Baroness Prosser
Main Page: Baroness Prosser (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Prosser
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the proposal by Citizens Advice that the current five employment rights enforcement agencies be merged into a single fair employment agency.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, the Government are currently reviewing their workplace rights compliance and enforcement arrangements to see whether there is scope to make them more streamlined and effective. We will announce our initial findings later this year.
Baroness Prosser
I thank the Minister for that reply. Clearly, I welcome the establishment by the previous Government of the single pay and work rights helpline. However, does the Minister agree that taxpayers’ money could be saved and the service to vulnerable workers improved if that helpline was administered by one helpline or agency? Further, will she explain how the service provided by the current helpline could be widened to enable it to address the issue of entitlement to paid holidays? That issue was found by government-funded research to be by far the most common employment-related complaint brought by clients of the citizens advice bureaux. Currently, it can be resolved only by application to the Employment Tribunal Service.
Baroness Wilcox
I think the first question was to do with Citizens Advice. The review of our compliance and enforcement arrangements is ongoing and part of it is to look at the different enforcement structures that bodies such as Citizens Advice have put forward. The answers from that will come to us in October. On holiday entitlements and workers with holiday pay problems—I imagine that that is what the noble Baroness is really getting at here—at the moment, advice on holiday pay is available on the Government’s Directgov website. ACAS offers pre-claim conciliation. Then and only then, if all else fails, do you go to a tribunal. I hope that that is helpful.