Employment Rights Bill

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

131: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause—
“Right of refusal to undertake instructions which would lead to inaccessible goods or services(1) A worker has the right to refuse an instruction or direction from his employer or anyone acting for his employer such as a manager which would—(a) cause the worker to undertake work which would result in the creation, development, deployment or sale of an inaccessible good or service,(b) cause the worker to undertake work which would result in the development, deployment or sale of a good or service, previously accessible, made inaccessible as a result of this instruction.(2) Any worker receiving such an instruction described in subsection (1) may report the nature of that instruction and their reason for refusing it to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.”

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, as we have already heard from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond cannot be with us today, so I will move his amendment on his behalf and speak to the others in this group. In doing so, I declare a past interest as a consultant to the Royal National Institute of Blind People. For many years, I worked with Ian Bruce CBE, who was the director-general for many years, to promote access to work for those suffering blindness. That is particularly relevant to Amendment 297, but I will speak first to Amendment 131.

Amendment 131 raises important questions about accessibility, accountability and the role of workers in upholding inclusive standards in the goods and services we create and deliver. The principle at the heart of this proposal—that workers should not be compelled to participate in making a product or service less accessible or in producing something that excludes by design—is serious and worthy. As technology and infrastructure continue to evolve, ensuring access for all, including people with a disability, is a matter not merely of compliance but of basic fairness and social responsibility. The amendment seeks to give workers a right of refusal where they are being asked to carry out work that would knowingly—that is, knowingly to them—result in the development or sale of inaccessible goods or services. It also establishes a route for reporting such an event to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I can certainly see the intent here to empower those on the front lines of design and delivery to raise concerns and to prevent regressions in accessibility. There are of course many questions about how this would operate in practice, particularly around definitions, scope and the safeguards needed to ensure clarity and fairness for both workers and employers. These are not reasons to dismiss the amendment, but they suggest that further discussion may be needed around implementation, enforcement and the supporting mechanisms that would then make such a right meaningful and workable.

We all have a role to play in embedding accessibility into our systems and structures. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will engage with the substance of the proposal and give thought to how the principle behind it might be taken forward, whether through this amendment or through other means.

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I hope that the noble Lord is satisfied that the Government are already taking many steps in support of disabled people, inside and outside the workplace. I therefore ask the noble Lord, my dear friend, to withdraw Amendment 131.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister, who always responds positively to any suggestions that I make, particularly in the corridors of this House. I should have declared not only my long-standing work with the Royal National Institute of Blind People but the much-appreciated instructions that “Brother Hunt” used to receive in substantial form from the Transport and General Workers’ Union. I was delighted, when I was Secretary of State for Employment, to be invited to the retirement party of Mr Albert Blighton, who was much cherished by all those who worked so hard for him.

I thank the Minister. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill. We disagreed a little about royal commissions. I recall being told that they took minutes but wasted years—I think it was a previous Labour Prime Minister who said that. There is a problem in that, as soon as you set up a body, you are postponing the opportunity to make the key decisions that are necessary. I guess the Minister did recognise that in his response; we do need to move on. These statistics have been at a seriously low level for a long time, and we have to find a way to break through so that people with disability are much more widely recognised as people of great talent who can contribute to the growth and competitiveness that we all so desperately want to see.

I recognise that the Government have taken a number of initiatives, and I will consult with my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond as we consider how to approach this issue on Report, but in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 131 withdrawn.

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[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment raises questions about notice periods and how they are handled under employment contracts. I make no particular case for or against it, but it draws attention to a more pressing issue: the complexity introduced by this Bill around notice periods and contractual exits. For many employers, particularly those without specialist legal support, understanding and implementing these new requirements will not be straightforward.

I am appreciative that this amendment attempts to bring some clarity and firmer parameters to that part of the framework. Striking the right balance is crucial: while shorter notice periods can support quicker recruitment and flexibility, they may limit employers’ ability to ensure a smooth handover or maintain continuity in key roles. Any reform should therefore weigh the benefits of agility against operational realities.

