Seasonal Work

Antonia Bance Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. As I say, the onus is on all of us in this place to make sure that we listen, learn and advocate on others’ behalf.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I will give way one more time, and then I will make a bit of progress.

[Antonia Bance]

While we are being nice to the hon. Gentleman, I think with affection of the times we have sat together on the “Politics Midlands” sofa. For the benefit of the House, will he tell us how many zero-hours workers he has spoken to in preparation for his speech today?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I have spoken to a few zero-hours workers, and many of them are not happy with the Government’s policy, because it is going to make some of them unemployed.

Of course, the one thing that we do know about Labour Governments is that they know how to spend other people’s money. They have no idea how wealth is created and how the money that pays for our public services is generated in the first place, but they certainly know how to tax and spend. We have seen tax increases of £66 billion in just two Budgets, and tens of billions of pounds in additional debt. As Margaret Thatcher said,

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

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[Sarah Olney]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for sharing that knowledge with us all. Obviously, that is something to reflect upon. That is why we are pressing the Government. It is the Government who hold the purse strings and the pen here. It is up to them to make those advances on behalf of the country.

[Antonia Bance]

I will ask this question in a spirit of genuine curiosity, if I may. The trade deal done with the United States earlier in the year by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the former Business Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), guaranteed more than 200,000 jobs in the west midlands at Jaguar Land Rover and in its supply chain. What future does the hon. Member envisage for those jobs in her ideal scenario, where we go back into a customs union tomorrow? What would she say to my constituents and the people in our west midlands region about the prospects for those jobs? Has she thought about that and does she have a plan?

[Sarah Olney]

Our allies in America are becoming increasingly unreliable, and it is absolutely right that we should look elsewhere for our alliances, not just on trade but on defence. Recent moves just this week show us the shaky ground on which our agreements with the US are built. For the long-term future of the car industry in the west midlands and of our whole economy, we need to look to Europe and build up those relationships with our European neighbours, because our partnerships with our allies in the US are becoming increasingly unreliable. If I were one of the hon. Lady’s constituents, I would be looking to the Government to fully investigate other opportunities for trade as well as with the US.

More broadly, as we look at issues affecting the workforce, Liberal Democrats welcome the industrial strategy that this Government have put in place, alongside a funding boost for skills and training. However, this progress stops well short of the fundamental reform we need to see if we are to address the workforce shortages that many industries are facing. British businesses must be able to hire the people they need with the skills they need. A key cause of workforce shortages is ill health. To tackle this deeply entrenched problem, the Government must do more to invest not only in our NHS but in social care, so that people can get the healthcare they need and rejoin the workforce more quickly.

Any business will tell you that the apprenticeship levy does not work, despite the Government’s attempts at reform. Firms cannot get the funding they need to train staff, and hundreds of millions of pounds of funding is going unspent. The Liberal Democrats have long called for proper reform of the levy, replacing it with a wider skills and training levy that will give businesses real flexibility over how they spend money to train their staff. We were pleased to hear in the Budget that more details on the wider youth guarantee and the growth and skills levy package would be announced shortly, but can the Minister provide a timeline for when we can expect to see that detail?

Will the Minister also set out a timeline for the introduction of a youth mobility scheme, which would be beneficial to our economy, easing some of the burdens that the hospitality sector is facing? Businesses across the country, especially our small businesses, are struggling with unprecedentedly high costs, such as the Government’s unfair national insurance rise, sky-high commercial energy bills and a broken business rates system. Struggling businesses mean fewer jobs and lower pay, so it is absolutely clear that we must look for ways to support local businesses and all those who rely on them.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Let us take a look at the amendment which Mr Speaker has selected in the name of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s amendment tells us that he

“welcomes the policy paper”

on

“the plan for small and medium sized businesses, which sets out”—

wait for it—

“a comprehensive vision for productivity and success”.

[Interruption.] “Wow” indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) says from a sedentary position—she is less well trained in keeping her excitement levels under control. After 14 years of opposition and 18 months in government: a policy paper, a plan, a comprehensive vision—that is the sum of the contribution from the Treasury Bench towards these important and vital parts of the sector. The Government need to learn, I suggest, a key and important lesson: policy papers, plans and comprehensive visions deliver of themselves nothing. They create no jobs. They give no certainty. They provide no confidence to employees, employers, investors, entrepreneurs, innovators or consumers. Strategy and policy are not the same things. Vision and delivery are not two sides of the same coin.

