My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I am pleased to report that the restoration of the ceiling of this Chamber is progressing well and should be completed as planned, by October 1984. The main contract for the supply and fixing of new joinery and structural carpentry was let in January at a price of £577,544. The contract for the restoration of the painted ceiling panels was let in March for £91,870. This work should be completed by August 1983. The fixing of the panels and carved wood should then take about a further year and the restored ceiling should be revealed to view in October 1984. The overall cost of the restoration should remain well within the original estimate of £3 million, thanks to competitive tendering.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that extremely comprehensive reply. Is my noble friend aware that I went up to the ceiling last week and that I also went to see where the work was being done in Regency Street? Will my noble friend please congratulate those who are working at the moment on the preliminary work, which is extremely sophisticated and interesting? Can my noble friend please confirm that the timber to be used for the joists—Scots pine—will be coming from the estate of the noble Earl, Lord Cawdor, and that the trees were actually planted in the reign of George III?

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her congratulations, which I shall of course pass on. It is always a great feeling for me when sitting on the Front Bench to think that she might be crawling about the timbers above my head. I can confirm that timber similar to that used in the original ceiling will be employed and that Scots pine from the estate of the noble Earl, Lord Cawdor, will be used for the carpentry and yellow pine from Canada for the joinery. I am not quite sure of the antecedents of the pines otherwise.

My Lords, did the timbers come from that source before or after we lost our American colonies?

My Lords, if I am to be diplomatic, I should say that they were conceived before and grew up after.

My Lords, I seem to recall on a previous occasion when this matter came before the House that I asked a question about other ceilings within the House itself. I do not know whether the noble Earl can tell us whether a survey has been conducted and, if so, the results?

Yes, my Lords, a survey of the ceiling in the Peers' Lobby has been completed and the report has been evaluated by the department. The condition of the ceiling is poor and, subject to the agreement of the Administrative Committee, a protective scaffold and platform will be erected during the Summer Recess. In view of this discovery it is also being considered prudent to survey the other decorative ceilings in the House of Lords during the Summer Recess.

My Lords, I should like to ask my noble friend whether thought has been given to the fact that some people think that, with the lower roof, the acoustics in this Chamber are better than with the higher roof heretofore?

My Lords, I shall certainly bring that particular point to the attention of my right honourable friend. I am not quite sure whether it will be possible at this stage to make any lowering in order to help the acoustics.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, British Telecommunications are currently studying methods by which messages of an emergency nature can be communicated to addressees either without a telephone or whose telephone is out of order after the inland telegram service is withdrawn on 1st October 1982. No final decision has yet been reached.

After 1st October 1982, incoming international telegrams, however originated, will normally be delivered by telex, or first class post. The transmission of money by telephone message would be expensive and raises problems of security. But the Government are considering with the Post Office whether there is any acceptable way of meeting the limited continuing demand for this kind of service.

My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his full and very helpful reply, which will facilitate public discussion of what is proposed, may I ask him to suggest to the postal authorities that they should look again at the possibility of incorporating post offices into the Telemessage system so that payment could be made over the counter instead of through call boxes, where often adequate change is not available? I should also like to ask them to re-examine the possibility of transmitting cash which he kindly says is already being looked at. Finally, will he stress the importance of accurate written confirmatory messages?

My Lords, to eliminate the drastic current losses on the telegram system, pruning of the use of post offices is essential. In the judgment of British Telecommunications, the service will not bear the payment of a handling charge to another organisation. At present, the payment made to the Post Office for telegram acceptance and delivery is running at about £25 million to £30 million a year.

On the second point that my noble friend raised, about the transmission of cash, the procedure at the moment is that cash can he transmitted by telegram but it needs to be picked up from the delivery post office by the person who needs it, on proof of identity. At the moment ways are being studied by British Telecom to achieve this form of transmission. But, as I say, no decision has been reached on it at the moment. So far as confirmation is concerned, the system of confirmatory copies will for the present continue.

My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that it would have been rather a good idea to have done these studies before, and not after, the telegram service was removed?

My Lords, this is very much a matter for British Telecom and its commercial judgment.

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some of us are becoming more and more worried? These days fundamental decisions are made without any opportunity of discussion by Parliament. This is a fact. As a student, I often sent an SOS home that I was stranded on station X and please would they send cash urgently. This is of paramount importance to students. Seriously, something should be done so that Parliament has the chance to discuss these fundamental changes.

My Lords, I am quite sure that both my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry and British Telecom will take note of the noble Lord's views.

My Lords, can the Minister say whether this change was discussed in advance with POUNC, because, as I understand it, POUNC is the one consumer council in which the industry concerned—in this case it is the Post Office and British Telecom—is compelled to give advance notice of a change which could fundamentally affect consumers? If the noble Lord does not know the answer to that, perhaps he could write and let me have the information.

My Lords, if the noble Baroness is referring to the transmission of money, the answer is that a proposal to end the money transmission service, if it is to be ended—and hopefully it will not be—has been put to the Post Office Users' National Council for comment.

My Lords, I am sorry, but I was not referring to that. Is the noble Lord aware that I was referring to the change and I was not criticising that—in which telegrams are abolished arid the telephone service is to be used instead? I wondered whether this change had been communicated in advance to POUNC for its opinion.

My Lords, I am not sure about that, but I shall certainly find out and write to the noble Baroness.

My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that the proposed new system of telephone messages, which is to replace our present telegram system, will not really be very much more help than a first-class letter would be if a first-class letter arrived when a first-class letter should?

My Lords, it is perfectly true that in some cases the system will be more lengthy than has been the case with the traditional system. But, in exceptional cases of real emergency, for example, there is little doubt that some means will be achieved of actually getting the message through to the person for whom it is intended.

My Lords, are we also to see the end of greetings telegrams?

No, my Lords, it will be possible to send a greetings tele-message.

My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that the £30 million handling charge being paid by British Telecom to the Post Office is a ridiculous state of affairs?—because only a very short time ago they were the same organisation and this charge did not arise. Is not it yet another example of the quite detrimental results flowing from the splitting up of the old Post Office?

My Lords, I agree that it is unfortunate that the system allows for those colossal costs, but at the same time it is important to bear in mind that there has been a decline in the use of the telegram system. In 1975–76 4·2 million telegrams were sent and in 1980–81 only 2·9 million, and about 30 per cent. of those were, in fact, greeting messages.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, the Spanish Government agreed on 10th April 1980 in the context of the Lisbon Statement to re-establish direct communications and to lift their restrictions. Subsequently, during the visit of the Spanish Prime Minister to London on 8th January 1982 Her Majesty's Government received an assurance that early practical steps would be taken to adjust the application of the Spanish prohibited airspace in such a way as not to impede the safe and effective use of Gibraltar airport. The Spanish Government are in no doubt about Her Majesty's Government's wish that the restrictions on Gibraltar should be lifted: we have made this clear to them on many occasions, most recently during my right honourable friend's meeting with the Spanish Foreign Minister on 21st June.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that admirable reply. Are not Her Majesty's Government a little discouraged by the continual postponements and delays by the Spanish Government in carrying out their undertakings? May not Spain's inability to abide by her pledged word be beginning to raise in Her Majesty's Government's mind a doubt as to Spain's suitability for entry into the EEC?

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government were fully prepared to go ahead on 25th June with full implementation of the Lisbon agreement. The further postponement, at the request of the Spanish Government, is regrettable; but both sides are determined to keep alive the process envisaged by the Lisbon agreement. A new date for implementation is to be fixed in due course. On the matter of the European Community, the Government strongly favour Spain's entry to the Community, but the Spanish Government are aware of our view that it is inconceivable that the frontier should remain closed when Spain joins the Community.

My Lords, although the whole House agrees with the view that the present restrictions are insupportable, particularly between a member and a potential member of the EEC, could the noble Lord clarify the position after the Prime Minister's broadcast on Norwegian television? Are the Government going to make preconditions about sovereignty, and so on, before then egotiations start? It is important that the country should know what the Government's position really is.

My Lords, the Lisbon agreement said that any subject could be raised, but it reaffirmed the British commitment contained in the preamble to the 1969 Gibraltar constitution, and that is the situation in which we would be negotiating.

My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that the situation in Gibraltar has changed a lot in the last two years? If the inhabitants of Gibraltar had a ballot today as to whether they wanted the frontier opened, the answer is that they probably would not.

My Lords, if the Cintra meeting had taken place, the Prime Minister, Sir Joshua Hassan, and Mr. Isola, the Leader of the Opposition, had both made it clear that they would have welcomed the negotiations taking place. They would have been present at Cintra, and in particular they would have welcomed the opening of the frontier. That did not come to pass. We regret it.

My Lords, will the noble Lord be prepared, in view of Lord Boyd-Carpenter's Question—he never answered this point directly—to consider asking the Foreign Secretary to make further representations on the points that have been made in this Chamber this afternoon, and include in them the fact that there exist extraordinarily good relations between the Gibraltarians and the contiguous towns on the other side of the border, from both commercial and general good conditions? It is these things which are also at stake as well as thwarting the possibility of Spain joining the EEC. All these points ought to be made afresh in view of the debate in this House today.

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right that the continued closure of the border has considerable economic and social results which are harmful to people on both sides of the border. On behalf of my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary I am to visit Gibraltar from 21st to 23rd July to discuss, on the spot, all the implications of the continued closure of the border.

My Lords, is it not the case that Gibraltar airport referred to specifically in the Question lies across the isthmus and is built out from the isthmus known politically as the neutral zone, which has never historically belonged—and still does not—to Britain? Is there not some question as to our right to operate an airport with flights in and out of it?

My Lords, my noble friend kindly gave me notice of this question. The territory of Gibraltar consists of the whole area, I am advised, up to the British frontier fence. If I may add to that, our case was set out in some detail in various Command Papers, and I would draw the House's attention in particular to Document 9 of Cmnd. 3131 dated November 1966, which shows that the Government do not agree with my noble friend on this point.

My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that our admiration for Spain would be all the greater if their authorities had used their energies to open the gates on the La Linea frontier instead of their batons on the English football supporters in Madrid?

My Lords, the re-establishment of direct communications would mean that there would be better relations, which would be for the benefit of those who live on both sides of the border. That, I think, is what we ought to work towards.

My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that, now that we have achieved the great prize of the entry of Spain into NATO, and that therefore Spain is as involved in our defence as we are in theirs, our tone towards this problem ought to be altered and we ought to resolve at all costs to settle it and stop it becoming a festering one?

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. While the Government warmly welcome Spain's entry to NATO, which will be good for the western alliance, nonetheless the existence of restrictions on Gibraltar does not make the discussions within NATO about the details of Spain's membership of the alliance any easier, and of course we regret this.

My Lords, in view of the strategic importance of Gibraltar, and seeing what happened in the Falklands, would the Government make sure in any negotiations that happen that the Spaniards are not under any illusion about the importance we attach to Gibraltar? In order to avoid misunderstanding, would it not be cheaper if we at least put off the closure of the dockyard and kept it going for some time until this question is entirely settled?

My Lords, no one is under any illusion as to the importance which the Government attach to the status of Gibraltar. Indeed, that status is contained in the 1969 constitution. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence said in another place on 1st July, Gibraltar dockyard might take some of the less complex work arising from the South Atlantic operation, but this does not alter the decision to close the Royal Dockyard next year.

My Lords, despite the deep regret that Her Majesty's Government must feel at the apparently intransigent attitude of the Government of His Majesty the King of Spain with regard to the blockade of Gibraltar referred to in the Question, may I ask my noble friend whether he would consider carefully before tying the problem regarding Gibraltar to the Spanish entry into the European Economic Community?

My Lords, I think I have already responded to that point. Clearly, if there is a closed border there will be problems about the Community. Since the Government strongly favour Spain's entry into the European Community, we would therefore very much regret any impediment to that move.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

No, my Lords. No such review is necessary.

My Lords, would the noble Lord the Minister agree that the countries, particularly those of the third world, that have been accustomed to receiving the benefits of ECGD are now in a vicious circle '? Their increased oil bills, the low price of commodities, and the protectionism of the industrial world prevent them from earning foreign currency or the money for internal investment. They are then faced with the necessity to borrow money. Would the noble Lord agree that when such countries are having to borrow money for their own purposes they have to pay very high interest rates? They are therefore unable to repay their debts. At that point ECGD cuts off its support and so the vicious circle is completed. Would he agree with that analysis? Would he recognise that this is a new economic situation in the world in which a re-examination of the operations of ECGD would be very appropriate?

My Lords, I am of course well aware of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, but I do not agree with the conclusions he draws from them. The purpose of the export credit guarantee scheme is to give insurance to our own exporters. It is not a form of aid.

But, my Lords, if that is the answer of the noble Lord the Minister, then he has totally misunderstood the case I have tried to put to him over the past three years. Is he not aware that I have been trying to impress on him that this is a mutual interest between the countries benefiting from ECGD and our own country? Would he agree that this is a global issue now in which the future of this country as well as that of the third world countries is very much bound up? Does he realise what actually happens when ECGD is removed? Those countries then have to buy, usually inferior goods, from other countries with less stringent rules, thereby losing Britain the trade that they want to engage in with us. Would he look again and consult with his right honourable friends in the Government to see whether, in this desperate situation—

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, who will be the first to know that the point of Question Time is to elicit information from the Government and not necessarily to put a case? If he could put his supple- mentary question as succinctly as possible, I think that would be appreciated.

I am trying to probe the mind of the Minister, my Lords, as I have been trying to do for three years. I can briefly conclude by asking if he will reconsider his Answer and consult with his noble and right honourable friends as to whether ECGD could play a greater part in the mutual interest of this country and the countries which previously enjoyed the benefits of ECGD?

My Lords, the extreme brevity of my reply did not perhaps do justice to the amount of consideration I had given to the noble Lord's Question before I answered it. The very brief answer to the point he raises is that it is not in this country's interest to supply goods for which it is not paid and for which it cannot be paid.

My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon, my noble friend Lord Avon will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on the water industry structure.

It may also be for the convenience of the House if I announce that dinner will be available at the usual time this evening. The Committee stage of the Employment Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7 p.m. for a short period. During that adjournment the Third Reading of the Forfeiture Bill will be taken.

My Lords, while the noble Lord is dealing with that, may I put my question of yesterday? Have the Government any intention now of putting down in this House the same kind of Motion as has been put down for debate tomorrow in another place, so that this House may also participate in the discussion on the Falklands Inquiry?

My Lords, that is the sort of question which is more usefully pursued through the usual channels.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

My Lords, I do not think I need take up more than a few moments of your Lordships' time at this stage of the Bill, which, as your Lordships know, has the support of the Government and was fully debated on Second Reading, when a number of noble Lords made helpful and informed contributions. I like to think that the assurances which my noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Elton were able to give during that debate answered all the points that were raised, and I am very pleased that it has not been necessary for any amendments to be tabled. Indeed, for the Bill to have reached this advanced stage in the same form as it began its passage in another place is no mean feat, and reflects the skill of the promoter, my honourable friend Mr. Eldon Griffiths, and my noble friend Lord Renton, the sponsor of the Bill in this House.