If the Government want compliance, they must ensure that the legislation is not only sound in principle but clear in practice. That means providing details on how these provisions interact with existing arrangements and what precisely is expected of employers. A complex system with vague guidance helps no one. That is not the first time we have made that point to the Government tonight, and we will keep doing so.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his amendment and the gentle way in which he introduced what could be a very important move to simplify what the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, rightly reminded us is becoming a hugely complicated employment situation, with so many differing, complex and contradictory requirements.

It could be said—and is being said by a number of HR departments—that this is just the sort of Bill that will give an enormous boost to human resources as a profession. There are already queues of people lining up to join HR departments. My noble friend seeks a simple aim: to incentivise shorter notice periods and avoid situations where individuals are financially disadvantaged for moving jobs, especially when their employers insist on enforcing long notice terms.

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[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Baroness said, because this is about fairness and making sure life works. There are a lot of companies, big and small, where, to a great extent, what has been proposed is already working. However, there are a number of instances—including somewhere like where I work—where I do not think this would work.

I will just give your Lordships one quick example. I work in insurance for a huge insurance broker. We had a client in the United States who by 5 pm had not decided whether to renew his insurance contract in London. If he had not renewed it by 1 June—which I guess was a Sunday—he would have had no insurance on that specific part of his business. A member of my team kindly stayed online, for want of a better word—he was probably out and about with the phone in his pocket—and the call came through at some time after 9 pm. Looking at the way the clause is drafted, I am not sure whether that would be considered enough of an emergency to get a member of staff out of bed, so to speak. Equally, that company might have had to stop working, doing whatever it was doing in the oil and gas industry—I know that will not endear me to the noble Baroness, but that is a fact. But we had to bind that insurance contract once we got the order. It was all ready to go; it was just a question of sending a number of emails to say that it was done. So there are huge swathes of the country where it is in fact in place already, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, has said, but in some of the big City environments where you are working across time zones particularly, it is extremely difficult to enact.

On working from home, we all worked at home for some time; personally I loathed it—I am back in the office almost as much as I can be. However, I have members of staff who like working at home, and, let me tell your Lordships, they know how to turn themselves off when they do not want to talk to us anymore, and they are good at it. So they should be, and I respect them for it. But if you really need them, you can always find them.

Finally, you can turn the damn machines off. Be it a telephone, a computer, an iPad or whatever it is, there is an off button out there. Certainly when I was a child, we were told never to call anybody after 9 pm, and that was friends and family. So there are some unwritten rules out there that are already very effective.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, we are very grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for introducing us to a fascinating debate. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, put us in touch with the real world, and then my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Ashcombe reminded us about what happens in real life. I suppose I have immediately to declare my interest as a practising solicitor. My phrase, which I always used to share with Albert Blighton, was that I was available 168/52. The number 168 is 24 times seven. So you quickly appreciate that, as a solicitor, you have to be available all the time.

When I won the contract to represent cricket with the England and Wales Cricket Board, they wanted to know whether I would be available on a Sunday evening when there was an incident at a Sunday league match, and I said, “Yes, of course I would”. So it is very much up to the individual to make themselves available.

When I was asked to join the Front Bench in the House of Commons in 1977, I do not think anybody expected that I would refuse to answer an Adjournment debate, even though it might have been at 3 am, which it was on one occasion. Therefore, you set your working parameter in the way in which you develop your own workaholic tendencies, but you should not expect it of everyone, and I think that is what the amendment is all about.

Do you have the right to disconnect? Although I am sympathetic to the idea that you should be able to switch off, which the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, put in context, when the Bill is already introducing considerable uncertainty for employers around shift notice periods, payment for cancelled shifts and wider questions of how flexible working is to be managed in practice, we have to be very cautious about layering on yet another rigid and potentially burdensome obligation.

The noble Baroness may have put forward what appears to be a straightforward proposal, giving workers a right not to respond to emails or calls outside their contracted hours, but in reality, as the Government have quickly realised, despite what they may have said in advance of the election, this whole proposal raises serious practical and legal questions. What does “working hours” mean in a world of flexible, hybrid and self-managed work? How do we define an emergency? What happens in small teams, in customer-facing sectors, which my noble friend Lord Ashcombe highlighted, and in businesses operating across time zones?