The Government tell us in their amendment that their Employment Rights Bill

“will help season workers by bringing the UK’s outdated employment laws into the 21st century”.

Well, I would dispute first and foremost the idea that our employment laws are outdated; I think they have been organic and iterative over the decades, as one would expect. But the Government will not help seasonal workers if they cannot become seasonal workers because putative employers have neither the confidence to employ nor the headroom to create jobs and pay salaries. We are in fantasy land, with a fantasy idea about how to run an economy: we just legislate and, hey presto—pantomime-like—it happens. A strategy is published and—bingo!—it is all resolved. That is not the case.

This first example will, I am sure, be of enormous interest to the Labour party. Mark Fulton, a constituent of mine in Tolpuddle, is the landlord of the Martyrs Inn.

[Antonia Bance]

Lovely pub!

[Simon Hoare]

It is a lovely pub. The hon. Lady has been and has not been barred yet. Anybody who knows their trade union history, as I know she does, will know about the Tolpuddle martyrs in 1834. The pub is named after them.

[Antonia Bance]

Excellent sandwiches, too!

[Simon Hoare]

The pub was bought by the village for £500,000. It is a community asset-type pub. One significant stakeholder is the TUC itself, which decided that thirsty trade unionists might, after the martyrs memorial, enjoy a pint and, indeed, one of the excellent sandwiches that the hon. Lady has referenced.

After the Budget, Mark Fulton wrote to me:

“With the impact of this Budget, we risk losing these vital community hubs that are so important to our local life and economy.”

He, like others in all our constituencies, has been arguing for—and this freedom exists now we are outside the European Union—a bespoke reduction of VAT on pub sales, including the wet trade. We are asking publicans, who provide far more in the community hubs that Mark talks about, to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, when in essence they are paying a VAT rate of 20% compared with the 2% paid by supermarkets.

Business rates are clearly going to go up. That is, again, the fantasy world of this Government. One sector representative group after another tells the Government that, by the Government’s own figures and calculations, business rates will rise. “Oh no,” says the Minister. “Everybody else is wrong. I am right, because I am a Minister of the Crown.” This is the politics of the emperor’s new clothes. It is about time that one or two people on the Government Benches stood up and told the Treasury team that many of their policies leave the Government naked as they try to garner and foster a small, entrepreneurial business sector.

On employer national insurance and increases in the minimum wages, I quote Mark Fulton again:

“The latest rise risks opportunities for young people to be employed in our sector.”

He goes on to remind us that

“40% of young people begin their careers in hospitality—the sector plays a crucial role in training, upskilling and supporting social mobility.”

All that is put at risk. Surely, irrespective of geography or party affiliation, we should all be worried if a cogent argument is deployed about social mobility being reduced as a direct result of Government policy.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) said in his excellent speech, many of the harmful decisions taken in the recent Budget were not of the Government’s choosing. They were, in essence, a fulfilment of what the Chancellor rightly said to rebellious Back Benchers on welfare: “Rebel if you like, and we’ll abandon if we have to, but there’ll be a cost that will have to be paid. That cost will be taxed, and there will be a concomitant diminution in confidence among employers and customers.”

I could quote several publicans, but Barbara Cossins, who owns and runs the Langton Arms in Tarrant Monkton, would have my guts for garters if I did not take this opportunity to mention her. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) knows it well and says what a good pub it is. Barbara Cossins replicates many of the points made by Mark Fulton, but adds that rural pubs in tourist areas are particularly reliant on seasonal summer trade. They have to pay business rates, but their major competitor in those small rural settings, Airbnb, pays no business rates at all. It is an un-level playing field.

The Government had an opportunity—and they possibly still do, as the Finance Bill progresses—to try to level that playing field. We are asking these important sectors of our economy to go into bat for UK plc—to create the jobs that create the tax that funds our public services—but at every step and turn, this Government seem hellbent on hobbling and hamstringing them and tying their hands behind their backs.

