Post Office Legislation

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have said many times before, the Fujitsu/Horizon scandal is truly shocking and one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British history. The scandal has brought blight and devastation to the lives of thousands of falsely convicted sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses. Over 20 years on, they and their families still suffer from the consequences and trauma of all they have been through. I pay tribute to them for their determination in pursuing justice, especially those who took the very courageous and difficult step of challenging the Post Office. Without their bravery and perseverance, the campaign would not be where it is today.

We of course welcome the legislation that has been laid before Parliament. Before giving a full verdict on it, we will need to properly scrutinise the detail and analyse its potential impacts. In the first instance, the legislation still leaves a series of outstanding issues, including the question of when justice and compensation will be delivered and to whom.

I ask the Minister: what steps have he and Ministers in the other place taken to prevent this rightly exceptional piece of legislation being used by government in a nefarious way in future? How are we protecting against the abuse of this legislation further down the track? The flip side of that is that there are many other scandals that courts, reviews and government are working through. Could the principle of this legislation be used by them?

As I have said before, I seek assurances on the territorial scope of the legislation, which currently applies only to England and Wales even though the Post Office is not devolved and the Fujitsu Horizon system and the impacts of the scandal are UK-wide. Approximately 30 cases need overturning in Scotland and Northern Ireland but a series of outstanding questions remain as to when sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses in Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular will receive their justice. I welcome the Minister’s assurances that there will be regular dialogue with the devolved Administrations, given the different legal processes, but I will be a bit more specific: can the Minister update your Lordships’ House on what conversations his department has had with colleagues in Northern Ireland, who have expressly requested that the cases there be included in the scope of this legislation?

This is probably harder to deal with but can the Minister also update your Lordships’ House on what conversations the department has had with colleagues in Scotland about the progress on exonerating sub-postmasters there? As we know, 80% of the redress budget is yet to be paid out and considerable uncertainty remains about when sub-postmasters will receive their full compensation. We all agree, I am sure, that they have waited long enough and that the delays are causing only further financial distress and suffering.

The Commons Business and Trade Committee recommends that there be a “legally binding timeframe” for the period between an offer first being tabled and a settlement being reached. Would the Minister care to comment on that recommendation? If those legally binding targets are not adopted, what assurances can the Minister give that Minister Hollinrake will meet his target of ensuring that all compensation is out of the door by the end of the year? I know that the Minister here and the Minister in the other place are committed to ensuring that there are no further delays but sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses will want to know when this will actually happen.

Given the recent chaos in the Post Office’s leadership, we welcome the decision to take it out of the redress process. In fact, last week, the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and I called for this. Redress must have independent oversight; I thank the Government Ministers and their teams for implementing this. Financial redress alone cannot come close to repaying sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses for their suffering, although it is important that we get it right. As we have previously discussed, some of those impacted by the scandal have sadly passed away; they did not live to see this legislation and their innocence proven, nor to receive the compensation that they rightly deserved. Can the Minister clarify the process for those who have passed away so that their families can receive closure?

On the families, especially children and partners, we see today in the news that a number of children of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses are looking to take legal claims against the Post Office. Can the Minister inform your Lordships’ House of the Government’s attitude towards this? It is vital that the Government act with the urgency and speed that are needed to correct this injustice. We on these Benches stand ready to work with the Government to ensure the speedy implementation of this Bill.

I have just one question regarding the Explanatory Notes. On page 7, paragraph 41, the sentence just trails off. It starts:

“Clause 2 gives the meaning of ‘relevant offence’ with reference to several conditions set out in the subclauses”.


That is fine, but it continues:

“All of the conditions must be satisfied for an alleged offence to”.


It just stops. Can the Explanatory Notes be updated? I understand that this was rushed through, and that is absolutely fine, but it would be helpful if we could have just a bit of clarity of what the end of the sentence is meant to be.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the Liberal Democrat Benches echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, about the consistent and determined efforts of the wronged postmasters who still are fighting for the redress that they deserve. I thank the Minister for the Statement. We on these Benches are pleased to see that legislation will start to correct the fundamental wrongs done to most of the postmasters convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal.

However, the Statement says that

“this legislation will quash all convictions that meet a clear set of conditions”.

