Schedule Minimum service levels for certain strikes 20:17:00 The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade
(Kevin Hollinrake) I beg to move, That this House disagrees with
Lords amendment 2D. This House has been asked these questions
before and twice this House has said no with an overwhelming
majority. We are asked to consider for a third time an amendment
that significantly expands on previous versions that have already
been rejected....Request free trial
Schedule
Minimum service levels for certain strikes
20:17:00
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade
()
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment
2D.
This House has been asked these questions before and twice this
House has said no with an overwhelming majority. We are asked to
consider for a third time an amendment that significantly expands
on previous versions that have already been rejected. Members of
the other place referenced the report of the International Labour
Organisation’s committee of experts as a reason to reconsider.
However, I should note that this ground has already been well
covered by both Houses. It was argued that Lords amendment 2D
requires Ministers to do what the ILO is requesting: to undertake
consultation when considering introducing regulations to
implement minimum service levels. The Bill already requires
Ministers to do just that, as they have done in undertaking
public consultations on their intentions to bring forward minimum
service levels to passenger rail services, ambulance services and
fire and rescue services. Impact assessments were published
alongside those consultations and final impact assessments will
be published alongside the regulations the Government bring
forward for approval in Parliament in due course.
My colleague was right to say in the
other place that the ILO did not say that the legislation was not
compatible with ILO conventions. It simply said that it should be
compatible and that we should ensure that it is. As stated in
Parliament when introduced and throughout its passage, the Bill
is compatible with the UK’s international obligations. The
Government will continue to uphold their international
obligations as the minimum service regulations are
introduced.
Lords amendment 2D also seeks to ensure that the “reasonable
steps” that unions should take to make sure that their members
comply are considered as part of the consultations that are
required before minimum service regulations are made. Members
will recall that when this House last considered the Bill, I
confirmed that the Government were willing to consider whether
there was a case for providing further detail on the reasonable
steps that unions must take under new section 234E to ensure that
identified workers comply with a work notice given by an
employer. In the light of the recommendations from the Joint
Committee on Human Rights and points raised in both Houses during
the Bill’s passage, the Government accept that further detail
would give unions more legal certainty and foresight with regard
to their obligations than the Bill provides in its current form.
The Government will therefore introduce a statutory code of
practice on the reasonable steps that must be taken, using
existing powers under section 203 of the Trade Union and Labour
Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. These powers enable the
Secretary of State to issue a code of practice to promote the
improvement of industrial relations.
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister spell out exactly how trade unions are to
comply with and enforce a code that is outwith their
jurisdictions in making workers go into work?
The code of practice will be consulted on so that all parties are
clear about what the obligations of the unions will be. We expect
them to be quite straightforward. They have been debated at
length, along with various ideas about how this might
operate.
rose—
I want to end my speech shortly, but I will give the hon. Lady
one last chance to intervene.
As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the measures that
the Minister is trying to introduce are outside the jurisdictions
of trade unions, which therefore do not have the powers to
implement them.
As I have said, we intend to consult with all parties to make
sure that they have a chance to comment on what reasonable
obligations a union might be required to take. I think that it is
pretty straightforward, and, indeed, unions will be familiar with
the code of practice on picketing that was issued under section
203 of the 1992 Act. This code will be subject to statutory
consultation, including consultation with ACAS, and to the
approval of Parliament. The consultation will give trade unions,
employers and any other interested parties an opportunity to
contribute to practical guidance on the steps that a union must
take in order to make it as practicable, durable and effective as
possible.
(Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
(SNP)
If the Minister is so willing to consult, why is he rejecting an
amendment which confirms that there should be a consultation?
We are not happy with a number of other parts of the amendment.
We are proposing a measure that we have already proposed in
earlier debates. It is, of course, up to those in the other place
to decide how they take their amendments forward, but we believe
that this is fair. We are satisfied that it is an effective way
to provide for clarity, and that the individual consultations for
specific minimum service levels in relevant services required by
Lords amendment 2D are not needed. The real impact of the
amendment would be a delay in the implementation of minimum
service levels, given the additional and lengthy consultation and
parliamentary requirements which we strongly suspect are its
purpose. Unnecessary delays in the protection of the lives and
livelihoods of those whom we have been elected to represent
cannot be justified.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the shadow Minister.