The Government have the laudable aim of seeing housebuilding increase. Who does not? Again, that is an important part of social mobility—we know that a lot of seasonal jobs are created in the construction sector. However, Travis Perkins sent out a customer email just today that said that, from 1 January, supplier increases in prices will come in across the industry.

[Antonia Bance]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I will, but let me finish this point.

Roofing prices are up 7%, bricks 8%, blocks 9%, landscaping 8%, drainage 8%, and plaster, plasterboard and cladding 7%. Costs can be increased, and companies can absorb as much as they can, but at some point, as Travis Perkins points out, those increased costs can no longer be self-absorbed and must be passported off to the consumer. When the consumer’s costs go up, their margins of profit decrease, and their likelihood, potential and appetite for creating additional jobs disappears, like an early spring frost, arguably never to return.

[Antonia Bance]

I am so glad that someone has mentioned the construction industry. However, the hon. Member is talking not about seasonal jobs but about contract work. The key to maintaining sustained employment in the construction sector is having a strong pipeline of repeated projects so that people can build their skills and move on to the next contract, and then the one after that, to build a career in that way. Does he agree that the Government’s announcement of construction technical excellence colleges across the country—including close to my area, at the end of the new tramline in Dudley—£39 billion over the next 10 years for sustainable housebuilding, including social and affordable housing, and the largest sustained infrastructure funding in four decades, means that there will be a sustainable pipeline—

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[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

That may be the case, but the hon. Gentleman needs to read his data a little more accurately, because the number of young people on unemployment benefit has also gone up. I will repeat the figure: it has gone up 31% over the past year in the Gosport constituency alone. It is all very well swapping numbers across the Chamber, but these are lives, futures, and opportunities to get on a career ladder. The hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of his party for what it is doing to young people in my constituency.

The law of unintended consequences is at work. If local businesses are not giving opportunities to young people, that impacts the fabric of a town, including its social fabric. I recently received an email from one of the pubs in Gosport, which said:

“I can guarantee we will not be open this time next year if things continue. The Labour government is doing nothing to help the industry, the knock-on effect to the customers, staff, us, jobless, homeless…Sadly there will be no British culture left, and that is the very sad truth of it. It’s only the Government at the moment, who are gaining and laughing all the way to the bank. The place and the building and the customers—the whole aspect of the ‘local’ pub—will be no more.”

Then there is the hair and beauty salon—another fantastic industry, worth £5 billion and as much again in social value. According to the National Hair and Beauty Federation, the Government’s tax policies are forcing businesses to make very tough decisions, such as taking on fewer staff and fewer apprentices, and incentivising staff to become self-employed, without all the protections that the Government say they want to promote. The British Hair Consortium has warned of an existential drop-off in the number of apprentices entering the sector, while a beauty parlour in Gosport recently told me that it was not optimistic at all about the health of the sector over the next year, and that it does not think the Government are supportive of such businesses.

[Antonia Bance]

Does the hon. Member agree that the way to solve the crisis in apprenticeships in hair and beauty, as well as the crisis of bogus self-employment in hair and beauty, is to strengthen the single worker status?

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

It is all very well supporting the status of workers if there are jobs to offer people. If you have the status, but no job to attach it to, you feel like a bit of a lemon—as I am sure the hon. Lady might do after that question. She should listen to businesses in her constituency, because what businesses are saying is that they do not feel the Government are supporting them. Given her track record in her previous life, she should understand that the hair and beauty industry is one that disproportionately employs young people and women, and the businesses in that industry are very often women-owned. This Government are not friendly to women-owned businesses, either.

Retail, hospitality, and hair and beauty—taken together, the failure of those sectors will prove to be the death knell for our high street. The hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) spoke about how important it is to see his high street regenerated. If we are going to regenerate our high streets and see them as living, breathing, vibrant things, we need to reimagine them as places where we not only shop, but live, work, socialise and engage in leisure activity. The only way that is going to be delivered is if our high streets are filled with small independent traders, but since the Budget, over 1,000 pubs and restaurants have closed—the equivalent of two every day.

We on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee are seeing a similar trend in our work on grassroots music venues, which are still closing at the rate of two a week. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) said, those venues say that the outcome of the small business rates review is nothing short of a disaster for them. A cap of 15% this year is going up to a 40% cap in 2028-29—that is what they are getting after transitional relief, and that still will not be the end of it.

