Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

On Amendment 281, we should make it clear that these are discretions that sit rightly with the court, but the public need to know that this is the position, so that victims, whistleblowers and other employees can have confidence that these arrangements cannot be abusive, and employers will be on notice. On that basis, I commend this approach and put it into the mix for discussion. It is a big Bill and my noble friend the Minister, notwithstanding her patience, has a lot on her plate, but there is a real possibility here for the Government to come up with something that has broad consensus, and that might actually help and work.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and to support Amendment 101 in the names of my noble friend Lady Kennedy and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Morrissey. I think that many of us are speaking in support of all the amendments that are trying to achieve the same result, and it is a real tribute that the strength of support is so broad across the Committee.

I have warmly welcomed the whole Bill, including the Government’s commitment to ensuring that employers take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. I thank the Minister for meeting with me to discuss the issue of non-disclosure agreements. My concern is that the Government’s current proposals to deal with the scandal of abusive non-disclosure agreements under whistleblowing legislation fall short of the fundamental principle, for me, that every victim/survivor should have the right to speak up and seek support.

The use of NDAs to cover up abuses of power, we all know, happens in every walk of life. This is not just about Westminster, the City of London, the media and entertainment industries, trade unions, the church or higher education. Let us not forget the all-male Presidents Club charity dinner for captains of industry at the Dorchester Hotel, and the 130 young women, paid £150 for a 10-hour shift, who were handed five-page non-disclosure agreements just moments before they went out to serve. According to a CIPD survey, one in five employers have used NDAs in cases of sexual harassment.

My worry is that the public interest test contained in whistleblowing legislation sets a very high bar for protected disclosure, and that most victims will remain silenced. What about, for example, if the perpetrator is not prominent in public, business or cultural life? Can the Minister confirm whether a disclosure by workers would meet the public interest test in those circumstances? Or what about one individual worker who is harassed and does not know whether other workers are at risk? Will that satisfy the criteria for public interest under whistleblowing law? Perhaps the Minister can also confirm whether government proposals cover only sexual harassment? Or do they also cover racism and all forms of harassment faced by those with protected characteristics under equality law? Will misconduct such as bullying on those grounds be included?

I thank the Minister for that meeting and for writing to me afterwards. I agree that there will be lessons to learn from new legislation in Ireland and elsewhere, but I cannot agree that that is a reason for holding back. If ever there was a case for going further and faster, then this is it. Women and all those suffering in silence have waited long enough.

The TUC—I should declare that I am a former general secretary—has long held a position that NDAs should not be used in any case of harassment, discrimination or victimisation. According to a report published this year, again by CIPD, nearly half of employers would support a ban on the use of NDAs, with only 18% opposing such a ban. Can’t Buy My Silence and other campaign groups enjoy huge public support. There is a broad cross-party consensus for action that unites both sides of industry.

Will the Minister reassure us today that the door is still open for the Government to strengthen the Bill along the lines proposed by my noble friend Lady Kennedy and, importantly, send a message to all those who have suffered alone and in silence, and to all those who, as a result of that silence, have been put at risk, that real change is on its way?

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, as the first boy to speak tonight, I want to say what a pleasure it is to follow such a powerful and persuasive group of speakers. I support all the amendments in this group.

I turn first to the NDA amendments. NDAs can be appropriate in sectors where intellectual property, commercial confidentiality or security issues apply. In fact, I should declare that I have recently signed one in a commercial context. These documents are typically pre-contract or part of terms of employment and signed up to by a worker at the start of their employment. Usually, they apply to everyone in a relevant area rather than being targeted at an individual.

By contrast, the NDAs these amendments address are very different; they generally arise during employment and act retrospectively—in other words, when something happens that should not have done.

I was always taught that you cannot contract out of the law: that an agreement or contract that enables or conceals something illegal is potentially itself illegal, and at least void and unenforceable. Under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, harassment is a crime. Therefore, it seems to me that an NDA in respect of —as Amendment 101 points out—harassment, sexual misconduct, retaliation and discrimination or any other crime comes very close to trying to contract out of the law.