These are defined in paragraph 11, on pages 3 and 4 of the Explanatory Notes for the Bill, which was introduced yesterday in another place; the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, referred to those Explanatory Notes just now. Can the Minister explain how these criteria were decided upon? How many of the convicted postmasters are excluded from this redress scheme as a result, and why? I appreciate that all this has been done in a hurry, but even if my questions cannot be answered now, please can the answers be clearly articulated to those who will speak on this Statement so that we can understand why? At the moment, it is not clear who is and is not included as a result of Clause 2 of the Bill.

As I mentioned in a number of previous interventions on this issue, we know that software issues were reported in the predecessor systems to Horizon. Indeed, in 1997, when the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, was Paymaster-General, there was a steady stream of complaints during the pilot rollout. The i newspaper has also revealed the problems with the Capture scheme, under which a number of postmasters were also convicted. It said yesterday:

“Steve Marston … was using Capture, an IT system rolled out by the Post Office in the early 90s when he suffered unexplained shortfalls of around £79,000. He insists he never stole ‘a penny’ from his branch at Heap Bridge, Greater Manchester, but felt pressured into pleading guilty in 1998 in order to avoid a prison sentence, a tactic the Post Office has admitted was widely used by investigators to secure convictions”.


Can the Minister explain why this group of postmasters, who were using Capture when there were complaints, are also excluded from this Bill?

The Minister says in the Statement that the Bill only covers England and Wales; the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, has already covered this. It specifically excludes Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Statement says:

“However, we are fully committed to working with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive through regular, weekly official-level engagement to progress their own approaches”.


If that is the case, why has the Justice Minister in the Scottish Parliament, Angela Constance, expressed her real concern that Scotland is not included? She said:

“We, along with the Northern Ireland Executive, urged the UK Government to introduce UK-wide legislation as the best way to ensure there is a quick, fair and equal solution for all the affected sub-postmasters, particularly as the Post Office is reserved to Westminster, so this announcement is extremely disappointing”.


Given that, in that same paragraph, the Statement goes on to say

“The financial redress scheme will be open to applicants throughout the UK, once convictions have been overturned”,


why on earth has the decision been made by the Westminster Government to exclude Scotland and Northern Ireland, when neither of those devolved Governments want that?

The Statement made it clear, at last, that the Post Office will no longer have responsibility for redress and should be subject to independent oversight. My noble friend Lord Fox and I, and others from these Benches, have also raised this as a fundamental problem of trust for many postmasters, so its removal is welcome. However, I ask whether the Department for Business and Trade is truly independent of the process, not least because of the debate about the speed of processing of claims that happened in January following the differing statements from the Prime Minister, Kevin Hollinrake MP and the Secretary of State, Kemi Badenoch. The Government are responsible for the payments—I shall come on to that later—but this gives them some skin in the game and one thing has to happen now, which is to give postmasters confidence that oversight is truly independent. Can the Minister therefore describe how independent the independent panels or independent individuals will be? Who will appoint them? Will there be a departmental official on the panel? Will departmental staff clerk the panels? Will the independent panels include a postmaster?

The Statement says that there will be legislation to make sure that the payments are exempt from taxation. A regulation on taxation exemption under the compensation arrangements for both the Horizon and infected blood schemes was presented to Parliament in December 2023. Is this a further simple amendment to that regulation, or is it further, separate secondary legislation, or is it a new Bill? How will it differ? Can the Minister explain?

The final section of the Statement refers to the Select Committee’s recommendation of a legally binding timeframe for redress—here, I echo the questions from the noble Lord, Lord McNicol—but I think there is some sympathy for ensuring speed wherever possible. However, the Statement said that it would be impossible without imposing penalties on forensic accounts. That seems to be an extremely narrow focus. There is a balance to be struck between ensuring as swift as possible processing of payment and debate between postmasters and forensic accountants about what is due to postmasters. The critical reason for independence is to ensure that postmasters are afforded a truly fair debate, which many say has been denied them in the initial offers received from the scheme when it was run by the Post Office.

