Derek McDowell (Labour)

I accept without question the Minister of State's bone fides on this issue, but unfortunately we must put ourselves in the position of an employee representative who has been appointed because the law requires it and because the required threshold of workers in a particular workplace want it, but the employer does not want to facilitate this process and has no time for it in the first instance. It is not difficult to imagine that if an employer is badly disposed to the idea that he or she will freeze out the employee representative, not give him or her any facilities and refuse to meet a union representative, if there is one, or any additional expert help, if the employee representative wants that. It is in those hard cases that we seek to make some sort of prescriptive arrangement. While it is probably fair for the Minister of State to say that in most cases that will not be necessary, as he said, unfortunately, there are likely to be cases where it will be.

I do not know whether I understand the Minister of State's reply to suggest that he proposes to make some sort of prescriptive directive under the 1990 Act. I take it he probably does not, but I urge him reconsider the issue before the matter comes before the other House. I do not propose to press the amendment.