Other Members want to speak, so let me come to the end of my remarks.
The only unions and leaders who need fear these reforms are those who do not believe that they can regularly convince their own members of the veracity of their arguments—those who have essentially lost touch with the high ideals of the founders of the trade union movement. I think back to my ancestor, Mary Ridge. What would she have thought of the union leader who last year called a strike of teachers based on ballots that were years out of date and in which fewer than a quarter of teachers voted? It closed a special school in Newark at which parents, already struggling with the demands of juggling jobs and caring for children with special educational needs, had to take time off work or seek specialist childcare at short notice. What would she have thought of the female city cleaner on a low income trudging home through the streets of London because trade union bosses had taken tube drivers, whose average starting salary is £50,000 a year for 36 hours a week, out on strikes.