Finally, I have been going through the central government supply estimates for 2023-24 and obviously looked at the Budget papers. I am still struggling to find the compensation payments—in total, approaching about £1 billion—in either the department or Treasury tables. Can the Minister help? I have raised this matter now with, I think, three Ministers and would be grateful if the Minister could write to me and point me in the right direction for the figures. I know that Liam Byrne has also raised these points in the Select Committee he chairs.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords—

Horizon Scandal: Psychological Support Services

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Obviously, Northern Ireland has a separate legal system, as does Scotland. The legislation coming before the House is immediately pertinent to England and Wales, and covers around 770 of the 983 convictions. There are live and active discussions with the legal systems in both Northern Ireland and Scotland, which are being helped considerably by the Executive sitting again in Northern Ireland. Both those jurisdictions need to be respected and we will work at speed to get the right treatment across the United Kingdom while respecting the different legal jurisdictions.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, with the Budget this coming Wednesday, I repeat the question that I asked the Minister last week and asked the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the debate on the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Where in the Green Book would I find details of the £1 billion compensation? Is it in the Treasury or another department? I cannot find it anywhere at all. If the Minister does not have the answer at his fingertips, please will he write to me urgently with it?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question, which we have discussed in this House. It may not be in the Green Book specifically, but it is clearly in the Treasury’s books. The money is there to be paid in compensation. The Government have given assurances on that; there will be no wriggling back. I am very happy to write with any further details required, but I say from the Dispatch Box that, as far as the Government are concerned, all commitments will be made to the postmistresses and postmasters.

Post Office: Executive Remuneration

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is participating remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister’s Answer just now was very interesting, given that the Post Office Limited: Shareholder Relationship Framework Document says at paragraph 7.6 that

“the remuneration of all Board members will require approval by the Shareholder”,

and remuneration that exceeds the threshold must also be approved by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Can the Minister say what bonuses were approved after 2015? Have any additional approvals been required by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury since 2015? If the Minister does not have this information, I would be grateful if he wrote to me with it.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

Again, I am very grateful for this challenge; it is a very important discussion to have. The Government are responsible for setting remuneration for the board, while the bonuses that I think the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, was referring to relate to the Post Office executives, so we should separate the two. Both still need to be investigated—absolutely. I do not have the specific answer to the question relating to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but I will be delighted to write to the noble Baroness.

Post Office Governance and Horizon Compensation Schemes

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

This is very straight- forward. If I am appointed as the new chairman of a company in this situation and, of my three priorities, the No. 1 is to manage a legal process to get compensation quickly to postmasters, I would expect to be told that formally by the Permanent Secretary and to be held accountable to manage those costs effectively. That does not mean to minimise or delay; it means to manage the process effectively to get compensation to the postmasters. What has been put into the public domain makes it very clear that there has been no dragging of feet and no instruction to the contrary on this matter.

As we have discussed many times in this Chamber, we now have a full statutory inquiry. The judge, Wyn Williams, will pick through this in fine detail. We are all very impatient and frustrated because we want the answer now, but we got into this mess because we jumped the gun before, and we are not going to do so again.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I return to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, about where the £1 billion sits. If it comes from the Treasury, would it be in the Green Book following the Autumn Statement? It was all agreed by then. If it is not visible in the Green Book, can the Minister please write to the people speaking on this Statement to say where we might find it? It should be visible from the moment it was agreed, which was well before the Autumn Statement last year.

My second question, going back to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Fox, is about the bullying claims. I find it slightly extraordinary that in one part of the Statement the Secretary of State says it is important that she does not go into details, yet suddenly she alleges bullying—which, as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, has pointed out, is not in the Written Statement. It is really important to understand when the allegations of bullying came about and the process that must now be under way to investigate them. You do not sack somebody without an investigation having got under way. If you do, that is the most appalling error of judgment. Can the Minister please confirm when and how Staunton was informed of the bullying complaint and whether he has been contacted by an investigator?

Post Office Horizon Scandal: Racism

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The inquiry was set up by this Government in 2020, initially on a non-statutory basis, immediately following the case with Lord Justice Parker in 2019. That was then upgraded to a statutory inquiry. So Wyn Williams has the full authority of the judicial process to get to the heart of this matter. We are also being advised, as we know, by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and the advisory committee. It is very clear that we will get to the bottom of all these issues.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, about why there were more Asian subpostmasters treated harshly and sent to prison is important. Nick Wallis, who has written the book on this scandal, said:

“As I spoke to them I did start to wonder why Asian sub-postmasters seemed to be getting far more punitive sentences than their white counterparts”.