I would broaden the definition, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has done in her amendment, to void any NDAs that cover any form of illegality. Indeed, a wrongdoer requesting an NDA in such circumstances feels tantamount, to me, to an admission of guilt. NDAs being put forward by the powerful to protect themselves from publicity around a wrongdoing is, at the very best, contrary to the HR policies of any decent employer.

While these amendments seek to prevent the misuse of NDAs, they also provide—as others have spoken about—for workers themselves requesting an NDA. Consequently, NDAs do have a place with proper advice to both parties: what Amendment 101 calls “fully-informed consent”. In short, voiding NDAs that amount to an abuse of power while recognising that a worker may themselves seek an NDA feels like the right balance.

Finally on NDAs, to date there has been a superabundance of consultations and inquiries— as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, pointed out— into the misuse of NDAs from a very wide range of organisations. Now, and I hope the Minister will agree, we need action—no more discussions and consultations. We know what the problem is; we just need to sort it out. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm that the Government will either present or support a suitably consolidated amendment on Report, as others have requested.

I also support the amendments on whistleblowing. Amendment 125 would close what amounts to a loophole. On Amendment 126, something that has bedevilled whistleblowing for a very long time is the overly tight definition of who can be a whistleblower. The amendment is therefore a welcome step in expanding that category, though it does not go as far as it needs to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has shared with us tonight.

Amendment 147 concerns the crucial point of a duty to investigate. Many companies—particularly larger ones—have on paper, somewhere in their files, a well-drafted policy intended to support whistleblowers. However, many people who become whistleblowers typically do not see themselves as such initially. Often, they are simply trying to point out where something is wrong and needs addressing. It is what happens next that turns them into a whistleblower.

The corporate reaction to highlighting problems or concerns is often viscerally and personally hostile. Such people are seen as troublemakers, snitches or even traitors. They are often, almost from the outset, isolated, stigmatised and persecuted. To deal with that reaction, there is a need, as Amendment 147— another great amendment—sets out, for an automatic duty to investigate properly, which means having well-delineated and well-understood processes recognising and incorporating whistleblowing that are actually followed in practice with action, and to pick up issues and deal with them constructively and, if possible, before they escalate into a whistleblowing incident.

On Amendment 130, an office of the whistleblower would have both a systemic role in improving and monitoring whistleblower treatment, standards and processes, and a much-needed personal role in supporting whistleblowers as individuals, as again the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, so eloquently laid out.

I will touch quickly on two related points. First, investors have a role here, although they often get forgotten in these discussions. They have a clear interest in knowing what is going on inside organisations they are entrusting with their money. I know from talking to them that they support better engagement and using their considerable leverage to get matters improved. Secondly, in the UK we do not compensate or reward whistleblowers. Being a whistleblower is expensive, sometimes ruinously so. Legal bills, loss of income and being made completely unemployable often follow. Yet the UK attitude to date has been that doing the right thing should not be rewarded—as if it was somehow vulgar—or even the personal losses incurred recouped. That correlates with the lower reporting of problems in the UK compared with the US and other jurisdictions. This has changed a little recently, and both the current director of the Serious Fraud Office and his predecessor have spoken in public in favour of paying whistleblowers. The FCA has stated that it is not in principle against this—a very British statement—and HMRC and the CMA already give modest payments for information on, for example, tax fraud.

The UK needs to catch up. I hope that the role of investors and whistleblower compensation are things that we can come back to, but for now I support all the amendments in this group and I sincerely hope that the Minister will do the same.

Trade Negotiations

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, defence does not form part of the deal we have in front of us today but, as I said, there are a number of other areas where negotiations are continuing and we hope to have a much more comprehensive deal with the US as quickly as we can. I am sure that defence will be a consideration in those discussions.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that this deal has been warmly welcomed in steel and in the automotive industry, not just JLR. Not everybody realises we export a significant number of Minis to the United States, so it is good news there too.

I have two very quick questions. The first is about labour rights and how they will be protected and advanced as this deal progresses—that would be useful to know. My noble friend the Minister may be aware that under the previous Government and the previous Administration in the United States there was a quad—involving the TUC, our sister trade union centre, the AFL-CIO, the Secretary for Trade, and the US ambassador for trade—which was involved in consulting and developing those labour rights discussions.

