There is a genuine conflict over the issue of liberty, which was well summarised by the hon. Member for Huntingdon. We all accept that freedom of belief and association is important. It is not right, in general terms, to combat a legal political party by harassing its members. To take a parallel on the other side of the political spectrum, I was one of those who were concerned by the German Berufsverbot, by which members of the Communist party were systematically excluded from parts of public service. A trade union, however, is not an employer or an official body. Freedom of association allows us to choose with whom we associate.  Therefore, the test needs to be whether the behaviour of an individual is such that it renders him unacceptable to members of a union or association, and whether such exclusion causes him severe hardship, as mentioned in the Government’s proposal.

I listened carefully to the comrade from Birmingham, Yardley. The balance of interests is satisfied by the rules laid down in the Bill. I do not say that lightly; the issue is finely balanced. If we had a closed shop, the position would be different, because one would have to belong to a union to have a particular kind of employment. We would then see an indirect Berufsverbot, whereby a union would be able to prevent somebody from practising their profession because it objected to that person’s legal political views. Therefore, it is important that proposed subsection (4G)(c) stays in the Bill so that if a closed shop were imposed again for a particular trade and for a particular reason, the law would not be totally static. We do not want an unintended consequence to arise from this law. With that safeguard in the Bill, even if I were to be a member of an extreme—or a non-extreme—group that was excluded from a particular trade union, I would not feel that my ability to prosper and to pursue my profession was obstructed. The proposals are reasonable, and I congratulate the Minister on reaching this point in a difficult and hard-to-balance area.