Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, for bringing this into our debate but, candidly, his Amendment 240 is truly extraordinary. The only success Flying Pickets had was a number one in 1983 with the single “Only You”—and, by the way, that was a copy from the great band Yazoo. The idea that we would go back to flying pickets is just extraordinary.

Some 45 years on, no sensible Labour Peer has put this forward until tonight. I genuinely find it astonishing that we are here still debating the idea that it is democracy for a strike to be called somewhere else all of a sudden and for you to go off somewhere else for a dispute you are not part of.

While I appreciate the erudite speech we have heard tonight, going back to the real substance and principle of this, this is an important Bill. I do not agree with a lot of it, but I find it extraordinary that we are going back in time when this country actually needs to move forward in modern industrial relations. I regret the amendments that have been tabled today.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak against this amendment very briefly. I agree wholly with my noble friend Lady Coffey. I also agree that the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, was very persuasive, compelling, detailed and comprehensive, but completely wrong. It would be a disaster for our country if we were to go back to the era of Saltley coke works, Grunwick, the disaster inflicted on the automotive industry, flying pickets and the closed shop.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Coffey

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that our very serious concerns about this clause would be assuaged were the Government to have properly followed Cabinet Office protocols and updated expeditiously the impact assessments, which are normally present in Bills of this size and magnitude?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend. I have tried to get deposited in the Library, or sent through some other form of communication to all Peers, a response I have received from the Secretary of State on this matter. By the way, I have still not received a reply from the Cabinet Secretary, who is supposed to uphold Cabinet Office guidelines. In essence, the answer came back: “We’ll do a full impact assessment once the Bill is completed”. We know that industry is looking for that. We have no idea when these regulations will be introduced; I assume that they could already have started the consultation. It is important that the Secretary of State—I am trying to remember; I do not have a photographic memory—basically said, “We haven’t really changed that much”. That is where we are. I will continue to make the point. My noble friend is right and reminds me to chase the Cabinet Secretary.

Rail (East Anglia)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Coffey

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dr Coffey]

That is a fair point. We have all been united in our vision of wanting better services for our constituents. We may have been less united, in our discussions with Network Rail and LEPs, on what that meant. I would like to think that the intentions of hon. Members across the counties have always been clear. This is not about trying to reduce services for our constituents, but improving them.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She has not mentioned the pre-eminent city in Cambridgeshire—Peterborough, as opposed to Cambridge. I jest. Does she agree that the great advantage of this prospectus, apart from its ambition, is that it is comprehensive and holistic? It integrates different modes of transport. It is not just a list of discrete transport schemes. There are references to the Felixstowe to Nuneaton freight corridor, taking the pressure off the A14 and the A11, and traffic movements to Stansted airport, all of which show that the prospectus is ambitious and, in the long run, will be good for the taxpayer as well as the local people in East Anglia.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and reinforces the point that investment in our rail infrastructure could mean that our region, rather than other parts of the country, can be a huge multiplier. The idea that people want to travel up to Lowestoft by car to have a look at investment is ridiculous. Along the east Suffolk line, sitting in a one-carriage train, perhaps after making the connection at Ipswich, is not always the most attractive way to arrive for an investors’ meeting.

For a quicker service on the great eastern main line, we need to speed up the trains. One way to do that is to focus on level crossings. I will refer to this again when I come on to the issue of branch lines, but we need to ensure that there are stretches where trains are unhindered. We also need to open up capacity at Liverpool Street station. Certain things have to happen before any of that can take place. Crossrail will have to be completed, which we hope will happen by 2018. We have to continue the work at Bow Junction to ensure that those lines can be used and that we get those slots. Peak services along the great eastern main line are already at full capacity. Although freight currently runs on the line, it does not do so during peak times. Extra capacity, therefore, is critical.

I do not pretend to be a rail specialist. I do not know the difference between four-tracking, the clever loops that Network Rail is now thinking about, or the extra bit of track that is needed in that stretch near Chelmsford. What I do know, however, is that there are clever brains working on solutions that will mean that we can open up vital capacity. By doing so, we can increase reliability and speed.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Coffey

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I believe that this is a courageous Budget. It is innovative and ingenious, notable for the steady stewardship of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We need to take a strategic overview. The recession from which we have emerged is a deleveraging recession, a paying down debt rather than a destocking recession, so some of the normal policy prescriptions on fiscal and monetary policy have proved useless in the face of that. That makes the imperatives of long-term reform of the public services, particularly education and welfare, tax cuts and supply-side reforms, including the reduction in taxes and the regulatory burden, even more important.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is making a strong point about deregulation. I would point to paragraph 2.238 of the Red Book, which shows that the Government are committed to scrapping or improving 84% of health and safety regulation. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is the right approach—focusing on what is most risky as opposed to applying all sorts of regulations that are no longer necessary, valid or helpful?

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which explains why this Budget has had consensus support and been viewed from a positive perspective by business organisations across the country.

We should be talking a paradigm that involves tax and spending, not just tax. There has been too much focus in the last few months on cutting or increasing taxes, when we should be talking about expenditure. Are we really asking the public to believe that a net 6.8% reduction in public expenditure over the comprehensive spending review period is enough to rebalance the economy when we saw a 53% real-terms growth in public expenditure between 2000 and 2010? We were spending £450 billion just 10 years ago on public services, and we are now spending £702 billion. Are we getting value for money for our constituents and our taxpayers?

Of course, Conservative Members will not let the electorate forget the disastrous and poisonous economic legacy left to us by the Labour party—to the extent that we have to pay £120 million a day in debt interest and are £47.6 billion a year in debt this year. As I said earlier to my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary, had Labour remained in office, they would have had to borrow another £200 billion. They left us a structural debt in a period of economic growth. They left us a situation in which individual net borrowing doubled in just six years, while we have massive sectoral imbalances and a systemic dependency on debt. That was Labour’s legacy.

Labour Members still have no economic credibility; if they were a party with a cogent and coherent narrative on the economy, they would pledge to reinstate the 50p tax rate and reverse the policy on freezing age-related allowances. They do neither because they are opportunistic and they know that if they were elected to government, they would need the money.