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[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

I beg the indulgence of the House for a moment to welcome the opening this week on Market Place in central Wednesbury of the new Walden restaurant. The menu looks absolutely delicious, and I very much look forward to sampling it soon.

I also want to mention Chris Birch from the Swift Group in Wednesbury, who I met yesterday—he was in town to go to the Goldman Sachs “10k Small Businesses” reception yesterday evening. Chris is the managing director of a family-owned business; he and his 36 employees make industrial and commercial kitchens, and he spoke to me about the help he has received with solar panels, which are going to be installed on his buildings—he has got a grant for that. He has also got a grant to help with the CRM through the Goldman Sachs scheme.

Chris spoke to me about his recent success in winning a major Government public procurement contract to supply every prison in the country with kitchen equipment. I was so pleased to hear that, and I know that the Minister for Small Business will be particularly glad to hear it as well. That is a huge, multimillion-pound contract won by a SME thanks to the targets that have been put in place to ensure SMEs are able to access public procurement. I know the whole House will be so very pleased to hear that that bit of the small business strategy is beginning to take effect, and I thank Chris for coming down to Parliament and telling me about it yesterday. I look forward to visiting him and his staff team soon.

In response to some of the points made in the debate, let me say that no Labour Member will apologise for being a Government in a hurry. Perhaps at times we do try to do many, many things at the same time, but there is a reason for that. Opposition will teach you about the powerlessness of being unable to effect the things you want to, and I can hear the frustration of Opposition Members—the regret they feel about their powerlessness in the face of a Government who are doing things that they do not like—but it would be good to hear some Conservative Members apologise for the damage caused over 14 years that led us to the situation we are in now.

[Lincoln Jopp]

I notice that there are quite a lot of people on the Public Gallery at the moment. The former Government left almost record levels of low unemployment, and unemployment has gone up in every month that this new Government have been in power. Would the hon. Lady like to answer how this Government in a hurry are heading in the right direction, and perhaps suggest when unemployment in her constituency and across the country might start to come down, rather than continually going up?

[Antonia Bance]

I am sure the hon. Member knows me well enough by now to know that I am not going to indulge in silly games. What I will say is that this Government’s priority is to get the economy growing. It is why we are investing in infrastructure. It is why we are rebuilding our public services. It is why we have put the greatest level of investment in our public infrastructure. It is why we are investing £39 billion in house building, as I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who is no longer in his place. It is why we are rebuilding our public finances. At times, this does involve some difficult choices, and some that not everyone may always agree with, but we are making the fair and right choices: asking those with the broadest shoulders to bear the heavier load, rebuilding public services, helping with the cost of living—and, yes, clearing up the Tory mess.

We are cutting borrowing more than any other country in the G7, leading to a doubling of the headroom to £21.7 billion. We have the highest levels of public investment in four decades. We are backing entrepreneurs and fast-growing companies with tax breaks to list and to hire here in the UK. Our planning changes will back the builders. Devolution for local growth will mean that local growth spreads outside London and the south-east—something so very close to my heart and to the hearts of many in this place. We are proud to be putting up the national minimum wage so that people have more money in their pockets, because the core problem affecting the retail and hospitality industries is that people do not have money in their pockets to spend on our high streets. Getting wages going up—and they are going up faster than prices—is the way to have people with more money in their pockets.

[John Slinger]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Did she notice yesterday that the Leader of the Opposition said that she did not want the national minimum wage to increase at all? Does my hon. Friend think that indicates that there might be a cold freeze in the air?

[Antonia Bance]

My hon. Friend reads my mind, as that is the point I was just about to make. I was so sad to see the Leader of the Opposition abandon what was one of the better policies of the last Government: that there should be a fast-rising national minimum wage at all times. I agreed with the last set of Prime Ministers before this one on very little, but one thing I did agree with them on was that it was right to maintain the machinery of the Low Pay Commission—a tripartite body where unions, businesses and academics come together with Government to look at the prevailing conditions in the country. Those at the commission get out there and visit businesses of all types in all regions, including hospitality and retail, and set the national minimum wage at a level that would work for workers and for businesses. It is an approach that this Government have continued, and I am sad to see that the Leader of the Opposition intends to abandon it and to abandon low-paid workers to frozen pay.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that under the last Conservative Administration, the minimum wage rose at the same time as we created 4 million new jobs and left unemployment at a record low? The difference now is that in only 17 months, unemployment has risen by 280,000 as a direct result of her Government’s policies. Our caution on the minimum wage is that it is now at a level, with their economic policies, that means they are pricing younger people out of work.