During the debate on Second Reading on 11th June, noble Lords expressed concern about the arrangements for bringing the Act into force, and I should like to repeat the undertaking which my noble friend Lord Elton gave then. We shall draw up the non-statutory guidelines comprising measures which can be taken to render an imitation firearm incapable of being readily converted. These will then be circulated within the trade for comment. Indeed, Home Office officials will shortly be meeting representatives of the Gun Trade Association to discuss various firearms matters, and this will provide an opportunity to have a provisional discussion about the guidelines. It is not possible to say how long this process will take, but the commencement order provision will be invoked as soon as the process is complete. I can assure the House that we shall press ahead as quickly as we can. It only remains for me to invite the House to agree to my noble friend's Motion that the Bill be read a third time.

My Lords, I wish to apologise for my failure to reach the House yesterday in time to move the Third Reading of the Bill. I have only myself to blame. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandys for his kind words and I am sure that my honourable friend Mr. Eldon Griffiths also will be grateful. I have only to add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Elton and the Home Office for the help they have given over the promotion and conduct of the Bill.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

moved Amendment No. 18:

Page 3, line 5, at end insert ("or no such ballot has been requisitioned").

During the Second Reading debate I quoted from an article in the Guardian newspaper by Dennis Landau, who is the chief executive of the Co-operative Wholesale Society—the organisation which my noble friend Lord Jacques has been using as an example for your Lordships' Committee. In the article Mr. Landau rightly was concerned about the requirement in the Bill that all closed shop arrangements will in effect need to be reconfirmed every five years. He was writing as the chief executive of a very large and complex business. With a large business, such as the Co-operative Wholesale Society, with its great complexity of factories, warehouses, products, and services, inevitably there is also a great complexity of trade union organisations, and as Mr. Landau pointed out, he is responsible for no fewer than 44 closed shop arrangements, which, as my noble friend has said, have led to a perfectly harmonious relationship between the management and the employees.

When faced with the prospect of having to renew the 44 arrangements every five years, one can, I suggest, see what a burden of administration is being gratuitously placed upon the shoulders of the management of such an organisation. My noble friend and I are using the Co-operative Wholesale Society as an example because, as is well known, we are closely associated with the Co operative movement, but I suggest that what applies to that organisation applies equally to any large conglomerate business organisation, and that what is administratively burdensome for the CWS would also be administratively burdensome for other businesses.

In my view, instead of the five-year ballot, a closed shop arrangement should come to be reviewed under a balloting arrangement only if a reasonable number of employees want the review to take place because they are dissatisfied with the existing situation. In the amendment that we are putting before the Committee we are suggesting that the reasonable proportion be 10 per cent., this, as my noble friend has pointed out, being roughly analogous with the provisions in the Companies Act for the requisitioning of polls of shareholders. That seems to me to be a very reasonable parallel to the situation that we are now considering in relation to union membership agreements.

I notice that when the Bill was before Standing Committee G in another place, Mr. Tom Bradley, for the Social Democratic Party, moved an amendment very similar to that which my noble friend has just moved, except that Mr. Bradley proposed 20 per cent., rather than 10 per cent. as proposed in our amendment. Had Mr. Bradley's amendment been carried, it would thus have been more difficult to requisition a ballot on a closed shop situation. But the arguments that Mr. Bradley put forward were exactly in line with those which my noble friend has put forward.

I notice that my erstwhile noble friends in the Social Democratic Party have not put down an amendment on this question, now that the Bill is before your Lordships' Committee. That might be because, like all of us, members of the Social Democratic Party have many things to argue about and they were selective and decided not to put down an amendment on this particular point. However, in view of the efforts that Mr. Bradley made in Standing Committee G, I hope that when we divide the Committee—as we might have to do, if the Government do not see fit to accept the amendment—we shall receive the support of the members of the Social Democratic Party, and indeed that of noble Lords in other parts of the Chamber, who should, I think, be concerned with the situation of managements of large business concerns who over the years have found the closed shop arrangements which they have negotiated to be of benefit to their business concerns.

May I inquire of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, whether as a matter of broad principle there is any viable distinction between this Amendment, No. 18, and Amendment No. 31 and Amendment No. 17, which was discussed in your Lordships' Committee yesterday? If so, what is it? Furthermore, for information (because I am ignorant about this) is there some feature of the Co-operative Society that makes it different from the matters that we discussed yesterday?

I assume that the noble Lord is referring to the amendment which dealt with ships.

No. It was, if I may explain, the one which was to delete lines 4 and 5, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton —Amendment No. 17.

As I understand it, the difference is this. Amendment No. 17 tried to knock out the five-yearly ballot and put nothing in its place. We are trying to knock out the five-yearly ballot but to put in its place that a minority of 10 per cent. can require a ballot.

I should like to say a word, if I may, in support of my noble friend's amendment. One of the difficulties about this Bill, I think, and indeed about other legislation which noble Lords opposite have put forward from time to time, is the assumption which is implicit in the legislation that trade unions are more or less like one another and that one can legislate in a broad sense and cover all the possibilities in a single piece of legislation. The difficulty that arises from this from time to time is due to the fact that trade unions are very different organisations indeed, and a form of words which may reasonably apply to one organisation and its relationships does not apply to another.

My noble friend has put forward the difficulties which would arise from applying this particular legislation—and he has tried to improve it by this amendment —in so far as the Co-operative Society is concerned. I can see even more difficulties arising from the attempt to apply this legislation in the world of acting. Here, the contracts which are made from time to time are made on all kinds of different occasions and the closed shop (or the union shop, rather) is achieved contractually. At a later stage in the Bill we shall be dealing with that particular problem, but it arises in this case because of the fact that the contracts which are entered into from time to time are entered into individually, separately.

So how does one deal with a ballot arising? Although there is a generality of interest among all people working in the area that they should all work on the same kind of basic contract, all the details of the contract—the salary, and so forth—are of course filled in separately. But it is a general form of contract, known as an Esher standard contract. The name derives, noble Lords may be interested to recall, from Lord Esher, I think the father of the present noble Viscount, Lord Esher, who was instrumental in setting up the London and Provincial Theatre Councils. Lord Esher was a good deal wiser about trade union matters than some of his successors today. He really knew his way about this field, and he set up in this complex and difficult area a contractual relationship which provided a form of coherence which had not previously existed in the whole of the acting organisation.

My noble friend Lord Wedderburn is, I think, the successor of Lord Esher as chairman of the London and Provincial Theatre Councils, and therefore he knows a good deal more about this matter in its current manifestations than I do myself. But I think he will agree with me when I say that the implementation of this particular clause would present extraordinary difficulties in this area because of the fact that there is no factory engaging a large number of people, and contracts are sometimes made at different times with five or six different people in different areas. How, therefore, is one going to get that cohesion of attitude whereby people can decide, "Now is the time at which we want a ballot", or, "We do not want a ballot", and so on?

I do not think that my noble friend's amendment necessarily makes this whole thing workable in the field of acting, but I should like to assure noble Lords—in fact, some noble Lords who know the area will agree with me—that it is extremely desirable that the coherence which these contracts give shall be retained in this area; I will not place it any higher than that. Therefore, though I am not at all sure that this amendment will do the trick in making it workable, it would make the clause a good deal more workable than it is without the amendment and for this reason I hope the Government will feel able to say when they come to reply that they accept what my noble friend is trying to do here and will regard this as an improvement of the Bill.

I am moved to take part in this debate, although my own experience of industrial relations has been very brief, by the fact that, such as it is, I think it is here to the point. A good many years ago I held the office of Under-Secretary of State for War—under, I may say, the wise guidance of my noble friend Lord Shinwell, who was Secretary of State for War at the time. One of my duties every three months was to meet the trade union representatives of the civilian employees at the War Office—and they ranged over a fairly wide field. Of all the duties I ever had to perform, that was certainly the toughest. I remember always coming out at the end of the morning in a state of complete physical and almost mental exhaustion. The trade union representatives, although entirely friendly, were extremely hard-bitten; they knew their case, and they could invariably present it with great skill. Consequently, some of the episodes have stuck in my mind.

One was of a man who had conscientious objection, he said, to belonging to a trade union. That particular trade union did not seek to operate a closed shop; it did not mind his being there to work. But it was proposed to promote him. Once again, they did not object in principle to the promotion of a non-unionist, but what they said about this chap was, "He will go about talking in a loud voice about how much money he saves by not paying a trade union subscription". There is a limit to human endurance. You can talk until you are black in the face about people's consciences, and so on, but where a man proposes to do something that is exceptional he is under a duty to show some regard for the feelings of the people among whom he works.

Another incident was that one of the men had a little daughter who had been and a subscription was being raised to send her to a sanatorium in Switzerland. The subscription was raised in quite a usual way: on pay day, near the place where the men were paid, there was a cap, and as each man received his pay he threw some contribution out of it into the cap. One of the men, who had always been a non-unionist, not content not to contribute, had to inform everybody that he had a conscientious objection to organised subscriptions of any kind. At that stage his fellow workmen, who had put up with him for some time, again took the view that there is a limit to human endurance.

These, admittedly, are exceptional cases, but the whole thing we are dealing with in this amendment, and the whole question of the man who does not want to join a union, is by definition an exceptional case. The point I am arguing, as I tried to say earlier, is that, normally, if you work together with people on the shop floor, you are under some obligation to be a good workmate to them. We must remember that we are not legislating for work in the sense of the work that we do in your Lordships' House, or work done in offices in comfortable conditions. We are also legislating for work done sometimes in conditions of extreme exasperation—bad weather, dangerous machinery, the risk every day of anything from a broken finger to a broken back. In those circumstances, the obligation of any man is to show as much respect as he possibly can for the feelings of his workmates. If he has a conscience which obliges him to do something that he knows will make difficulties, then he ought to make every effort to minimise those difficulties; and I am afraid that sometimes he does not. Some of the stories that we read in newspapers that depict herioc people standing out for liberty arc, if you examine them, stories of the kind that I have related to your Lordships.

The trouble with the Government's whole attitude is that this is a matter which ought to be approached with understanding and patience. I would understand it perhaps if the Government had said, "We believe that the man who conscientiously objects to being a trade unionist has a right not to be one; but we realise that this can be a great provocation to his fellow workers and we are going to search for a tolerable way to deal with the problem". What the Government are doing is positively encouraging people not to work with their fellows; saying all the time to them, "Come on!You decide that you are not going to be trade unionists and the power of the law will be stretched out to help you". That is the wrong approach. It is because I think that this amendment tries to get the approach on a somewhat saner basis that I would be among those who support it.

I should like to follow up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and to ask before dealing with the amendment whether some special provision is being made in the case of actors. There was a special case for seamen in the 1971 Act but I do not recall similar reservations made with regard to acting and to merchant seamen in this Bill. I should be interested to know what the noble Lord has to say about that.

I do not quite follow the arguments of the noble Lords, Lord Jacques and Lord Oram, in saying that the good relations in the Co-operative movement are due to their having a closed shop. There are closed shops in other industries, such as the mining industry, which are not outstanding for the absence of industrial disputes. The noble Lords, Lord Oram and Lord Jacques, I should have thought would have been the first to agree that it might be plausible that the good relations were due to their being co-operatives and not due to the fact that they were closed shops. The attitude on these Benches is to attempt to be as evenhanded as possible with regard to the continuation of the closed shop. We do not accept the idea of a closed shop as being an essential and highly desirable element in the development of good industrial relations. We believe with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, yesterday that a high degree of trade unionism in an organisation is desirable and that there is lot to be said for the union which maintains a 90 per cent. membership without enforcing a closed shop: we think that in the long run this may be better for industrial relations and better for trade unionism than the enforced closed shop.

We do not accept the argument, although we do accept the viability of a very high level of trade unionism. On the one hand, we know that there are a number of concerns in which the employers and the trade unions, because, rightly or wrongly, the closed shop has been established over a long period of time, wish that arrangement to continue. We would not wish arbitrarily or ruthlessly to disturb that decision. On the other hand in many cases the nature of trade unionism has changed and we are not convinced that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds where you have closed shops. We know of cases where individuals extremely reluctantly go along with union membership because it is a bread ticket for many and they would like to be able not to do so if it were not necessary for them to continue their union membership in order to get a weekly pay packet.

We want to make it easy for people to be able to have the question revised and we do not consider that for 10 per cent. of the people to be able to have to get together to say that they want a ballot to take place is a satisfactory way of dealing with this. We believe that modification of the proposals put forward elsewhere in this Bill is a better approach. In a closed shop, for 10 per cent. of the people to organise themselves against the closed shop to have to ask for a ballot could be a way of making themselves exceedingly unpopular and many people will find this difficult. For those reasons, we do not accept this amendment, but we will return to this question when we are looking at the numbers that are required, the percentages required in order that a ballot should take place.

Before the noble Baroness sits down, in relation to what she said at the beginning of her speech about industrial relations in the Co-operative movement, would she take it from me that neither my noble friend Lord Jenkins nor I was saying that the closed shop was the reason for good industrial relations in the Co-operative movement? We would say that it was consistent with, and not harmful to, good industrial relations. That is different from the way in which the noble Baroness put it.

I have known for probably longer than almost any noble Lord here what a superb advocate is the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, because I have had the experience of hearing him over a considerable number of years. Certainly, he showed this afternoon that he was on the top of his form as an advocate. His account of his dealings in the War Office with the civilian staffs rang true and, I think, had a considerable effect on your Lordships. But, on reflection, we realise that in a closed shop atmosphere the sort of person who will stand out and insist on his right not to join a union tends almost inevitably to be the awkward type of cuss. The ordinary man, given the general pressure in most organisations to join, however unenthusiastically, will shrug his shoulders and join. He will take the line of least resistance. Only the awkward type, the type (if you like) that the noble Lord described, the one who passed by the cap without putting in a subscription, and in an offensive way, will stand out. That does not prove anything except that for the great majority of people, there is sufficient pressure—and those of us with some experience of these matters know that there is pressure in a great many establishments—to join a union.

The purpose of a ballot is to find out whether, among those working in this particular establishment or establishments there is really an overwhelming desire to have a closed shop. As I understand the Government's policy on this, you can have a closed shop if you can establish that the overwhelming majority of people working in the establishment want it. The only way to find that out is to have a secret ballot. Therefore, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, it does not help us, in considering this question of the ballot, to be told that some of the people who even without a ballot stand out and are awkward about joining a union are the awkward tiresome types whom probably management are as annoyed with as the workers. If you get a ballot quietly, the quiet, considered feeling of the silent majority can exercise itself. Therefore to say that you do not have a ballot, as the Bill provides, automatically after a certain number of years but only if quite a number of people stick out their necks and ask for one, is really to defeat what I think a lot of noble Lords on both sides of the Committee regard as the sensible purpose of this Bill; to restrict the closed shop to where, honestly and expressing their views in private, the great majority of workers want it; and not in other cases.

Therefore, though this amendment has been put forward with great skill, tact and apparent reasonableness, I think the fact is that it does, if accepted, really make a considerable hole in the provision for a ballot. It means that in many cases there will not be a ballot and therefore the position will go on without anybody knowing what is the genuine wish of the workers concerned. I think we ought to know the genuine wish of the workers concerned, and therefore I find myself against the amendment.