It is good that the Minister said that the Government want to learn from the mistakes. Is anyone looking at the difference in sentencing terms between white and Asian sub-postmasters?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. Absolutely—this is fundamental to looking at the overturning of the convictions. There were 983 wrongful convictions and the Ministry of Justice is now working through that process and it absolutely needs to understand exactly how these convictions came about and to whom.

Post Office Horizon Scandal: Compensation Payments

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The response from management on this—and this has now been audited—is that issues with the software system are minimal, and £150 million of government money has now gone in to completely replace the system. A lot of investment is going in to ensure that this does not happen again. On compensation for victims, of the 2,700 claims in the HSS, 2,400 have already had their payments cleared—that is 85% of that category. The more sluggish category is the GLO, because those people have more complicated claims. As I said before, we have received only 58 claims from that cohort. As soon as we get them, we will process them.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on 10 January, the Prime Minister said that postmasters will be cleared and compensated swiftly. On the same day, Kevin Hollinrake MP said at the Dispatch Box that all compensation should be paid by August. However, on 28 January, Kemi Badenoch said on the BBC that the deadline was not a priority and that getting governance sorted out at the Post Office was more important. Given that in the last few days a number of postmasters have said that they have received derisory offers—in the case of Alan Bates, one-sixth—is this limping things along?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The reality is that the Government are not dragging their feet—quite the opposite. We will process the cases as quickly as they are put in. When cases are put in, and if the offer made is rejected, there is a full appeals process for postmasters, which goes all the way up to a High Court judge. At the moment, Mr Bates has not appealed that decision. All these individuals have to have time to assess the offer that was given. We need these offers to be fair and reasonable. There is a reason for all the offers to be made. We are not here to comment on individual cases, but the money is there for compensation, and all these postmasters and postmistresses will be compensated for the damage that has been done to them.

Post Office Ltd

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

In the Commons on 10 January, the Prime Minister promised that postmasters would be cleared and compensated swiftly. That same day, Minister Kevin Hollinrake said at the Dispatch Box that all compensation should be paid by August, which is encouraging after many years of delay. However, last Sunday, the Secretary of State Kemi Badenoch said on the BBC that setting a deadline is “not a priority” and that getting the money out and sorting out the governance of the Post Office is the critical thing. Which is it—that the compensation should be paid by August, or that a deadline is not a priority?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. We have to clarify that what we are doing here is separating their compensation, so that it is done as immediately and expeditiously as possible. Then we will do fact-finding through the inquiry and accountability will follow. The Prime Minister and Secretary of State have said that there will be no deadline put in place, partly because this is a complex process that requires the postmasters to co-operate and come forward. Of the 2,417 postmasters in the HSS scheme, 100% have received offers, of which 80% have been accepted. We are making great progress.

Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, we have had an extraordinary debate on compensation, exoneration and accountability, but this very short, two-clause paving legislation to grant the power to incur expenditure in relation to compensation for the victims—the postmasters and postmistresses—is absolutely vital. However, the detail that we have been discussing is not in this Bill. For the short term, the actual scheme for this particular compensation package is something that I hope the Government will take notice of. But there is time for politicians of all parties to review the entire nature of compensation schemes and the way they work. This is just one of many schemes that have gone wrong in the administration, and we must look at that.

We were reminded by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, of the repeated abuse of the human rights of the postmasters in this whole process over the years. They were let down by organisation after organisation. We must have the postmasters at the heart of any debate that we have about this. It is an appalling miscarriage of justice. We were reminded of the personal sacrifice of many postmasters by the noble Lord, Lord Weir, and the risks that they face before they have to start looking at their accounting packages—but worse is that they are still waiting for justice and many, as we have heard, are waiting to receive compensation or redress.