Secondly, is it envisaged that there will be an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism? As my noble friend the Minister is very aware, concerns have been expressed that the mechanism models we have to date privilege the interests of big corporations over those of citizens and workers. Her answer will be very important, particularly when we get to the stage of talking about big tech and technology.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point about the wider consultation that needs to take place and, of course, we take the issue of labour rights and labour representation very seriously. As I said, this deal has been put together very quickly. There is a lot more work and consultation to be done on this. We want to make sure that when we get the detail of the treaty it is absolutely fit for purpose and that everybody in the UK will benefit from it. Wherever possible, we intend to make it in the interests of business but also of the workers and citizens of this country. That will be the essence of a good trade deal.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

For these reasons, I support the amendments. In view of the fact that employers’ contributions not only continue but have, in a retrograde manner, been increased considerably under the NIC Act, which went through this House earlier this year, and increased disproportionately, with the damage already seen to the labour market, which we continue to hear about in the Committee, and with businesses being more reluctant to employ the very people we need to employ, I suggest it is fair and proportionate that there should be a rebate, as proposed in the modest amendment from my noble friend and the more ambitious one from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and Amendment 72, and I add my thanks to the Safe Sick Pay campaign, the Health Foundation and other organisations. I heartily welcome the Labour Government’s commitment to strengthening SSP by removing the lower earnings limit and the waiting period.

A nationally representative survey conducted for the TUC found that around half of employees get their full pay as usual when sick, but that around 28% were forced to rely on SSP alone. It also found a clear class divide when it comes to who gets what: eight in 10 of higher earners—over 50 grand a year—got full pay when off ill, compared with only one-third of lower earners.

The Covid pandemic exposed just how precarious life is for those in insecure, low-paid work, and we do not know how many preventable illnesses were caused by people struggling into work and spreading the virus because they could not afford to stay home. But we do know, as we have heard, that forcing people back to work when they are ill is bad for workers and bad for business, puts pressure on the NHS and is costly for the economy.

I am very grateful to the Minister for taking time to meet me and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to discuss our concern that the formula adopted by the Government could leave low-paid workers who earn just above the lower earnings limit worse off. The DWP’s answer has been that abolition of the waiting days before a worker receives SSP ensures that, for the first three weeks, those losses will be offset. But, surely, the policy intention of the Government’s commitment to abolish the waiting days is not to make up for losses caused by its own formula. The policy intention should be to ensure that every worker who relies on SSP is, in fact, better off, and we need to protect those on longer- term sickness who are, for example, receiving cancer treatment.

I note the Government’s concern that the formula must be designed in a way that avoids workers getting more in sick pay than they would in wages, and avoids a cliff edge. I remain unconvinced, however, that it is beyond the wit of the DWP to come up with an approach that protects that position without penalising a group of low-paid workers.

Secondly, as we have heard, this amendment seeks a review of the rate of statutory sick pay. As the Resolution Foundation has pointed out, unlike many other European countries, the rate is not linked to earnings. Currently at £118.75, SSP equates to 27% of the national minimum wage. In 1999, SSP was equivalent to 43% of the national minimum wage. That is a big drop. For a decade and more, SSP has failed to keep up with the cost of living or increases in the living wage.

The Work and Pensions Select Committee has confirmed that the SSP rate is not enough to live on. At the Covid public inquiry hearing in December 2023, Matt Hancock was quizzed by Sam Jacobs, who is counsel for the TUC. The former Health Secretary agreed that the rate of SSP should be higher. How could he argue otherwise, when the UK languished at the bottom of the OECD league for statutory sick pay under the previous Government and when we know that such a low rate of SSP is a danger to public health?

I understand that perfection must not be the enemy of the good, but an SSP rate that works out at around £3 per hour is some way short of either perfection or good. This amendment implicitly recognises that this woeful legacy of neglect in tackling it will not be remedied overnight. It would, however, be welcome if the Minister could reassure us today that both the formula and the rate of statutory sick pay will be reviewed before the Autumn Budget, and rightly so.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I start by declaring interests. I am an employer, the founder of a listed business, MindGym, which is a behavioural science business, and an expert in corporate training to improve employee well-being and productivity. I am also a commissioner at the EHRC.

