My Lords, I was delighted to tear up the speech that I was going to make, and I am delighted to begin by thanking the noble Lord for his statement. What we have seen in the last few weeks is this House at its best. I remember that when I was introduced here I had a briefing from a very wise lady on our side, although I will not say who. She said, “Richard, the difference between this place and the other place is that here you have to win arguments in order to win votes”. The Minister alluded to the fact that possibly the Government did not feel that they had won this argument and I fully agree with him.
I should like to mention a couple of facts. In this country we have a very odd view of the unions. They are not comprised of people who go to work every day looking for a strike; basically they have come out of the Victorian benefit societies and are some of the best examples of working-class solidarity. However, as time has progressed—particularly in the last 20 or 30 years—they have also attained a very heavy top layer of professional workers. Many people are quite surprised when I remind them that the British Medical Association is a trade union. There are many other trade unions whose members are highly paid professional workers, but at the same time there are many trade unions whose members are very low-paid workers, and those are the people who would have been hurt by this clause.
Perhaps I may just mention some figures, and I am largely using those from UNISON, although obviously other unions are affected by this provision. If you join UNISON, you not only get industrial cover, which generally does not matter because people do not go on strike, but you also get—and this matters—death and accident benefits, and legal advice, which is often very good in helping to resolve industrial disputes. We must all have met a person who has said, “I’m not putting up with this. I’m going to take them to an industrial tribunal”. Then the union representative will quietly say, “Look, calm down a bit. You haven’t quite got a case, but we can give you some good legal advice and help you deal with the problems you’ve got”.
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There is another reason why this was seen as inopportune. UNISON has supplied me with a list of 30 different kinds of deductions that are made from the wages of workers. I will go through just the main 10: charitable donations; additional voluntary contributions to a pension; bicycle loans—a government scheme, incidentally; childcare vouchers—another government scheme; credit union payments, which are quite common; in some jobs, uniform and equipment purchase; healthcare schemes—it is surprising how many unions deduct money from wages for private healthcare, and not just for Bupa but the many other smaller private healthcare firms, often originating in the trade union movement; car parking; and, finally, the thing that is deducted from wages that many people would love to see banned, student loans—that is the way that the Government get their money back. There are plenty of things deducted from wages.
I will mention the case of UNISON. It is a union of low-paid workers. The monthly average subscription is £1.43 a week, and the average worker earns £15,000 a year. That is the average; in other words, most people earn less than that. This union deduction is crucial to their well-being. As such, I am delighted to hear what the Minister has said. I think that possibly, as the debate has developed, these facts have come more to the fore. As I said, the union movement is a very wide one and it is very easy to see some parts of it and think, “Oh well, they can do a direct debit—it is not hard for a doctor to have a direct debit”. But when you look across the whole waterfront, you see that this is a very important part of it. As such, at the appropriate moment, I will be delighted to withdraw my amendment. But for now, I beg to move.