UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the Lord for that question. He makes several very interesting observations. The reason we have published this industrial strategy is what I mentioned earlier about the global trading environment, but we also have a very clear goal. We want to drive growth. I know many noble Lords have mentioned it, but it is still the number one mission of this Government, and we can achieve that only by better and increased investment. The noble Lord is right. Previous Governments have published investment strategies, but why is this investment strategy different? Past growth plans have often been felt by businesses as being done for them, so it looks as though government knows better and this is what the industrial strategy is for, whereas with this industrial strategy, we work with businesses every step of the way. We have meetings with business representative organisations—in fact, I have learned a new word, “BROs”; we work with trade unions and investors so that this strategy is not only a government strategy but a whole-of-business strategy. That is the first difference. The second difference is that we have listened to the needs of businesses, the need for long-term certainty. Every business that I have spoken to wants three things: certainty, stability and less regulation. That is what the Government are trying to solve through their strategy to reduce regulation by 25%. This is still very much a work in progress, but it is what we are aiming for. We hope that this strategy is different from previous strategies.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I want to ask the Minister about the apparently “Cinderella” areas of retail, hospitality and tourism, which have all been hit terribly hard by the Chancellor’s NICs hikes, especially the reduction in the NICs threshold to £5,000, which has led to shop and cafe closures in my home area of Wiltshire. There is barely a reference to their contribution in the industrial strategy, yet in the Conservative and Blair years there was an understanding of the innovation, growth and jobs for which retail, hospitality and tourism were responsible, with minimal cost to the Exchequer. Can the Minister explain why they have been abandoned?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

We are not abandoning any industry or sector. This strategy identifies the top-growing sectors, the IS-8 as we call them, which make up 30% of the total business sector in this country but contribute some 60% of the national economy. Obviously, it is the Government’s position to support them. As for retail, hospitality and others, we have other support plans in place; for example, the business rates scheme.

Let us not beat around the bush: the high street is changing and people’s shopping habits have changed but, at the same time, we need to revitalise the high street. Hopefully, when we publish the small business strategy in due course, it will cover how we will revitalise the high street. In other parts of the hospitality sector, be it cafés, restaurants or pubs, it is a very mixed picture. Some pubs are closing down, but not because we have come into government; they were closing down way before then. In the case of the pub in my village—a very small village pub—a year ago it seemed only a matter of time before it closed down. It was sold to a young couple, they changed it and now it is flourishing; you cannot even get a table there. So, pubs need to change.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 65A refers to

“any other sector where the core duties require in-person collaboration, physical presence, or real-time operational responsiveness”.

That could well be argued to be teaching, of course.

As my noble friend Lord Katz said, flexible working is not just working at home—it has a whole range of other alternatives and ways of doing it. The lack of the ability to work flexibly has real consequences for the delivery of a profession that I know a lot about, which is teaching. Some 76% of teachers are women. The biggest proportion of teachers who leave the profession every year are women in their 30s.

I declare an interest in that I am chairing the commission on teaching. We have commissioned some independent research on this issue from the Key foundation, which finds that women in their 30s with children leave teaching in huge numbers. It was 9,000 last year, the biggest number on record of women leaving the profession. They leave when they have children because their requests to work part-time or flexibly are denied.

The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, asked whether employers were just routinely refusing flexible working. Well, in education, yes, they are. The rate of flexible working among graduate professions is about 46%. In teaching, 2% of teachers last year asked whether they could work flexibly. Those requests are routinely denied by employers who have a very poor understanding of what flexible working involves and, frankly, by employers who refuse flexible working because of a one-size-fits-all policy and then find that the teachers who are so precious to them leave the profession.

Last week I spoke to a young teacher with two children who asked whether she could have two registration periods off a week—she would make up the time in other ways—because her youngest child, who is three, was finding it difficult to settle at nursery. That was refused and she has now given in her resignation.

Work on this has been done by the Key foundation and by the Missing Mothers report from the New Britain Project, authored by Anna McShane. When she looked at the reasons for women leaving the profession in their 30s, she found that overwhelmingly they leave because they do not feel that they can manage the demands of the job full time and the demands of bringing up a family. The main recommendation in that report was that flexible working should be supported and encouraged. So, if an amendment that refers to

“any other sector where the core duties require in-person collaboration, physical presence, or real-time operational responsiveness”

were to be included in the Bill, it would be used up and down the land by education employers as a “get out of jail free card” for flexible working requests. As the Minister said, that means all sorts of things, including the right to flexible working—and the DfE defines flexible working as flexible and part-time.