I support the Opposition’s amendments in this group: Amendments 71A, 71B, 73, 74A, 74B, and 74C. At the outset, I would like to note for the record that everyone here is driven by compassion for those who need protection. I pay tribute to the speeches by noble Lords from the Benches opposite, but I am very concerned about these proposals by the Government.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for drawing our attention to the Resolution Foundation report, which has identified some of the points that support the amendments from this side of the Committee. I will return to those.

The Government have said on record that they want growth. We support that goal. They want businesses to succeed. We support that goal. They have also said on the record that they want to reduce the number of people who are out of the workforce on long-term sickness—currently running at 2.8 million. We support that goal. What we do not understand is how on earth the Government believe that this legislation and these proposals are going to achieve any of that. They are based in compassion, I have no doubt, but the Government are pursuing a culture of incapacity and dependency that will impede the stated aims.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I am generally somewhat nervous about purpose clauses, but I can see the argument in the case of this Bill, because there is a lot of confusion about what it is trying to achieve. Indeed, it serves to highlight the incoherence of this Government’s approach to generating economic growth, because it places far too much of a burden on businesses and will deter them from innovating, recruiting and investing in skills training, which we know is so very important right now.

That is particularly pronounced within the tech sector, which is one of the Government’s priority sectors because it has the potential to drive a vast amount of growth, but it is also one where we need to do far more to encourage investment so that our homegrown tech firms can scale and compete around the world. We must not forget that investors have a choice as to where they invest, and they will not go to countries where the costs are higher.

Although it is not properly an interest to declare, it is perhaps worth reminding your Lordships that until very recently, I chaired the Communications and Digital Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, and during my term in the chair we looked at the tech sector quite a bit, as noble Lords would expect. Our final inquiry was about scaling up in AI and creative tech.

I am sure the Minister, who is also a DSIT Minister, has seen that techUK, the industry’s trade body, has this morning raised some genuine concerns about the Bill. Its website says:

“With no economic modelling underpinning these proposals, businesses are being asked to shoulder new burdens without a clear understanding of the impact. There is a growing risk that entrenched positions will lead to a worst-case outcome, one that stifles innovation and investment in jobs. This is counter to the government’s pro-growth mission. We urgently call for further discussion and refinement to ensure the Bill supports businesses and protects workers”.


Alongside techUK, the Startup Coalition, which focuses specifically on start-ups, says in its briefing note on the Bill that it is concerned that without careful tailoring, the barriers the Bill currently introduces into hiring and scaling at the early stages of business development could undermine the start-up ecosystem and the economic growth it drives.

I do not know whether I would have succeeded had I tried to do this, given what my noble friend said about the punctiliousness of the Table Office—and I would be interested to hear more from my noble friend about this—but I suggest that any purpose clause also refers to growth and competitiveness. When the Minister winds up, I would welcome her explanation of how this Bill supports the Government’s growth agenda.

I know, from talking to a range of tech firms and businesses from all sectors and of all sizes, that while they all support good employment practices and condemn those firms that do not uphold high standards—as do I—there is frustration that the good employers are paying the price, literally, for the poor conduct of the bad. For them, the Bill represents a desire by the Government to do something to them that makes it even harder for them to create the economic growth that the Government have promised the electorate and, indeed, their workers. Let us be clear: it is business, not government, that generates economic growth.

As I say, a purpose clause has some merit in the context of this Bill, but I would like growth and competitiveness to feature within it. If we were to do that in the purpose clause and get some agreement from the Minister up front today, that would help to shape the Bill as we go through Committee, so that it actually delivers on what I think it is trying to do: to ensure that there are good employment practices that support economic growth and competitiveness.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I admit that I am a little perplexed by Amendment 1, particularly in the light of the latest TUC-commissioned poll that was published last night. Not only is the Bill popular with the public, including a majority of Conservative and Reform voters, but, when they are faced with robust arguments against its key provisions, the Bill becomes even more popular with voters.