(Ellesmere Port and Neston)
(Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of
Members’ Financial Interests.
Let me repeat, at the outset, our opposition to the Bill and our
intention to repeal the Act that it will become should we be in a
position to do so in the future. It is one of the most illiberal,
unconscionable and ultimately destructive pieces of legislation
produced by any Government. We believe that the right to withdraw
labour is a fundamental right, a human right, and one that should
not be extinguished. Even if some Conservative Members cannot see
past their hostility to trade unions and past the easy headlines,
they should see that what they are asking their constituents to
do is distinctly un-British, because it infringes on individual
freedoms that ought to be—even for Conservative Members—a basic
part of any open and democratic society.
Freedom matters, and valuing freedom sometimes means that we
protect another person’s freedom to do something even if we do
not personally agree with the particular course of action. But
our objections are based not just on principles, but on
practicalities. Ultimately, we do not think that the Bill will
work. The Bill is counterproductive because it will not quell the
concerns of many people in the sectors that have taken industrial
action. Taking away the right to strike will not take away
people’s concerns. We cannot legislate away people’s legitimate
grievances about their working conditions. Because the Bill is so
ill defined and poorly thought through, Parliament must have a
proper opportunity to consider its ramifications.
The measures set out in Lords amendment 2D attempt to address
some of those issues. The amendment also provides yet another
opportunity for us to raise our concerns about the Government’s
lax approach to proper scrutiny during the Bill’s progress so
far. Let us go back to when the Bill was first published. It is
surely a basic expectation of Government that they should provide
an impact assessment before asking hon. Members to vote on a
Bill. But no—we were asked to trust the Government that the
matter was in hand and that all would be fine. We said it at the
time and we say it again: that approach is completely
unacceptable.
The Bill had been trailed in the press for months before it was
published, so not to have the impact assessment ready at the same
time was a failure of basic competence. When it finally appeared,
we could see why the Government were so keen to keep it under
wraps. The Regulatory Policy Committee said that it was not fit
for purpose—it could just as easily have been talking about the
Government—and no wonder, given that the assessment contains
statements that undermine both the purpose and execution of the
Bill.
The impact assessment states that the Bill
“could mean a general increase in tension between unions and
employers. This may result in more adverse impacts in the long
term, such as an increased frequency of strikes for each
dispute.”
When Ministers told us on Second Reading that the Bill would
reduce the disruption caused by strikes, what they apparently did
not know was that the Government’s own impact assessment would
say that it could, in fact, have the opposite effect. The impact
assessment also says, on at least half a dozen occasions, that
assumptions are being made about the level of service that would
be required. That is the point of the Lords amendment: unless we
have some idea about what these minimum service levels will be—in
the six months since the Bill was published, Ministers have not
come to the Dispatch Box and told us—we are legislating in a
vacuum.
The point has not been lost on the Delegated Powers and
Regulatory Reform Committee, which wrote in its assessment
that
“there is nothing in the Bill saying what those minimum service
levels are. We shall only know when Ministers make regulations
after the Bill is enacted. This is small comfort to Parliament,
which is considering the matter right now.”
The Committee’s recommendation was that the Government should
publish indicative draft regulations alongside the Bill. As it
rightly points out,
“the Government must have some idea how they propose to exercise
these powers.”
It is no surprise that the impact assessment got a red rating. Of
the 861 Bills assessed by the Regulatory Policy Committee since
its creation, just 2.9% have been given a red rating. When
legislation represents such a fundamental departure from past
practice, the importance of impact assessments increases rather
than decreases.
If this all sounds familiar to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is
because it is. Only last week the High Court said, in relation to
the consultation process for the regulations that allow agency
workers to break strikes, that
“this is not a case in which the evidence is that the proposal
had obvious and undisputed merit based on cogent evidence, and
enjoyed strong support from representative bodies in the
sector”.
It could have been talking about this Bill—no doubt, in time, it
will be.
