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Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

My Lords, many people in this House will know that I have a firm belief that the best industrial relations are conducted by two parties that are trying to achieve objectives in common and are not clashing with each other. This amendment basically helps that to happen because it says that an employer will not be under an obligation to give a work notice if it does not want to. Surely the reason it would not want to is because it would worsen the industrial relations within the company or body concerned. That cannot possibly be a good objective to pursue.

4.45 pm

If we are saying that the Government will interfere to make employers issue work notices where they think it would actually be deleterious to their industrial

relations, I think we have got it wrong—it is as simple as that. I hope the Government can think again, because the areas in which we force employers to issue work notices are those in which industrial relations will deteriorate, not improve, but they will also deteriorate between the Government and the employers. Employers seem a bit bereft of representation at the moment, admittedly, but when they get their act together again and have a group to represent them, they will not wish to be conflicting with the Government in such a way that the Government, against their wishes, order them how to organise their business. One assumes that if they do not wish to issue a work notice, that is because it would have an adverse effect on their business.

I ask the Minister to think very carefully about the long-term consequences of this way of approaching industrial relations. It is not sound.