That is the great fallacy. I have heard the argument about 50%, but that is the point I am addressing: how many people got elected with 50%? The question of a strike is a binary choice. It is not the same as having five or six candidates standing in a by-election or an election. I do not know how many noble Lords have actually stood as candidates for election but a number who are in this Chamber at present have. They will know that if you have a number of candidates, the chances of getting 50% of the vote are unlikely. Are we saying that is a good background against which you would have to go around and say, “Just a minute: we have cleverly worked out that 24% voted for us. Can we find another 3% from some other party and other 10% from somewhere, and then—my goodness—we could make some policy”? That is not the way this country has worked. The answer is that the system we have of first past the post is the basis on which government works.
8.30 pm
Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, perhaps it would have been more impressive if we were proposing some appalling invasion on people’s privacy and rights—some outrageous intervention. We have already been through the fact that this provision does not infringe the European Convention on Human Rights in this respect. Perhaps I should say that the Government think that this in the interests of all the people. I have mentioned this before and I apologise to the noble Lord for saying it, but what we are really talking about is public sector strikes. Those are the things that really hit people and in which the employer cannot go bust. A lot of the union material makes the point that the good thing about strikes is that strikers always have to recognise that they have some interest in the interests of their employer, because he might go bust. That is absolutely true in the private sector but it is not true in the public sector at all. This is one of the reasons why we have to address the problem. If noble Lords are saying, “Forget that. We will insist on a lower percentage voting. We will stand up”—