Employment Rights Bill (Second sitting)
Justin Madders ExcerptsTuesday 26th November 2024
(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Chair
I remind Members that questions are not limited to what is in the brief, but your questions must be within the scope of the Bill. In line with this morning’s session, for each panel of witnesses I propose to call the shadow Minister to ask the first question, then the Minister, and then the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. I will then go back and forth between the Government and Opposition sides. Anyone who wants to ask a question should catch my eye. We must stick to the cut-off times specified in the programme order, so I will interrupt questioning if necessary. I remind Members that they must declare any relevant interests both when speaking in Committee and when asking questions. We are being broadcast.
Before we start hearing from witnesses, do any Members wish to make a declaration of interests in connection with the Bill?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my membership of Unite and the GMB.
The Minister for Equalities (Dame Nia Griffith)
I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of USDAW, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.
Greg Smith
Q
Neil Carberry: I will not repeat what Allen said about the aggregate cost of the Bill, but clearly it is an enormous piece of legislation, coming at a time when businesses—particularly consumer-facing businesses—have been through the pandemic, are carrying more debt and are struggling to drive the growth that the Government want. Among my members, as with many business organisations, the tone of the debate about the Bill was changed by the Budget. That was particularly around the shift on the threshold, which directly pushes up the costs of all of the people for whom an employer’s decision to hire is maybe more marginal. I associate myself with Allen’s comments on that.
More specifically, for those who are not familiar with it, our sector places 1 million people into new permanent jobs every year, but it placed 1 million people as temporary workers into workplaces today. So I come at this from the point of view of what do those people need to have good, positive, healthy working lives. Colleagues may remember the attempt to change the conduct regulations to allow agency workers to replace striking workers, which we opposed, because at the REC we believe in protecting temps and putting them in the right space.
The most important thing for our sector is the proposal to apply the same tests and rules on zero-hours contracts to agency workers as to directly employed workers. I will be really frank about that: there is a power in the Bill, we have been through the consultation, and we cannot see how any of the approaches in the consultation work. For some of the reasons that Allen has set out, agency workers are well protected. They benefit from the Employment Agencies Act 1973, from their own set of conduct regulations—the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, passed by the last Labour Government—and from the Agency Workers Regulations 2010.
There is a lot we can do to deliver the Government’s commitment to more certainty for agency workers—it is just not by applying the powers in the Bill. We fear that the Government are trying to avoid direct employers moving to agency to avoid the powers in the Bill. A few direct employers doing that is not worth damaging the employment prospects of 1 million people. For instance, if a supply teacher in a school has worked the autumn term to cover a sickness absence, and then the absent teacher comes back, we cannot see how giving that supply teacher a right to a contract from that school is good for the school or the supply teacher. Ultimately, we think that we will just see a move to using more overtime and lengthening the working hours of existing staff. That will be net negative for the workforce.
I think there are things that we can do on the zero-hours rules to protect agency workers, but it is not applying the proposals in the Bill. More generally, I think our members would say that the Bill feels a little undercooked in its thinking. I think it is a very quick Bill, and that there is quite a lot in it that employment lawyers and our members are looking at and thinking, “How would that work?” A classic example would be the collective consultation sections of the Bill. I do not think it is in anyone’s interests for large companies employing thousands of people to be stuck in perpetual collective consultation when they are shutting down one site with 20 people in it. That is just an example of one of the things that maybe need to be worked out through regulation—lots of this is in regulation—but we need to ensure that we are not putting up barriers to employment with the Bill.
Justin Madders
Q
Allen Simpson: It is more about the unknown. Again, reasonable notice is an important principle and there should be protections. I think that the challenge will be—I notice, by the way, from what I understand from having read what is, again, a complex and lengthy piece of work, that the Government are intending to leave it to case law and employment tribunal systems to figure out what “reasonable notice” means. In general, with different sorts of work, it is reasonable to say that there are different versions of what “reasonable notice” means. If I were going to go and work on an oil rig for three months, I would want more notice of a change of shifts than if I was going to work in the local pub. Therefore, I think it is partly about figuring out what the right starting position for notice is. It is partly about reflecting differences in things, such as whether it comes with a residential element; there are questions around that.
Then there are some practical things that I think will come out in the wash, but do need considering, such as shift swapping. What if two chefs say, “Do you mind covering Saturday, because I want to go out with my friends?” “Yes, of course; that’s fine.” Is that allowed, or can that decision only be taken outwith that notice period? There are also questions around other things. What if you put out a message saying, “There is a shift available; does anybody want it?” Have you made an offer of employment to everybody you have put that message out to? Is there a time after which you are not allowed to do that? One last thing: what if somebody agrees to move their shifts around—so you say on the Friday, “Do you mind coming in this Saturday and you can have next Saturday off?” “Yes, absolutely. Fine.” Is that acceptable?
Therefore, there are there are some practical questions about, first of all, the principle of different suitable notices of shifts depending on different forms of work, and about some practicalities, which I am sure are solvable, around the management of it.
Justin Madders
Q
Neil Carberry: I think it is reasonably well noted that we were disappointed that an employment Bill was not brought forward in the last Parliament. It is time to raise enforcement standards. One of the most common worries that I hear about this Bill, for which I will not hold you accountable, Minister, is the experience that businesses have had of being the ones who comply and take on the on-costs—there are quite significant costs associated with this Bill—and then watching people flout the law and not face enforcement, so a fair work agency is a good idea.
If I may, I have a couple of guide points that we have heard from our members. One is that we are great fans of the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. We think it does excellent work as our regulator. It sometimes annoys the hell out of me, but that is what it is for. The team there are deeply expert, and, in the creation of the fair work agency, I would be—if you would forgive a Scottishism—scunnered if we lost that expertise. Maintaining expertise as we move into the FWA is really important, and that goes with properly resourcing the FWA and giving it the capacity to maybe draw down some of the claims that currently take two years to go to employment tribunal.
The other thing, which is maybe a bit more challenging, is that, when we have done this in the past, success has been delivered by making these bodies of the labour market, not of the Government. If you go back to the 1970s, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 was guided into existence for its first two decades by the Health and Safety Commission.
As a former low pay commissioner, I will say that we hear a lot about businesses’ views of the minimum wage in the ’90s; they were against the minimum wage at £7.20 an hour in 1999, and that is why it was not introduced. They were in favour of one at the introductory rate, which was developed by the Low Pay Commission. I would really like to see the FWA have that kind of tripartite guiding force to make sure that it is as much of us and our union colleagues as it is of the Government.
