Employment Rights Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I was hoping to hear an answer to the question posed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips: without a qualifying period, will employers take on people with a criminal record? That question has not been answered. Secondly, Clause 25 talks about the right not to be unfairly dismissed, so this question of people being wrongly dismissed because there is a qualifying period is not quite right. Will the Minister answer that difficult question? Would you employ somebody who has a criminal record without a qualifying period?

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

I was about to make exactly the same point, but the noble and right reverend Lord beat me to it. The Minister has not addressed this point at all. The strongest argument against the day-one issue is that employers plainly will not take the risk with ex-offenders, who we are trying to get rehabilitated, or many young people—20 year-old boys and girls—who have never had a job before. The Government’s own impact statement seems to bear this out. The Minister has not even been briefed on the subject, and he certainly has not addressed it in his reply. This is the best argument made against the Government’s proposals.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Sadly, I have not got through my contribution in response to all the questions, so please give me a bit of time. I will certainly address that specific question when I get to it.

The general point on day-one rights that we are trying to make—my noble friend made it very adequately —is that they currently apply in certain circumstances, so they are not a novel, innovative thing, and they have been a demand for some time. On probation, most good employers have probationary periods that they use for a purpose. That purpose is ensuring that employers can retain an employee so that they can offer opportunities to improve and address issues of competency or capacity.

So probationary periods are not an opportunity to dismiss; they are an opportunity to continue employment. It is important to say that, and the point about a chilling effect is not correct, because all good employers have proper processes and procedures to address dismissal within the probationary period. This legislation tries to promote that and to ensure that it exists.

I was looking for a particular page, which I have now found. There was a particular issue in relation to offenders.