(5 days, 2 hours ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Lord may say that about the Employment Rights Bill, but I speak to many businesses and many of them do more than what that Bill does; but that is a conversation for another day.
The whole landscape is changing. We have to be responsive to that, and we are not leaving any sectors behind.
My Lords, in its introduction, the industrial strategy says that
“we live in a world dominated by the rise of superstar firms, whose success spills over to the wider economy”.
It seems that the Government are adopting a trickle-down theory of business, but is this not assuming a future that looks like the past two decades? It has been an era of cheap, abundant financing for firms that have often burned through enormous sums of money—money used to force competitors out of business and to buy out genuine innovators and swallow them up, or squash them, not to deliver genuinely productive, useful, substantive products and services.
This is the idea of the unicorn: a biased picture of entrepreneurship that favours valuation over value creation. This is the model that has given us the massively unequal, deeply unstable society we have today. Surely, we cannot keep going the way we are. It has got us to the disastrous point we are now at.
I do not quite agree with the noble Baroness. At the end of the day, the Government have to make a choice. We have identified the top eight sectors that we will support with this strategy going forward. At the same time, other industries will also benefit from the support because of its roll-on effect. Yes, ideally, we would like to support every sector, but we need to pick and choose. It is just like running your own business: you pick and choose who your customers are and you work with them, but you still serve everybody.
The industrial strategy focuses on eight sectors, but other foundational sectors will also be supported through the various plans set out in the strategy.
(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberApologies; it is 0.7% growth. I thank the noble Lord for that. At the end of the day, what is really important is that we have to support businesses, and the Government are supporting businesses. Capital gains tax is still the lowest in Europe. In the G7, only the US and Japan are lower than us. Frankly, most employers go into business to create businesses. Sometimes they exit business, and some of our tax reliefs are still better than those of many other countries in Europe.
My Lords, several of the corporate collapses that the Minister referred to earlier were associated with private equity ownership and high levels of debt. Moody’s reports that default rates have been twice as high for private equity-owned firms as for others. The Financial Times leading article on 6 June noted that, with exit activity from private equity funds slumping to a historically low level, some private equity firms
“are resorting to … risky … methods of generating liquidity”.
Are the Government concerned about private equity’s impact through these means on both the real economy and financial stability?
My Lords, private equity plays an important role in business support in this country. We have seen private equity companies that have acquired businesses and actually grown them as well. Yes, their track record is not great, but there is definitely a role for private equity in business in this country. Do not listen to the Government. Listen to people in the private equity business. Jamie Dimon said:
“I’ve always been a believer in the UK’s … strengths as a place to do business and there’s much to like about the new government’s pro-growth agenda”.
Yesterday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that the UK was in the “Goldilocks” zone with great universities, a good start-up culture and the third-largest amount of investment in AI companies globally outside the US and China.
(4 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberMay we hear from the Greens first?
(1 year, 5 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I rise briefly in an unusual situation. We Greens in your Lordships’ House are sometimes accused of not giving the Government credit where it is due, but I want to congratulate the Government on this statutory instrument and applaud the progress that is made in it.
We should also applaud the fact that behind this has been a huge amount of campaigning of public concern. I note that the charity and campaigning group, Pregnant Then Screwed, which took four awards at the Third Sector Awards last year, has been campaigning on these issues for a very long time and is making real progress. This is a real demonstration that campaigning works; we have seen something happen here, so I can only congratulate the campaigners and the Government on this.
I want to put a couple of questions to the Minister. What are the Government going to do to ensure that employers and employees know about this change in the law? What kind of publicity campaign will there be? The Minister referred in his introduction to the fact that the figures that the Government were relying on were quite old. Are there plans to update and take assessment both of the current situation and of what happens in the months and years after this statutory instrument comes into effect? What reporting back will there be to the House and the other place so that we can continue to monitor this important area, given that it is important to individuals and households, but also important to ensure that people are able to remain in the workplace?
My Lords, this is the second time that we are meeting across the Dispatch Box. If it continues, people will start talking. I thank the Minister for the overview and explanation of this statutory instrument, which builds on the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023. I fondly remember the debate on this Bill last spring. It was the first time I had the honour of speaking from the Front Bench in the main Chamber. Not only did the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, praise the work of the TUC in the development of this legislation but we agreed to have a massive group hug.
Pleasingly, almost exactly nine months after this group hug, are now delivering additional legislation through this statutory instrument. It provides similar rights in a redundancy situation to pregnant women and new parents who have recently returned from a period of maternity, adoption or shared parental leave lasting six weeks or more. Additionally, the protection will now start when the employee tells the employer about the pregnancy.
This legislation is supported by my friends and colleagues in the trade union movement. In fact, some of these measures were discussed in the preparation of the Bill last year, which, at the risk of disrupting this very collegiate atmosphere, I remind noble Lords was a Private Member’s Bill from my friend, the honourable Member for Barnsley Central.
As supportive as we are of this change, it does not come without implications for employers, especially those who may be considering restructuring shortly after the instrument comes into effect on 6 April, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. What steps are the Government taking to make sure employees are prepared? Additionally, is there any additional monitoring for the implementation period where employees may not be abreast of the new law?
Among other possible difficulties with implementation, women may now feel under pressure to inform their employer of their pregnancy very early if there is an impending redundancy exercise. What consideration have the Government given to this likelihood and potential steps to help protect women from this? Another potential difficulty comes from the notification requirements and record keeping. The regulations are not clear as to the form of the notification required. Can the Minister shed any light, or would this be a matter for the courts? Would oral notification suffice, and what would then happen if accounts varied?
Since 2019, we have been promised more than 20 times an employment Bill that will
“protect and enhance workers’ rights as the UK leaves the EU, making Britain the best place in the world to work”.
Will the Minister finally accept that this long-promised Bill is a mirage and will not be delivered? I look forward to his responses to our various questions. Other than that, we are very supportive of these regulations.