Greg Smith
Q
Jim Bligh: Unfair dismissal and the probation periods are a concern for us. Most of our sector uses three or six-month probation periods now. About 85% of our members have told us that that is what they will use. About 6% use 12 months. There would be, I think, a concern about a nine-month period—the reduction from two years. It is critical that performance management from day one does not put a significant burden on SMEs in particular, and it is important that we keep the flexibility. If something is not right for the employee and not right for the employer—that performance is not there, that quality standards or whatever are not met—there should be flexibility in ending that employment relationship, on both sides.
What concerns us about the Bill’s proposals is that young people or people re-entering the workforce—which rightly is a priority for Government as well, and I note that Liz Kendall is speaking about this in the House at the moment—could be shut out under the changes that are coming through in the Bill. Our proposal would be to revert to a 12-month probation period. Obviously, people automatically qualify for unfair dismissal on some elements. It is right that those elements are retained, but it is important to us that you keep that flexibility from 12 months, that you have a light-touch approach and a process there as well, but also that we have enough time to implement.
What concerns us is that we are talking now about changes that will come in, I think, in two years’ time—that is a commitment from Government. That period is welcome, but we are not certain what the final provisions of the Bill will be. There is a long commitment to consultation, which we also welcome. Our proposal would be to implement two years after Royal Assent, to make sure that that concrete security and guarantee is there and that the goalposts are not shifted for employees and employers as they start.
Jamie Cater: I would echo that and agree with those comments. Stepping back slightly to look at the bigger picture, it has become difficult for us, with members, to separate out the impact of the legislation and the impact of the autumn Budget—the increase in employer NICs in particular, but in general the tax burden on businesses. That, taken together with the measures in the Bill, increases the cost and the admin associated with taking on people. There is a risk that that disproportionately impacts people on the edges of the labour market, I suppose.
It is very welcome that the Work and Pensions Secretary is today talking about how to reduce economic inactivity, particularly focusing on skills and health. We really support that focus, but there is a danger that the measures in the Bill, combined with the total cost impact, will make employers less likely to take that risk on someone.
On the protection for unfair dismissal in the statutory probation period, we typically hear from members that the usual approach would be to have a six-month probation period in an employment contract. They might then have a bit of additional flexibility for someone who is a borderline candidate if they need to be kept on probation for a bit longer, perhaps if they need a bit more skills training, experience or additional guidance in something before a firm decision is made about permanent recruitment.
Members often talk to us about effectively a six plus three model, where there is a contractual six-month probation period with the flexibility for an additional three months’ probation if there is a bit of uncertainty. The Government’s stated preference for a nine-month statutory probation period feels about right. That is probably the minimum; we would not want to see it go any lower than that. I think our preference would be 12 months, just to give that additional leeway, but nine months is probably about right for what we see reflected in standard practice from our members.
Justin Madders
Q
Jamie Cater: To come back to the impact of things like statutory sick pay, I think that will help with productivity and retention. We see a huge amount of feedback from member companies about their own investment in health and wellbeing, and the positive impact of that in keeping people in work, helping with productivity and reducing presenteeism. I think the measures on statutory sick pay will help with all those things, including reducing long-term sickness absence, reducing presenteeism and improving people’s productivity. I think all those measures are really positive.
However, what we need to be careful of, and what we are concerned about—going back again to the impact of the Bill alongside the autumn Budget—is that it does not reduce or restrict employers’ ability to continue to invest in all those other things that also improve productivity. We have heard concerns about impacts on training budgets, internal budgets for things like occupational health and wellbeing, and investment in technology and new machinery that can help workers to become more productive and efficient. There is a risk that some of the costs associated with the Bill and the autumn Budget mean that those internal investment budgets will be squeezed. There is an opportunity, through some of the measures in the Bill, to improve productivity and improve security for people in the labour market, but we need to ensure that some of those other measures are not undermining those benefits.
Jim Bligh: I agree with that as well, and I endorse everything that Jamie just said. I think that the statutory sick pay clarifications are particularly helpful, and the clarity on parental leave should be helpful too. Flexibility is also important, and we need to ensure that the flexible working practices that are already widespread in our sector, as I know they are in other sectors as well, are protected and clear. I think there are concerns that potentially outweigh some of those benefits, which we are very keen to explore with the Government through the consultation periods.
Justin Madders
Q
Jim Bligh: I think we would accept that your manifesto had a pledge to remove it from two years and take it back down. We are aware, and we are grateful for the fact, that Government have moved it from day one up to nine months—I think that is really important. Pragmatically, we should look at a 12-month window instead, which worked well before and we think could work well again in future.
Jamie Cater: This depends on the detail of what comes in secondary legislation and on further consultation about exactly how that statutory probation period works, particularly the light-touch process for fair dismissal during the nine-month period.
From our perspective, the lighter touch the better. Businesses will want to know that they will have what they need in terms of following the correct process. I am thinking about ACAS having the capacity to update things like their disciplinary and grievance procedures. If and when there are claims going to an employment tribunal around unfair dismissal, the tribunal system must have the resources to deal with the potential uptick in the number of claims going through that system. So it is about how that fair dismissal process works following the consultation process, and then ACAS and the employment tribunal having the right resources to cope with that.
Justin Madders
Q
Mick Lynch: I am hoping it will be, Minister. I am hoping that bad employers will have to think twice about being badder again, in P&O’s terms. I have to emphasise that we were on good terms with P&O. We— both unions—were negotiating their new vessels. They deceived us deliberately. They took legal advice that, rather than negotiate with us the new-technology vessels that were coming in, they would rather sack all their people and break the law, and use security guards to get our people out.
We need good enforcement, a powerful agency that knows what it is doing and has a clear remit, and the right deterrents. I think that goes into company law in some ways. I do not think any of those people were worried about being disbarred as directors, as fit and proper persons and all the rest of it, and I do not think they were worried about their profits being affected by any fine they would get. As it happens, I do not think anything has happened to them at all. As a director, you have got to think about whether you are going to pay your VAT, whether you are going to pass on the national insurance, and whether you are going to pay the rates and all the bills from your suppliers. You should be thinking very seriously about the consequences for you in employment law, and other laws related to employment.
