That is quite simply because they are introducing a party political measure that is designed to provoke this House.
I call on all Conservative Members, if they care about the Union at all, to vote against this wrecking ball of a Bill, which will only provide succour to those voices seeking to destroy our constitutional settlement and our United Kingdom. Under the Bill, the employer has the unilateral right to identify in a work notice the individual workers required to operate the MSL. A worker who refuses to comply after having been requisitioned in this way will lose unfair dismissal protection.
The Government are thus authorising employers to do what not even a court in this country can do. Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992:
“No court shall…compel an employee to do any work or attend at any place for the doing of any work.”
However, once the union is notified of the identity of the workers to be requisitioned, the Bill requires the union to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that all its members identified in the work notice comply with it. It is ironic that, under the Bill, the same trade union may be required to discipline or expel—