Zero-hours Contracts

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for securing this debate and endorse everything that she and others said. I shall just add a few thoughts.

Zero-hours contracts are in many ways a sign of our times. Changes in technology, business and society change the way we work. Advances in the strength and speed of broadband, the development in cloud computing technology, the ever-greater involvement of women in the workplace and a greater culture of flexibility and independence are transforming the workplace even from two decades ago.

One fact starkly encapsulates this change. The ONS estimates that 4.6 million individuals are now self-employed, rising by roughly 80,000 every three months. The public sector now numbers only slightly more than 5.3 million, and that number is in decline. It seems likely that the self-employed sector will overtake the public in the near future. I do not think that our workplace culture, from our management to our benefits system and our law, is anywhere near ready to deal with these seismic changes.

The legal and contractual way we manage the way we work needs to change. That includes the structures that govern the use and prevent the abuse of zero-hours contracts. As this debate has shown, such contracts are increasingly the reality of life for many people. The ONS says that they form 2.5% of our workforce, a deceptively small percentage masking the 800,000 individuals who earn their income this way. These figures are increasing rapidly: by more than 100,000 on the previous year.

As others have said, for some there are clear advantages of working this way. As my noble friend Lady Quin pointed out, students value the lack of set hours every week and the possibility of some control over when and how much they work. The growing band of the self-employed may equally rely on such flexible working to supplement their income as they seek to get a business or service off the ground.

However, acceptance of their basic utility cannot be a blanket endorsement for their free use. Most of us have come to this debate with examples of abuse in our minds, some of them shocking. It is worth repeating the malpractices in the Sports Direct business addressed in another place. A young woman had her hours cut for visiting her GP for a serious health complaint. The same punishment was meted out to multiple other staff for visiting grievously ill or dying relatives. There is a culture of fear that penalises illness.

Amazon has been accused of draconian practices in its warehouses, including GPS tracking its staff, timing their toilet breaks and imposing disciplinary action for any lost time, regardless of personal circumstances.

We would be wrong to think that these contracts are kept within the manual and service sectors. As I speak, a debate and action among many lecturers and teaching staff across Britain’s universities is taking place, with strike action called in many of them over exactly this issue. Other highly skilled professionals, such as radiographers and phlebotomists, are affected. If such staff—many with thousands of pounds of debt to pay for their high level of education—are unable to find secure and fair work once qualified, they may leave their profession, with damaging repercussions for their sector and, by extension, the country.

A job contract should be a relationship of dignity, the promise that one’s time and effort will be truly valued and fairly sold. As this debate has shown, too many zero-hours contracts threaten that dignity, destabilising the balance of power between employer and employee and allowing the whims of the business to force uncertainty of income and occupation.

The Government have taken some good steps, but I urge the Minister to tell us this evening that more is being done. Such contracts have a place, but I join my noble friend in urging that we regulate to minimise abuse and maximise value so that they provide the best opportunity for employer, employee and the country at large.