But as trade unions—as representatives of the workers —we have got to have the power to intervene where we know employers are breaking the law. That is a real shortcoming. The power is all with the employers. They can injunct me personally. They can injunct my trade union. They can close us down for making clerical errors on ballots—just misnaming or misbranding the grades in a dispute—and they will do it if they get any chance. We have no power to injunct them on behalf of our members, it seems. I think that needs to be considered. The fair work agency and its enforcement powers should be at the level of injunction to stop these rogues getting away with it in the future.
Martyn Gray: I agree with that. I would add that what is quite helpful is the Bill’s removal of vessels being treated as individual establishments. That is particularly helpful when it comes to redundancy consultations, and what we saw with previous case law under previous legislation. In the case of Seahorse Maritime v. Nautilus International it was determined that each individual vessel had to be treated as a single establishment. That removed the right for operators with significant GB links anyway—in those particular circumstances—to circumvent the need to consult with recognised trade unions on what amounted to mass redundancies. There were more than 20 people being made redundant from that particular employer, but they were able to circumvent that, because each individual vessel was treated as a single establishment. That is a really helpful feature of the Bill, and something that I think should be celebrated and praised. It is going to be very helpful in our being able to defend our members’ rights and hold companies to account for their responsibilities when going through a redundancy process or collective consultation on business restructuring in organisations.
Linking that point to P&O Ferries, it would not have made a difference there; each of the P&O Ferries establishments was more than 20, so there would have been a requirement for the collective consultation anyway. Indeed, two of the P&O Ferries operations would have been more than 100 people, so they would have required slightly lengthier consultation periods under the legislation. However, this Bill will be helpful in a wider maritime context, where there are smaller numbers of seafarers engaged, in being able to defend their rights and interests and really hold a company to account over the need to make those redundancies. The change to fire and rehire is quite helpful as well, with businesses needing to demonstrate a clear and identifiable need instead of seemingly being able to operate on a whim.
Gemma Griffin: I do not disagree with any of that. Talking about significant ties to the UK, this is something that you have to keep in your mind. Often in shipping there are myriad different employers based outside the UK—the flag of the vessel can be EU, in many cases, or UK or whatever. When you look at the Dover straits, yes, DFDS has both UK and French flagged vessels, but our vessels are doing 42 sailings a day in and out of Dover port, and up to 54 in the summertime. Other operators are doing more or less the same. If that is not a clear link to the UK, I would like to know what is. It is not the same as one sailing every day out of a port in the North sea.
As an operator that holds our seafarers in good stead as the absolute backbone of our organisation, I would like to be able to see a way of capturing that in UK law, so that we will not find yet another loophole, with the flag state being responsible but doing nothing and the port state, in this case the UK, wanting to do something but not capable of doing it. That sounded like a bit of a riddle—I do apologise.
Justin Madders
Q
Let me pick up on something you said earlier, Mick, though others can answer as well if they want. You talked about injunctive relief as a potential solution to the threat of fire and rehire. We are consulting at the moment on measures including interim relief as a potential action that unions can take on behalf of their members. Can you say a little bit about why you would prefer injunctive relief, rather than interim relief?
Mick Lynch: Interim relief can take time, and I am not convinced that tribunals will have the power and the kudos to achieve it. I am not a lawyer, as you know, Minister, but I want the ability for unions to make an intervention on behalf of workers. It would have to be based on law and something that the company has done wrong, but it seems to me that injunctions are immediate and carry the weight of a higher court. When we get injuncted under the anti-trade union laws, it is at the High Court and it is immediate, and there is no doubt about the effect of that injunction. If you want to defy it, it is on your organisation’s head, whether that is a trade union or a multinational company.
If it is not called injunctive relief, I do not mind—I do not mind whatever way the Bill comes out—as long as it has the power of immediacy and enforceability through proper channels. That is what we want to see. We do not just want a slap on the wrist that the company factors in; if you have added another £10,000 to the fine, but they are sacking 2,000 people, they do not really care. What we want is for them to be forced to stop the activity, subject to the full force of the law, not just a minor blip on their spreadsheet. Whether it is called an injunction or interim relief, I do not mind. If the tribunals are beefed up so that they can do that, that is fine, because that can be a good channel as well. I am open to suggestions on that, but I hope we get the power to do it.
Justin Madders
Does anyone else want to respond?
Martyn Gray: We have spoken about unintended consequences, but an intended consequence of this Bill is addressing an imbalance between the rights of employers and of employees and workers in the UK. As a trade union, we are subject to much higher bars and thresholds when it comes to being prevented from enforcing the rights of our members or the rights of workers, and from standing up for what is right, what is appropriate and what is fair. It would be good to have a mechanism where an employer can be held to the same scrutiny, can be held to account in the same way and with the same preventive immediacy, without the consequences that we would have to face—because employers do not face the consequences if that injunction is granted and it then turns out not to be fair or appropriate, or if it is done on appeal; that is just dealt with.
This measure is about fairness and being appropriate. It is right that unions can make interventions on behalf of the members they represent, and can do so without needing to worry about having to put significant amounts of members’ money at risk. Should that then turn out to be something that needs to be resolved at a later date, unions tend not to pick those particular fights and arguments without having first looked very carefully at what is within the realms of the law and what is not. It would be extremely unusual that that mechanism would be abused, should it be granted. It is really important to ensure that the intended consequences of placing the rights of workers and of employers, and of trying to increase the rights of workers to a point at which they can address some of the imbalance, are supportive here. That would be a big help in being able to defend the rights of workers.
Gemma Griffin: I agree. The very nature of the thing is that employers and organisations are larger than employees. If employees are not able to collect themselves to a sum total where their voices can be heard, then they have no chance. There is something fundamentally wrong in this day and age that a union agreement can just be put to one side and actions taken—just completely and utterly taking the voice away from employees. When we look at how the United Kingdom operates on an international level, we are quite happy to sit with the unions and employers to negotiate at International Labour Organisation level and International Maritime Organisation level and so on—but when we come home into our own shores, those rules do not apply. The unions are not the enemy of our organisations.
It is a really poor message that we are sending out: that organisations that do the right thing and, like DFDS, recognise employees’ rights are disadvantaged, because before we sell a single ticket to a passenger, we are already hugely more costly than our operators in the same field. But we make the choice to start a race to the top instead of joining that race to the bottom.