We have to get out of the idea that there are whole swathes of the economy—education being the one I know most about—where flexible working is just not possible. We have to start thinking differently about this. If this amendment were agreed, it would make doubly difficult the right to request and to engage in flexible working, which would have such an effect on retaining teachers in the profession and on raising educational standards in our schools. So I think it is a very poor amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will ask one simple question: what is flexible working? Perhaps the Minister could reply to that. I have a lot of sympathy with what has been said; I have always encouraged people who want to work part time, dual workers and so on. I have worked at a senior level in business and in government, both as a civil servant and as a Minister, and the truth is that you have to show some flexibility when things are difficult. That is what my noble friends are trying to capture in the amendment they have put forward.

We need to try to find a way through on this, to encourage flexible working. However, we also have to consider the needs of the employer. That will be true in the business sector—which I know—in the enterprise sector, in the charities sector and of course in government. It is a very important debate and any light that can be thrown on it by either the Minister or my noble friend Lord Murray, with his legal hat on, would be very helpful.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, this debate has been more interesting than I expected. In looking at Amendment 65, we should acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, with his former ministerial responsibilities, had considerable interaction with the services that he described, so we should take him seriously.

In Amendment 65A, he sets out certain sectors. However, in seeking to deliver unambiguity, I think he has introduced new ambiguity. Sector-specific exemptions are bringing their own problems. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Murray, what a journalist is. Is it a card-carrying member of the NUJ or is it someone who blogs and calls themselves a journalist, or a group of people? That is just one example of the ambiguity that a sector system brings in. So I am drawn to the idea that we have something like subsection (1ZA) in Clause 9(3).

If noble Lords are worried about the wooliness of it—I am not sure that was the word that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, used—we can work to firm that language up. But to describe the job, rather than try to think of every single job title we want to include in primary legislation, is a better way of going about it. If the description is too difficult to nail, I am sure it is not beyond the wit of us all to find a better way of describing it.

Had the noble Lord, Lord Murray, been here a little earlier, he would have heard the shortcomings of the tribunal system being well exercised, and some comments from the noble Lord to the effect that the MoJ is looking at it. To return to that point, in my speech on the last group I asked for a meeting, so perhaps the Ministers could facilitate a meeting with interested parties on the Bill and the MoJ to find out how it is moving forward on tribunals; we need some line of sight on that. It is something of a capitulation if we say, “The tribunals are no good, so we’re not going to make the right legislation because they won’t be there to uphold it”. We have a duty to make the right legislation, to put it in place and to make sure that the tribunals can deliver.

Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question and for all the work he has done in the actuarial sector itself. Let us not get ahead of ourselves. The Government are committed to publishing a draft Bill in this Session of Parliament. Until such time, it is important that we do not pre-empt the contents of the Bill.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, the Chancellor has written to other regulators encouraging them to look at ways to help the economy to grow and be more competitive. What are the plans in this area for encouraging growth and competitiveness?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. It is important that, whichever regulator we have, it is effective. Currently, the regulator has some weaknesses in its powers; the new regulator will, I hope, address those weaknesses. It is important that, when anyone looks at the accounts, investors have confidence to make investment decisions. That will drive business and growth.

Migration and Border Security

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

First, on that point, legislation was passed in 2014 by the then Conservative Government, which the then Labour Opposition supported. I was the shadow Minister. It was to ensure that we crack down on illegal working in a range of establishments, for two reasons. First, individuals who are here illegally should not be exploited by unscrupulous employers. Secondly, in employing people illegally, those unscrupulous employers are undercutting the ability to pay decent wages and give decent conditions of service to people who work legally, while undercutting the costs of other businesses. Therefore, it is not appropriate. The Government are trying to up that, building on the legislation that was passed. I hope that I have noble Lords’ support in this. We are also looking at building on that legislation to ensure that we can take further steps accordingly.

The noble Baroness also mentions two aspects. One is asylum hotels. This is difficult, but it is the Government’s intention to end the use of asylum hotels at an early opportunity. We will be progressing that. At the moment, give or take one or two hotels, we are at the same number that the Government had in July, but we are aiming to reduce that significantly, because it is a cost to the taxpayer and, as the noble Baroness says, it is not conducive to the good health and well-being of those people who are in our care for that period of time. Again, that is a long-term objective. On her first point, we are trying to speed up the asylum system in an accurate way to ensure that asylum claims are assessed quickly. Then, where they are approved, individuals can have asylum, and, where they are not approved and people have no right of abode, they can be removed. At the moment, that system has no energy in it, to the extent that we want it to have. We are trying to put some energy into that system.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The Minister mentioned the work of the Migration Advisory Committee, looking at skills. It rather sounded as though we would be allowing additional people into the UK on its recommendations, whereas I believe the focus should be on upskilling UK young people and UK unemployed so that they can fill the skills gaps that we have. The shadow Minister made a point about the winding down of the scheme to encourage integration in the UK and to encourage people to learn proper English, as you see in other countries. Could the Minister kindly answer the question that was asked?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

On the first point, I hope that I can reassure the noble Baroness that the purpose of the Government discussing this aspect with the Migration Advisory Committee is to look at the question of skills shortages and where individuals potentially can add to the gross domestic product and contribute to society as a whole. There may well be some skills shortages, but we are reviewing that in relation to the potential for a range of matters. This will be allied with the White Paper, which looks at the level of net migration and how the net migration target that was set previously is managed by the new Government.

