The Confederation of British Industry has expressed general concern about the Bill, but has gone along with it. Concerns remain about the importance of asserting the voluntary principle, the best by which to conduct industrial relations. Concerns remain about disciplinary and grievance hearings and about definitions in the Bill, some of which we have been able to explore and others of which we have had no time to explore.

The Bill is an extraordinary confection. There is little in the clauses, more in the schedules, and most of all has lain in the soundbites. Today, the Government are ringing their bells and making their claims, but, in the years to come, British industry will pay the bills and suffer the damage of a Bill which we are pleased to oppose.

It falls to me, in the three remaining minutes of the debate, to have almost the last word on the Bill. I should like to reinforce what Liberal Democrat Members have been saying from the outset—that we have always supported the principles of fair and free industrial and employment relations. I should like also to sum up the past several weeks of our consideration of the Bill.

The Bill's provisions may be divided into three categories: on individual rights, on collective rights and on family-friendly policies. Despite our long debates and Committee sittings, the Bill's provisions—particularly in the first category, on individual rights—still do not provide the clarity that we should have liked. The problem of discrimination—on the basis of age, and of sexual orientation—is outstanding. We are still not satisfied that the Government have properly addressed the issue.

The Government's proposals on collective rights have left us wondering how they decided on the 40 per cent. threshold. I should be grateful if the Secretary of State and other Ministers would give us some further guidance on how they reached that conclusion, so that the wider community—the many whom they claim to represent—might be able to understand it.

We have concerns also about the Bill's proposals on family-friendly policies. Although we appreciate and welcome the introduction of European Community directives on family-friendly policies, we still do not understand why it was necessary for the Government to indulge in what can only be called the gold-plating of specific matters. We are particularly concerned about how the Government dealt in the Bill with leave for urgent family reasons. We feel that much more could have been done to make the provision simple, clear and efficient in operation.

This is an "enabling Bill". Time and again in Committee, we were told by Ministers that, "The detail will come later. We have not finished consulting. In fact, we are continually consulting." I thought that Governments were elected to legislate, but perhaps I have it wrong. We still have to wait. Time and again, massive Government amendments were tabled but with no time to study or analyse them, or to share in the Secretary of State's ambition—which he expressed again today—of improving the Bill.

We are left with an enabling Bill, and still await the regulations. The doubts that I have been expressing are about exactly how those regulations will work. On the Bills and Acts that the Secretary of State has trumpeted today—such as the National Minimum Wage Act 1998—to make them work, the Government have had to think again, to change their mind and to introduce new strictures and regulations. Will the same happen with this Bill after it becomes an Act of Parliament?

When the regulations are tabled, I look forward to examining them forensically, although—because of the way in which this place works—we shall have little time to do so. Nevertheless, I hope that the Government are listening, and that they will do their best to make the Bill work—not only for the many, but for those who employ the many.