Regarding what has been said about the man who did not pay his union subscritpion on grounds of conscience, or whatever it may be, I have always understood that, if that was so, it was unanimously agreed that he would pay the same amount to some charity or some religious body; and in fact I have known an example of that. But I quite agree that it does seem rather unfair if a man pays neither a union subscription nor the equivalent amount to a charity. I agree that it does seem slightly annoying to his workmates.

Since the noble Lord, Lord Oram, referred to us on this Bench, and said quite correctly that my honourable friend Mr. Bradley put down a 20 per cent. trigger amendment in another place, which of course was not called, I am afraid I have to tell him it does not mean we shall be able to support him on this 10 per cent. trigger. There is a very considerable difference. We consider this is too low. Also, I cannot find anywhere in the noble Lord's amendment any limitation on the frequency of triggering. Therefore, we might have a constant series of very disturbing ballots being requisitioned, particularly in the case of industries which have mobile workforces. Also, in another place we put down lower percentages for the ballots when they do take place, and I see that he and we have very similar amendments in that direction on which we might well come to very similar conclusions; but on the trigger mechanism I am afraid we cannot support him.

May I say to the noble Lord that if all that is stopping him from supporting this amendment is that the ballots could be too frequent, I am quite willing to discuss with him between now and Report stage how fequently a ballot should be allowed. Let us carry this amendment before we take the next step.

This amendment may not be regarded as the most significant feature of this legislation, either one way or another, but it has an aspect which is closely related to the principle which I think is uppermost in the minds of Members on all sides of this Chamber. If I need any justification for my intervention, I can only claim—I think there is abundant evidence in support of my claim—that I am in fact the author of the closed shop. That means going fairly far hack into industrial history. I carry with me my union card. It differs to some extent from the union cards held by many of my colleagues on these Benches inasmuch as I am not called upon to pay any subscriptions. That was always regarded as an advantage among the workers before the First World War, who disliked the idea of paying 2d. a week to the union to which they were asked to belong.

I came into the business in this fashion—and this relates to my claim to being the author of the closed shop. I was associated with the seafaring unions before the First World War. It was purely accidental, and not deliberate on my part, but I was involved in a dispute at the time when I was president of the Glasgow Trades Council. That was almost on the eve of the outbreak of the First World War; and when the liners were sailing from the Clyde, from the Mersey, from Southampton and other liner ports, I had occasion to be associated with the departure of those vessels because we had to ascertain whether those who were sailing, whether on deck, in the stoke-hold or in the engine room, were members of the appropriate union. One of my tasks, as national organiser for some years, was to ensure that the men were members of the union; in other words, that the ship was a union ship. It was not called a closed shop, but it was closed in the sense that, although some of those who had signed on at the Board of Trade maritime office and engaged to sail for perhaps a short voyage across the Atlantic or for a matter of two or three years sailing throughout the world on a tramp vessel, nevertheless they understood that there must be complete unity aboard ship and if, as sometimes happened, a man who was signed on said, "I am not going to join the union", an approach was made either to the second officer on deck or to the second engineer below to give the man his cards. Actually I do not think there were cards in those days; they came later on about 1909. But they would say, "Tell him to go; we don't want him". Often the man would say, "I am not going to go", but it did not matter—he went. There were ways and means.

That is what started the closed shop, because a man discovered, whether he liked it or not and whether he regarded this oppression as too high, too low or inappropriate, he had to pay in some form or other or else he would disappear before the end of the voyage. There was no doubt about it. The union which had a death benefit used to pay compensation. It had to pay far more in abundance when thousands of men were torpedoed in the First World War. Some were members of my union and some were members of other unions. That is how it started and, having started among the seamen, it continued automatically. Nobody objected to it. It was a natural thing: "You join the union or else there will be trouble". So they joined. There was no question of principle or philosophy about it—not an element or iota of wisdom about it—but it was just the sort of thing you are expected to do.

Here I interpose with a philosophical suggestion—perhaps not so much a suggestion, but an item that might be regarded as associated with philosophy. People talk about their "rights". For example, in this controversy about the closed shop, I am very often approached by middle-class people who say: "You ought to get rid of this closed shop; it is unfair to dismiss a man because he will not join the union", and so on. I try to put some contrary evidence. They say, "But a man has got rights". I want to tell your Lordships that none of you have rights. You have responsibilities but no rights; you have privileges, and that is quite another matter. But rights—in what sense? What is the principle which would entitle a Member of this Chamber, whether he is engaged in activities in this assembly or outside in business, in some vocation or profession, to claim rights? Philosophically, there is no such thing. Long ago, when employers disliked the idea of the development of the trade union movement, the workers demanded rights. They said, "If the employer has the right to dismiss me, I have got the right to strike"; and that was accepted—even by the courts.

What is the position now? At a time of economic distress, at a time when the country is seeking to get back on to its feet, at a time when we are faced by innumerable economic and other problems, there is introduced and for what purpose at all?—an Employment Bill, in order to dismiss any idea of having a closed shop or a trade union movement without any possibility of interference.

Quite frankly—and I am now going to say something which may be disagreeable and which will surprise some people, but I shall say it nevertheless, because I believe in what I am saying—when attacks are made on the trade union movement, it is sometimes a good thing, because it shakes them up. Sometimes the trade union movement want a bit of shaking up. Sometimes the trade union movement are too sluggish, and sometimes inactive, instead of being overactive. If Mr. Tebbit—and Mrs. Thatcher supports him—and Members of your Lordships' House on the other side think it is right to curb the power of the trade union movement—go ahead!It is the very thing that the trade union movement want and need. But it will not improve industrial relations—nothing of the sort.

What are we asking? I can understand—it is acceptable and, in fact, is embedded in our legislation, so I understand it—that on conscientious grounds a man can say, "I refuse to join the union". He can demand compensation for what is regarded as unfair dismissal and all the rest of it. That is acceptable on conscientious grounds, on religious grounds, on philosophical grounds and on grounds of principle, whatever it may be. But why a man should object to being a member of a trade union, perhaps in a body of 1,000 workpeople, and should want to be the odd man out and claim rights because of that, I cannot pretend to understand. Nor do I think that it is an acceptable principle, either philosophically, industrially, in the sphere of economics or in the hope of improving industrial relations.

I say this to Members of your Lordships' House who are opposed to those of us on this side, who want to help the trade union movement. Of course, I recognise that there are defects; I have referred to them myself, I have written about them and have complained about them. But setting those aside, I can understand noble Lords complaining about the power of the trade unions. But I suggest to them that the trade unions are there only because of the unexampled power of the employing persons in this country over the years. That is the only reason. The raison d'être of the trade union movement is the fact that they have been exploited and dealt with in a fashion which the employers thought was the right thing for them to do. They claimed almost divinity, which was not the possession of the working classes.

Therefore, I suggest this. The Government must make up their minds, sooner or later. Are they going ahead with propositions which will not improve industrial relations, although they may satisfy some elements among the employers?—and there are many employers who do not object to the trade union movement or to its activities. But the Government intend to do this. Is there nothing else for us to do in the promotion of trade, in better relations with other countries, in international trade and in the development of other countries who need our aid and our trade? These are things which we must deal with, if we are to recover. But this is not the way out.

I say this to those on the other side who will reply to this debate. It is almost a Second Reading debate and for that I ask to be forgiven; I am coming to my conclusion and I shall not worry the Committee much more. But I say: be very careful what you are doing. Do not bite too hard. Do not attack, apparently, with malice—although I do not believe that there is malice. It is simply the idea that you must deal with the trade union movement that is becoming too powerful. But the financial employers are becoming too powerful and the middle classes are beginning to realise that. Do not forget that. You have to look over the whole field in order to understand what is going on.

All I am asking is that we deal with this question in a rational fashion. If there is a way out, if there is a possibility of compromise, if we can do something to cement good relations as between the employers and the working class of this country, let us make the effort. It is far better to do that than to fight this out and make it into a quarrel, which will take years and years, and from which it will be difficult to recover.

I believe that it may be the will of the Committee if I move that the House be resumed in order that the Statement can be made. If that is the view, may I move that the House do now resume?

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made by my right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government in the other place. The Statement reads as follows:

" With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the future organisation for water in England and Wales.

" The regional water authorities were set up in 1974 with large memberships, the majority of such members being appointed by local authorities in their areas. The original intention was that these members should represent the interests of consumers. There has for some time been concern that this system is not working as intended. Consumers have not felt that they were really represented and few people knew who their representatives were on the water authority. At the same time, large memberships have led to a proliferation of committees and bureaucracy and inhibited efficient decision-taking. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission, in its report on the Severn-Trent Water Authority, recommended that the present membership should be substantially reduced and not based predominantly on local government representation. The Welsh Water Authority has already been reconstituted on these lines. Earlier this year we issued a consultation paper for England on this question.

" The regional water authorities are substantial undertakings requiring a high level of management ability. Having considered the responses to the consultation paper, the Government have decided to create smaller boards of between nine and 15 members, appointed by Ministers and including executive members on every board. We propose that county and district councils should have the opportunity to nominate people for some appointments to these boards. In addition, land drainage and fishery interests will continue to be represented. Chairmen and members of the new boards will be paid, and will serve for fixed terms.

" Together with these new boards, improved arrangements can then be made for consultation with consumers, local authorities, and other interested parties. Water authorities have already established various kinds of liaison arrangements at divisional level, and we intend to build on these.

" Our proposal is that water authorities should appoint an advisory committee for each division, which would include representatives of local authorities, but also representatives of industrial, commercial and domestic consumers, and agricultural and amenity interests.

" We shall issue guidelines for the establishment of these committees, and will require the water authorities to satisfy us that proper arrangements have been made.

" In considering the structure of the water authorities we have also examined their relationship with the National Water Council. The National Water Council played a valuable role following re-organisation in assisting the new authorities and helping represent them to Government. They are now fully established and the Government have developed a more direct relationship with the individual authorities. The Government therefore believe that they are able to carry out their responsibilities without an additional central statutory body. We have therefore decided to dissolve the National Water Council. We shall be consulting those affected by this decision, including the trade unions. The Water Space Amenity Commission will also be dissolved.

" The legislation which will be required for these changes which cover both England and Wales will be introduced at the earliest opportunity.

" Mr. Speaker, we believe these proposals represent an improvement in the arrangements for the organisation of the water industry, and that they will command wide support both among consumers and in the water industry itself. I commend them to the House".

That concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement which has been made in another place. May I ask him why there was no parliamentary consultation before these, as we see it, reactionary proposals were put forward? Under the previous Conservative Government, when the new Water Act was passed which set up the National Water Council and many of the bodies which the Government are now undoing, there was the fullest consultation. When the last Labour Government discovered that the Act was not working adequately a consultation document was circulated, replies came in and a White Paper announcing proposals was published. But then came the general election. These proposals seem to have been shrouded in an amazing amount of secrecy.

What emerges from the Statement is that once again we are seeing the elimination of local democracy and its replacement by a watery corporate centralism which is answerable only to the Secretary of State. Will the Minister confirm that the local authorities which were consulted—although their response to the Government's proposals have not been published—were very much against the proposals? Is it not also a fact that they follow on the anger which was expressed at the last Conservative conference about the rising charges for water which made many of the delegates extremely annoyed? Will the Minister also confirm that nothing in the Statement will bring about a reduction in water charges? This is a very important question and I should like an answer to it. Although I readily agree that the make-up of the old water authorities was too many in number, may I ask the Minister why there is no place for local authorities on the new ones? Although we read in the Statement:

" We propose that county and district councils should have the opportunity to nominate people".

there is no assurance there that they will be made members of the new boards. Why is there no place for them? And why, since a great deal is said about the interests of the consumer, is there no place for consumers on the water board? What we shall have will be advisory committees, which in the past have proved to be unsatisfactory. It is on the advisory committees that the consumers will be represented. Industrial and commercial users and other people who are very important to the water industry will also be represented on those committees.

With the dissolution of the National Water Council—" dissolution "is a rather curious word; I should have thought it would be better to use the word "abolition"—could the Minister tell me who will be dealing with the level of investment, who will be dealing with wage negotiations and who will be dealing with the quality of water, sewage treatment and pollution, all of which must be dealt with nationally? Who will deal, for example, with the problem of lead in water? I am sure that the Minister must be aware that the water quality survey which was published this year by the National Water Council and which covers pollution and all the other factors relating to the quality of water is unique. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. To whom can we now turn for national water control, pollution and all the other problems which were dealt with by the National Water Council? Finally, is this not, I repeat, a further erosion of local democracy which will not have the effect that the Minister stated he thought it would?

My Lords, while we wish to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, we should like to say that we find very little in it to welcome, beyond the fact that the local boards will be smaller than the previous ones. That at least is a step in the right direction. The idea that these local boards should all be appointed by the Secretary of State, with no democratic control at all over them, seems to us a most retrograde step. Now that the water rate has been separated out from other rates and has grown enormously in the process, surely it would be possible to have a degree of direct election by the people who have to pay for the water to the bodies which control it. Following what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, I deeply regret that the Government have seen fit to set up yet more of these ineffective advisory committees and, in so doing, to keep the interests which are concerned with the operation of the water bodies off the decision-making bodies. Surely the consumers and the major industrial and union interests should be directly represented on the bodies which make the important decisions.

My Lords, I appreciate the comments of both noble Baronesses. Where we slightly differ from them is that we feel that this is not working at the moment and that the elected representatives on the boards are not producing the results for the consumers that we should like. It is for that reason that we are making the change to the divisional level, the difficulty being, as the House is well aware, that the water authorities cover a different area from the local authorities. There is, therefore, disparity between the representatives, with the result that the representatives are not known.

The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked in particular whether there would be a reduction in the water charges. That is not a specific aim of these proposals but we hope that we are moving towards increased efficiency by having these smaller boards which will, we hope, improve the water charge position. So far as liaison at divisional level is concerned, we believe that this is the right place for it to be because that is where the consumer can go straight away and talk to people at his own level about water quality. We believe that is better.

The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, mentioned consultation. As I have already said, earlier this year we issued a consultation paper on this question for England, and as a result of the response this is what the Government have decided to do. As the noble Baroness rightly pointed out, the local authorities were not, on the whole, in agreement with this policy. In fact, I think the decision is not one which they like. However, there will continue to be some members with a local authority background on the boards. It is also intended that there shall be local authority members on the consultative committees which will be set up specifically to represent the interests of consumers, local authorities and others directly affected by water authority activities.

In the Government's view, there is no longer any need for a central statutory body and the council's functions of providing advice to Ministers and of providing a forum for the discussion of matters of common interest we believe can be best left to the water authorities themselves. We shall be consulting with the authorities about the other questions which the noble Baroness raised towards the end of her remarks.

My Lords we join with the spokesman from the Labour Party and also the spokesman from the Liberal Party who expressed their concern about this move and the fact that local democracy appears to be diminished by the development, in the interests of an anticipated but not proven efficiency. The abolition of the National Water Advisory Council is a matter which gives us some concern, because that was a clearing house for interests in this country which use water in the amenity and recreation field. There are conflicting interests in this field in the use of water by speedboats, anglers, or whatever. There is also a growing utilisation of water facilities for recreation, sailing, fishing, and so on. I would welcome some advice. While I support the idea that consumers are, perhaps, underrepresented in the new provisions, I would welcome some assurance from the Minister that the recreation and amenity interests, which are involved in the water business, are duly protected.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, if he does not like the appointment—

Order!