The noble Baroness’s point about integration is extremely important. Let me take away the points that she and the noble Lord made and give them both a fuller answer as to the outcome of that discussion.

Retail Crime: Effects

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannett of Everton, whom I regard as a noble friend—not in the sense used in our House but in the sense used outside it. We worked together at Tesco for many years. In that time, Tesco grew rapidly. That helped me as an executive, but it also helped the noble Lord, who often topped the table in new trade union membership as a result. He and Sir Terry Leahy had a shared love of Everton’s premier football team. Few people know that the packaging for Tesco value lines were blue and white because of that love.

I will talk about two things this afternoon: first, and very positively, the need to deal much better with retail crime and my support for that; and secondly, but only briefly as it is a wider issue, my concern about the negative impact of the Budget on retail.

Retail crime was a major concern when I worked in the retail sector—now 10 years ago—and the work we did together in the British Retail Consortium and with the police made a huge social contribution. We invested a lot in security measures and our security suppliers built up export-earning businesses overseas. At that time a lot of the theft was by individuals stealing to feed their drug habit. I remember the sadness of arresting such people when I started my Tesco life in a store in Brixton, which was cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika. Then, it was bottles of Nescafé down women’s trousers and cuts of meat smuggled out with the help of a blind eye at the check-out, but now the position is much worse. Organised crime groups are increasingly involved in systemic, large-scale retail theft, amply justifying a major initiative to tackle this.

I welcome the £7 million in the Budget for funding both the national policing intelligence unit, Opal, to combat organised gangs that target retail, and the National Business Crime Centre on prevention and the tackling of crime. However, this is funding over three years. It does not feel enough, given not only the ever-growing risk and the way gangs in one area use the proceeds of crime to expand into other areas but their growing use of knives and violence. My noble friend Lord Kirkham described this extremely graphically.

The truth is that retail crime in the UK has risen sharply, as the noble Lord, Lord Monks, explained. The graph in the excellent Library note shows how seriously the number of offences has increased, and we know that even that is an underestimate. According to the BRC, retail crime cost businesses £1.8 billion in 2023, which was double the previous year’s figure. Thefts rose to 16.7 million, up from 8 million. That is 45,000 theft incidents every day. Equally concerning is the incidence of violence against retail workers. It has skyrocketed, rising by 50% to 1,300 incidents a day. The noble Lord, Lord Hannett, explained the compelling numbers in this area.

I could see this coming during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in 2021 and although I worked well from the Back Benches with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and secured some changes to sentencing guidelines, I would have liked Labour support for an actual offence of the kind that we introduced at that time for health workers. It was a missed opportunity, so I am delighted by the Government’s promise to create a new offence for assaulting retail workers. Please can they advance this quickly and introduce the necessary Bill? I believe that they will also expand electronic tagging and the use of facial technology.

The House of Commons is crying out for meaty Bills that contribute to growth rather than devoting so much time to debates, so I look forward to hearing the Minister’s plans for legislation and enforcement, and the £200 threshold. Will he agree to look at deterrent tariffs for this new assault offence and for retail crime more generally? These need to be tough enough to attract police time and police priority. One of my sons works for the Met, although not in retail, so I know how these things work. Moreover, we need dedicated resources for the police to address retail crime and capture the gangs. We are crying out for much-improved police response times to show that the damaging criminal behaviour seen in retail is taken seriously. I will strongly support tough measures.

This brings me on to the negative. Noble Lords will know that retail is vital to the UK economy and our high streets. It employs 3 million hard-working people and 2.7 million in the supply chain, contributing over £100 billion annually to GDP. What is so disappointing is that the Budget has created unmanageable costs for a sector which employs millions of people and yet runs on very low margins. The new policies are estimated by the BRC to add costs of £7 billion a year by 2025, threatening jobs, insolvencies and more inflation. That is £2.2 million on national insurance, £2.7 million on the national living wage increase and—another slap in the face—a packaging levy of £2 billion. Of course, retailers’ rates bills are also expected to increase in April. This does not leave much for the security measures that the industry needs to tackle crime, which cost it £1.2 billion in 2023—up from £720 million the previous year.

This is a very important and timely debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, for his eloquence, his passion and his work on “freedom from fear” and for bringing us all together today. I trust that it will lead to early action.