Greg Smith
Q
Paul Nowak: Can I make a point first about the symbiotic nature of the relationship between Labour and the unions? We certainly have a shared history and shared values, and in some cases we have unions that are affiliated to the Labour party. The TUC represents those 5.3 million workers regardless of who is in government, and it does not have a formal relationship with the Labour party. Our job as trade unionists is always to want more and better for working people. I think it is important to recognise that this will be the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in decades—I was going to say in a generation, but it is more than that. It will directly benefit millions of working people.
I came in at the end of the last panel, and Mick was talking about sectoral collective bargaining. The Government have indicated that the first fair pay agreement will be in social care. We would love to see that approach—those fair pay agreements—rolled out to other sectors of the economy. That is a point that we will make going forward.
It would be churlish not to accept that the Bill is a big upgrade to workers’ rights and to union rights. This will be the first time that a Government have repealed anti-union legislation in my 35 years as a union activist, and I think it is really important that they do. If we take the minimum service levels legislation as an example, we always warned that it would be unworkable. It was red-flagged by the Regulatory Policy Committee and by the Government’s own impact assessment when it was introduced, and not a single employer has ever used the legislation. We will be positive; there will always be more that we would like any Government to do on behalf of working people, but this is a really important piece of legislation.
Maggi Ferncombe: I agree. To be frank, as the largest trade union in the country, the political stripe of the Government does not matter to us; we will obviously do what we can to improve public services and the terms and conditions and salaries of workers in those public services. You asked what more we would want, but, to be honest with you, we want an extension of what is already in the Bill: the opportunity to have some sort of legal mechanism for collective claims. Individual workers, unions when they are involved, employers and employment tribunals spend hundreds and hundreds of hours trying to deal with individual claims from individual workers. An unintended consequence would be the savings to employers from not having to deal with individual claims that take years to go through tribunals. If there was an opportunity to have a mechanism to deal with it collectively, it would save everyone time and money, including employers.
Dave Moxham: We have a disproportionate number of zero-hours contracts in Scotland, probably because we have proportionally more small businesses as part of the UK economy. We welcome the moves in the Bill to address that. I heard the evidence given by the last panel, and from our perspective the majority of employers do not use them but they have an intensive impact. For the last 10 years, the STUC has run a campaign called BetterThanZero, which goes out daily and talks to these workers, who are predominantly, but far from all, young workers. The impact on their lives—ergo the impact on the economy because of their lack of stability, certainty and security—has a far wider effect than on just the individual and cannot be overestimated. When we look at the provisions currently in the Bill, we certainly believe that what defines a short-hours contract and some of the other things that have yet to be decided need to be quite strong. If you go on to the internet, you can already see discussions among employers about how they will circumvent the proposals, so that will be one area where we will be looking for strength.
Hannah Reed: There is an awful lot to welcome in the Bill, and I will not take up the Committee’s time by listing it. We can submit evidence to you on equality rights, trade union rights and so on.
Like all Committee members, I am sure, we are keen to ensure that the Bill comes out as watertight legislation that makes a real difference to people’s rights. There are some elements of the Bill where we would want to continue working with you as a Committee and with the Government to tighten up what we consider to be potential loopholes, and I will briefly name three areas.
The first is the provisions on fire and rehire. Unite’s concerns are that some of the uses of heavy-handed tactics by employers that we saw during the pandemic and since could still be lawful under this Bill. We are concerned that employers may be able to justify fire and rehire in certain circumstances, and our view is that there needs to be a total ban. We are not confident that the employment tribunals will look behind the corporate veil or question an employer’s arguments for why they needed to use fire and rehire tactics, so we do not think it goes far enough. Importantly, there is nothing in the Bill at the present time that stops the employer from sacking the workforce. While we welcome the Government’s consultation on interim relief, we, like previous participants. would like to see some measures before that that stop the employer and require them to open their books to demonstrate to forensic accountants that changes are needed, and to provide a genuine opportunity for negotiation with trade unions. We are very equipped; we know what needs to be done if changes are needed.
Secondly, we would like to see further measures in the Bill to extend collective bargaining. Very briefly, we recognise that there are important measures on statutory recognition in the Bill, but we would like the Government to consider going further, particularly to ensure that laws prevent the abusive practices seen in the recent Amazon campaign. We would also like faster routes to recognition. Workers often have to wait for six months and are repeatedly asked, “Do you want statutory recognition?” They repeatedly say, “Yes, we want statutory recognition,” but employers are given time to fight against the workers’ will. We think there should be a faster route to automatic recognition.
The last point I would raise is on access. I have already talked about the benefits of working people having the opportunity to meet with trade unions in the workplace, to tackle discrimination and press for better pay and conditions through negotiation. We would like to ask the Government to look at the access measures, to see if there are ways of having a default or free-standing right of access so working people have a genuine right to democracy and representation at work.
Justin Madders
Q
Paul Nowak: The research was based on a very modest estimate, taken from the Government’s own suggestions that there would be improvements on things like productivity, reducing absenteeism and bringing back into the workforce people who currently find it difficult to access the workforce, for example because they have caring responsibilities or a need to balance work and family life. We assumed a 1% uptick across those measures —as I say, a very modest assessment—which meant £13 billion-worth of positive impact on the UK economy.
In many ways, this just reflects what already happens in unionised workplaces. One of the things I do as the general secretary of the TUC is to visit places up and down the country, large and small. Some of the most successful and most productive employers in this country —whether it is Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce or, indeed, our largest private sector retailer—are employers who have close working relationships with trade unions and treat their staff with respect.
This legislation is really important, Minister, because it does what it says on the tin. It is about making work pay, and for far too many people in this country, work does not pay at the moment. We have a problem with low-paid, insecure employment, with over a million people on zero-hours contracts. Overwhelmingly, when you ask those individuals if they would like the right to guaranteed hours, poll after poll shows that 80%-plus say they would. When you play that out in practice—I know that the Work Foundation did some work with Wetherspoons. When Wetherspoons offered their staff a choice between zero hours and guaranteed hours, 99% of their staff took the guaranteed hours. That is good for those workers, but it is also good for employers, because workers who are securely employed, who feel good about their work and who are supported at work are more productive, and employers are more likely to invest in them. I genuinely believe that this legislation is win-win—it is a win for employees and workers but a win for employers as well, and it is good for the UK economy overall.
Justin Madders
Q
Maggi Ferncombe: Let us take a sector within Unison such as the care sector, where you have low-paid workers who, some of whom are on zero-hours contracts or working away from home, potentially for 10 or 12 hours a day, but only getting paid for five of those. The amount of money they put into their local economy will be a lot smaller than if you had a fair pay agreement with proper regulation, where people were paid adequate salaries and had better opportunities to train.