My noble friend Lord Palmer talked about the presumption of innocence, and that must be essential for getting to exoneration. The postmasters, led by the absolutely admirable Alan Bates—who is as modest as the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot—have fought for decades to get to the truth of what happened and to clear their names. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred to lobby correspondents and other media, but there have been some extraordinary journalists over the years. He referred to Rebecca Thomson and Karl Flinders of Computer Weekly, but Private Eye has covered this story for decades, as has Nick Wallis at the BBC, and John Sweeney’s “Panorama” in 2015 was done at an absolutely key time.

All of that happened before Paula Vennells was even the chief executive of the Post Office. I am very grateful for the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made about politicians. One of the problems with how our press works at the moment is that there tends to be one person that they talk about. There have been other chief executives and other senior directors of Post Office Ltd during the really difficult time when it was becoming apparent behind the scenes that there were problems. Today is not just about those who need to be held accountable in the future, but that must happen in due course. The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, about the role of auditors, was very timely and very important. This would not be the first audit scandal of the last few years.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, quoted from today’s comments by Fujitsu. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said it had been 20 years, but it is clear that the problems started just after Peter Lilley MP signed off the pilot in 1994. Even then, the pilot postmasters were reporting problems—in 1995, 1996 and 1997. It goes right back. This is not party-political. I am just making the point that Fujitsu and the Post Office both knew that there were problems before the rollout started in 1999.

The Father of the House, Sir Peter Bottomley, said last week:

“The titanic error was the belief in technology”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/24; col. 86.]


However, every day, including today—the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, mentioned Fujitsu’s testimony to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee—more is revealed about what the company knew, even from prior to the rollout, as I have just mentioned. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talked about the chief executive admitting today that funds that postmasters were forced to pay may have gone into executive pay. If that is true, it is an absolute disgrace.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others, talked about computer problems. I am married to an engineer. He is not a software engineer, but he deals with software in the things that he designs. One of my foster children is a software engineer. They look at each other with raised eyebrows and talk about “garbage in, garbage out”. “Garbage in” is done by people, not by computers. The problem that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, raises, is, “Will that happen in the future?” We have to hold Fujitsu to account for those errors, which it then clearly did nothing about. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that he felt ashamed. I feel ashamed too. I want to quote from Professor Graham Zellick KC, the former chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He was angrier than we are. He said:

““I am enraged. I think this is deplorable. It is inexcusable. It is a failure of public administration and government without precedent. It makes one’s blood boil”.


I hope that we continue with that strength of feeling as we move into the next stage and the drama moves out of the limelight, because we must learn lessons from this. The Secret Barrister—some noble Lords may follow him on Twitter/X—said:

“As the issue of compensation for miscarriages of justice is rightly in the news, it’s timely to note that in 2014, the government changed the law to make it all but impossible for people wrongly convicted and imprisoned to claim compensation”.


Much has already been said in this debate, but I want to go on to talk briefly about the future. Various Members have talked about the problems that people in the HSS—the Horizon shortfall scheme, now known as the historic shortfall scheme—have had with the application form. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, referred to a case where someone claimed only £15.75 because he did not understand the form; there was a reference in it to looking at Appendix 1, but it was so impenetrable that he thought it did not apply to him.

Another case cited by Dan Neidle, who runs Tax Policy Associates, concerned someone who was made bankrupt, lost his post office in a fire sale and has been offered £8,000. The numbers of people receiving offers from Post Office Ltd for compensation are good, but if compensation is at that level, it is not good and it is inappropriate. We need a more transparent mechanism to streamline the current complex arrangements, which Government after Government have created with crisis after crisis, to have what amounts to two and a half schemes running—the GLO and the HSS scheme and then the new review scheme that was announced 10 days ago.

Dan Neidle says we should probably follow the example of employment tribunals. For example, why are sub-postmasters not allowed a grant for legal advice before they put in their applications? They should be. There should be a larger fixed amount for damages; cases are different, but everyone who has been involved, whether they have been convicted or not, has lost income, often their job and their home, and been unable to work at the level they were working at before because of the threats they were under. Redress needs to reflect their loss of earnings. They should also receive the very specific amounts of money that they were forced to pay back—not compensation. They should be paid back the money they had to pay in error. The idea of those who were convicted and imprisoned having to pay charges for bed and breakfast from their compensation is an absolute outrage that should not be allowed. On occasion, there will be specific damage above and beyond that outlined which might, for example, cover a suicide in a family or those who have had strokes.