I am not sure that your Lordships or the public need this amendment to know that the Bill is about fairness, security and the right to an independent voice at work. The public are already well aware and, frankly, appalled that, under the previous Government, low pay and insecurity became mainstream in British working life. They want change.

Underlying this amendment—this might be my suspicious mind—is the worry that it is really about undermining the role of independent trade unions in representing workers’ interests. The ILO uses the term “workers’ organisations” for a reason. International law upholds the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association. Independent trade unions are workers’ best chance of getting their rights enforced and built on for better pay, safer workplaces, training opportunities and family-friendly hours, and they provide a democratic voice at work.

Without repeating the arguments from Second Reading, I encourage your Lordships to look at the evidence about just how far Britain has fallen behind other countries in employment protection, and how giving ordinary working people a stronger collective voice can help deliver more responsible businesses and a healthier and more equal society.

I encourage the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to cast his mind back to Labour’s introduction of a national minimum wage. He may remember that the Conservative Party and the business lobby said that a national minimum wage would cause mass unemployment and that businesses would collapse. In reality, the national minimum wage is now widely respected as one of Britain’s most successful policies. It has made a difference to millions of working lives in the teeth of opposition from the business lobby at the time. It is worth remembering that.

I end by saying that it is time to get on with and get behind the Bill, so that Britain takes the high road to improving business productivity by treating workers fairly, as human beings and not just commodities.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to address a quorate meeting of the TUC General Council. I should declare an interest at the beginning: I am the honorary president of BALPA, the British Airline Pilots Association, a union that covers all the people who fly you on holiday and back again. Its motto or strapline for many years was

“every flight a safe flight”.

It regarded its job as to deal not only with the members but with safety. In dealing with the companies that we dealt with and still deal with, aircraft safety and looking after passengers was as much at the front of our mission as anything to do with pay and conditions. Of course, we were interested in them—we were a trade union, after all—but we were a responsible trade union. I stand on this side of the House pretty convinced that probably a majority of the members of BALPA support this party. Let me remind the House why.

Most people do not join a trade union for any political purpose. They often join, as I did at the age of 16, because it is there. Nowadays, most trade unions, particularly the better ones, have a free legal advice service and will get you a discount on your car insurance. I have told this story once before, I think, but at a point when we had a silly dispute between my family and the bursar of our local private school, I rang up the union solicitor and he drafted me a letter to send to the bursar very quickly. I apologised and said, “I am sorry. I dare say this is not what you are normally here for”. I will always remember his reply. He said, “Mr Balfe”, for I was that in those days, “we are not here to judge our membership. We are here to help them”. At the basis of virtually every trade union official and action is the desire to help the membership. Nobody I know regards going on strike as anything other than a defeat, because it means the members do not get paid, you often lose pension entitlement, and you lose your wages. You know, people go to work to get their work done, to get a reasonable wage.

I always had a lot of time for a person who is almost unmentionable in modern politics, Edward Heath, because I thought that he came nearer to understanding the TU movement than probably any leader of the Conservative Party and maybe any leader overall. Indeed, I remember when I was a much younger trade union person in the 1960s asking a group of Conservatives who they thought was the best Secretary of State for Labour there had ever been. The result was unanimous: Sir Walter Monckton, Conservative Minister under Churchill, was reckoned to be the one who listened to them the most. You always have to have a runner-up in these things just in case one falls down, and that was Iain Macleod.

Employment Rights Bill: Productivity

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I know noble Lords do not like to hear it, but I am happy to repeat it again. That, of course, demanded tough choices to fix our public services and create long-term growth and investment. The Government have more than doubled the employment allowance to £10,500 for the smallest companies, meaning that more than half of businesses with NICs liabilities either gain or see no change next year. Businesses will still be able to claim employer NICs relief, including those for under-25s and under-25 apprentices, where eligible. These are tough times economically, but we are determined to do everything we can to ensure that our growth agenda remains undimmed.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of HSE analysis which shows that unionised workplaces have fewer accidents and injuries and better well-being, and of TUC research showing that unionised workplaces have more investment in skills, better family-friendly policies and a voice for working people? Does she agree that that is good for productivity?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for making these points. I should reiterate that Britain’s working people and businesses will be the driving force of the UK economy, but the current labour market is not delivering for either. The productivity gap with France, Germany and the US has doubled since 2008; average salaries have barely increased from where they were 15 years ago; and the average worker would be more than 40% better off if wages had continued to grow as they did leading into the 2008 financial crisis.