Employers, especially small businesses, already face growing compliance costs. This would add yet another administrative requirement. There would have to be a written policy on the right to disconnect, a consultation process, enforcement procedures and, of course, exposure to tribunal claims. So, we must ask: is this really the right moment to introduce such sweeping regulation?

The Bill already creates new rights and obligations that will take time to bed in. There is uncertainty around shift scheduling, compensation for cancellations and the cumulative compliance burden. I have to say to the noble Baroness that I believe the effect of this amendment would be to increase that uncertainty further and risk undermining flexibility for both sides. Most workers and employers already navigate these boundaries reasonably and sensibly. A blanket legislative approach risks making day-to-day communications feel legally fraught, especially in smaller organisations where roles are not so rigidly defined.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for tabling Amendment 141B, which was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

We firmly recognise the vital importance of achieving a healthy work/life balance. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, can be confident that we will indeed introduce a right to switch off. We understand that, in today’s fast-paced world, it is more important than ever to ensure that individuals and families are able to manage the demands of their work alongside their responsibilities and needs at home.

Our close consultation with businesses and civil society since the election has shown how important it is that we develop this policy in collaboration with those who will be affected: workers and the firms who employ them. The right to switch off must account for the full diversity in types of employment and sectors that exist in our modern economy. It represents a substantial shift in the way some businesses operate. This amendment does not account for that diversity and the need for collaboration. That is why we have decided to take a careful and considered approach to introducing the right to switch off, as was alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe.

The focus for now is the Employment Rights Bill, which contains decisive and immediate action, such as reforms to flexible working that will make it easier to strike a better work/life balance. These reforms are not just policies; they are practical steps to support everyday lives and help people to draw clearer boundaries between their work and personal lives.

To add this amendment to the Bill would not do the right to switch off any justice. As drafted, it could create unnecessary burdens on businesses, particularly small businesses, as stated by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Significant new requirements in proposed new subsection (3)(a) to (d) would force all employers, no matter their size, to produce written disconnection policies and specify new technological and organisational measures and protocols, while also establishing reporting systems for any violations. These new rules would be onerous and inflexible.

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Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

141BA: Clause 27, page 47, line 13, at end insert—
“(B1) Subsection (A1)(a) shall not apply where the employer is undergoing relevant insolvency proceedings.(C1) Where the employer is undergoing relevant insolvency proceedings, the duty to consult shall arise only in accordance with subsection (1), by reference to the number of employees proposed to be dismissed at a single establishment within a period of 90 days or less.(D1) For the purposes of subsection (B1), “relevant insolvency proceedings” has the same meaning as in regulation 8(6) of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that employers in formal insolvency proceedings are not subject to the new entity-wide redundancy consultation trigger. Instead, the existing “20 or more at one establishment” threshold would apply. The amendment relies on an established definition of insolvency proceedings, consistent with Regulation 8(6) of TUPE 2006.

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[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 141BA to 142B stand in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom.

Collective redundancies often occur in the context of an insolvency. Increasing the penalty for failure to inform and consult will exacerbate the difficulties for insolvency practitioners. Under the Insolvency Act 1986, administrators are required to act in the best interests of creditors as a whole. However, keeping employees in employment beyond the 14-day window afforded to administrators to decide whether to adopt the contract, to carry out an information and consultation process, in effect makes those employees super-priority creditors. This would elevate their claims above those of other creditors and reduce the funds available for ordinary creditors. In some cases, the resulting employment costs could make administrators reluctant to take on their role. This may lead to fewer contracts being adopted, increasing the liabilities that ultimately fall on the National Insurance Fund. Amendment 141BA gives insolvency practitioners clear legal guidance to apply the single establishment rule during consultations. This helps them make faster decisions without dealing with complex, entity-wide assessments, reducing delays and protecting insolvency processes. It supports rescuing businesses and, of course, maximising creditor returns.