The pattern is familiar. The Government decide the policy,
although “policy” is probably too strong a word. The Government
decide the headline that they want to create, rush through
ill-thought-out legislation and then ignore all the voices that
point out principled and practical objections. That is to treat
democracy with contempt. Parliament is not a rubber-stamping
process to agree whatever the Government of the day decide. When
Parliament is starved of its ability to properly scrutinise
legislation, that impacts on fundamental human rights, as it does
in this case. It should come as no surprise that there is
pushback from the other place requiring that a robust process be
followed.
The amendment is important because the International Labour
Organisation’s conference committee on the application of
standards called on the Government to ensure that existing and
prospective legislation is in conformity with the convention that
governs freedom of association and the protection of the right to
organise. I would not have thought that is too much to ask of a
modern liberal democracy. In fact, I am rather ashamed that the
ILO has had to point it out at all.
All this amendment does is what the ILO is asking the Government
to do anyway, which is to undertake genuine consultation before
implementing minimum service regulations. This means that, when
regulations are published, they would include an impact
assessment and there should be genuine consultation on the
regulations, including on the protection for workers named in
work notices and the reasonable steps a trade union needs to take
to ensure compliance.
20:30:00
The amendment would also ensure that the relevant Secretary of
State consults with the ILO and lays before Parliament any advice
it gives, as well as laying a report from the relevant Joint
Committee on all the actions required under this amendment. This
is important, not just because the ILO thinks it is needed but
because it fills some of the holes in the process so far. Indeed,
it may address some of the important questions that still need
answering.
Right now, under this Bill, trade unions can receive huge fines
if their members go on strike when they are asked not to do so by
their employer, yet there is no information in the Bill on what a
trade union will need to do to avoid that liability. Imagine if
the Government presented a Bill that had the potential for
businesses to receive a seven-figure fine but said nothing about
what those businesses needed to do to comply. There would be
uproar from Members on both sides of the House, and they would be
right to be concerned. What is sauce for the goose should be
sauce for the gander.
The Minister has belatedly said that a new code of practice will
be brought forward, which is an improvement on the Government’s
previous position that it is for the courts to decide what should
be reasonable steps. We are the legislators; we are the ones who
are meant to shape and determine Acts of Parliament. We should
not leave it to judges to try to work it out, possibly years down
the line. Such ambiguity could be very costly for trade unions,
and it certainly is not a recipe for improved industrial
relations. Given the Government’s track record on providing
detail on the various steps in this Bill, I have little
confidence that a code of practice will provide any comfort at
all. It is the epitome of this “headline first, detail later”
Government, and it is just one of the many reasons why the Bill
should be abandoned altogether. At the very least, it is a good
reason to support the amendment.
Of course, the Minister has said that the Government are
consulting on the regulations—and they are, after a fashion. So
far, though, consultation has been limited to only half the areas
for which the Bill legislates, and those areas do not really deal
with the fundamental questions that have been raised. Can the
Minister at least tell us the basis on which these particular
service areas were identified as the ones on which to commence
consultation?
The responses to the consultations have not been published. Does
the Minister agree that we should have sight of the responses
before the Bill passes? Do any of the responses say, for example,
that minimum service levels are unworkable? Is there anything in
the responses that he thinks Parliament ought to be aware of
before we vote on the Bill again? Can he even tell us the total
number of responses to each consultation, and the breakdown and
proportion of responses from service users, employers and
unions?
Ultimately, these consultation papers still do not tell us what a
minimum service level will look like. Even for the railways, for
which the Government have been looking to set a minimum service
level the longest—arguably since the last general election—they
do not have a concrete plan. And on pages 8 and 11 of the
ambulance service impact assessment, there are statements that
show the folly of this legislation, because it states in black
and white that a minimum service level could lead to a poorer
service than is currently agreed voluntarily.
The only thing we have learned from these consultation documents
is that even the Government do not think the Bill will deliver
what they say it will deliver. There is nothing on the reasonable
steps a trade union must take, nothing on what happens to a
worker who is sacked for failing to comply with a work notice,
even if they have not received it, and nothing on how any of this
will actually help to resolve industrial disputes.
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend when he is in full flow
but, as he is developing his argument on the need for
consultation and impact assessments, has he been able to clarify
with the Government what happens if an employer refuses to
comply? In London, for example, the buses are contracted out, and
individual bus companies have had individual disputes. If the
Government instruct there to be a minimum service level but the
employer does not want to sour industrial relations in the long
term and therefore refuses to comply, what then happens?