My Lords, perhaps the noble Baroness will just allow me to reply to the noble Lord. We are not hostile to local authorities in this. What we are trying to do is to ensure that local authorities carry out their duties effectively. However, we do not believe that water authorities, which are major industrial undertakings, are part of the local authorities' job. It is a closer relationship with the Government to the regional water authorities that enables us to take this step.

I may have misled the House when I replied to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. I cannot quite remember what I said about the consultation paper. I should have said that having considered the responses, the Government decided to create a smaller board. I may have said something else in my earlier remarks.

My Lords, is my noble friend Lord Avon aware that this is the first national utility which has been taken into Government control directly? Has he any basis for thinking that from a Government department it will be possible to direct the policies and management of this major national utility of water supply and water treatment better than under the independent constitution it has had for the past nine years? Can he give us any justification for that? Does he really think that he is going to make a better service by running it through civil servants and Ministers who have many other things to look after? This is the first question which the abolition of this national body poses.

Is my noble friend aware that in international circles, the structure of the water industry in this country and of water supply, and the management of rivers and water treatment, is regarded as the best in the world technologically? Does he really believe that he is going to improve on that? What justification does he have for making this major change? There is absolutely no precedent for it. Is he aware that the major criticism of the water industry is inevitably that water supply and water services cost more, but that is because, nowadays, consumers have to pay for what it does cost, whereas before part of it was wrapped up in the rate charges, which no longer carry it, with there being a large amount of Government subsidy being involved? Is he aware also of the general standard which has been achieved over the past nine years in bringing up the standard of water supply in this country and the security of it, and in improving the environmental standards, which has made outstanding progress, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, indicated? Is there really any justification for abolishing machinery which has brought all that about?

Does my noble friend really think that civil servants in his department are going to do all this better than the people who have been doing it for the past nine years? Has he any justification for this whatsoever?

Turning to the second barrel of the howitzer he has discharged at the House this afternoon, that he is abolishing local government representation on regional water authorities, does he really believe that local people are going to be happier because they have an advisory committee set up by him? Does he really believe that these will give more satisfaction than having local government representatives from all the local government bodies in the region? Does he really think so? Does he believe that this arrangement will better represent the interests of consumers? Is he not aware that consumer councils have never been satisfactory?

My Lords—

I can see my noble friend the Chief Whip getting restless, but he can sit down in comfort because I am going to continue asking my questions until I have finished.

My Lords, if my noble friend will give way for just a minute, nobody respects his knowledge of this issue more than Members of your Lordships' House, but I think he is trespassing slightly on the rules which provide for brief comments and brief questions for elucidation.

My Lords, if my noble friend Lord Denham will forgive me, I have not trespassed in any way on the matter of comment because I have not made any; I have asked nothing but questions. I agree that my noble friend Lord Avon has a formidable task to answer them all satisfactorily but these are questions which should be asked and should be answered. The first question I asked was: does my noble friend really think that putting the control of a major national utility in the hands of a Government department is going to give greater satisfaction? This is a major question to which my noble friend simply has not addressed himself. Will he please answer some of my questions now?

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the kind way in which he put his questions. First I should like to say that the Government are well aware of the work which my noble friend has done in this field, particularly as chairman of the NWC. I would like to say that we look forward to absolutely no lowering of standards and shall try to maintain the same standards which he maintained. My noble friend asked several questions and most of them are paraphrased by the words, do we really think it is better? I must answer all his questions by saying, yes, the Government do think it is better, otherwise they would not be doing it.

How do you know, really?

My Lords, there are several reasons why we have decided to restructure the water authorities. I mentioned a number of them in the Statement. Perhaps I may return to the basic ones, which are the inappropriateness of having these huge boards which was drawn out by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. There is also a need for tighter links between the Ministers and the water authorities themselves, which we believe can be good. There is a need to have executive members up front on the boards. They are responsible for key decision and will produce more efficiency. We want to get rid of some of the bureaucracy of the present arrangement, which is again exemplified in this report. Local authority members were intended to represent consumers, which we consider at the moment does not work. We wish to try to do it in the way we have put forward. I will indeed study the more specific questions asked by my noble friends, but I have tried to answer some of them.

My Lords, were the Welsh Authority in discussion with the Government before this action, too, took place? Also, may I assume that democratically this House and another place will have an opportunity of debating this to the full and that agreement will come through the usual channels before this is implemented? Lastly, does the noble Earl the Minister really believe that the more we have smaller areas, the greater improvement there will be in what I concur is one of the finest water systems in the world? Is the noble Earl aware that there will be trouble in Wales unless there is proper discussion about their water supplies, because over the years no proper attention has been given to this problem?

My Lords, I am always very nervous of any questions coming from Wales because I know they look after these matters very carefully. I said in my original Statement, and it is all I have on this at the moment, that the Welsh Water Authority has already been reconstituted along these lines. So far as further debate on this subject is concerned, that is a matter for the usual channels.

My Lords will my noble friend answer two brief questions? First, can he give us a broad idea of the financial implication of this? Will public money be saved and will it be possible to produce water more cheaply? My other question is, is my noble friend aware that water does not always conveniently fall into administrative boundaries? With his smaller authorities, will it not be necessary to have some way of enabling adjoining authorities at any rate to "borrow" each others' water if necessary? Will there be any kind of liaison written into the statute?

My Lords, with regard to the first question, we are not doing this exercise in any way to save money by cutting staff or anything like that, although there will probably be one or two savings in this field. We are really doing it in the name of efficiency. So far as the boundaries are concerned, the boundaries of water authorities will stay the same. There is no change in the actual boundaries at the moment. But I take the point my noble friend made.

My Lords, we on these Benches would like very much to support the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, in his suggestion that this matter should be debated in your Lordships' House. It has been brought about with the minimum of consultation. There was a consultative document, but there has been no general discussion. It is a matter of very considerable importance for a large number of people, and the questions raised in your Lordships' House this afternoon have not, with all respect, been answered.

My Lords, obviously again, I must say to the noble Baroness that that should be discussed through the usual channels, and with her extra influence it is more likely to come about.

My Lords, the noble Earl the Minister talked about savings and efficiency. Can he tell us how many jobs are going to be lost by the dissolution of the National Water Council? There is an ominous reference to discussions with the trade unions, but nothing about jobs lost. If there are going to be savings and greater efficiency. I think that this must mean that there are going to be jobs lost. I should also like to know what is happening to the something like £200 million investment in the Water Space Amenity Commission which is also going to go by the board at the same time. I must support what the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said: while obviously we do not blame the Minister personally, the answers have been extraordinarily unsatisfactory. If this is to be left in this way, there will obviously be very great disquiet from all sides of the House. I think the noble Earl should be aware that we cannot leave it like this and that it has certainly not been received very happily.

My Lords, I take note of what the noble Baroness has said. With regard to the question about staff, there are various parts and functions of the central council, and some of those will be taken on by the regional water authorities. Until discussion with the regional water authorities has taken place, it is impossible to answer her question in depth.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Statement that he has made today will be received very well in many quarters? The question of the Welsh problem was touched upon. I once for my sins had responsibility for reorganising Welsh water and it was then described as an explosive subject. The fact remains that the boards were too big when we created them, and may I say to the Government that I think they are quite right to make them smaller? With regard to the question of the council, is it not a fact, as the Minister himself said earlier, that the great work done by the council was largely used to set the system up, and as to whether it is necessary to carry that system further, may I be allowed to disagree with my noble friend Lord Nugent?

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for coming to my assistance at the end.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I do think it is, to say the least of it, discourteous to make a Statement like this in the House without giving local authority associations any notice that it was being made, still less what was going to be in it. He is aware, of course, that all the local authority associations would very much deplore this development. My own disposition is to despair at the inability of my noble friends in Government to see the danger of putting local services of this kind directly in the hands of major central Government departments.

My Lords, as far as my noble friend's earlier comments are concerned, of course we equally have to be careful that we do not announce things outside Parliament before Parliament itself hears them. I do understand that this morning very considerable telephoning went on in order to inform people as much as possible.

My Lords, would the noble Earl agree that, in view of the number and complexity of the questions put to him on this very important matter, there is possibly a job of public relations to be done to explain to the many consumers of water throughout the country exactly what he has explained so lucidly and so carefully to the House this afternoon. I ask him that question as a consumer of water in the borough of Avon.

My Lords, with that added sting in the tail, of course, I will take my noble friend's point to my right honourable friend.

My Lords, are the Government in possession of evidence which shows that consumers consider the water authorities inefficient? The only complaints that I have ever had have been on the charges for water. I cannot recall anyone ever complaining about inefficiency.

My Lords, I bow to the noble Baroness' knowledge, but of course we have got the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report on which we are basing this particular action.

When we adjourned the Committee stage, we are discussing an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, and we have had a very interesting debate so far. I felt that the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Oram, and the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, about the extent to which a closed shop was compatible with good industrial relations—and that was the answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear—were well expressed. But it seemed to me that the most unusual contribution we had and the one I enjoyed the most was the short but pointed contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, because of course he was making the correct distinction between the different kinds of objection to joining trade unions. I am sorry to say that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, did not appear to understand that distinction, although, as he said, it was clear and lucid enough. The distinction, as I understand the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, was between what one might call the active objector and the passive objector, the man who, if he does have a conscientious objection—and it need not be a conscientious objection—has his conscientious objection as a still small voice, in the words of the late Lord Attlee, who said:

" the still small voice of conscience rather than a blooded trumpet".

It is the still small voice of conscience which is usually the way in which conscience is expressed and it is usually quite able to be made compatible with a closed shop or union membership agreement. The man who creates the problem—he is in a very small minority, but he does exist—is the man who not merely says, "I do not want to join the union", but goes actively campaigning, seeking to persuade everybody else to drop out of the union and to do various things which are thought to be incompatible with union membership. In the real world, the distinction between the active conscience and the passive conscience is a very real and valid one and it is a very good thing that we should have it introduced into this debate.

However, I also think that not only the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, but on my reading, the movers of this amendment are wrong—no doubt I shall be corrected if I am wrong—if they think that by passing this amendment we shall stop ballots. As I see it, reading this amendment, it leaves in place, in the body of the Bill, lines 4 and 5—that is to say subsection (3)(c). So one would still have the possibility of a ballot after five years, if the trip, which is the essential element in this mechanism, were not activated in the way in which my noble friend suggests it should be. But this only makes this amendment more acceptable, I would have thought, to those who are bothered about provisions in a closed shop.

One should note that the Government have had a considerable lack of support where they would have expected to get support for introducing this ballot test in the way it is introduced in the Bill. The majority of the Lower House Select Committee on Employment were against this provision. The Engineering Employers' Federation and their regional organisations were against this provision. The IPM warned against the consequences of introducing this kind of change in existing union membership agreements at this moment in time.

Therefore, a trip of this kind which makes it a little easier for groups such as those in the merchant service, which we were discussing yesterday, or other groups which have been discussed in the Committee this afternoon—for example, in the entertainment industry—where the card check is the normal way in which union membership is imposed (in fact, anything which makes it marginally easier for those people to continue with the essential, for them, operation of union membership agreements) should be supported, and we commend the amendment to the Committee.

The possibility of trigger mechanisms has, of course, been well discussed both this afternoon and in the other place. I am aware of the technical point to which the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has drawn our attention; namely, the lack of compatibility with the two lines which have been left in the Bill as a result of the failure of the amendment last night.

I turn to the substance and the intention, as I have understood it, of the movers of this amendment. The Government do not in any way wish to contradict the fact that there have been closed shops working very well for up to 50 years and that there have been excellent relations in quite a large number of those. The CWS and its managing director are both well known to me from my past industrial experience. This is, indeed, an example of an extremely well run and enlightened firm as far as industrial relations are concerned. It is not the Government's intention to try to alter the good for the reasons to which I shall return.

The Government's intention is to deal with the exceptions, and some may believe the growing number of exceptions. In this respect I think that I made a pact with the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, yesterday that we would not again quote well known examples where the views of many employees have been ignored—at times even the majority of employees have been ignored. However, I will say that I do not believe that across the wide specturm of industry today, one would be contradicted in saying, as some noble Lords have said, that there is a very considerable pressure on individuals; and that where a particular union executive in office at a particular time may take a particular view, there is massive power in union rule-hooks as they exist in this country, which can have a major effect on the free expression of not only the odd-man-out, but of genuinely held views, sometimes held by quite large numbers.

I do not want to quote from all of them, but I have in front of me a quotation from the rule hook of a big union which says that:

" The NEC shall have the power to fine and/or suspend from all benefits and/or remove from office in the association and/or exclude from the association, any member who in the opinion of the NEC, (a) by his conduct … acts against the interests of the association".

That is an enormous power to be held by the NEC. It is the Government's view, and we believe that it has been fully substantiated by instances in recent years, that this power of rule books and the exceptions that have taken place mean that an automatic check of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of employees in a closed shop situation should be made.

It has been suggested that the trigger mechanism which this amendment seeks to put forward would not cause disturbance and that an automatic check of whether existing closed shops are wanted to continue, would do so. I think that that is a one-sided argument. If, indeed, the pressures for a trigger ballot are not severe, then trying to get a sufficient number of people in order to trigger a ballot may lead to the kind of instability that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, I think was right in saying many of us in industry knew before closed shops were achieved in some instances. It is the Government's view that once achieved in an orderly fashion and with the full support of the vast majority of employees, there will be much less disturbance and risk of disturbance with an automatic check every five years than depending on a trigger mechanism. I think that that is quite close to the opinion of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in this respect.

The point was made that people who want changes should have to initiate them. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who made that point and who suggested that it was a rule of our society. We do, of course, have automatic elections in many areas and in an area where conditions can arise where a man's ability to earn his livelihood can be put at risk, there is a good case for saying that regular checks should be held in that area. But the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, mentioned the position of shareholders. There is an annual general meeting, and a requirement for it, every year. Company rules vary, but in the majority of cases a certain percentage of the directors are re-elected every year. But the company has to expose itself in considerable detail to all its shareholders, and shareholders have individual rights to cause actions to be taken which are enshrined in statute. Therefore, I believe that in fact we should be moving a little more towards the control that exists on directors.

I mentioned a phrase which I did not properly explain in the first instance and explained in a hurry in the second instance yesterday—namely, that what the Government were seeking, in a phrase, was an automatic low-key check with the minimum of disturbance—that is, in so far as balloting every five years, closed shops that are established, is concerned. That is why—and we shall come to it later—we have the proposition that 85 per cent. of those voting shall be an adequate indication that the vast majority of employees want the closed shop to continue. We have not put on that alternative, which is applicable to the periodic ballot, a requirement of a minimum number voting. Indeed, I suspect that, in a later amendment, a noble Lord may be suggesting that for that reason it is not enough of a check. But in the Government's view, if there are no worries, no trouble and good industrial relations as with the CWS, then the probability is that the automatic check will go through without any requirement to get the vast majority to vote again, but with a significant number probably all voting for the continuation of the closed shop.