I turn to Amendments 141C and 141E. Clause 27 significantly expands the duty to consult on collective redundancies. It requires employers to start a consultation if 20 or more redundancies are proposed in total across multiple establishments, even when those redundancies are unrelated. This overreaches, because simultaneous job cuts can result from distinct decisions, such as automation in a warehouse, reduced demand in customer service or restructuring in head office, affecting different people in different locations. Yet, under Clause 27, those decisions could be swept into a single mandatory consultation process simply because the total number affected crosses the arbitrary threshold. This means that HR and management teams would have to delay necessary action while they co-ordinated across unrelated departments. This means that representatives and employees would be dragged into consultations about matters with no relevance at all to them, and it risks undermining the quality of consultation itself by overloading it with conflicting priorities and timelines.

This would introduce legal uncertainty, particularly for mid-sized employers who may not have the resources to second-guess whether redundancies in different divisions are connected enough to trigger a combined consultation. If they get it wrong, they will face a protective award. If so, the risk-averse approach is to consult everyone about everything all at once. These amendments would make it clear that where redundancies across different establishments arise from a common underlying business reason, or from a connected series of events, a combined consultation is indeed required. However, where they are unconnected, made independently and for distinct reasons, the employer may conduct separate consultations at the level where the impact is felt.

Moving to Amendment 141D, we have continued to make the point that the one-sized central planning approach that this Bill uses is not appropriate. Many sectors rely heavily on seasonal or fixed-term workers. Agriculture, hospitality, logistics and retail businesses scale up and down, predictably, year in, year out. They take on workers for peak periods—the summer season, the Christmas rush, the harvest—and release them at the end of the contract. These are not sudden decisions; they are built into the business model and are clearly understood by all parties. For example, a national employer may let 12 seasonal workers go at a distribution hub in the north in July. A month later, it may make seven short-term administrative contracts redundant in the Midlands. In September, it might end six fixed-term roles in a tourist-focused retail unit in the south. Those are unconnected, expected and localised decisions. However, under Clause 27 as drafted, those 25 redundancies must be aggregated, triggering a full collective consultation process across all three events as if they were part of one co-ordinated business strategy. Is that really the policy intention?

Amendment 141F tackles the risk of retroactive liability—the possibility that employers who have already commenced consultations in good faith could be told after the fact that their earlier actions were invalid or insufficient, simply because the later redundancies pushed the total over the threshold. This problem arises from the way in which the 90-day window operates. It is measured forwards and backwards from any given proposal, which means that an employer making a set of redundancies today must ask, “Did I make others 30, 60 or 89 days ago?” If so, they now need to be bundled into a new retroactive consultation process. Let us say that an employer consults properly with a small team—five redundancies, full process, representatives informed; and then some weeks later, it identifies the need to make redundancies in another part of the business. The total now crosses the threshold and suddenly, it faces legal uncertainty. Was the earlier consultation valid? This creates a legal trap for employers acting in good faith. It penalises those who move early, communicate openly and begin consultation promptly—the very behaviours the law should be encouraging.

This amendment would bring common sense to the process. It says that where meaningful consultation on a proposed dismissal has already begun, whether individually or collectively, those redundancies are not to be re-counted towards a later threshold. It prevents the law demanding the impossible: that employers retroactively reconvene consultations that were lawfully and properly carried out before a threshold was even triggered.

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[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral, for tabling these amendments. We have been listening to feedback from businesses on the clause as introduced. It requires collective consultation whenever 20 or more redundancies are proposed to be made across an employer’s organisation. Businesses told us that this would put them in a constant state of consultation. That is why we have made amendments in Clause 27 to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992; they aim to limit the burdens on employers while still expanding protections for employees, by ensuring that collective consultation is triggered when a threshold number of employees are proposed to be made redundant across an entire organisation.

