Blackburne J held that a privatised water company was a state emanation because it still carried out certain functions under the control of the state, which was important, because a directive on collective redundancy was only directly effective in the vertical sense. The company (D) decided not to recognise Unison but instead to set up a staff council and consultative committee. Importantly, the case required an interpretation of national law on who the employees’ reps were, and in here s.188 TULRCA clearly meant that only recognised unions could be reps. A purposive approach couldn’t remove the work ‘recognised’ from the statute.