The noble Lord, Lord Stewart, raised the question of the free-rider, if I may so call him—the man who boasted that he was saving money by not being a member of the union and not paying his dues. I want to make it clear to the noble Lord that further on in this Bill, in subsection (3) of this clause, we reach the position of properly established closed shops which are established and maintained in accordance with this Bill; in those situations, where the overwhelming majority—in the first instance, 80 per cent. of those entitled to vote—have voted for a new closed shop and where the closed shop has been established, a boaster who said that he had left the union simply in order to save money would, I think, fare poorly before an industrial tribunal if he was dismissed and tried to get compensation—that is, in a properly balloted closed shop situation.

The Government's Bill is not one which precludes the closed shop; nor does it allow in all circumstances the free-rider or, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, mentioned, the odd man out. There are provisos for the odd-man-out which we shall debate in amendments which have been tabled on subsequent clauses. But it is not true that we are trying to abolish the closed shop. We intend to allow a far bigger measure of regulated closed shops than exist in many —and we never said "all"—other countries.

The point has been made that these arrangements are very burdensome. This is not now the view of industry overall; nor is it its view that these arrangements are, on balance, wrong. Indeed, the Director-General of the CBI has used the phrase that he believes the Government:

" have got it just about right".

As I said yesterday, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment has not yet decided whether there will be a one or a two-year transition period. The problems that these particular arrangements, as originally drafted, would raise in some industries have already been taken on board to a considerable extent, and they are reflected by some Government amendments which I shall move later.

So far as the actors are concerned, we believe that we have taken their position on board. We shall of course always consider any representations that are made in the intervening period. But the Government do not consider at the moment that special provisions are necessary in the Bill. It is important to remember that, unlike the 1971 Act, the Bill does not make the closed shop unlawful and there is, thus, no reason in principle why closed shop arrangements in existence should not continue.

Finally, as a result of our experience of recent years and of the generality of industrial relations controls and laws in this country and abroad, the Government—and I believe the public—are in favour of a periodic check of this nature to make sure that the vast majority —not all, but the vast majority—are still in favour of the closed shop; and that this check should be automatic and, after discussion following the Green Paper, should be every five years. We believe that the least disturbance to good arrangements will result from this provision and that it will go a long way to deal with the exceptions, which I believe are all too evident to many of us in this House and to the public.

Before the noble Viscount sits down, perhaps he can help me a little. In answering a question which was put by my noble friend Lord Stewart of Fulham, he made it quite clear that a free-rider, as he called him, would not be entitled, and would be told that he would not be entitled, to go around boasting that he was not a member of a union and was not paying contributions, but would not be entitled to claim compensation. Would the noble Viscount be good enough to tell me what his idea of industrial relations is if the man does not claim compensation but expects to receive any salary increase that results from probably quite lengthy and costly negotiations by the union, of which he is not a member?

Perhaps I should start by mentioning the part that I did not make clear. In a non-closed shop situation, where membership may be at any level, any dismissal by an employer because an employee is not a member of a trade union will be unfair. This is what we are dealing with—unfair dismissals before tribunals.

However, in an approved closed shop situation, which has been through the various provisions—some of which we have discussed and some of which we have not discussed—if an employee makes a great nuisance of himself and if the union were to bring pressure on the employer, a dismissal would be upheld. In the noble Lord's question. he is not a member of the union so expulsion does not come into it. But a dismissal would be upheld.

There are other reasons why tribunals can uphold a dismissal: if a man is causing the firm to find it almost impossible to run the show properly, calmly and sensibly. But, in this Bill, we are dealing with the power of a union to remove membership—but that does not arise in what the noble Lord has postulated—and the right of an employer to dismiss fairly, and the right of an employee to claim compensation. When we get to that last stage, if an employee was dismissed by his employer because, in a closed shop situation which has been properly authorised, he boasted that he wanted to save the money, I speculated—and I believe correctly—that an industrial tribunal would not uphold an appeal and would not pay the special compensation. So he would have lost his job and the firm would have gone on in orderly fashion with all its employees in an approved closed shop position.

The noble Viscount has not answered my question. I am not talking about dismissals. With respect, this Bill, or this part of the Bill in particular, is not about dismissals. The amendment that we are discussing here is about good industrial relations, which we thought would be maintained if we ha d this trigger mechanism. But the question I posed to the noble Viscount was, quite simply: If we have a situation where 15 per cent. are not members of a union and the 85 per cent., through their trade union representatives, negotiate a new wage scale, what is the noble Viscount's views, as a person whose experience I greatly recognise and admire, of the 15 per cent. who would claim the benefit of those wage negotiations?

In a situation such as the noble Lord postulates, before this Bill becomes law at all the noble Lord either has to assume that because there is a closed shop now—forget this Bill—people who are not members of unions and do not pay dues will have been fired; or he has to assume that they have not, subject to the flexibility, for example, on the odd conscience case and sometimes at the present moment a payment to charity. I have to say to the noble Lord that he may have his view about what this amendment is about, but the amendment is within subsection (3) of the new Section 58(1) and that subsection deals with conditions. I will read the introduction.

"Subject to the following provisions of this section, the dis missal of an employee"—

so it does deal with dismissals, and that is what we are talking about—

" by an employer shall be regarded for the purposes of this Part as having been fair if"—

we then get the conditions of it having been fair. Then paragraph (c), where this amendment is tabled, in fact spells out the condition that a periodic ballot has been taken. The amendment seeks to alter that to say that a ballot would have to be triggered by the words in this amendment.

I am delighted to debate the kind of industrial relations point that the noble Lord raises which exists now and which will exist in the future, but this amendment concerns what I have been talking about, and my answer to it is as I have given.

Can the noble Viscount help your Lordships on two points which are factual and relate to the rather uncertain agreement which he suggested existed between himself and myself? Apart from one certain young lady who shall not be named, three railway workers who are anonymous, and four ladies up in the North whose town must not be mentioned, would he tell your Lordships where are the pieces of evidence about the large oppressed minorities—indeed, at one stage I noted that he spoke even of majorities being oppressed—within union membership arrangements? That is the first point.

Secondly, the noble Viscount quoted a standard rule in a trade union rule book—it is probably in every trade union rule book in the country; it is also in the rule book of large numbers of other associations—about those members who should be called to account for certain actions. Would he like to tell your Lordships about the evidence of the abuse of such rules, which he suggested was also an evil to which these clauses are directed, in the face of the check which is there in normal democratic procedures within trade unions of the High Court procedure to enforce natural justice, and of other bodies, including the independent review committee of the TUC?

On both points I fear I have to go, in putting these to him, to the edge of our agreement because on the first point the evidence is to the contrary of what he alleged and is to be found in the report of the nameless one who sits concealed in the cellars of his department. On the second we are more fortunate because the same survey has already published three major articles in the Department of Employment Gazette—I think I am right in saying—in 1980 and 1977, one of which, the first author being a Mr. Dunn, was called "Throwing the Book". It was all about trade union rules and it showed that any suggestion that rules of that kind were abused in this way is just wrong. Can the noble Viscount tell us the other bits of evidence he has apart from that?

I believe it to be true—and I do not want to weary the Committee with detail—but a majority of employees as a result of one of these cases affecting minorities had in fact voted that the closed shop should cease. That was my single reference to majority. In general, I say to the noble Lord, the Government's provisions are designed to protect individual liberty and the minorities. The ballots, when they get going, will tend to show how many of these minorities there are.

Responses to the Goverment's Green Paper and the opinion poll that I mentioned last night show clearly the continuing and mounting concern about the closed shop, including that among trade union members. The noble Lord is no doubt a master and has read all the rule books. Up until the time I left industry I always found them extremely hard to get hold of, but we have now, I gather, got hold of rather more of them. I wish they were all published. Our view is that there should be—the noble Lord used the word democratic—a democratic check periodically to make sure that in each case it is still the view of the overwhelming majority that closed shops in this country should continue.

Before the mover of this amendment winds up, may I say a few words which I would hope would have some little effect on the Division, assuming it takes place. I am a little puzzled. I did not expect to have to address the Members of Her Majesty's Government. I assumed that they would be in favour of this amendment. After all, they have argued for years in favour of the principle of contracting in rather than contracting out.

The trigger mechanism proposed in this amendment is a form of contracting in; of holding a ballot only if, as the noble Minister pointed out, those who objected to the closed shop took the initiative. If the opponents of the closed shop are one-tenth as many and as passionate as he made out, surely he is not concerned about getting 10 per cent. to ask for a ballot concerning the closed shop. Therefore, I assumed that I would not have to address Her Majesty's Government.

There is one other point the noble Viscount mentioned in his speech which I can assure him he is most unlikely to see fulfilled. He talked last night and this afternoon about low-key ballots. He is not going to get them. If he is insisting that a ballot is held virtually every five years he will find that for at least 12 months before the ballot is due there will be tremendous uproar in that union which is due to hold the ballot, or in the industry which is due to hold the ballot. There will be lobbying, and there will be what he will call intimidation, and there will be pamphlets and leaflets, meetings will be held and all hell will be let loose in the industry.

What this amendment proposes is that while we do not discard the use of ballots entirely, the ballot within the trade union movement should be used as a part, but only as a part, of the democratic process of trade unionism. It can only be effective if it is integrated into the democratic elements which go to make up that particular trade union. Of course, there are occasions on which a trade union wants to hold a ballot and will hold a ballot, and we have seen them recently. But if the noble Viscount thinks that the members of the union are going to be told by the Government, "You are going to hold a ballot in 1987, but it has to be a low-key ballot", then I can assure him that he is under a great delusion.

I said I was a little puzzled, and I am, but not so much because of the Government's attitude. Whatever the Government's philosophy on other similar issues—whether they believe in contracting in or contracting out, as it suits their purpose—they will follow the path I described on Clause 1 yesterday. What puzzles me is the position of what is called the Alliance. We have heard from the Liberal Front Bench and the SDP Back Bench this afternoon different arguments, both coming to the same conclusion. Those of us who have read the deliberations in Standing Committee G will recall the peculiarity that one part of the Alliance moved an amendment similar to that which we are discussing now while another part of the Alliance was opposing it—and this is the Alliance, we hear, which claims it wants to form the next Government.

The clause which was tabled by Mr. Bradley in another place, which I have with me, was entirely different in every respect, or at any rate in many respects, from the amendmen tabled in this Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Jacques and Lord Oram. It specified 20 per cent., not 10 per cent., and, as I pointed out in my last intervention, this amendment has absolutely no limit on the frequency of triggering, so that one could have a chaotic situation in unions in which there was high mobility of labour. On those grounds I explained why we felt unable to support the amendment on this occasion.

I am glad the noble Lord intervened, because it shows that the Alliance so-called is getting even more confused. If it is reduced to the pathetic argument that two amendments are totally different because one says 20 per cent. while the other says 10 per cent., that hardly suggests they are taking the work of this Committee very seriously. I too have the record of Standing Committee G and I have read the speeches of Mr. Bradley and Mr. Cyril Smith, but who do we believe? We had an instance of this yesterday in the first vote. After all the talk we heard from the SDP about the necessity for open government and publicity about what Ministers were doing, in the very first vote yesterday the Liberal Party voted for the amendment, part of the SDP voted for it, part of it abstained, but at least 50 per cent. of it voted with the Government. That will be noted in trade union circles, and we must remember that a considerable number of the SDP members owe a great deal of their public life to the trade union and Labour movements, and on this issue the position has been made clear by the publications of the TUC on the whole principle of the Bill.

As for the triggering mechanism, where does the so-called Alliance stand? We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that the Liberals would be voting against it. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, was satisfied with the assurance he got from my noble friend Lord Jacques. If his only objection was to 20 per cent. rather than 10 per cent.—and I have some sympathy with him on that—having been told that talks would take place between now and Report, perhaps he will come into the Lobby with us. I assure him that he will not be held to what has been announced this afternoon on the tapes; namely, that the SDP will abolish the right of Life Peers to vote. We shall be glad to get his vote in before the policy of the SDP is put into operation.

To summarise the argument, if we are concerned not so much with the ideology that runs right through the Bill, which I described yesterday, but with good industrial relations, then we shall not command trade unions to hold ballots every five years. We shall put the onus for the holding of ballots on those who object to existing closed shop agreements and say to them, "If you feel strongly about it, you have the right to demand a ballot, and a ballot will be held. But it is up to you to show to what extent the Minister is correct in saying that there is great disturbance of mind within the trade union movement about the closed shop. You must show that is so by gathering together just 10 per cent., one in ten, of your members, and once you have got 10 per cent. a ballot will be held, and then it will not be held according to the Bill as at present drafted."

I shall resist the temptation to dwell on what the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, said, except to say that what was said by my noble friend Lady Seear was entirely consistent with the remarks made by my honourable friend Mr. Cyril Smith in another place. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, sought to justify the attitude taken in your Lordships' House on this point in relation to what was said in another place. I suggest that the easiest way of finding out quickly how the Alliance will vote is to enable the vote now to take place, and I sense that that is what the Committee wish to do. I hope that red herrings—because I do not think they are much more than that, such as that introduced by Lord Hatch—will not be proceeded with further, either now or later, or we shall find ourselves here until three o'clock tomorrow morning.

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and I want to correct only one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch. There is no question in the Bill of the Government telling anybody to hold a ballot. The proposal is that if a company, probably in agreement with one or more trade unions, wants the protection of the Bill to be able to deal in a closed shop position with a quite unnecessary rocking of that boat, then it must have a check every five years by secret ballot to see whether the majority of those voting still want the closed shop to continue. I believe that to be democratic, and I resist the amendment.

I think everybody will agree that it is time we wound up the debate. The issue before the Committee is a very narrow one. It is simply whether there should be a ballot every five years, or only when it is requested by 10 per cent. of the employees concerned, and the latter course would embody in the Bill the principle which is enshrined in the Companies Act. That is the issue. I think that there have been only three points raised against it. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said that it would be difficult to get 10 per cent. I think that the answer to that is that it would certainly not be any more difficult than it is for shareholders, and if it is good enough to put the provision in the Companies Act, it is good enough to put it in this Bill.

Secondly, the noble Viscount the Minister said that the ballots would give rise to disturbance. I think that he received his answer to that from my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby, who pointed out that we were likely to have far greater disturbance with five-yearly ballots—

I should like to correct one detail. What I hoped I said, and what I certainly intended to mean, was that the activating of the trigger mechanism which the amendment seeks to introduce would cause disturbance. Working up 10 per cent., 20 per cent., or whatever proportion is decided in order to trigger a ballot would in itself cause more disturbance than would what I have termed a low-key, automatic check.

I should imagine that having to get 85 per cent. when the ballot comes will cause more disturbance—

Eighty-five per cent. of those voting—

Or 80 per cent. of those who may vote.

No, not—I repeat—for the automatic ballot; it is 85 pet cent. of those voting.

We still think that there would be greater disturbance and more extensive periods of preparation if there were ballots every five years. There would be six months during which there was no work done at all, other than preparing for the ballot, whereas with the trigger mechanism that we have suggested there would be less frequent ballots, and in our opinion there would he less disturbance of output.

