Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for tabling Amendment 16, which would require the Secretary of State to have regard to sector-specific work patterns when making regulations relating to the right to guaranteed hours. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions and for highlighting the sometimes unique employment practices that occur in the creative sector and, in particular, the theatre sector.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I would say that we have engaged extensively with the Society of London Theatre and are happy to carry on doing so. We appreciate that some sectors—including the theatre sector, which is highlighted in the noble Lord’s amendment—do have fluctuating demand across the year.

This is a sector that I know all noble Lords recognise we need to support, for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said, particularly for social value reasons. We therefore want to take note and make it right for the sector.

I reassure the Committee that flexibility is already built into the Bill to address issues of seasonal demand. There are several ways under the Bill that an employer could approach that issue while upholding the new rights to guaranteed hours depending on the circumstances, particularly by using limited-term contracts where that is reasonable. Those who are offered guaranteed hours will be able to turn those down and remain on their current contract or arrangement if they wish. Furthermore, through the Bill we have also allowed for employees and unions to collectively agree to opt out of the zero-hours contract measures. Unions can make these deals based on their knowledge of the industry and with a holistic view on what is best for their workers.

We will ensure that the needs of different sectors are considered when we come to design the regulations. We will continue to work in partnership with employers across the different sectors, their representatives, the recruitment sector and the trade unions to develop those detailed regulations, and we will provide clear guidance for both employers and workers in advance of implementing these measures.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, had a new concept of available hours for sectors with varying seasonal demand. We would push back on that issue. It could risk creating a two-tier guaranteed-hours framework for workers in sectors with more or less seasonal fluctuation. We believe that the reference period provided for in the Bill will ensure that qualifying workers are offered guaranteed hours that reflect the hours that they have previously worked.

I hope that, in that short contribution, I have been able to persuade the noble Lord that we are aware of the issues and are on the case. We feel that there is considerable flexibility in the Bill as it stands. We are happy to have further discussions. As we have heard from noble Lords, there are a range of issues and a range of options here, so there is not just one way of solving this problem. We are happy to get round the table and talk some more. We feel that, as the Bill is currently designed, it answers the concerns that are being raised with us, but we are happy to talk further. I therefore hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

The Minister talked about the reference period. SOLT would like to see a longer reference period because a year is much more of a real time length than 12 weeks. Is that something that the Government would consider at all?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

We have previously had a debate on the nature of reference periods, and that is something that we are going to consult further upon. If we are going to have a discussion, let us have a discussion on that as well, and I will see if I can reassure noble Lords on that matter.

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that this is a complicated copyright area and there are some legal cases in the offing. It is a complicated area that needs a holistic approach. Our view is that addressing the issue in isolation will not provide sufficient legal clarity or resolve the issue in a way that I think that most noble Lords would expect. The consultation will help guide us on this issue and I urge noble Lords to await its outcome, which I hope will provide some solutions.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, despite what the Minister says, there is a basic concern about the framing of this issue by the Government, their perceived need for a balance between the tech companies and the creative industries, and the logic of that in terms of the need for someone to give something up. Should any side have to give up something that is already theirs, morally and in law: namely, work made by artists, who therefore hold the copyright? This is not about balance; it is about rights.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Earl is right, and we are trying to find a way to ensure that those rights are upheld. However, all these sectors need to grow in our economy. As I was just explaining, the creative sector uses AI, so it is not as simple “us and them” situation. AI is increasingly being used by all sectors across our economy. We need to find a way through this that rewards creators in the way that the noble Earl has outlined, which I think we all understand.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. He talked about the principle of transparency, and that is the nub of it. I shall just give an example: the history of pop music has, in many ways, been the history of exploitation of artists in a bad way. Much of that exploitation was based, in the past, on keeping artists in the dark. I am sure that today many licensees and transferees—some of which are huge companies—behave very well, but there is a systemic imbalance here, which means that there is potential for abuse. Artists have a fundamental right to information about exploitation of their work, which is, in any case, useful for knowing quite simply what has happened to their work when it is pushed out into the world.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for raising this again today. As both previous speakers have said, it is a really important issue for authors, writers and musicians, who are operating in an increasingly complex world where it is very hard to keep tabs on the use that is being put to their own creative work and the way it is being distributed and accessed. As a result, many in the sector feel that they are not properly rewarded for their creative endeavour. It is obviously crucial to us that we encourage them to continue to be creative and help them to be fairly rewarded because, as we increasingly begin to recognise, that creativity is not only important to them but will be an essential bedrock of the UK’s future prosperity in the years to come.

The noble Lord quite rightly raised the issue of the draft directive on copyright, and he quoted the Minister’s reliance on the discussions of that draft in her response in Committee. However, as with other pieces of draft EU legislation, there is now a horrible feeling that the clock is ticking and that time might run out before the directive can be transposed into UK law. Therefore, we very much support the noble Lord in his bid to bring more certainty to the lives, and the incomes, of our much-valued creators.

I would like to raise two further points. First, the amendments as they stand assume that all publishers have the facility to provide regular statements of income outside the normal accounting periods. This is indeed easy for the large publishers, which already have author portals where this kind of detailed information is uploaded in real time and accessible to authors and their agents on a daily basis. However, we should also spare a thought for the smaller publishing houses, whose growth we also want to encourage, and which might not have such sophisticated accounting systems. The wording of the amendments might be rather too prescriptive or open to interpretation in this regard. We do not want to add too much of an extra burden to those smaller organisations.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the amendments do very little to help those authors who are beholden to Amazon, which publishes 90% of e-books and is responsible for a significant proportion of physical book sales. Its behaviour in driving down prices through heavy discounting is seriously damaging the incomes of authors and publishers alike. Therefore, you can have transparency and fairness, but we will not add much more value back into the creative sector unless steps are taken to curb the monopolistic behaviour of Amazon. Perhaps the Minister could advise us as to what steps are being taken to monitor that increasing dominance of Amazon and to look at the impact it is having on the income of people who are trying to be creative and whom we very much want to value. At what stage would the Government take steps to intervene to make sure that those incomes are, in some way, protected for the future?