[Antonia Bance]

I would not wish to try the hon. Member’s generosity, but it seems to me that I have already been generous in my tribute to the work of the previous Government in continuing to maintain the machinery of the Low Pay Commission—something that this Government have continued—and in continuing to make sure that the national minimum wage rose. I will admit that many people in my position feared greatly in 2010 that the Conservatives would come into government—admittedly, in coalition—and immediately tear up the national minimum wage. The fact that they did not was a great thing. The pinning to two thirds of male median wages was a good thing, and I am so sad that the Leader of the Opposition has departed from the consensus on this point.

The national minimum wage is set by a tripartite body. It is not too high, because businesses were in the room arguing their case. The commissioners went out on visits around the country to look at the prevailing economic conditions. The wage is set by consensus using the tripartite machinery, and it is important that we all understand that that has served this country well and has made extreme low pay a thing of the past. I am sad that the Conservatives have departed from this consensus.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point about the need to see the minimum wage increase—people who live in my constituency of Harrogate and Knaresborough simply cannot afford to live or work in the area, and that is a real problem—but does she accept that it is not just the minimum wage that is the issue for employers, but the combination of increasing employer NICs and business rates? When I go out and speak to people, that is what they are worried about. It is not necessarily about the minimum wage, but the cocktail of measures that the Government have introduced.

[Antonia Bance]

The hon. Member need have no fear about the extent to which I talk to businesses in my constituency and more widely. I see at least one employer every single week—often not in retail and hospitality, as I represent a manufacturing constituency. I recognise the concerns, but I would say that in this country we need to have a functioning set of public services. We need an NHS that is not asking people to wait as long as it was when we took up office. In my constituency, waiting lists for those waiting over a year for an operation have fallen by 45%. That is absolutely incredible, and it was achieved because of the difficult decisions that our Chancellor of the Exchequer took to put money into the NHS. I know that many people regret that decision. They wish the ends—the reduced waiting lists—but they do not will the means. On this side, we will not dodge hard choices; we will the ends and we will the means.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is being incredibly generous in giving way. Given the focus on cutting waiting lists and tackling NHS challenges, how does the hon. Lady feel about the employer national insurance contribution changes, which also fell on GP surgeries, care homes and children’s hospices? Those changes are proving to be an enormous burden on the NHS and are sucking up a lot of the extra money that the Government purport to be putting into it.

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[Antonia Bance]

The hon. Lady makes her point well, and she has made it; there is no need for me to respond.

After 14 years of flatlining wages, wages are now growing faster than prices. That is incredibly important. I was so proud to see wages go up by more in the first 10 months of this Government than they went up in the first 10 years of the last one. The Budget did more on the cost of living, whether it be through frozen fares, frozen prescriptions, frozen fuel duty, £150 off energy bills or—my favourite policy—thousands of pounds in the pockets of the poorest families in the UK. They will spend that money on high streets, like those in my constituency: Crankhall Lane and Union Street in Wednesbury, and our shopping centre in central Tipton. That is where low-income families spend any extra pounds on food and on stuff for their kids.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being characteristically courteous. She is entirely correct in outlining the choices and some of the policies that her Government have made, but does she not agree that those choices and policies will be delivered on the back of higher taxation? As a result, employers have less money to employ people, so the proceeds of growth do not mean that there will be better public services. The hon. Lady is right that her Government are spending more money, but that is on the basis of taxation, because of the policies that her Government are advancing, and not on the basis of growth or entrepreneurship.