With regard to the third issue that was raised, the noble Viscount the Minister pointed out that, in the case of companies, the shareholders had annual meetings. The trade unions in their local branches have weeklyand monthly meetings, not annual meetings. There is plenty of opportunity for discussion.

This part of the Bill is the most unpopular with employers—with employers! I ask the Committee to note what was said by the Engineering Employers' Federation. It said that it entirely disliked the provisions of the Bill relating to existing closed shops and ballots. At a later stage, after it had been "got at", it said, "We welcome the Bill, but we also welcome the Minister's decision to postpone those provisions relating to ballots and existing closed shops". If that does not indicate that the federation had been "got at", I do not know what does.

I believe that this is an important principle on which we should divide the Committee, and in conclusion I would say to my noble friends in the Social Democratic Party, if we have your support and if after the Committee stage you want provisions of the Bill further amended, personally I should be quite happy to talk to you and agree the amendments. In the meantime, I ask for your support.

moved amendment No. 19:

Page 3, line 7, after ("grounds") insert ("(a)").

I hope I can have the leave of the Committee to speak to my Amendment No. 47A which I think appears on page 7 of the Marshalled List. In order to isolate this particular question, I put my proposal in the form of a new clause rather than an amendment to Clause 2 as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has done. My proposals differ from his—although I support in general terms the proposition he made—in that I do not limit the qualification that I require to people obliged by statute. I see the problem wider than that if only because one of the examples which the noble Earl mentioned was the number of civil engineers under statutory duties in relation to reservoirs under the 1930 and 1975 Acts. It is true that they come under the proposition which he outlined; but that is a very small number of civil engineers. The Act applies only to those on reservoir panels and, at a guess, I would say that the number would not be many more than 100 to 200 engineers (I may be open to correction) out of a profession of 50 thousand or more. I want to see this protection go beyond that very small number to cover the whole of the profession.

Let me say first in opening—and I think that this is quite an important point—that I am not concerned here with finding a way in which professional men can escape union membership, if "escape" is the right word to be used. When we debated this in the course of the 1980 Act, it was frequently said by Government speakers that professional people could invoke the conscience clause and keep out of trade unions thereby. That is not what I am looking for. I approve of professional men joining trade unions wherever that is appropriate for them. I approve of them accepting the obligations of trade union membership as far as they can. The problem is that a conflict arises (as the noble Earl has outlined) between their obligations to their union and their obligations to their professional institution, especially in matters of health and safety—and the example the noble Earl cited of the gas board employee is a good example.

I have drawn my amendment deliberately narrow in order to highlight the essence of the problem. It is so narrow that it excludes a number of professions who might face the same problem. I have not included the pharmacists and the people that the noble Earl referred to and I have not included architects, quantity surveyors, solicitors or anybody else, but I do not wish to make my amendment to be turned down on that ground.

I regard my amendment as exploratory so that the Government and your Lordships can examine the problem and decide whether it can be dealt with through this Bill and how best to deal with it. If we decide that the amendment, as drafted, is inappropriate, we can re-draft something at report stage which would cover a wider range of professional men than I have allowed in my amendment. What I have done is to confine the exclusion which I seek to professional engineers. Because, in our debates in 1980, there was some question raised in the House of who exactly they were, I was accused of a lack of definition—rightly. I merely said, "professional engineers".

I have tried on this occasion to tighten up the drafting in the second subsection of my amendment where I have defined the engineers to whom I wish this to apply as those who are members of engineering institutions which are corporate or associate members of the Council of Engineering Institutions or who might be so recognised by the Engineering Council when it later gets into operation. I am quite well aware there are many other people to whom the same difficulty might apply. Some unions already recognise this problem and recognise this as the problem of the conflict between differing obligations to differing groups.

I think it is always easiest to resolve the problem through the rule book. Where unions have done that they are to be applauded, but most of them do not. STAMP, for instance, which is the white collar section of UCAT, has a rule which is very similar to the first part of the amendment which I have put down. It is very similar because my first draft was copied from their rule book. The Council of Managerial and Professional Staffs, which consists of a number of the white collar sections of the electricians' union, has a rule which says:

"The Council agrees that its members should uphold the dignity and reputation of the profession and must always safeguard the public interest."

So far, so good: where unions have adopted rules of that nature, my problem is solved. But the great majority of unions do not do it, and since we last debated this subject there have been a few occasions in the civil engineering profession where leading members of the profession have come into conflict with their union and have been threatened with expulsion. In all the cases which have come to my notice, expulsion from the union has been averted, but only through the efforts of the institution to try to rescue their members. Left to themselves, these men would have been excluded from the union and, as in the case which was cited by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, would have been in danger of losing their jobs.

There are one or two other matters which I should like to refer to, since they have been raised in the debates we have had on this matter in previous years. We have been told before that any Bill of this nature should not be cluttered up by a number of special cases. I think that is quite a good principle, but there is a difficulty, and I can see from the look on the Minister's face that he has that argument ready and doubtless will produce it; so I give it to him now and he can produce it later on. I would remind him of one thing. The whole of Clause 1 and Schedule 1 to this Bill are intended to deal with special cases. We have had one or two comments across the Floor about the extent to which we can refer to these cases, and I am anxious to act in line with the two Front Benches. But Clause 1 and Schedule 1 refer to a very small number of people. The highest number which has been suggested is taken from a nameless report, which nobody has seen and which suggested that there might be 400 people involved.

If the Government are willing to undergo the problems of drafting and passing through both Houses Clause 1 and Schedule 1 in order to remedy an injustice suffered by 400 people—and I do not dispute their right to do that—I do not think it is asking too much for them to face a small amendment or a small new clause on behalf of a vastly greater number of people. We could solve the problem within the Bill by means of a clause such as mine, with a schedule defining the people who are involved.

I should like to refer also to another matter, which has come up in debates earlier. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor reminded us that, if you put in special cases by including one group, you exclude others. That seemed, to the lawyers among us at any rate, to be a strong legal point, especially as the noble and learned Lord brought a number of Latin tags to bear on his argument. In the course of a recent experience of mine on a Private Bill Committee, my attention was drawn to a phrase used in legislation exactly to deal with matters of this kind—that is, in order to avoid including one and excluding another. There is a phrase—"without prejudice to the generality"—which might somewhere be included. Those words are not in my amendment as it stands, but there would be room for those few extra words.

The one last thing I want to say applies more to Members on my side of the Committee than to your Lordships as a whole, although I daresay that Members everywhere will be polite enough to listen to it. This is a matter of concern to professional workers, among whom very considerable efforts are being made by a number of trade unions to recruit members—efforts which I applaud and support. It is perfectly proper that these people should be recruited; but I should like to hear the views of my noble friend on the Front Bench on the proposition which is before us today. I say that really because when we discussed this matter in 1980 the Front Bench did not pass any opinion at all, and what opinions were passed from my own party came from a most respected and much loved senior Back-Bencher, who I see sitting in exactly the same place at this very moment. After the debate I was asked why it was that the Labour Party, which has an interest in trade union matters and an interest in recruiting white collar and managerial workers, had expressed no opinion on a problem which, although a marginal problem, is one which exercises the mind of a quite important section of our society.

Very briefly, I should like very strongly to support the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and indeed the amendment, in principle, of the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon. The basic principle is all I should like to endorse. I speak as a Fellow of the Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers, and many of my friends in past times, particularly when trade union power was riding high in the last Parliament, when they had tremendous difficulties of conscience as to knowing what best to do, steered clear of trade unions, perhaps in many cases when they might have wanted to join them, for fear of the shackling disciplines that we are arguing about at the moment. I do hope that my noble friend will have something positive to say to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and that, if he cannot accept something like these amendments going in now, the Government will think very seriously about this and perhaps bring something forward on Report. I hope that will be the result we shall get.

I shall look forward to hearing what my Front Bench have to say on this and I also look forward to hearing the comments of the noble Viscount the Minister. I have considerable sympathy with the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and by the noble Lord, Lord Howie. However, there are one or two problems involved. First, I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Howie, that the last thing I want to do, as a person with no professional qualifications at all, is to draw any distinction between people in professional organisations and those whom we term outside the professions as "the ordinary working-class". I think that would be a fatal thing to do.

One can also think of situations where people are members of professional organisations in order to carry out their particular job and are also employees in concerns. I would not wish to see any differentiation between those persons and the rest of the employees in that particular organisation. I think that would be wrong and anti-social. On the other hand, referrng to points which have been made by the previous speakers, I think it would be intolerable that because of membership of a professional organisation and the conditions laid down, they were expected to breach the undertakings they have given to take up that profession on grounds of safety or similar measures. Therefore, I am in a predicament of seeing the point raised by two noble Lords, but of also seeing other important questions upon which I hope that the two Front Benches can help me.

Perhaps I may ask one other question. Is there any instance of a case of this kind being reported to an industrial tribunal, where the tribunal has not taken into consideration the obligation to a person who has joined a professional organisation in order to take up the profession?

I wonder, even if others may wish to speak to this amendment, whether I could cut in at this stage, because it may be possible that I can give at least some comfort to the noble Earl who raised this question and the noble Lord, Lord Howie. Their sentiments are very much understood and accepted, and I shall certainly not hide behind the problems of putting special cases in Bills. There, obviously, is such a problem and one does not want to do it if it is not necessary.

What I want to say to the noble Earl and to the noble Lord is that, I shall attempt to convince them in a detailed letter that the amendment is not necessary in the Bill as it is written, and in the situation that bears on industrial tribunals. I should like to do that much more fully and in detail and after having taken further detailed advice than I could do this afternoon. But the main areas why we believe that the amendment may be unnecessary are these.

Section 4 of the 1980 Act has the general provision that people should not be unreasonably expelled from a union. That is one provision. The second provision is the one in this subsection on non-membership for a reason of conscience or a deeply-held personal conviction. I believe that, if there were a complete conflict of the man's professional interest with the requirements, at any time, of his union, a tribunal would uphold his case and that it would be perfectly obvious to his employer in advance that that would happen. So I believe that the provision which allows people to leave a union for reasons of conscience, or other deeply-held personal conviction, will to a high degree cover this case.

This is further reinforced by a code of practice, which the Government issued with the authority of Parliament in December 1980, and which makes clear in paragraph 55 that a union should not discipline a member who refuses to take part in industrial action on the ground that to do so

"would involve a breach of a statutory duty or the criminal law, would contravene the member's professional or other code of ethics or would constitute a serious risk to public safety, health or property".

I suppose it could be said that industrial tribunals do not have to take account of that code of practice, but it had general support, and I believe that my advisers will assure me that it is almost impossible for an industrial tribunal not to take note of that code.

I am advised on the question of individual cases—and I myself am not familiar with the case—that the case of Partington v. NALGO, which the noble Earl raised, was, in our view, of more importance than the noble Earl seemed to believe. While the principles behind the judgment are complex, the judgment is, in our view, a clear sign that the courts are very ready to protect the position of professional employees who face a conflict of loyalties.

With that general set-out of what I am advised, of what will exist in this Bill and of what already exists in the 1980 Act, or is pursuant from it, perhaps I could rest on the promise of a fuller letter which the noble Earl and the noble Lord could consider. I believe we can convince them that the amendment is unnecessary and that professional men are properly covered.

Would my noble friend care to put a copy of the letter that he will be writing to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and the noble Lord, Lord Howie, in the Official Report, so that we can all see it?

In order to get it on the record, may I ask the Minister whether the protection which he thinks is already available for these persons is protection of their jobs, or only protection that they will get compensation? What matters is to be certain that they will not lose their jobs.

So far as placing a copy of the letter is the Official Report is concerned, I believe that to be possible and provided that I can do it, I certainly will do so. As regards the protection of jobs —and, of course, there are provisions for reinstatement —what I have to say to the noble Baroness, which I think she knows, having studied the Act and these situations, is that there is no absolute protection against an employer, for whatever reason, unfairly dismissing anyone. Therefore, the provisions of the Bill that we are talking about, and the amendments which have been suggested, bear on our ability to cause, to help and to make sure that an industrial tribunal, in carrying out the law in this respect, would react in a way which Parliament regards as desirable, if someone were dismissed. That is the best form of prevention, the only form of prevention, that we know against dismissal for unfair reasons.

With great respect, the Minister is really offering nothing. The amendments proposed clearly ask that where professional men—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Underhill; I would not myself restrict this to professional men, but we happen to be talking about them at the moment—have a conflict between what they are required to do by their professional qualifications, their professional requirements, and what a trade union insists, or attempts to insist, that they should do, their status, their behaviour, as professional men should take precedence. They should not thereby be disciplined—meaning lose their jobs—because the union expels them for making that choice and the employer then dismisses them, because he has a closed shop arrangement with the union. That is what the amendment is about. What the Minister was about was something quite different. He was saying, in such a circumstance, "Yes, but under Section 4 of the Act, this, that and the other"—

I am sorry, but I wonder whether it would save time if I intervened. The noble Earl's amendment—both the first part and the second part—refers to the circumstances in which a dismissal is considered fair, and not to the interesting questions which the noble Lord is raising, as to whether there are any means of preventing an employer from sacking someone unfairly for this or any other reason. So that in this Bill, and in this amendment—or lack of it—what we are discussing is whether the clear indication that this would be unfair dismissal, with what follows from it, would be adequate to prevent it. But I know of no other way, and certainly this amendment will not achieve an edict over an employer which guarantees that he will not dismiss a man.

I heard that the first time. I do not think the Minister has gained anything by repeating it in virtually the same words. The amendment is seeking to ensure that the professional man cannot be dismissed as a—

Would the noble Lord—

The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, are such experts. If either of them had ever been a trade union official they would know a little bit more about the subject. This amendment is seeking to ensure that in given circumstances a professional man's professional obligation takes precedence over any obligation which a trade union seeks to lay upon him. I beg your pardon.

May I—

May I just stay with my argument? I have heard yours twice; just hear mine once, will you? I will read it:

"No employee of a recognised professional engineering institution which requires a code of professional conduct as a condition of membership for professional standing shall be required by any trade union of which he or she is a member to take action in the course of an industrial dispute which is in conflict with the requirements of such professional conduct."

That means, if language means anything, that he cannot be required by the Transport and General Workers' Union, by the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, by COHSE, by NUPE or by anybody else to do something which transgresses his code of—The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, is a great head shaker. I see that he is now a head nodder. If he just kept his head still he might actually be able to think. It means that no trade union can be able to cause a man to transgress. With great respect to the Minister, it has to follow from that that if the union cannot require him to do it he is free to ignore the union, in which case the employer cannot be required by the union to dismiss him. It has to follow from that, otherwise no language means anything. And with very great respect, that is what this is all about.

I hope the Minister will not be misled by silly talk about letters, and fuller letters, and "things I cannot tell you now" and "things my advisers will allow me to put in a letter". Any of us who has ever held office knows all about that silly stuff. The Minister does not need to ask whether he can put it in the official record. He knows he can. Yes, it can always be put in the official record if you want to. The issue here is simply this: if we establish that a union which has a closed shop agreement may not, because legislatively we have provided that it may not, override a man's other obligations, then it follows that the closed shop provisions do not apply. And it follows from that that the man cannot be dismissed.