That is a very good question. My understanding—no doubt the
Minister can correct me if I am wrong—is that it is still up to
the employer to determine what work notices it issues, which
makes the Bill a little ludicrous.
All these consultation papers, all these impact assessments, and
we are still legislating in the dark.
My hon. Friend has just made a valid point, because when NHS
Employers and the NHS Confederation came before the Select
Committee on Health and Social Care, they said that they did not
want any of this legislation. Presumably, following that logic,
they will not have to issue minimum service level terms for a
strike.
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That is why it would
have been so interesting to see what the consultation responses
were to the draft regulations, because those might have told us
whether employers were saying, “Don’t do this; we don’t think it
is going to work.” We know that a long list of employers’
organisations are opposed to this Bill, and I will come on to
that in a moment. They understand that, ultimately, it is not
going to help industrial relations but will sour them.
In summary, the Bill’s impact assessment turns up late and is
inadequate; no pre-legislative scrutiny or evidence sessions for
the Bill took place; the Committee stage is rushed through in one
day; and subsequent consultations are incomplete and leave many
questions unanswered. Yet the Government still say that this
Lords amendment is not necessary. The evidence to date and the
opinion of the ILO say otherwise. I referred to the fact that the
ILO is not alone in expressing concerns about the Bill. Many
organisations have expressed alarm, including the Equality and
Human Rights Commission, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, NHS
Providers, the rail industry, the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development, the TUC, and the Welsh and Scottish
Governments. The Transport Secretary and the Education Secretary
have also done so, and I could give more names, but I have only
an hour for this debate and so I will leave it there.
When we have the shameful spectacle of the ILO calling this Bill
out, Members need to think again. By rejecting this Lords
amendment, the Government are, in effect, saying one of two
things: either they do not know whether they break international
law; or they do know but they just do not care. We ought to care,
we ought not to be trailing behind in workplace protections, and
we ought not to be mentioned in the same breath as Turkmenistan.
We ought to be leading from the front, as an exemplar for other
countries to follow and a leader on the international stage that
says, “Yes, good workplace rights and strong trade unions are a
key component in any prospering modem economy, and the right to
withdraw your labour is a fundamental one.” However, this Bill is
the hallmark of a weak Government who have run out of steam, have
nothing left to offer but division and want to silence the very
people who keep this country going—shame on them.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson
It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Minister, the hon. Member
for Ellesmere Port and Neston (). I agree with all his
comments, but I hope that Labour stays resolute on this. If it
comes into government, we do not want to see another U-turn,
given what we heard at the weekend.
The Minister put forward the myths again about how this Bill is
about saving lives and livelihoods. I do not know how he can talk
about saving livelihoods, as he is bringing forward a Bill that
is going to allow workers to be sacked more easily. Workers’
livelihoods are at stake because of the Bill and the intentions
behind it. I would like to put on record my thanks to the Lords
for the fight they have brought on this, but I am a wee bit
disappointed that the Lords amendment is only about the
consultation. Even if we manage to defeat the Government tonight,
the Lords amendment does not provide any additional proper
protections for the unions or the workers, because it is all
about consulting. At least consulting would draw out some
transparency, because the Government would need to publish
responses and allow the House or a Joint Committee to debate
those. In itself, however, the amendment does not provide any
additional protections.
(Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Does it not speak volumes about the way in which this Government
conduct their business that they go through a consultation
process and are not prepared to publish the results of that
consultation? What have they got to hide?
That is a fair point. Obviously, I cannot answer on what the
Government have to hide, other than to say that we know about a
raft of answers that show how unworkable and prejudiced this Bill
is.
Subsection 5(b) in the amendment is about consulting the ILO. The
Government keep telling us that this Bill brings the legislation
in the UK into line with international norms, but it clearly does
not; the ILO has said that the UK already has some of the most
draconian strike legislation, even before this Bill. So there is
no doubt that the Government are frightened to consult the ILO
because they are frightened about the answers that will come back
and the evidence about how draconian this really is that will be
put into the public domain when it is published.