[Antonia Bance]

I thank the hon. Member for his kind words, and for his intervention. It is absolutely clear that alongside investment in public services, there is investment in infrastructure, in house building, and in making sure that this is a good country in which to grow and scale a business. I am glad of those things. I am also glad that we took action to ensure that the poorest families are able to feed all of their children. The way to make the high street thrive is for people to have more money to spend. Let me repeat the statistic mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger). There are more people aged between 18 and 24 in work this year than there were a year ago, but NEET numbers are still too high. People familiar with the constituency I represent will not be surprised to hear that they are particularly high in my corner of the Black Country. This is in no small part due to the failures of the Conservatives in government, not least during the pandemic, when they kept the schools closed but allowed pubs to open.

Opposition Members keep calling on us to engage in further welfare reform to cut the welfare bill. It is interesting to me that when we do so—when we announce a clear, costed, proven, evidence-based plan to get young people back into work, as we did this weekend—they do not like it. It feels like history repeating itself. I remember the future jobs fund from 15 or 16 years ago, and the way it gave hope to a generation of young people kicked out of work as a result of a global financial crisis, through no fault of their own. Hundreds of thousands of them got jobs through the future jobs fund. It was particularly effective for the hardest-to-help young people, and in tough labour markets, in places like the one that I represent, but it was canned, basically on day one, by a Conservative Chancellor. I am so glad that our Work and Pensions Secretary is building on the legacy of the future jobs fund to help a new generation of young people.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Much like my hon. Friend’s constituency, mine relies on its manufacturing industry, and our apprenticeship guarantees and support will make a huge difference to people there. However, having listened to my hon. Friend’s history lesson, I am thinking back to the youth training scheme. I recently met someone who did a YTS apprenticeship at the age of 16, and is now about to take over as chief operating officer of the company for which he works. That is the difference that a good apprenticeship and investment in young people can make.

[Antonia Bance]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, as I have done since the first time we worked together, more than 20 years ago.

It is interesting to hear the advocacy for welfare reform. Today we have heard a lot about the difficulties with business rates, and I will not rehearse the arguments—they have been well made by my friends on the Front Bench—about the action that this Government are taking on business rates to help the hospitality and retail sectors, but I will make this point. We have heard repeatedly from Opposition Members that they would like to abolish business rates for retail and hospitality, yet they do not have a plan to do that. To pay for it, they will somehow find £47 billion worth of “savings”. The majority of that will come through indiscriminate cutting of the welfare budget. It is not clear to me how that is a credible plan, when the annual welfare bill went up by £114 billion on their watch.

Of course, Members would not expect me to speak in a debate like this without talking about my pride in our Employment Rights Bill and our plan to make work pay. I am proud beyond words to speak for hospitality workers and for seasonal workers who will benefit from that Bill. Earlier this week, I asked colleagues in the trade union movement to run the numbers, based on Government statistics, on how many workers will benefit from the reduction of the waiting period for protection from unfair dismissal from two years to six months: 6.3 million workers will benefit from that—from protection against being unfairly dismissed, without due process, for reasons that are not good enough—and 36% of hospitality workers will benefit as well. I am so very glad that we are making rules that will benefit disproportionately the workers most likely to be exploited at work.

[John Slinger]

My hon. Friend, who continues to make an excellent speech, has referred to unfair dismissal. I think it worth putting on record that much of the debate over recent hours, days and weeks has implied that employers will not be able to dismiss people. That is simply not the case. What we are talking about here is unfair dismissal, not dismissal. This is a right that absolutely has to be at the heart of the biggest uplift in workers’ rights that any Government have introduced for a generation, or perhaps more.

[Antonia Bance]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Employers may continue to dismiss, as long as they do so for fair reasons and following a fair process, and good employers already do that.

My favourite measures in the Employment Rights Bill—this could be a very long speech, but I will bring it to a close—[Interruption.] I will! I will just say this: I am so proud of the ban on zero-hours contracts, and I suggest to my hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench that we should have a nice short reference period for that when the consultation begins. I am so proud of the plans on sick pay, and on fire and rehire. I am so proud of our enhanced parental leave, the fair pay agreement and the school support staff negotiating body.

In conclusion, I often say that my goal is for people in my constituency to be able to take the family out for a curry on Friday night and not worry about the cost. I want that for all workers, including the hospitality workers who are serving and cooking that curry, and the seasonal workers who make it such a pleasure to be on the beach at Blackpool or down in Brighton, having that curry. That is why we need a Government focused on growth, new rights for every worker in the Employment Rights Bill, and a higher national minimum wage.