This is the whole point of the amendment. I am quite sure that the Minister had offered to him, as I had offered to me, that that is the whole point of it. It is establshed by law that if a union's closed shop agreement does not apply, then a man cannot be dismissed because he did not obey it. In my view, the Minister is obfuscating. His advisers may have obfuscated him but they have not obfuscated me. It has nothing to do with whether he gets fairly treated by an industrial tribunal. It has nothing to do with whether he is properly compensated. The only purpose of this amendment and of Lord Howie's amendment is to ensure that if this conflict arises in the case of a closed shop agreement, which is the only instrument under which an employer can sack a man or a woman in this country—it cannot happen in any other country in Western Europe—then the other takes precedence.

Lord Houghton has a devil of a lot more experience of this in the public service and in the trade union movement than the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, the noble Viscount or anybody else who has yet spoken or who is likely to speak. He knows as well as I do that this is what the argument is about. Please do not let us kid ourselves. So long as you override the closed shop provision you have solved the problem. If you do not override the closed shop provision, you have not solved it. A man may be very well treated by an industrial tribunal. He may get thousands of pounds. But you have not solved the problem.

In rising to support what the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, has said, may I take up some words which I think were used by the noble Viscount on the Front Bench: that you cannot prevent an employer from sacking a man. It is perfectly true that you cannot stop paying his wages, but before the 1971 Act it became a matter of common law. The man who was dismissed because he insisted on sticking to his professional standards against trade union pressure had the right to sue his employer for improper dismissal and all the consequences which flowed from it. The concept of fair and unfair dismissal arose out of the Donaldson Report.

This is a new concept and it introduces many new considerations. The point is that it is considered that compensation makes up for dismissal. The noble Lords are shaking their heads, but let me finish. Under the system, dismissal is fair or unfair. Let me read what the Court of Human Rights said:

"A threat of dismissal involving loss of livelihood is a most serious form of compulsion".

It does not say fair dismissal or unfair dismissal. We must know from the noble Viscount whether or not, if a professional man's standards are subject to trade union pressure and he is dismissed, he contemplates that that should count as fair dismissal, or unfair dismissal, or dismissal allowing the person affected to sue his employer under the common law.

May I ask the noble Viscount a question for clarification? In referring to the period before 1971, he said—and I agree—that there was the right to sue for dismissal in breach of the contract of employment. Would he also agree with me that it is not a question of getting a job back, because the remedy for breach of contract of employment was and is damages and not an injunction?

My Lords, my answer to that is that the damages are not settled under the compensation clause. They are settled by judges and they may be very heavy indeed.

My Lords, I have obviously encouraged the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, for whom I have great respect, to say to me rather more times his side of the argument than I have yet said to him. I shall not repeat it. I have made clear that I believe we can set out the full reasons why these amendments are unnecessary. What I do have to say as a point of fact is that the noble Earl's amendments are in relation to the subsection which deals with the situation of the conditions in which a dismissal is fair. They are in subsection (3)(c), concerning the conditions in which, for the purposes of this part of the Bill, a dismissal is considered to be fair; and (c) covers the situation where a ballot is held properly, et cetera. It goes on to subsection (4) where it says that subsection (3) will not apply, and this is where the noble Earl seeks to put his amendment. I do not wish to be technical but those are the facts of the amendment.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, is different, I agree. He is saying that no closed shop agreement, which would also have to come in this general provision of what the Government are capable of enacting, would not be legal unless it recognised this right. I understand that and I have undertaken to write to both noble Lords. I will put a letter in the Library because apparently I am not allowed to put it in the record at the same time. I understand very well the purpose of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, and I will study it before writing to try to convince him and the noble Earl that there is already as much protection as we can possibly get.

Although this requires an agreement, which would need a certain phrase about professional people, yes that would still further strengthen it—but it does not answer the question of whether the three areas which I did quote are not already quite adequate. In order to try to speed up the procedure, I will undertake to look at this again before Report stage, but I will proceed by the method I have suggested, including placing a copy of the letter in the Library. I hope very much that I shall be able to convince all those noble Lords—and the substance of what they have in mind is very much accepted —that this is in fact taken care of in the 1980 and the 1982 Act.

My Lords, it has not been unusual in past cases for a copy of such a letter to be not only placed in the Library (I was wrong when I said that it should be put in the Record) but also as a matter of courtesy be sent to those other Members of the House who took part in the debate on this particular point. Will the noble Viscount the Minister please do that?

My Lords, since my name has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord George-Brown, it is probably not known to your Lordships that it was my nodding and low profile grunts of approval that caused his reference to the value of my opinion. I do not want to leave your Lordships in any doubt about that. I fully agree with my noble friend Lord George-Brown. I think it can be put in very simple terms; that this amendment proposes to put statutory membership of a professional body pad passu as conscientious objection, because it adds that to the section dealing with conscientious objection. Therefore, it would be excluded from the provisions of subsection (3). It is as plain as a pike staff and I do not know why we are going all round the houses about this. What the Minister has to do is to satisfy the movers and the rest of us who are interested in this that there is no need for this special exemption in these circumstances because it will be covered by other means, in which case he has to show that it is not necessary to make it a pari passu exemption from subsection (3), along with conscientious objection. I hope that is a little clearer than it was before.

My Lords, I did not want to speak to this debate and indeed I had agreed not to speak but the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, has asked for the views of this side of the House on this amendment. He stated that we did not give our views last time and since he has put down a similar amendment, I must spend just a few moments saying what our views are. They are unusual, but they are nevertheless welcome, because we agree with the Government. We agree with the Government because we agree with the noble Viscount that we are talking here about the conditions of fair and unfair dismissal. What the amendment wants to do is specify, in effect, an additional eround for fair dismissal. The noble Viscount says that it was already covered in the 1980 Bill. We think that it is covered, and we thought so at the time when the 1980 Bill was before the House. In the lieht of the 1980 Bill, we do not consider that this amendment is required.

My Lords, my noble friend indicated that the qualification to receive a copy of the letter providing the argument—which, if he will allow me to say so, he has not yet adduced against the noble Earl's proposition—is participation in the debate. May I suggest to him that that is not the way to expedite proceedings. As I have now participated, I would be grateful to be included in the distribution. Also, I would be grateful if my noble friend will indicate that other noble Lords who take a serious interest in this point can obtain a copy of the letter from him without the necessary formality of intervening in the debate. I have to say to my noble friend that although as ever he has gallantly argued, he has left me wholly unconvinced that the noble Earl is wrong. The fact that my noble friend is on this occasion supported by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, strengthens my suspicion.

My Lords, if I may just answer that question, any noble Lord who requires a copy of the letter should kindly let me know and I will give them one.

My Lords, at the risk, I realise, of being a dreadful bore, may I just ask the Minister actually to go through with me where the amendment would go and what the words of the Bill say. The Bill as at present drafted states on page 3, in subsection (4)—is the Minister with me?—that:

"Subsection (3) shall not apply—".

and the Minister relied heavily on subsection (3),

"if the employee genuinely objects on grounds…".

Now, then, after "grounds", says the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, we should insert "(a)", so that it reads,

"of (a) conscience, or (b) that he is required by statutory provisions…"

and I do not need to read out the rest.

If the law provides that subsection (3) does not apply on grounds of (a) conscience and (b) the overriding nature of the person's professional association requirements, there is no point in us having a letter about what happens under subsection (3) because we will have statutorily provided that it does not apply. May I point that out to the Minister. What the noble Earl is trying to insert, which I hope we will encourage him to insert either tonight or at Report stage, is that there will now be not just one ground on which the employee escapes subsection (3) but that there will now be two; (a) the one in the Bill, which is conscience and (b) the one we are seeking to put in, which is the overriding nature of his professional obligations.

May I very quickly point out that the words of subsection (3), to which this subsection where the amendment applies is an exception, reads:

" Subject to the following provisions of this section, the dismissal of an employee by an employer shall be regarded for the purposes of this Part as having been fair".

All I would point out is the words, "the dismissal of an employee". What I failed to get him to comprehend is that the amendment bears on the condition of a dismissal.

My noble friend Lord George-Brown, I think, slightly misled himself, in that the words after "conscience", "or other deeply held personal conviction", are intended by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury to stand in the text that he proposes. This does not invalidate the argument; I point it out only to put the record straight.

We used to do that in the Foreign Office but we got to the same result in the end.

I think the noble Viscount has made a very strong case for saying that this business is adequately covered by the text of the Bill. I would like to say that you have to think what a lot of trade unionists and employers and other people without much legal experience are going to read this and are going to have to decide what they should do about it. I think it is good to have it laid on the line that this point made by Lord Halsbury is really in the Bill. I believe it makes the position clearer. It protects the position of professional people, which is very desirable in the world we live in. As regards the excellent amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howie, I would be happy with it if it did not say "engineering"; I think it should apply to everybody.

May I make one short point before the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, express a view. To some extent this may conflict with what the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, said. Of course, this is an area of the law in which the hallmark since about 1825 has been uncertainty. It is from the uncertainties that most of the difficulties and problems and occasional tragedies have arisen. If anyone had asked before the Taff Vale case whether the Industrial Disputes Act 1906 was necessary, from my reading of the history of the matter, which is not as profound as that of the noble Lords on the Front Bench, all the lawyers, all the Ministers, all the Ministers' advisers would have said that an Act in the terms of the 1906 Trades Disputes Act was quite unnecessary, that it was all provided for, that the law was as those who sought the 1906 Act said, and there was no need for it. The same applies to the Act of 1913 If anyone had asked before the Osborne judgment if the 1913 Trades Disputes Act was necessary, all the lawyers and all the Ministers and their advisers, I imagine, would have said it was not necessary and they would all have been wrong. I maks the point simply because what is being suggested is a letter, in which the advisers will no doubt assist, setting out that these amendments are unnecessary, and that should be looked at with great caution and care. It was, of course, in the Taff Vale railway judgment case of this House and the Osborne judgment of this House that everyone was surprised to find that the law was quite different from what all the lawyers had said.

Like the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, I have been a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry for many years. I have received in the last few days a mass of information from them about this particular matter which we are discussing. I have been through this with care, and clearly there is a strong case. Before I heard what the noble Viscount had to say, which I found very convincing, looking through the material from the Royal Society of Chemistry some doubts came into my mind about this amendment. Indeed, the doubts arose because of certain legal advice that was given to the Royal Society of Chemistry by their solicitors.

Copies were sent—I have one here—to Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry who are Members of your Lordships' House. Reading this, I find that the solicitors' advice was broadly similar to what has been said by the noble Viscount. For example, at one point it says:

" In the circumstances envisaged by this letter it is difficult to imagine any tribunal holding that such an expulsion was reasonable, particularly when it is remembered that there is an appeal on any question of law or fact to the employment appeal tribunal, and from there to the Court of Appeal, and ultimately to the House of Lords".

They go on to say:

" If an employee obtains a declaration that he has been unreasonably expelled from his union he can claim compensation under Section 5 of the Employment Act 1980".

The whole tenor of this legal advice is that really the amendment is not necessary, but that if it were to be pressed then certain other things ought to be done. I feel, after listening to this debate—and I think the noble Earl made a very excellent speech in defence of the amendment—I was completely convinced by what the noble Viscount had to say. It seems to me that it would not make sense for us to introduce into a Bill of this sort something which separated the professional people inside a trade union from the others.

My own personal opinion, as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and one who has been interested in problems of this sort, is that it is undesirable to make this type of separation specifically inside legislation. I think there is little doubt that, inside any organisation, if a group of professional people go along and say, "We have certain points that we wish to make to the trade union", the trade union would normally listen to them. If a trade union does not listen to them and there is a strike called and they are expelled, then they have a remedy in law. I would have thought it was highly desirable not to go beyond that.

I look forward to the letter with eager anticipation. It will be some letter. I have had letters like this before and they have been very convincing. This one will need to be even more convincing than the others. We were talking earlier about how best to disseminate the matter in the famous letter. Perhaps we could get round it by the Minister answering a Written Question, in which case it will go into Hansard and all our problems will be solved and everyone will be able to see how unconvincing it is.

Let me thank noble Lords who have spoken in favour of my amendment, which is not quite the same as that of the noble Earl because it goes a bit further. In response to one comment which was made, I point out that I did say that I had narrowed it to deal with engineers only specifically to highlight the problem. I have no wish that the final shape of the law, when we have all agreed it eventually, should be limited to engineers only. I am perfectly sure that other professional people should be protected in exactly the same way.

I should like to comment on the remark made by my old and valued noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones when he talked about not separating professional people from others. He will recall that in the course of my speech I remarked that some unions have rules which already do this and I cited two of them. If it is possible for them to do it without coming to any harm at all, then it is possible for the rest of them to do it. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord McCarthy for telling me my party's view on this matter. It did not surprise me one bit. I expected that he would say exactly what he said, but I really did want him to say it rather than leave me to guess it.

I conclude with the following remark. In my amendment, I am not really interested in whether dismissal is fair or unfair or in whether a person dismissed can be compensated. I wish to set up a situation in which he will not be dismissed at all. I sincerely hope that the letter deals with that matter.

The very lively debate that we have had on my amendment justifies the time and trouble that I took in preparing it and putting it before your Lordships' Committee. I think that I ought also to congratulate the Committee on having had a genuine Committee stage debate for the first time in 20 amendments. Possibly the abstention of the Opposition Front Bench contributed notably to this happy state of affairs as we have had no Second Reading speeches during the course of this debate. Of course Second Reading speeches in Committee are part of our procedural hocus-pocus—everybody indulges them when it suits their book and rebukes and criticises everybody else when it does not do so. However, it does contribute notably to the Committee coming alive if we can have Committee stage debates, which I always think are the most interesting parts of your Lordships' procedure.

It has been said that all design is a compromise and that whatever we gain in one dimension we pay for in another. Let me analyse the difference between the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, and my own approach. The noble Lord has drawn his amendment broader in some respects and narrower in another. In so far as he includes all professional men, he sacrifices my argument based on natural justice about being placed between two stalls, and he runs into the criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, that we are creating a Brahminical class of professional men. In fact, it is only professional men who get statutory obligations imposed upon them because they are identifiable and recognisable as a class.

Having drawn the amendment more broadly in one respect, the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, has drawn it more narrowly in another by going for the engineers and forgetting all about the others. I have simply gone for those with statutory obligations and I base myself upon the principles of natural justice in appealing to your Lordships' Committee in this amendment.

I am very glad to have had all the support that I have received from such distinguished noble friends on the Cross-Benches as my noble friend Lord Hankey and my noble friend Lord George-Brown, and support from the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, on my left. In fact, I do not think that I have had any opposition at all, except from the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, who has drawn attention to the legal advice given to the Royal Society of Chemistry. Of course, lawyers can give you any advice they please, but the responsibility for taking it is one's own, otherwise there would be endless buck-passing. I just do not accept there would be endless buck-passing. I just do not accept from one point of view that that advice goes quite as far as I want it to go.

The conflict between what is in the Bill and what is in the code of practice is an age-old matter of dispute. It is a tactical matter, it is a technical matter and we have all fought this battle at one time or another. We would sooner have in the Bill what a Government draftsman would sooner put in a code of practice because of the technical difficulties involved, and in a Government Bill obviously the Government draftsman gets the last word.