A final point: alongside its productivity performance, the UK lags the OECD average on most employment protections. We inherited an economy that was in decline, with poor productivity, and we intend to fix that.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, during my time as TUC general secretary, I met many employers who value good industrial relations and agree terms far above legal minimums. I also met dedicated care workers who did not earn enough to give their own children a decent start in life; loyal P&O crew who were fired and replaced with labour paid below the minimum wage; Amazon workers whose boss is running roughshod over the basic British liberty to organise collectively and bargain for better conditions; and teenage workers at McDonald’s who faced sexual harassment, and even demands for sex for shifts. On that issue, will the Minister please update us on the Government’s approach to tackling non-disclosure agreements regarding discrimination and harassment? Frankly, it is obscene that NDAs are used to silence victims and that that silence puts workers, especially young women, at risk.

The Bill has strong public support across the political spectrum, and no wonder. The UK is now an outlier among OECD countries for labour standards. On rights for temporary workers, the Work Foundation reports that the UK is bottom of the league of 22 OECD nations, only just above the United States. Statutory sick pay is the lowest in Europe, and the lowest paid have been excluded, which means that many cannot afford to stay home when sick. As we saw during Covid, that endangers public health. Other countries—New Zealand, Italy, France, Germany and many more—banned exploitative zero-hours contracts long ago, but the UK did not.

Under the Conservative Government, rights failed to keep pace with the rise of the gig economy. In fact, the Conservatives worsened protection against unfair dismissal, some sex discrimination rights and the human right to withdraw your labour. The party opposite claims that tilting the balance back towards workers would be bad for business. Nonsense. On the contrary, there is strong evidence that fairness at work boosts both productivity and innovation. In the UK, too many people are stuck in a revolving door of low-skilled, insecure jobs and unemployment. This Bill will promote better quality jobs and positive flexibility, so that more carers and people with disabilities or poor mental health get the chance to get work and stay in work. Of course, individual rights need effective collective enforcement. That is why it is so important that the Bill strengthens rights to organise and be represented by a trade union.

Finally, I will say a word on the UK-EU trade deal—the mother of all costs to business. According to the London School of Economics, trade barriers have hit small businesses hardest, with 14% having stopped exporting to the EU altogether. One reason we ended up with a second-class trade deal is that the EU feared unfair competition and that the UK would undercut it with worse workers’ rights. The Conservative Government’s broken promise to bring forward an employment Bill and its attacks on trade unions only confirmed that suspicion. This Bill can help ease EU fears and support negotiations for a better deal. That is just one more reason why the Bill is good for jobs, good for workers and good for business too.

Plant Oxford Site

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, we are very aware of the situation with regard to China, in particular Chinese electric vehicles. China’s role in the global automotive industry is growing, which presents both risks and opportunities for us. We will not hesitate to act where that creates issues or problems for the UK, but we are very mindful of the opportunities that this presents as well. Our automotive industry in the UK is very different from those of other European countries because it is export oriented; we export 80% of our cars abroad, unlike, for example, the EU and the US, where production is sold domestically. Nevertheless, we are aware of the issues that the noble Lord raises and will continue to act in our interests.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the daughter of a former assembly line worker at Cowley—I am very conscious of the incredibly skilled and dedicated workforce there—and as a trade unionist who, frankly, has worked with motor companies and unions through many ups and downs over the years and knows the importance of working together. Can my noble friend reassure us that, as well as working closely with the company, the Government are working closely with the unions to ensure a strong future for the car industry and that that future is electric?

Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill [HL]

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as former leader of the TUC. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and also to congratulate my noble friend and fellow trade unionist Lord Woodley on bringing forward this Bill.

