Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, in the middle of all those amendments is Amendment 185, to Clause 38, which would ensure that training and education for social care workers are clearly within the remit of the social care negotiating bodies the Bill makes provision to establish, and that they are therefore considered as part of the fair pay agreement process in the sector.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who is in her place, for her support for this amendment, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who, regrettably, is at a funeral today. I also declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Dementia and as an Alzheimer’s Society ambassador. I am very grateful to the Alzheimer’s Society for its input into this amendment.

I do not need to tell this House that the social care workforce remains turbulent, inhibited by high vacancies, high staff turnover and limited career advancement opportunities, all of which significantly impact the quality of care that those drawing on it receive. I understand that the Government’s intention with fair pay agreements is to help address the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, in turn supporting the continued delivery of high-quality care.

This has been reinforced in recent weeks in the Government’s Immigration White Paper, which points to proposed fair pay agreements as a means to improve domestic recruitment in response to ending overseas recruitment of care workers. With Skills for Care figures revealing that there were 131,000 vacant adult social care posts in 2023-24—almost three times the vacancy rate in the wider economy—there is no doubt that this drive to improve recruitment is necessary and that without it, our social care sector is at risk of further volatility.

However, as I highlighted during my speech at Second Reading, despite the clearly beneficial impact of training on recruitment and retention of adult social care workers, education and training are not currently specified as matters for the negotiating bodies to consider as part of the fair pay agreement process. We know from last year’s The state of the adult social care sector workforce report by Skills for Care that access to training was among the top five factors influencing the retention of adult social care staff, and that turnover rates were 7.4% lower among adult social care workers who had received training, compared with those who had not.

Despite the large numbers of those with dementia drawing on adult social care and their unique needs within this setting, there is no legal requirement for staff to undertake training in dementia, as I know from my own personal family experience. The Alzheimer’s Society is therefore calling for dementia training to be made mandatory for all adult social care staff. I support that, and I hope the Government, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, are giving serious consideration to this as part of their plans for future social care reform.

While Amendment 185 would not mandate dementia training, it would ensure that the training needs of the social care workforce are considered as part of the fair pay agreement process, which I hope will lead to improved training opportunities for staff in the sector, including training in dementia, and improved care for those receiving it.

I appreciate the indications that I received from the Minister at Second Reading—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, not the Minister responding to this group of amendments—that the scope of the negotiating bodies could be expanded through secondary legislation. I am very grateful for her letter and for her staff’s time in seriously considering this. When I read in her letter that the intention is to put this into secondary legislation and not into the Bill, I was immediately alert to the fact that I did not see any indication as to whether this would be secondary legislation in the affirmative or the negative. I hope that more information can be given in the response to this debate.

I maintain that improving training and education for social staff is so fundamental to improving quality of care, and to tackling the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, that the Government should look again. What good reason is there not to include this in the Bill? That needs to be clarified.

On that point, training is very often just ditched when times are hard or when budgets are tight. I refer the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Merron—to the Employment Rights Bill: Economic Analysis, published in October 2024, which I am sure is part of her bedtime reading. Under the heading “Unintended Consequences”, it says:

“Where businesses cannot absorb the increase in labour costs, they may look to pass them onto workers by reducing expenditures that benefit workers (e.g. staff training)”.


I repeat to the Minister that I am grateful for the work put in so far, but I believe that it needs to be brought up a level. I hope that she will assure me of that when she replies.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I too will speak to Amendment 185, to which I was very pleased to add my name. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, on this amendment and my noble friend Lord Hendy, who spoke to his amendments in this group.

As the noble Baroness already indicated, Amendment 185 relates to training and education for the social care workforce, which is a critical imperative given the care and attention required by the people they care for. I declare my interest as vice-chair of the APPG on Dementia, and I thank the Alzheimer’s Society for its support in preparing for this debate.

Our social care workforce is vital in providing care to those who need it. However, they have been undersupported for too long. This amendment seeks to include training and education in the remit of the social care negotiating bodies that the Bill will create. These bodies will then determine the fair-play agreements in the social care sector, and, in so doing, improve training and education, which will also make a significant contribution to tackling the recruitment and retention crisis that the social care workforce faces.

However, of particular concern is the level of training and education in dementia among the adult social care workforce. The Care Quality Commission’s 2024 State of Care report highlighted dementia as a key area of concern and, specifically, that

“health and care staff do not always understand”

the specific needs of people with dementia. Many of those who, like me, have people with dementia in their families only realise this either when they are training to deal with it or when they are working with them on a daily basis.

A Nuffield Trust report from November also found that people with dementia in England are not consistently receiving good-quality social care, so this amendment seeks to build the foundations to change that, not only for people living with dementia but for all who draw on care, through the prioritisation of training and education within the workforce. That is a simple but vital aspect of ensuring that workers receive the recognition and the value that they deserve. That is what this amendment, if included in the Bill, would do. It would help in introducing opportunities for progression and development within the workforce and improving the quality of care that people receive.