We must bear in mind that the care sector has one of the largest vacancy rates, with 130,000 vacancies at the moment. That is simply because care workers are either taking on additional part-time jobs in the evening or morning—I do not know when they have time—or taking on jobs in supermarkets or call centres because they can get paid far more. If they were paid a better salary, they would put more money into their local economy and would pay more tax. Ultimately, that would be the benefit for the economy from that particular sector. Those 130,000 vacancies are a growing problem; we are an ageing population, and having a properly remunerated workforce in social care will bring nothing but benefits. It is very hard to quantify how much that will be; it all depends on what the fair pay agreement comes out with.
Dave Moxham: I will just quote a number of different quantifications. I know that small businesses, particularly in hospitality, have been a large focus for this Bill and more generally. The estimates made by hospitality businesses of the cost of staff turnover are anything from £5,000 an employee to £15,000 an employee, although none of those are my estimates. Then consider that it is an industry with incredibly high turnover—we are talking a 30%-plus turnover. I have not done the sums, because there are various estimates, but you can work out how a relative improvement in retention would impact the hospitality sector. Some of the measures here that we believe would encourage lower-paid hospitality members to stay in the workplace would have an incredible impact.
Hannah Reed: We do hope that the Bill will lead to an expansion in collective bargaining, because it is the tried and tested method and internationally recognised as the best way of improving pay and conditions and reducing staff turnover. We know that there is a skills shortage in this country; reducing turnover and investing in skills, which is what trade unions work with employers to do, will have significant economic benefits, including improved productivity.
I must confess that today I quickly read the Regulatory Policy Committee report, which raised questions about whether the measures in the Bill are justified. Speaking as a trade unionist who speaks on a daily basis to working people, there is not a single measure in the Bill that is not needed. One of the risks with impact assessments carried out by the Government—we hope that the Government will look at this—is that often they capture quantitative data but do not look at the qualitative data. What is the actual experience of working people in the workplace? Where is the harm and what needs to be addressed? We know that in hospitality, for example, one of the big issues our members face is a lack of security or certainty over hours. The costs of childcare for hospitality workers are huge, and the inability to pay rents or even dream of saving for a mortgage is a very significant problem.
There are also real problems of sexual harassment. One of the things that really surprised me was that the RPC said that it could not see a justification for further regulation of third-party harassment. To give some statistics, the NHS staff survey this year showed that 8.67% of NHS staff experience some form of harassment by either the public or patients every year. We know that there are major staff shortages in the NHS. Exposing our workforce to harassment by third parties is a major problem.
In hospitality, it is far more rife. Unite did our own survey that showed that 89% of our members reported being subject to some form of sexual harassment in the last year. Many of them—56%—said that that was from customers, and at least half our members said that they were considering leaving the workplace because of the sexual harassment they have experienced. There are many rights in the Bill that we believe will help to deliver better employment and support businesses to become more productive and more profitable.
Justin Madders
Q
Paul Nowak: I think it is a misplaced concern. Union recognition ballots are the only democratic test that we have where we would expect not only to get simple majorities, but to have 40% of those who are eligible to vote voting in favour. I think it puts a barrier in place towards unionisation. We would not use that democratic test in a parliamentary election, a local council election or the election of a leader of a political party, and it seems perverse to put that obligation on unions and workplaces.
Unions derive their credibility and their ability to represent people from being genuinely representative of the workforce, and it is in nobody’s interest to have a union that only represents a minority of the workforce. Unions are always striving to represent the majority of the workforce in workplaces, and I think we do that and prove that very effectively in workplace after workplace.
At the moment, the system is effectively gamed towards hostile employers to frustrate the will of people to join a union. We effectively count abstentions as no votes. Again, that is not a democratic test that we would put up anywhere else. Taken alongside the other provisions in the Bill, including the union right to access the workplace, the simplification of the recognition procedure is really important in representing the democratic view of the workforce.
Going back to a previous point, I think it is important to say this, Minister. No piece of legislation requires people to join a union or requires a workforce to vote for union recognition. All those decisions rest with the workers themselves. That is a really important underpinning point for the way we do trade unionism in this country. With this change in legislation, we get a level playing field for unions.
Justin Madders
Does anyone else want to come back on that one?
Maggi Ferncombe: Can I just make a point? It is almost like unions are the enemy, when you hear certain businesses talk. Unions have a common goal with every employer where we organise, and that is for the organisation to do well, because that means that the staff and the workers will do well as well. Especially in the sectors that I represent, we have an absolute common goal with all the public sector bodies. We want good-quality public services. Working with trade unions is the best way to achieve that, and good employers know that. Good employers know that working with us will save them time, money and energy. They will have a workforce that are much happier in what they are doing, and they will be more productive, with less sick days. The statistics are all around. Putting additional barriers in place where workers cannot undertake the fundamental right of joining a trade union—I think it is a false barrier, to be perfectly honest with you, because if workers really want to join, they will.
Dave Moxham: Very briefly on the access issue, individual workers should have the right to say yes or no, but in order to exercise their right, they need to know the possibility. The possibility comes from very simple, but hopefully very straightforward and not bureaucratic, arrangements that expect an employer once in a while to provide access for a union to speak to those workers. It should be really simple. You do not get to exercise the right to say yes or no if you do not know in the first place.
Hannah Reed: I have one quick comment. I totally agree with the points on access. Trying to think about it from an employer’s perspective, if a substantial number of workers within your workplace are saying, “We want trade union recognition,” ignoring that—saying no to those requests—must have an impact on staff morale.
Another point we would add is that our concern is that the statutory recognition provisions are not balanced. All the provisions at present tend to be weighted too much towards the employer, because the employer can delay the process, providing them with more and more time during statutory recognition to invest resources and put pressure on workers not to vote for recognition.
We welcome the consultation from the Government, and we want to work with them to strengthen the provisions to provide much earlier access, so that it becomes the norm in the workplace that the trade union is present and that workers can ask questions, but also that there are stronger unfair practice provisions. I know that we look at international practices, and I noticed in the States just last week that the National Labour Relations Board actually made it unlawful for employers to hold meetings with staff for the purpose of trying to convince them not to support recognition.