In the wake of the P&O Ferries scandal, Grant Shapps, who was Secretary of State for Transport at the time, said on Sky News that the Government would

“send a clear message … that we will not allow this to happen again. That where new laws are needed, we will create them. Where legal loopholes are cynically exploited, we will close them. And where employment rights are too weak, we will strengthen them”.

The Government’s new code of practice, sadly, comes nowhere near meeting that promise. It does not close the legal loopholes that allowed P&O Ferries to evade the law and financial sanctions. It does not strengthen unfair dismissal rights to prevent an employer sacking their workforce, and either rehiring or replacing them on inferior conditions. A 25% uplift in compensation hardly adds up to a deterrent. Noble Lords will recall that the P&O boss brazenly admitted that employers can simply price-in the cost of one-off payments.

Emma Wayland of Keystone Law has said:

“The cynical might say that this can be treated as a tick-box exercise that will present no more than a minor inconvenience to an employer, for whom the threat of fire and rehire can still be used”.


That cynicism is justified and rooted in real experience. It is disappointing that Ministers have pushed through this code when it does not have the confidence of the very people who are on the front line fighting fire and rehire—namely, workers and trade unionists. Businesses use fire and rehire tactics for the simple reason that, in Britain today, sacking workers and rehiring or replacing them on worse paying conditions is far too cheap and easy. Those guilty of this practice over recent years are not just those running a few back-street sweatshops, or a few struggling employers who have fallen on hard times. The roll of shame includes big names in the mainstream, which have absolutely no excuse—the likes of Tesco, British Gas and British Airways.

In many cases, unions have fought back and won, but no working family in Britain should be put through the worry, hardship and humiliation of being treated as throwaway labour. Workers need stronger protection against unfair dismissal from day one in the job and tougher tests that require employers to consult with unions with enough time to explore reasonable economic alternatives. Instead of making it harder for workers to protect their pay and conditions, as with the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, the Government should recognise that, when faced with the threat of fire and rehire or replacement, workers must be able to respond quickly and exercise their democratic rights to withdraw their labour. Where an employer flouts the minimum standards set out in law, for example by not following the required steps for consultation before sacking workers, those workers must be afforded an immediate remedy, notably automatic reinstatement.

Finally, let us recognise that fire and rehire is often just a fancy name for casualisation: long-standing hotel staff on full-time contracts being rehired on short-hours arrangements; university lecturers facing similar, not least at SOAS, where worse conditions for staff mean a worse education service for students; and seafaring crews on collectively agreed terms and conditions being replaced by agency staff paid a pittance. As TUC analysis shows, it is no accident that black and ethnic-minority workers are twice as likely to find themselves on the sharp end of fire and rehire.

Paying lip service in the form of a code is not good enough. The Bill offers the Government a second chance to get this right, to make good on their P&O promises and to stop the slide towards insecure employment in Britain. I urge the Government to support the Bill so that the decent employer is not undercut by the bad, and so that everyone at work gets the respect and dignity that they have earned.

National Minimum Wage

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I think I have already addressed that question. We have to set the national minimum wage as high as possible for young people without damaging their prospects. We have to encourage them into the workplace. We have to avoid the longer-term scarring effects from long spells of unemployment that I have talked about. That is what this metric achieves.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is shocking that social care workers—who perform incredibly skilled and precious work for all of us but the majority of whom are paid less than the real living wage of £12 an hour outside London—are paid so little, and that a quarter of them are on zero-hours contracts? How much do his Government believe a social care worker is worth?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I think everyone on all sides of the House agrees with the noble Baroness that we owe a great deal of gratitude to those who work in the social care sector. It is a fact that a lot of them are on lower wages and we would like them to be paid more, but at the end of the day we now have 10% of the workforce on a national living wage that underpins their prospects, and it is now the responsibility of businesses and employers to increase the training and skills of our workforce so that they can earn more in the market.

Code of Practice on Reasonable Steps to be taken by a Trade Union (Minimum Service Levels)

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Collins, and to join him in reminding the House that Labour will repeal this toxic legislation that would turn the clock back on mature industrial relations and workplace justice in this country.