As I say, it looks as if the Lords are going to back down after
this. There is no more scheduled business to allow further
consideration of the Lords message, which suggests they are not
going to push the amendment beyond that. That is disappointing,
especially given that the Government have tried to argue before
that this is a manifesto commitment. The actual manifesto
commitment was to require a minimum service for transport. That
commitment is not as wide ranging, so the Lords would be
completely justified in continuing to resist for as long as
possible.
As the shadow Minister said, because the amendment is to consult,
as opposed to what was set out in previous amendments, unions are
still at risk of facing big fines. Unions are still going to
comply, effectively helping employers disrupt strikes and single
out workers. Worst of all, workers can now get sacked for not
complying with a work notice that they have not received.
Why the Government would not even consult and publish an impact
assessment on that is beyond me. Again, they know that it allows
employers to unfairly discriminate, pick out the awkward squad,
then discipline and sack them, with no recourse to a tribunal.
Welcome, Madam Deputy Speaker, to 21st century authoritarian
Britain, where sacking workers like that brings the UK in line
with Russia and Hungary, not the international norms, although
the Minister and Government try to tell us otherwise.
I will be voting against the Government motion to disagree with
the Lords. I hope the Lords do not give up the fight, but I am
frightened they will. That is why we want away from this Union,
because it is certainly not working for anybody.
(Leeds East) (Lab)
The Minister has let the cat out of the bag in relation to the
Government’s attitude to this dreadful Bill and to amendment 2D
from the other place. The Minister objected to Lords amendment 2D
because it would delay the implementation of the Bill. Let us be
clear: the Bill makes history for all the wrong reasons. It is
the biggest attack on the role of our trade unions in our
democracy for many a long year. Why are the Government so
desperate to rush the Bill through? One almost thinks they cannot
stomach the idea of even a small delay because they want it to be
presented at the Conservative party conference as a bit of red
meat to the party faithful—classic anti-trade union politics and
trade union bashing.
Let us think about where we are in terms of industrial relations.
The Bill, which the Government do not want to consult on
properly, comes shortly after over 100,000 nurses in this country
voted to take strike action—the result in that recent ballot was
that 84% of nurses who cast a vote did so to take strike action.
However, because of the Government’s dreadful Trade Union Act
2016, an 84% vote in favour of strike action does not count, is
worthless and does not result in strike action, because the
turnout was 43%.
The Government helped drive down the turnout by not allowing
people to vote by electronic ballot. The former Prime Minister,
the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (), who made such a mess of
this country in her short tenure, was elected by electronic
ballot of Conservative party members. Not allowing people to vote
by electronic means reveals the contempt the Government have for
the biggest voluntary organisations in our society—the trade
union movement. They will not even give workers in our country
the modern dignity of being allowed to vote online or in the
workplace.
The Government object to Lords amendment 2D and do not want to
consult on it. Is that any wonder? The greater the consultation
that takes place in relation to this abhorrent Bill, the more it
becomes clear that the Bill is a complete offence. Let us be
clear: the Bill, which the Government do not want to have a
proper consultation on, requires trade unions to take reasonable
steps to get their own members to break trade union picket lines.
This Bill requires trade unions to completely change their
function in our democratic society. It is the job of a trade
union to persuade trade union members to honour a strike vote,
not to break a strike. We see the hand of this authoritarian
Government attempting to extend into our trade unions, trying to
try to use them as a tool of the state to do the bidding of a
Conservative Government, or the bidding of employers. The Bill is
rotten and it is no wonder that the Government do not want to
consult on it. Any fair-minded person, whatever their politics,
would realise that that is not the function of trade unions in
our society. We have heard Ministers boasting about how this will
result in people being sacked if they do not comply with the
requirement to go to work.
indicated dissent.
20:45:00
The Minister shakes his head. If what I am saying is not true,
why does he not take that measure out of the Bill, so that
workers cannot be sacked for not complying with work notices?
That is in the legislation. I shall be charitable to the
Minister. Having listened to him in a number of debates, I
sometimes thought that he did not realise quite how pernicious
the Bill was, but I think that others in the Conservative party
do; they know exactly what they are doing.
This anti-trade union Bill, which the Government do not wish to
consult on properly, comes hot on the heels of the
criminalisation of peaceful protest, which is a democratic right
in our society, and hot on the heels of voter ID, when what we
should be doing is making it easier for people to vote in our
society, not harder. This is an anti-trade union piece of
legislation that shames the Government. People can see through
it.