Could you imagine a law within the UK—we hope we could get to this point—where there is actually a level playing field, and where employers cannot create a hostile environment and say to workers, “You cannot have a democratic right. You cannot have your choice to have a say”? That is what collective bargaining is: giving workers a say over their own pay and their own terms and conditions. That is not something that is foreign; it is just about empowering workers to have their voices heard by their employers.
Greg Smith
Q
Jemima Olchawski: At Fawcett, we really welcome the Bill. Overall, we still have an economy and workplaces that consistently disadvantage and exclude women. That means that they are much more likely to be on zero-hours contracts, to be in low-paid work and to be held back by a lack of access to quality flexible part-time work. Each of those issues is intensified for most black and minoritised women, and for disabled women. The situation results in serious consequences for individual women. We have a gender pay gap of just under 14%. On average, women take home just over £630 a month less than men. It also has a detrimental impact on our economy, because it is a marker of the ways in which women are not fully participating or contributing to the economy at their full potential. Estimates indicate that that means we are missing out on tens of billions of pounds of GDP.
We strongly support the measures as an important step towards redressing that balance. In particular, we are pleased to see the inclusion of equalities action plans as an important way to get employers to drive forward progress on the gender pay gap. We are glad to see the emphasis on the importance of flexible working and the day one right to statutory sick pay, which will have a disproportionate beneficial impact on women, as well as further protection from sexual harassment in the workplace. Some 40% of women experience sexual harassment at some point during their career.
There are areas where we would like to see additional inclusions or things going further. Flexible working is incredibly important for women who have caring responsibilities and continue to do the majority of unpaid care, and having access to flexible work is vital to enable them to progress and earn to their full potential. We would like to see a duty on employers to advertise jobs as flexible, rather than a situation where women have to wait until they are in a job before they can begin that conversation. You cannot move into a new job if you are not sure whether you will be able to replicate the flexibility that you have in an existing role. That leads to women being under-employed and their skills underused.
The day one rights to maternity, paternity and parental leave are important, but they have to be remunerated. There has to be a day one right to pay if we actually want people to take it. Particularly if we want men to take on more caring roles, we need to make sure we have a refocus on remunerated leave, and that includes parental leave. We welcome the fact that there will be a review, but we need to think about this as part of those measures.
I would like to see more around equal pay in the Bill. Measures could be taken that would support women to access fair pay, such as pay transparency and ending salary history questions. The last thing I would like to see more on is making sure that there is proper enforcement of those rights—that the enforcement bodies are properly resourced and have the teeth to ensure that the rights really hold.
Joeli Brearley: It is a big question that you have asked. I support everything that Jemima has just said. We are very supportive of the Bill, but I think there is a lack of clarity on some of the areas that we are particularly interested in. On flexible working, we are really pleased to see that the Government want to make it the default way of working. That is really important, but we need to know exactly how, and what mechanisms will be in place to do that. The current law on flexible working isn’t working. We want to see an advertising duty as well, which I am sure we can explore in a bit more detail later.
We are also very supportive of parental leave being moved to a day one right. It is kind of amazing that that is not in place already. But without it being remunerated, take-up will be very low. We would have liked to see more on parental leave. We have a shockingly low rate of pay for maternity. We have the worst paternity benefit in Europe. This is causing huge problems for families, particularly new families that have just had a baby. They are getting themselves into terrible amounts of debt. Also the way that our parental leave system is structured means that women are responsible for the care of a baby. They tend to take long periods of time out of work, whereas men tend to go back to work very quickly. They fall into the role of breadwinner, and the woman falls into the role of caregiver, and that continues for the rest of their lives—which is why there is such a large gender pay gap.
The redundancy protections are great. Again, we are very pleased to see that, but we need specifics about what it means. We would like to see that pregnant women and new parents can only be made redundant in exceptional circumstances. By that we mean when a business is closing or perhaps when a service has stopped being delivered. It is very difficult, if you are made redundant when you are pregnant or have just had a baby, to get another job. Often you are made redundant and then cannot access statutory maternity pay. These are very particular circumstances. We know that many women are still being made redundant when they are pregnant or when they are new mums; 17% of calls we get to Pregnant Then Screwed are related to redundancy, so it is a big problem.
What we do not have at the moment, but really need, is data that shows us what is happening on the ground. A report was done by the Equality and Human Rights Commission under the coalition Government that found that 54,000 women a year are pushed out of their jobs for getting pregnant or for taking maternity leave, and 77% of new mums experience some form of discrimination. That report was done in 2016, and there was a guarantee at that point that the report would be done again five years later. It is now nine years later and we still do not have any new data to show us exactly what is happening on the ground. Without it we are making decisions in the dark, so we would really push for that report to be done again.
We would have liked to see something in the Bill on non-disclosure agreements. Our research found that 435,293 mothers had been gagged by non-disclosure agreements when experiencing some form of discrimination. It is a serious problem. Again, we do not know what is happening in companies across the country. Women tend to experience this form of discrimination and are then forced to sign these agreements and are given a low amount of compensation. They suffer mental health consequences because of that. We want to see the UK follow what Ireland has recently done, so that non-disclosure agreements cannot be enforced unless the claimant wants them to be. We would also have liked to see something in the Bill on miscarriage leave, because at the moment there is no right to any leave or pay if you miscarry before 24 weeks. We would have liked to see something on fertility treatment. As many of you will know, we have a baby crisis in the UK—we are not having enough babies. We want to encourage people to have fertility treatment, so we need a legal right to time off.
We would like to see something on reasonable adjustments. There are currently reasonable adjustments if someone has a disability, but not if they have a dependant with a disability. Many mothers of disabled children are struggling in the workplace because they need time off for appointments, or whatever it may be. We would like to see a requirement for all employers to publish parental leave policies.
Justin Madders
Q
Jemima Olchawski: There is strong evidence that the majority of sexual harassment experienced in the workplace comes from third parties. This is where someone experiences harassment from a client, customer or patient. Some of those who are most vulnerable would include those working in retail and hospitality. It is essential that anyone working in those environments is as safe as they can be and respected in their workplace. We would consider it essential that employers’ responsibility to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment includes third parties, because as a victim, it is not relevant that the person was not a direct co-employee. What matters is the harm experienced. It is absolutely within the bounds of good practice and reasonable steps for employers to address that.
Joeli Brearley: Nothing from me. It is not my area.
