Single Status of Worker

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery]

I fully agree with the sentiments outlined by my hon. Friend.

I will move on to a summary of the legal rights denied to people classified as workers under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Employment Rights Act 1996: protection against unfair dismissal after six months; the right to guaranteed hours; the right to maternity pay; the right to paternity leave; protection against unfair redundancy selection; the right to redundancy pay; access to statutory union recognition procedures; and the ability to request family-friendly flexible hours. Those are the rights that are being denied to workers at this moment in time.

What are we really asking for? There must be a renewed push for the full implementation of Labour’s manifesto commitment to merge the employed and worker tiers into one single legal category of employee with full legal employment rights. We need an end to the bogus self-employment tactics that unscrupulous employers deploy. The law should not recognise the legitimacy of any substitution clause.

The best means of achieving a clear distinction between a new employee with single status and those who are actually self-employed is to use the formula proposed in Lord Hendy’s single status Bill of 2023-24, which was introduced in the Lords. That would not only merge employees and workers into a single status of employee; legal employment rights would also end the bogus self-employment tactics that employers use to deny people the higher employee status. Under Lord Hendy’s Bill, a person would be deemed to be self-employed only if there was clear evidence that he or she was genuinely operating a business on his or her own account. Evidence such as business accounts, advertising and the number of clients or customers would be needed to prove true engagement for services by a self-employed person.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) for bringing this timely debate to the House. I also thank the Minister for her sterling work on the employment Bill. It was an excellent Bill. It could be a lot better; it could be a lot stronger—to be honest, we need an employment Bill 2.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the arguments against single worker status is that of flexibility, particularly for young people who want to work seasonally, as happens in my constituency in Cornwall? I therefore ask the Minister to confirm that that option still remains open if a person remains an employee under our new Employment Rights Act. There is misunderstanding about that, and it is really important that people realise that there is the option under the Act to retain flexibility without the need for self-employment status.