The Government cannot even pretend to be up for proper
consultation by accepting Lords amendment 2D. They know what the
ILO thinks of it, they know what our colleagues in the other
place think of it, and they know what the British people think of
it. That is why the next Labour Government will repeal this
rotten piece of legislation, if indeed it passes, and bring in an
important suite of workers’ rights, because workers and trade
unions in this country have had enough of being treated like dirt
for the past 13 years. Let us stop this race to the bottom in
workers’ rights, and instead build a democratic system—a
democratic system where we can be proud of the workers’ rights in
our country.
(Birkenhead) (Lab)
May I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register
of Members’ Financial Interests?
The Lords have been set an unenviable task in attempting to amend
a piece of legislation as ill-conceived as this one. As a
lifelong opponent of the principle of an unelected second
Chamber, I am surprised to find myself now commending the
thoughtfulness and diligence that the other place has
demonstrated in its many sittings concerning this legislation. It
has been a breath of fresh air when compared with this
Government’s recklessness in attempting to rush the Bill through
Parliament.
I rise in support of Lords amendment 2D. Its purpose is simple:
to ensure that perhaps the most significant piece of trade union
legislation to be considered by this House in more than a century
is subject to appropriate scrutiny before it is added to the
statute book. I wish to repeat the comments that I made when we
considered the Lords amendments on 22 May. I said that no number
of amendments could ever salvage this Bill. It is rotten to the
core. It targets a right that should be sacrosanct in any
democracy—the right to withdraw our labour.
In sectors such as education and health, the provisions of the
Bill will hobble the ability of working people to fight for the
dignity and fairness that we all deserve in the workplace, and
make the trade unions themselves unwilling accomplices in
undermining the effectiveness of their own industrial action.
Worse still, in sectors such as air traffic control or nuclear
decommissioning, minimum service regulations will, in effect,
amount to a ban on taking any strike action at all. Ministers
have repeatedly insisted that their policies towards the trade
union movement conform with international standards and our
treaty obligations. That was not the view taken by the High Court
last week when it quashed the Government’s law allowing employers
to bring in scab labour to break strikes. The court’s verdict was
damning: that the Government’s approach was so unfair as to be
“unlawful” and, indeed, “irrational”.
Despite the claims made by this Government that the International
Labour Organisation supports minimum service standards, the
director general of the ILO has made an unprecedented
intervention in voicing his concern about the effects of the Bill
on workers and of the Government’s strategy of imposing minimum
service requirements on workers instead of encouraging them to be
negotiated between unions and management.
Most embarrassingly of all for the Government, the Bill has been
slammed by their own independent Regulatory Policy Committee as
being not fit for purpose. The question that all of us should be
asking is why the Bill was not withdrawn the moment the RPC
slapped it with a red rating in February. Why are we still
debating proposals that have been condemned by not only my
friends in the trade union movement but a vast swathe of trade
associations and the business community? Their verdict is
astoundingly clear: they do not think the Bill will work. They
are concerned, with good cause, that it will make industrial
relations in this country worse. They simply do not want the
Bill.
The answer is simple. The Government are aware of their impending
electoral oblivion. They are intent on driving through reforms
that will realise their decades-long dream of a world in which
workers are stripped of all their rights and left helpless at the
whims of their employers. It is about time for a little more
candour from those on the Government Benches.
I thank all Members for their contributions to the debate. I
think that it is time to agree to disagree with some of the
points that have been made by Opposition Members. The Bill is
compatible with our international obligations, which the
Government will continue to uphold. We have announced a new code
of practice, which will provide the clarity that Opposition
Members have been asking for throughout the Bill’s passage. I
encourage the other place to take note of the strong view of this
House, and that its will should be respected.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment
2D.
Division 307
17/07/2023 20:51:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 302
Noes: 205
Question accordingly agreed to.
Lords amendment 2D disagreed to.
Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw up a Reason to be
assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendment 2D;
That , , , , , and be members of the
Committee;
That be the Chair of the
Committee;
That three be the quorum of the Committee.
That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(.)
Committee to withdraw immediately; reason to be reported and
communicated to the Lords.
|