Steve Darling
Q
Jemima Olchawski: It could be strengthened by having clear guidance and expectations around the reasonable steps that will prevent. That should include multiple reporting routes, which might be anonymous if that feels more appropriate, and training for managers. Our research shows that managers want to respond appropriately, but often when those conversations come up, they do not know what the right thing to do is. Consequently, lots of those conversations end up going badly, and young people or employees do not get the support they need.
It is also important that enforcement agencies have the resource to investigate whether policies and procedures are in place, so that we can embed a culture of prevention rather than just respond decently when incidents happen. That is in the interests of employers too, because cultures where there is bullying or harassment are bad for productivity and staff turnover. It is in everyone’s interest to ensure we address this and cut it off at the pass.
Joeli Brearley: The only thing I would add is that when women experience sexual harassment or any form of discrimination and want to access justice, the justice system is currently failing them—it is not working. We know, certainly in cases of pregnancy and maternity discrimination, that fewer than 1% of women who have that experience even raise a tribunal claim. Part of what we need to do is extend that time limit to raise a claim. It is currently three months. It needs to be at least six months, so that women have the opportunity to recover from their experience before they start to go through that onerous, difficult process of raising a tribunal claim.
Greg Smith
Q
Alasdair Reisner: It is an interesting question. There is the notification element and the consultation element. I suppose we have to ask what the policy is trying to achieve. If it were trying to avoid people almost hiding redundancies by doing them in small units, I do not think we would have any complaints about ensuring that notification was still required. It is where you are forcing people into consultation who are never going to be made redundant, yet they find themselves under the scope of that. Splitting those two things apart—so you would still have the notification, but you would not necessarily have the consultation for those who are unaffected—is something we are exploring. I do not want to say that that is the silver bullet that will solve things. We have not even discussed that collectively as an industry; we are just trying to consider what options might be on the table.
Justin Madders
Q
Alasdair Reisner: It is a cliché, but we rely on the people we work with, and they must be represented. Having good, positive relationships with the employees’ representatives is crucial. The CIJC has for decades provided us with that vehicle—I should say that it is not the largest overall; it is just the largest in the construction sector. I think back to covid, when we needed a relationship with the workforce that provided us with the independence —I have to say that Unite was brilliant at that time—to engage with the rest of the industry to say, “We’re all working collectively towards a common good.”
From discussing the Bill with members over the past few days, I know that one of the potential concerns is that it might in some way undermine existing collective agreements. I do not think that is written in the Bill; it is more in the discussion that has happened prior to the Bill. That is something we would like to protect. I am not going to pretend it is all sunshine and roses—sometimes it can be quite challenging—but I think we would want to ensure that whatever the outcome of the Bill, there is a strong, positive partnership between the employers’ representatives and the employees’ representatives.
Draft Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (Amendment of Schedule A2) Order 2024
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (Amendment of Schedule A2) Order 2024.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. This order was laid in draft before the House on 17 October 2024. I start by referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This straightforward instrument relates to protective awards, which can be made by an employment tribunal when an employer does not meet its collective consultation obligations. Those obligations currently apply when an employer is proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees within any 90-day period at a single establishment.
Schedule A2 to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 sets out the list of claims for which an employment tribunal can make a 25% adjustment to compensation if one of the parties has unreasonably failed to comply with a relevant code of practice. Collective consultation requirements apply, among other things, to dismissal and re-engagement scenarios involving 20 or more employees. The code of practice on dismissal and re-engagement will be a relevant code of practice in such cases.
The change will mean that when an employment tribunal is making a protective award in a case where the code applies, and it appears to the tribunal that the employer has unreasonably failed to comply with the code, the tribunal may increase that award by up to 25%, increasing the deterrent effect of the code. In other words, if an employer dismisses and re-engages employees but does not meet its collective consultation obligations and unreasonably fails to comply with the code, it will be liable for a greater payout. The order will therefore give the tribunal greater discretion to take individual behaviours into account when making an award. It will add a key potential claim in dismissal and re-engagement scenarios to the list of awards that can attract a 25% adjustment for non-compliance with the code.
As Committee members may be aware, a version of this order was debated and approved in the House earlier this year; however, because the election was called and Parliament was dissolved, it was not debated in the other place. That is why we are here debating it again. If the order is approved in both Houses, it will come into force in January 2025.
The Government are committed to going much further than is set out in the code. We have brought forward the Employment Rights Bill within our first 100 days of government, as we promised; that will end the unscrupulous fire and rehire practices that we believe have no place in a modern employment market. In the meantime, before the Bill completes its passage and comes into force, we have decided to continue with the previous Government’s code of practice, which came into force earlier in the summer. Although we recognise that it is inadequate on its own, it does offer some additional protections to working people.
The code sets out employers’ responsibilities when seeking to change contractual terms and conditions of employment. As I said, the order will mean that there could be a 25% uplift in the award if an employer has unreasonably failed to comply with the code. But we will go further by ending the unscrupulous use of fire and rehire. We are consulting on reforming the law to provide effective remedies against abuse and will replace the statutory code with a strengthened code of practice. We have launched a consultation to gain views on increasing the cap on the protective award for scenarios where employers have not complied with collective redundancy rules; and on adding interim relief to collective redundancy and fire and rehire scenarios. Increasing the protective award would mean that the small proportion of companies that flout existing rules could end up paying significantly more per employee. The consultation also seeks views on whether interim relief should be available to employees who bring claims for unfair dismissal in fire and rehire scenarios and for breaches of collective consultation requirements.
I will not say any more about this straightforward regulation. I conclude by highlighting the Government’s ambitions on the “Make Work Pay” plan, which sets out an ambitious agenda that will strengthen the rights of workers, address the fragmented labour market and support workers in balancing responsibilities outside work. In so doing, “Make Work Pay” will help people stay in work, make work more secure and family-friendly, and improve living standards, putting more money in working people’s pockets.
Justin Madders
I welcome the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, to his place. I fear we will be seeing a lot more of each other. No doubt we can pick up some of the wider points he made during our consideration of the Employment Rights Bill, which we will be debating over a number of weeks.
In response to the hon. Gentleman’s critique, I gently point out to him that this is a significant step forward. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East said, even the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, when asked to respond to the measure, said that it might not always present a significant deterrent when calculated against the financial costs and risks of an alternative approach. So even ACAS, whose job it is to reduce employment disputes, does not believe that it goes far enough. The Government are clear that we do not believe it goes far enough, which is why we are consulting on measures such as removing or doubling the cap for protective awards, and possibly introducing interim relief. All Members are invited to respond to the ongoing open consultation.