I asked the noble Viscount for a sympathetic approach to what I was trying to do. I consider that I have had that sympathetic approach. He has promised to write to me and to the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, and to publish the answers and to do it in time for the Report stage of the Bill. Therefore, I can now ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw my amendment reserving my position until the Report stage when I shall have had an opportunity to study the noble Lord's letter and very closely study the Hansard report of this debate this afternoon because some very valuable and highly relevant points have been made which I would like to study and get under my belt. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 20:

Page 3, line 7, leave out from ("conscience") to ("to") in line 8.

Will the noble Lord promise that it will not be a Second Reading speech?

No, I am not making any promises either way because I am never quite certain what they are. It always seems to me that Second Reading speeches are speeches delivered in Committee that you do not like. This speech at least is designed to change the Bill. I should have thought that that is what speeches are designed to do in Committee; they are designed to support amendments designed to change the Bill. This amendment is designed to change the Bill.

We are trying to suggest that the clause should be changed so that at page 3, line 7, we leave out from "conscience" to "to" and in effect we leave out "deeply held personal conviction". What we are trying to do here is what we were trying to do earlier yesterday when we were talking about Clause 1 of the Bill. We are trying to limit the consequences on union membership agreements. We are saying that, under this Bill and under the 1980 Acts, we have a series of qualifications in respect of unfair dismissal legislation so that we would argue it is now almost impossible to enforce union membership agreements. You have to have ballots; you have to have existing members exonerated from this provision; and you have to have a conscience or deeply held personal conviction escape hatch. We are suggesting that the deeply held personal conviction escape hatch is there, in a way, by almost an accident.

In the 1980 debates when we sought to get from the Government at that time the reason why they wanted to add to the conscience clause, which I can readily understand, this rather unusual phrase "deeply held person conviction" the reason we were given was, "Of course, that is in the constitution of the Parliamentary Labour Party". With very great respect that strikes me like a schoolboy answer. I repeat, "It is in the constitution of the Parliamentary Labour Party". That does not make it right and it does not make it appropriate. The matter has to be defended on its own grounds. Our submission is that it has not been defended on its own grounds and that on all reasonable grounds," conscience "is what those who wish to qualify union membership agreements wish to protect, and "deeply held personal conviction" is an extraneous and extremely, in practice, bothersome clause.

If one goes to the Oxford English Dictionary—and there is no reason why one should not—and looks up to see what could be the difference between "conscience" and "conviction", the OED tells us that conscience is a moral sense of right or wrong. We accept that it is possible that people could have a moral feeling that they did not want to join a particular trade union, and that is provided in the present Bill. Indeed, it was provided in the 1980 Act and this Bill simply repeats it.

But the Oxford English Dictionary says that a conviction is merely a settled belief, and I think that that is a reasonable distinction—something which one simply has and says one has and can say that one has had for some time. It says nothing about whether it is a moral issue or an issue of right or wrong. An issue of right or wrong, an issue of morals, is conventionally thought of as art issue of conscience. We would ask how the tribunals could apply such a test to deeply-held personal convictions.

During the Committee stage of the 1980 Act, we tried to elicit some information about this. We had a long and interesting discussion at that time about whether a belief that a trade union was supporting the Labour Party could be said to be a settled belief or a deeply-held personal conviction, so that, if for no other reason, one could therefore say that one came within the clause.

I am bound to say that, although we tried to get answers to this, we got no settled answers. We got no settled answers because, indeed, it is a very difficult thing to answer and it is a very awkward clause. Anybody could have a settled belief about anything. Very few cases have been brought under the 1980 Act. I believe,—I may be wrong—that it was said yesterday that no cases have been brought under the 1980 Act, but I may have misremembered that. However, I believe that it was said in another place that one case had been brought under the 1980 Act. We still do not know whether that was brought under the existing employee clause or whether it was brought under the conscience clause, or whether, in fact, what was relied upon was a deeply-held personal conviction.

I do not want to mention them by name, because we have agreed not to mention them, but if we take the three cases, they could all have been covered by being existing employees. As I said to the Committee yesterday, in my experience, an existing employee clause in the form of a registration shop agreement would, in fact, cover virtually all the individuals who would need to be covered in a practice of this kind. But the Government have added conscientious reasons. I am saying that they have also added deeply-held personal convictions. I do not understand the reason for it and I did not understand the reason for it then. I should like them to explain it. In the meantime, I beg to move this amendment.

I feel very cross indeed at the speech that my noble friend has just made. I strongly oppose this amendment. His supercilious reference to the constitution of the Parliamentary Labour Party makes me more vexed still. Little does he know what we went through in the Parliamentary Labour Party in order to get the conscience clause right. He probably does not recall that the root of the difficulty in the Parliamentary Labour Party were those who claimed exemption from the disciplines of the party on a three-line Whip on conscientious grounds. This arose to a very large extent as regards those who held strong views about defence and also strong views about temperance. There were various causes of conscientious grounds at that time, and I need not remind noble Lords who understand parliamentary procedures of the problem which arises when members of a party decline to support the party, notwithstanding the majority view, because they say that they have a conscientious objection to doing so.

For my noble friend to bring this amendment before the Committee at the present time—on what authority I do not know—is only prolonging a debate on a matter which I thought had been settled, certainly to general satisfaction, in the Employment Act 1980. If my noble friend wants to go back on this, he would have to go back to the discussions in 1974 and 1976, before he arrived here, on the Labour Government's proposals for the conscience clause. I objected then and I object now to relating conscience to religious beliefs.

There are secular consciences as well as religious consciences. Unfortunately, conscience is usually associated with religious belief or religious convictions, because most people get their consciences from religious teaching or from religious guidance. But some people try to rationalise morality and their attitude to life, and think out for themselves and reach a secular conviction about the matter.

We know that conscience is generally related to the moral issues, but what are the moral issues? They are handed down in convention and in religious teaching, and we try to sort them out for guidance through life. Very often we are very perplexed about them when we are young. But my noble friend referred to a deeply-held personal conviction being a settled opinion, as though it had some different and smaller value than a conviction based on conscience. They are both convictions after all. They represent a mind firmly made up on certain issues of principle or morals. That is what we are talking about. It can either be conscience, largely attributable to religious or Christian teaching, or it can be a deeply-held personal conviction based on secular education or a secular upbringing. My upbringing was a mixture of rationalism and Methodism, and perplexing it all was. But out of it I have got, and still retain, some deeply-held personal convictions. I shall put them against any conscience that my noble friend possesses, no matter where he got it. At least I thought mine out, I do not know whether he thought his out or, for that matter, whether he has any at all.

But I feel angry about this, because to have it lightly presented to the Committee in the sort of spirit of my noble friend is something for which I cannot really stand. So I have made my position absolutely clear. I sincerely hope that the Committee will not be asked to divide on this amendment, for the sake of the Labour Party, if nothing else.

If the Labour Party is to continue to represent itself as intolerant, as narrow-minded, as a party which is willing to see coercion where liberty and freedom should be exercised, then it stands no chance in the Britain of tomorrow. It really must sort that out because people are going for more democracy, for more freedom, and for more right to make up their minds. In these circumstances, I think that this amendment is a disservice to the Labour Party.

I know that one can talk in scornful tones about the odd man out but Charles Bradlaugh was the odd man out; he refused to take a religious oath as a condition of taking his seat in the House of Commons. He fought it through and killed himself in doing so. That enabled those of us who came after to make an affirmation instead of a religious oath. Mr. Plimsoll was an odd man out. He tortured himself as a Member of Parliament, trying to secure the safeguards for the seamen who went to sea in leaking hulks and lost their lives. He was the only non-unionist ever to have a statue erected by a trade union, and the National Union of Seaman put him up to be honoured for ever. Even Tony Benn was an odd man out; he refused to accept an unwanted and undeserved fate of a peerage by accession and he resisted coming here, much to the poverty of this House and the enrichment of another place. I could go on. Sydney Silverman was another odd man out on the question of capital punishment. Odd men out make history, and sometimes they are honoured only after they are in their graves.

Do not let us be scornful about people who take a stand on principle. It is not always the odd man out. It is very often the conpliant people who can be regarded with scorn and derision because they have not got the guts to stand out and make a bid for something that they regard properly as sacred, or certainly as part of the whole feelings of personal conviction and fulfilment in life. Throw this amendment out. Have nothing to do with it at all.

May I be heard in support of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, possibly as an odd man out, also as a former member of the Labour Party? I well remember the debates which he is quoting. I must say I took part in them myself, mischievously perhaps, by saying that the text for the day was, "if thy Nye offend thee, pluck it out".

I do not want in any way to diminish the effect of what the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has said. I hope he will not take my support from another point of view. Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights bear on this. Article 9 says:

" Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion".

Article 10 says:

" Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right should include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authorities".

I think that that validates what the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, intends the Committee to believe.

My noble friend will reply naturally to this debate. I intervene for only one minute to make two points. The first is to the noble Lord who has just sat down. Articles 9 and 10 as interpreted in the Strasbourg judgment last year do not add to Article 11. We come to that in a later amendment.

I would ask for your Lordships' indulgence to say a few words in respect of my noble friend Lord Houghton. As far as the position of the Labour Party is concerned, one might be concerned about this amendment, deviating from it in precisely the opposite way from that which he understood. It is not to be in any way scornful or discourteous—and I hope he will listen—to suggest that the position of the Labour Party in another place on this Bill was based to a great extent upon reviving the position as it was in 1979.

That is to say, the majority view still thought that the religious objector on conscientious grounds of religious belief was the person who should be exempted for a simple reason. This is the point. No doubt it will be looked at in Hansard. How do you define the conscientious objector in the sense that he obtains compensation when others will not? So far as religious objection is concerned, everybody agrees that it is possible to deal with that in a sensible way in a tribunal. This disagreement in 1976 was to a great extent whether reasonable grounds—which was what the party opposite invented in 1974 and then dropped because it did not work—should be reintroduced, or whether there should be grounds of conscience in a broad sense, or whether it should be restricted to religious belief.

What we say in this amendment is that without accepting it 100 per cent. because there are problems about it, we share, and certainly I for one personally share, Lord Houghton's objection to conscience being identified with religion. I happened to share the noble Lord's position in affirming in your Lordships' House. I accept many of the points he made. It is rather odd that my noble friend and I should be attacked in the speech he gave, because I suspect we have more than usually found ourselves as odd men out in all sorts of places.

The problem is not with conscience quite so much in that respect, although there are difficulties in knowing where it stops. For instance, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said that a man with his mind firmly made up based on firm principles or morals. That is what I managed to get down. That to us sounds like conscience. If deeply-held conviction goes further, then it is so open ended that it means that anyone's conviction about anything becomes a right to compensation in a closed shop situation, which is to make closed shops by dismissal inoperable.

If you want to make closed shops by dismissal inoperable, and I know some noble Lords do, then be courageous, take the nettle in your hand, and pass a law and say that there shall not be dismissal of non-unionists in closed shops, and then invent the remedies you want to have. Do not go about it by putting in phrases about deeply-held personal conviction which are difficult to interpret in court. Convictions about what? How deep, other than conscience? Every time I hear one, I recognise it. I say, vicariously at least, to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that I shared many of his sentiments, but they sounded to me like a deeply held conscience. It is not surprising that this House holds a large number of deeply held convictions against being members of trade unions. That is what being in the House of Lords is normally about. Where are the deeply held convictions that go beyond which conscience lawyers can understand? I am glad that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate is with us. Perhaps he can help us on it at a later stage.

If the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is asking whether this is Labour Party policy, the only argument he might deploy against the amendment is perhaps that it does not go far enough in terms of party policy at the moment, although of course the matter is still under discussion. Even if it be a sin and disadvantage to move a little in the course of discussion, to say perhaps conscience could be understood in court when we thought it could not, we nevertheless still think, reasonable grounds could not, and I think the party opposite has changed its mind on that too because it does not give reasonable grounds a run any more; but deeply held conviction, we say, if it means what it says, allows anybody through the net, through the door. If you really mean that, then say it in the proper way and not in this backhanded way. There is nothing scornful or discourteous about that.

There is the problem of unfair dismissal and the closed shop. Since 1971 when the party opposite introduced unfair dismissal they created a problem. A most important and admirable invention in our law, which we thought of in 1969, and they introduced in 1971, was kept by us in 1974; that is, the law of unfair dismissal. As soon as you have a law of unfair dismissal you have to have either a compromise on the closed shop, draw a line between who is or who is not to be preferred to the majority, or you must say that there shall be no closed shop. If you want to go to British industry and say that deeply held conviction can include anything—and then nothing will be a closed shop—then do it. But the Government are not doing that.

What we say to the Government is do not pretend to your supporters that deeply held conviction is something which will be easy to understand; it is something which lawyers will find impossible to interpret. It would give rise to enormous litigation when the circircumstances are ripe for litigation, and in the recession they are not. If it is ever litigated, it will be difficult. Therefore, we were moving to take out something that we think is unhelpful, goes too far, and we left in conscience without the tag of religion upon it on this occasion. Yes, we did, because when we discussed it, and we discussed it for a long time with our honourable and right honourable friends in another place, it seemed that it was worth putting to your Lordships whether the line should be drawn at conscience and not deeply held conviction. That is all there is to it, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, will understand it.

We have only done I think two amendments this afternoon. There are another 130. I have no right in any way to ask Members not to speak, but I wanted to say quickly at this stage—which will mean that I need not say anything at the end—that it might help your Lordships to know the Government view on this amendment. This was all argued on the 1980 Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said so clearly. We attach vital importance to the words which the amendment seeks to delete.

While we are delighted to see the belated support of the party opposite for "conscience", we believe that we must stretch them further than that. Looking up words in dictionaries really does not do you much good. If you look up in the Oxford dictionary the word "pragmatic", once used by a Prime Minister to describe how he would behave, you would find that it says that it means "dogmatic". The interpretation of conscience came up in judgments like the one under the 1974 Act where Arnold J said:

" In very many cases there will not in fact be any distinction between conscience as a factor forbidding, or grounding an objection to, belonging to a trade union, or indeed doing anything else, and religious belief providing that ground. We can conceive, rare though they may be, that there may well be cases in which conscience directs or forbids a certain course of action, be it joining a trade union or anything else, having been brought to that point of conviction by moral or ethical considerations which do not possess a religious content".

There is therfore a belief in some quarters that the word, "conscience", is tied to religion. So we are absolutely determined that these words should be in the Bill and, given what has already been said, I wonder whether, with the amount of work in front of us, the noble Lord wants to press the amendment.

In view of all that has been said and the time of night, I am pleased not to press it.

Amendment No. 21 has fallen.

I wonder if I might take the feeling of the Committee? Obviously we must have an adjournment for dinner soon and I am not sure how long the next amendment will take.

The next amendment will not be moved, but I suspect that the one after that will take a very long time, so I think we should adjourn.

If the amendment after next will be a relatively long time compared with the last two, I should be rather unhappy about that. Perhaps we could take the formal not moving of the amendment first.

If I may give an indication to the Committee, I suggest that we return to the Bill at 7.40.

Accordingly, I beg to move that the House do now resume.