First, I relay my thanks to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Offord, for taking the time to meet with me yesterday. Our discussion touched on the P&O Ferries scandal. I confirmed that, after those unlawful mass sackings, no one was prosecuted and there have been no government sanctions against either the firm or the owner. Compare and contrast that with the proposals that we have before us today. This House rightly raised the alarm about the risks of a skeleton Bill railroaded through without proper scrutiny or parliamentary accountability and without proper regard for our international obligations.

Sadly, this legislation was never about good policy-making; rather, it is about an unpopular Government trying to shift the blame for their own failings on to decent public servants and punishing trade unions which exist to defend them. Ministers say they are standing up for public service users, but those claims ring hollow. During the recent wave of strike action, polls showed public sympathy with the strikers and exasperation with Ministers’ high-handed, slow and chaotic approach to resolving these disputes. Now, the OBR is forecasting an unprecedented two-decade squeeze on real pay by 2028, and the Autumn Statement heralds another round of deep austerity cuts for many public services. That is why the Government are railroading through this bad legislation. They have no intention of addressing the causes of discontent; the objective is to crush it.

The code of practice is just the latest manifestation of contempt for the rights and freedoms of ordinary working people. The code sets out so-called “reasonable steps” that unions must take to comply. However, there is nothing reasonable about the code’s ridiculous requirements and deadlines for identification, state interference in what an independent union must communicate with its own members, new demands on picket supervisors when the strikes Act did not even mention picketing or imposing draconian sanctions on staff and unions. Rather, the code enables employers, no doubt under pressure from Ministers, to disregard democratic strike ballot, drag unions into court, attack union funds, strip away automatic protection against unfair dismissal and ban strikes by the back door.

On the day that the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, professes gratitude to healthcare workers and other public servants for protecting people through the pandemic, this is their reward. In drawing up this code, Ministers ignored the advice of Select Committees of this House, trade unions who opposed the strikes Act, employers who never wanted it, the RPC, which red-rated it, the UN’s labour arm—the ILO—and even the UK’s widely respected industrial relations body, ACAS.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, the Government fund ACAS with taxpayers’ hard-earned cash to promote good industrial relations and provide real-world expertise. However, ACAS’s long list of sensible proposals for substantive amendments to this code were rejected. Can the Minister tell us why? In what area of good industrial relations practice have this Government proved to be more expert than ACAS?

Secondly, the code spells out that an individual worker who disobeys a work notice will lose automatic protection against unfair dismissal and, if unions are deemed to have failed to have taken the so-called reasonable steps, all striking workers lose that automatic protection. However, the code says absolutely nothing about what positive rights NHS staff, rail staff and other dedicated key workers would then have in those circumstances. This is quite an oversight. If, as a result of the legislation, workers individually or en masse are sacked, precisely what would their rights be and why does the code fail to set this out?

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register and that I am a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

Of the many points that I would like to make, I will restrict myself to four. First, having spent 46 years of professional practice largely involved in the legal consequences of industrial relations disputes, I find it offensive that the Act and the code of practice compel trade unions to serve the interests of employers in undermining their right, guaranteed by all relevant international law and hence diminishing the only bargaining power our 34 million workforce have, to enhance the terms and conditions on which they sell their labour.

Secondly, in November 2021 the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee published Democracy Denied? and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee published Government by Diktat. Your Lordships will recall the two principles underlying those reports. First, primary legislation should conform to the principles of parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law and the accountability of the Executive to Parliament. Secondly, the threshold between primary and delegated legislation should be founded on the principle that the principal aspects of policy should be in the Bill and only detailed implementation should be left to secondary legislation. These principles were debated in this House on 6 January 2022 and 12 January 2023. The House clearly and strongly endorsed them. I understood that the then Leader of the House did not dissent from them. Yet this legislation failed both principles.

In its consideration of the Bill, the Delegated Powers Committee, in its 27th report, criticised the Bill’s granting of a Henry VIII power to the Secretary of State to set minimum service levels by regulations. We said:

“This is a Bill that deals with minimum service levels during strikes. Yet there is nothing in the Bill saying what those minimum service levels are. We shall only know when Ministers make regulations after the Bill is enacted. This is small comfort to Parliament, which is considering the matter right now”.