My Lords, I rise to speak to this amendment and in doing so declare my interests as chairman of King’s College Hospital and president of the Local Government Association. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for moving this amendment. He has been a constant companion during the Committee stage of the Bill and I have learned a great deal of trade union history from him that I did not previously know about.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, I am in the equally happy position of finding that the speech I wrote over the weekend is now entirely redundant. I think we are all agreed about the importance of the role of trade unions in this country. They are a part of British life.
It was clear to anyone who looked at the detail that the Government’s proposals on check-off stood to do considerable damage both to the unions themselves and to their members and potential members. Like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, I was particularly concerned about the impact on low-paid, mostly female workers who stood to lose out on the protection and benefits of trade union membership.
It is worth bearing in mind that the impact of this proposal was likely to be felt by more than 21,000 public sector organisations. Given its impact, I think many noble Lords felt that the arguments in favour of it were—to put it mildly—not convincing. Take just one example: modernisation. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has said, there are many examples of payroll deductions continuing. It appears that only the trade unions and their members were going to be route marched to modernity on this issue. It was absolutely right that the members should have the choice between payroll deduction and direct debit. In a situation where the unions had signalled clearly that they were willing to pay the costs, it felt to me that the last credible argument on this issue had fallen away.
I am delighted that Ministers have listened on this issue and changed their view. I hope that we can see equal progress on some of the other contentious issues in the Bill, and I look forward to seeing the wording at Third Reading.