Finally, we should consider a complete change to the way in which these compensation schemes operate. Next week in Committee on the Victims and Prisoners Bill, we have an amendment on the infected blood scheme. We are still waiting for the details of the interim payments. The first young people were infected in the mid-1970s—it cannot go on like this. Others have spoken about the Windrush scheme; I would raise Hillsborough and Grenfell, where there are similarly complex arrangements. Surely, now is the time to consult on future arrangements for compensation schemes, including whether they should remain with government or be independent, so we can be sure that we have a reliable, independent, swift and fair scheme that cannot be constantly adjusted, ignored or delayed, particularly by politicians.

Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. It is a particular pleasure to be under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Stansgate. We are long-term colleagues; we worked together many years ago. As I said, it is a pleasure to see him in the chair.

My noble friend Lord Hendy has really said it all. I have very little to add, but I will say something specifically about the TUPE regulations to make it clear to the Minister and the Government in general that people do care, that these provisions are important and valid, and that they deliver real benefits to workers.

No doubt the Minister will tell us in his reply that the changes proposed are very limited, which raises the question of why the Government are bothering to make these changes. There is no evidence presented to us that in any way suggests that there was an upswell of demand to get rid of these provisions. It is as if the civil servants—the officials—were told, “We’ve got to show that we’re doing something with these new powers”. On this provision, the TUPE part—I make no comment on the other parts of the regulations—it is as if they were told, “Let’s work out what’s the smallest change we can possibly make to claim that Brexit is having some advantage”. What is that big advantage? Some people are not necessarily going to be consulted if they had been consulted previously.

The results of the consultation as presented to us were very much as one would expect. When asked, “Would you like to get rid of this requirement?”, some people said “Yes, we would”. Equally, there were a lot more people who said, “No, we still need these protections”. In truth, the consultation told us nothing that we did not already know.

I emphasise that the changes are limited, but I am still against them on the grounds of death by a thousand cuts. If you come back and chip away at workers’ rights time after time, sooner or later you find that there are serious depredations in the protection that we rightly provide for working people. Will the Minister repeat, for the purposes of this Committee, the reassuring remarks that were made in the Government’s response to the consultation? In particular, they said:

“The government agrees that the TUPE regulations provide important protections for employees, and they provide a strong legal framework for staff transfers”


and went on to say that

“workers’ rights will continue to be protected”.

Earlier in that response, talking specifically about the concerns many trade unions had expressed that this was an incremental move against their rights, the Government stated:

“In response to concerns about the TULRCA, the government would like to reassure respondents that the reforms we are proposing will not affect how”


the Act

“works. Employers will still be prohibited from undermining collective bargaining in breach of Section 145B”

of that Act. Will the Minister simply reassure this Committee that the Government stick by those commitments?

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I will make two very brief interventions on this. There is not much left to say, following the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Davies of Brixton, but it is important just to note a couple of things.

First, from these Benches, we contest the assumption of the Government that implementing the 2019 judgment to the CJEU, known as the CCOO case, would be

“disproportionate, particularly while the economy is recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the impacts of war in Ukraine”.

I can completely understand the concern about the effect of the pandemic. Having been health spokesperson during the first three years of it, I really understand why that is the case. But I struggle to understand exactly what the effect of the war in Ukraine is on record keeping by employers. I would be grateful if the Minister could give me some guidance on that, because I do not see a logic.

Secondly, the Government keep talking about using artificial intelligence to reduce bureaucracy. Many companies already use such systems. The hand-written timekeeping systems that I used in my youth are long gone. Even the spreadsheets of a decade ago are gone. One now fills in something that feeds straight back into a database that runs the organisation. It takes far more information than just the 15 minutes of work, or whatever it is, on a particular project, and it is then used to assess the progress of the company and the progress of individuals—whether some of that is right or not is another matter, but it is there. It seems to me that a Government who are arguing that we should be focusing on using AI are—by saying, “Actually, we’re assuming there is a massive burden”—not keeping up with what is happening in the workplace at the moment. So can the Minister explain this massive burden, in the light of the way that records are currently kept by most organisations?