I come to this debate as someone who strongly supports the Employment Rights Bill, because I believe it introduces a number of measures to increase the protection and rights of workers. In so doing, I hope that my noble friend the Minister and the Government ensure that training and education form a part of this legislation. I hope that the Government share these sentiments and see the value of the changes that this amendment would implement. I look forward to the winding-up comments from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

I would be concerned—perhaps I have misunderstood the nature of my noble friend’s amendment, and indeed that of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, in Amendment 186 —about whether this is the right body to be doing all these other functions in addition to, in effect, the negotiation of pay and terms and conditions. I think they should be absolutely separate as we go forward, and in the next group I will try to suggest something to the Minister. With that, I bring my comments to a conclusion.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Perhaps I can just clarify that we were very much sighted on the fact that in education, people who are on the non-teaching staff are included in the Bill in the pay negotiating bodies. We were not clear why it should be different for social care workers.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My noble friend makes an excellent point. I must admit that I had almost to force-fit Amendment 200A, which I am coming to, into the Bill in order to be able to talk about a very valid concern about the progress and retention of social care workers in our country, recognising the absolutely vital role that they play in many care homes across the country.

NHS: Single-sex Spaces for Staff

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, the fact that we are here today to discuss this subject, against the background of the Supreme Court’s ruling, is a total indictment of the body politic in this Parliament. I served on the then Equality Bill back in 2010, in the Commons. The words in the Supreme Court judgment, at paragraph 264, say that

“the words ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man’ … mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man”.

The fact that the body politic as we have known it for many years was incapable of interpreting its own legislation, with all the toxicity that has gone before us and the pain that has been experienced on both sides of this argument, really is an indictment. That is why I support my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot in saying to the Minister that, now that we have this judgment and now that we, the politicians, have been told by the Supreme Court what we actually did in practice—how dreadful it sounds even to say it—I hope that she will act with all speed to make sure that this judgment is expedited with less pain and less discrimination than we have seen in the past 15 years.

Many years ago, back in the 1970s, I worked in an emergency operating theatre. I have been in theatre when we have resected the overlarge liver of a person who needed and wanted to change their sex. As a Member of Parliament, I dealt with many constituency cases, particularly of trans men who had chosen to change into women. I know about and fully support what has happened in prisons and in women’s changing rooms, particularly women’s changing rooms in hospitals, and the way women feel about it—as a woman, I share that feeling—but, when we talk about compassion, my gosh is compassion going to be needed now to make the changes so that this legislation now applies.

That is the responsibility of the Government. I do hope that we are not going to hear them say, “Oh well, health authorities and hospitals can make their own decisions. It is not a matter for Ministers”. Because of the damage that has been caused by our inability, as politicians, to implement our own legislation, we owe this to all the people out there—particularly women but also trans people. People who make that decision are not all rapists. In my experience, the people I have had to deal with sometimes have really quite heart-rending problems and carry those with them, whatever their choice, for the rest of their life, with a level of anxiety that we have to understand. I hope that the Government understand it.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations on the four excellent maiden speeches we have been privileged to listen to in the course of this debate.

I will focus on a small section of this very wide-ranging Bill, concerned with the establishment of an adult social care negotiating body in England and social care negotiating bodies in Scotland and Wales. A well-trained adult social care workforce, especially for those living with dementia, is both important and long overdue. I declare my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia and as an Alzheimer’s Society ambassador.

According to the Explanatory Notes accompanying the Bill, the Government hope that sectoral agreements to be negotiated by the social care negotiating bodies will help to address the ongoing recruitment and retention crisis in the social care sector, and that this will in turn support the delivery of high-quality care.

However, despite the beneficial impact on the recruitment and retention of adult social care workers, education and training are not currently specified as matters for the negotiating bodies to consider. Last year’s report by Skills for Care, The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England, stated that access to training was among the top five factors influencing retention; turnover rates were 7.4% lower for those who received training than for those who did not. There is evidence that lack of learning and development is given as a reason to leave.

Ensuring that the adult social care workforce is able to access high-quality training is not only crucial for recruitment and retention; it is also essential in ensuring the delivery of high-quality care for those who need it. This is particularly true for the almost 1 million people living with dementia in the UK today, a high proportion of whom need social care. For example, 70% of people in residential care have dementia, and we know this figure is going to rise.

It is therefore shocking that only 29% of adult social care staff in England are recorded as having undertaken dementia training, and that no legal requirement exists for them to do so. The Alzheimer’s Society is calling for dementia training to be made mandatory for all adult social care staff. I agree.

I intend to table an amendment in Committee that would include education and training within the remit of the social care negotiating bodies. This would send a positive signal to the sector and those who draw on care about the importance the Government and this House accord to the training and education of the social care workforce. It would also bring social care negotiating bodies in line with the school support staff negotiating body, which does have training within its remit. I look forward to a more detailed discussion in Committee.