Speeches by Smith.

“I hear the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I gently ask him how a no-strings-attached bumper pay rise for the train drivers worked out in practice when it came to strikes over the Christmas period. We have heard repeatedly from Labour party politicians that they will prevent or…”

“I think we were still on paper ballot papers, for the large part, the last time there was a change of leader of the Conservative party while we were in government. The election of the current Leader of the Opposition did happen by electronic ballot, but that is not the point of new clause 33. It does not seek to preven…”

“This is another bumper grouping for us to debate. As the Minister said, new clause 32 would require the Secretary of State to consider whether sufficient measures are in place to prevent workplace intimidation before making any order to allow balloting to take place by any means other than a postal ballot. The Bill lib…”

“This is one of the less contentious clauses in the Bill. The Minister is right to say that something that has not been updated for a decade probably should be looked at again, especially in the light of some of the technology that we see emerging. We will not oppose clause 53 standing part of the Bill.”

“Nobody is suggesting that equalities issues should not be taken seriously. The point that I was making about our amendments is that the law is already very clear about equalities, and employers should be held to that law. There is no need to place this additional burden on the public sector or the private sector. Equal…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing that up. He has clearly been doing his homework and researching the wonderful transcripts from my time on that local authority. I have some very happy memories of it—I remember cutting council tax by 20%, which I am very proud of—but he is really going to stretch my grey…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I, too, wish you a very happy new year. I will start with amendments 114 and 115, which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends on the Committee. The amendments would prevent facility time from being provided for equality representatives unless—t…”

“Of course we wish to save taxpayers money, particularly when it comes to the public sector, but likewise we do not see why businesses should bear the cost of trade union subscription collections. That should be a cost entirely for the trade unions to bear, just as we would never tolerate—on the Opposition Benches for s…”

“I understand the importance of not predetermining a consultation, but will the Minister not accept that, by definition, the Government have to consult on something? There must be a broad range of circumstances around access being permitted or not that the Government intend to consult on. I believe it is reasonable to a…”

“Well, there is. The Conservative party held our membership at £25 for far too long, which was why the increase was so big a couple of years ago. I appreciate that most Labour Committee members, beyond those on the Front Bench, were not in the last Parliament, but the general point of principle here is that when it came…”

“I am grateful for that, but there is not an increase every year.”

“The Minister is going to tempt me to say which memberships, isn’t he?”

“For the most part, I would say that it does exist. I am thinking of membership organisations outside the world of politics that I have subscriptions to: at the annual point of renewal—most of the ones I have are annual—I do get either an email or a letter saying, “Your direct debit for the next year is going to be £2 h…”

“I do not think I need to correct the record, in that I made a statement of the obvious, which is that Conservatives wish to beat Labour in elections, but equally I went on to say that, with the right consent, it is perfectly fair, democratic and legitimate for the Labour party to receive funding from those trade unions…”

“indicated dissent.”

“The Opposition stand by our amendment 126. I do not want to repeat all the arguments that I made in my substantive speech. However, I listened very carefully to the Minister’s response and to the other contributions to this debate and I am still utterly lost as to how Labour Members can argue that all these rights shou…”

“In the spirit of following that debate through to its natural conclusion, no matter where we stand on the politics, surely the happy medium would be to marry up whatever the consultation ends up concluding for the reminder of the right to join a trade union in the first place with the reminder of the right to opt out o…”

“I understand the point the Minister is making. On the one hand, he wants everyone to be reminded annually of their right to join a trade union, but he wants them to be reminded of their ability to opt out of the political fund only every 10 years. Surely he can see the inconsistency in that approach. Even though I am s…”

“Perhaps I can put to the hon. Gentleman a hypothetical scenario. If his trade union, the political fund of which he had willingly opted in to because in some cases it might support the Labour party, decided, like a quarter of Labour voters, that it regretted that political choice and now wished to go even further to th…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”