CONSERVATIVE PARTY PROPOSALS TO CHANGE THE LAW ON INDUSTRIAL ACTION

That this House believes that Conservative Party plans to further restrict the rights of public sector unions to take industrial action are once again a blatant attack on working people and are also anti-democratic and counter-productive; deplores the proposal that union leaders will have to prove that over half their members support a strike; points out that the right hon. Member for Horsham, who is proposing the law, was elected on less than 40 per cent of the electorate and that his party nationally was supported by less than a quarter of those entitled to vote; reaffirms the right of union members to withdraw their labour on a simple majority of those balloted; and supports the action by unions protesting about performance-related pay, pension cuts and the running down of public services.