The purpose of Clause 27 is to strengthen collective redundancy rights. The Government worked with stakeholders, including businesses, to address their concerns, which include not counting employees who are already being consulted on redundancy. We will set an appropriate threshold number in due course, via secondary legislation, following further engagement with stakeholders and a public consultation. We will look to balance the interests of both employers and employees when setting this threshold. Business stake- holders have welcomed the Government’s engagement on this clause and the opportunity to input to the threshold number via a public consultation.

Amendment 141BA seeks to exclude employers going through insolvency proceedings from the scope of a new trigger for collective consultation. I refer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, about how one expects an employer which is going insolvent to consult employees across the entire organisation. The Government believe that collective consultations are an important part of ensuring fairness and transparency between employers and employees. The benefits of consultations are felt by both. I heard what the noble Lord said, and I must say that employees are an important part of the organisation, as are the suppliers and the whole supply chain. Whatever is due to them should be paid, as is the same for other creditors.

The law already recognises that consultation may not always be fully practical in insolvency situations. That is why Section 188(7) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 includes a special circumstances defence for employers to depart from the collective redundancy obligations where it is genuinely justified and they have shown that they have taken all practical steps to comply. That flexibility should be applied on a case-by-case basis, not by removing that duty altogether.

Amendment 141C seeks to ensure that obligations are triggered only where redundancies are linked to a connected reason. We recognise that collective consultation will be most productive when workers and employers are focused on a common issue. However, employers and unions have told us that they believe it is not possible to define what is connected or “common reasons” in a suitable, clear way and that this could lead to more litigation. They tell us that attempting to restrict these new rights to connected redundancies in this way would create further burdens, rather than relieving them.

Amendment 141D seeks to exclude seasonal workers or those on fixed-term contracts from the scope of collective redundancy measures in the Bill. First, it may reassure the noble Lord to know that the expiry of a fixed-term contract at the end of its term does not trigger collective consultation obligations. Therefore, any fixed-term contract expiring at the end of its term will not add to the running total for the new threshold introduced for collective redundancies. We will consider further how employees on fixed-term contracts should be counted for the purposes of calculating an employer’s overall workforce that might be needed for the purposes of a national trigger for collective redundancies.

Amendment 141E aims to avoid an obligation to combine consultation by inserting two new subsections into Section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but new subsection (2A) already strikes the right balance here. Employers will be well placed to determine how to divide consultations appropriately where the national threshold has been met. We agree that each group should receive meaningful collective consultation and intend to set up guidance on this point in a new code of practice.

On Amendment 141F, it is already the case that where collective consultation on redundancies has already begun those redundancies will not be counted when determining whether subsequent new redundancies reach the threshold for collective consultation. We do not believe that this should be extended to exclude employees who have been individually consulted, as individual redundancy consultations have a different character and purpose from collective consultations.

On Amendment 142, we agree with the noble Lord that the threshold number that will trigger collective consultation should be proportionate and not overly and unnecessarily burdensome on employers. However, this amendment is unnecessary and disproportionate to address this issue.

On Amendment 142A, the term “establishment” has already been settled and is well understood in employment law. It works well in practice, so we consider that attempts to change the definition here would create confusion and lead to more litigation with very few clear benefits in return.

Finally, Amendment 142B would undo the Government’s extension of the protective award period to 180 days. This change was made following a full public consultation in October 2024 and has been carefully considered. It makes it harder for unscrupulous employers to price in non-compliance with their collective consultation obligations, as we saw in the case of P&O Ferries. The Government are committed to strengthening employment rights in this landmark legislation. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 141BA.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

The Minister started off by referring to government amendments. I just wonder which amendments he is referring to, because I am not aware that any other government amendments to Clause 57 are planned.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I apologise. I can be much clearer. I said the amendments tabled in the other place which are now under Clause 27.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

This has been a very valuable debate on a very important clause, Clause 27. I am very grateful to my noble friends Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, Lady Lawlor and Lady Coffey, who gave some practical examples, particularly of the unintended consequences of previous legislation. A lot of questions have been raised by the Minister. I do not want to prolong this debate now, so I summarise by saying that there are many questions that we still want to ask and we will be returning to this on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 141BA withdrawn.