I am pleased that we have agreement across the board about the measure. It is a small step forward—an interim step—but it is not the final destination. The Government are clear that we want to ensure that the likes of what happened at P&O can never happen again. I commend the measure to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act: Subscriptions Implementation Consultation
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
The Department for Business and Trade has today published a consultation called “Consultation on the implementation of the new subscriptions contracts regime”.
The consultation seeks views on provisions to be made in secondary legislation to set out how the regime operates and is related to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024.
Chapter 2 of part 4 of the Act establishes rules for subscription contracts between traders and consumers. The purpose of the measures is to protect consumers from being trapped in unwanted subscription contracts. The new rules in the Act ensure that consumers:
Have clear information before signing up to a subscription;
Receive reminders about their ongoing subscriptions;
Have a 14-day period to cancel after a subscription’s free or discounted trial period automatically rolls on to a full price period, or a subscription auto-renews on to a 12-month or longer period; and
Can exit a subscription generally as easily as they signed up, including being able to cancel online if they signed up online.
Before the new rules come into force, secondary legislation is needed. The consultation will ensure that the subscription regime is effectively implemented in line with the objectives of the Act. The consultation asks stakeholders to comment on a number of key proposals, including how returns and refunds work if a consumer exercises a statutory cancellation right, the extension of cooling-off periods, and how information notices must be provided.
The consultation will be open for 12 weeks and the Government will publish our response at a future point. A copy of the consultation will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on gov.uk.
[HCWS223]
Pubs Code: Guest Beers
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
May I start by extending my own congratulations? I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) on securing this debate and on a very engaging and well-informed speech. It took us through an interesting period in her constituency’s history. I was unaware of the nationalisation of pubs in Carlisle. If that is a suggestion that she wishes to put forward for our next manifesto, she will be aware of the policy-making processes and how to do that. Unfortunately, at this stage I cannot confirm that we have any plans to nationalise pubs—that probably will not come as a surprise to anyone.
Before I go on to address my hon. Friend’s points, I will say a little more about the industry more generally, because it plays a critical role in supporting local communities in every corner of the UK. The interest that we have had in this debate shows how important pubs are. They are not just any other local business; they are a part of our history, culture and heritage, and they are a huge employer. The wider hospitality sector employs around 2.2 million people.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
The Minister is making a very important point, because whether it is the Carlisle Brewing Company in the hon. Lady’s constituency or Kinver Brewery in mine, our family breweries play an important role in providing that diversity of product and high-quality beer that is particular to our local communities. Does the Minister recognise the devastating impact of the Chancellor’s changes to business property relief in the Budget on the future of so many family breweries across the country?
Justin Madders
I will go on to some of the very positive things that were announced in the Budget to help breweries and small businesses in particular.
There are about 154,000 businesses in the hospitality sector, generating revenues of around £52 billion per annum. They create vibrancy in communities, support wider social objectives, provide accessible jobs, support community cohesion, and provide welcoming spaces for those who feel isolated and want to enjoy the company of others.
It is an important fact that over 80% of the beer consumed in the UK is brewed here—not in the Palace of Westminster, but in the UK—while UK brewers also export over 1 billion pints of beer annually to over 100 countries, according to the British Beer and Pub Association.
Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way, and I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns), for securing the debate. Although we might not be brewing beer in this place, we do consume some of it. In the spirit of shameless plugs that we have all participated in this evening, I would like to point out that my local brewery, the Keswick Brewing Company, is serving Keswick Gold down in the Strangers Bar. If it is slightly easier than travelling up to Cumbria, I wonder if the Minister would like to join us for a pint at some point.
Justin Madders
I absolutely do thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has obviously heard that I am quite easily tempted into Strangers. It is a very important part of the facilities that the Strangers Bar offers Members the opportunity to serve guest beers. It is a great opportunity to plug great local businesses.
Small independent brewers often reflect their local area in their products, from locally sourced ingredients to their marketing, branding and style. The resurgence in brewing in the UK over the last decade has strengthened awareness among the general public of local beers, whether it is the new-style craft beers or independent breweries resurrecting well-loved local beers that had been lost in the consolidation of larger breweries.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister is quite right about the importance of local brewers. Stoke-on-Trent’s own Titanic Brewery serves a wonderful pint of plum porter in Strangers now and again. It is not just about the products they sell, although if they were able to access guest beer lines they could grow their business and create more jobs; it is also about the story they tell about the history of who we are. Titanic is so-called because Captain John Smith was from Stoke-on-Trent. That is often missed in our cultural storytelling: breweries are doing a great job of exporting who we are and what we are around the country and around the world.
Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is a really important point. It is an essential part of our culture and a real selling point for us around the world. When people come here, they want to visit a traditional English or British pub, and we have a different style in every part of the country. The point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle about some of the larger breweries now mimicking the local brands is an interesting development, which shows that imitation is the best form of flattery.
More generally, we know there are challenges for the hospitality sector, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. The subsequent cost of living crisis has compounded the challenge for pubs, increasing costs and the ability of businesses to repay debts. This is an ongoing struggle. Our system of business rates is particularly unfair on high street businesses. It disincentivises investment, creates uncertainty and places an undue burden on our high streets. That is why the Government are undertaking a review of the business rates system, to ensure that all businesses are paying their fair share, recognising and addressing the fact that high street businesses, including pubs, have shouldered the majority of the burden for far too long.
In her Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government are freezing the small businesses multiplier for 2025-26 to protect small properties from inflationary bill increases, and that retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will receive 40% relief worth up to £110,000 per business. This support package alone is worth over £2.2 billion over five years. It was also announced in the Budget that the Government would reduce the alcohol duty on draft products. This will reduce businesses’ total duty bill by up to £100 million a year and increase the duty differential between draft and non-draft products from 9.2% to 13.9%, so that a pint in the pub attracts less duty than the beer in the supermarket.
The Government will also increase the cash discount provided to small brewers and producers for non-draught products and maintain the current cash discount provided to small producers for draught products. This in effect increases the relative value of small producer relief for both draught and non-draught products. Jobs, too, lie at the heart of our plans, backed by the Employment Rights Bill, which had its Second Reading earlier this month, and local growth plans will be a cornerstone of the place-based approach. We have heard already about the importance of pubs in the local economy.
Turning more specifically to the guest beers consultation announced in the Budget, the Chancellor said that the Government will consult on ways to ensure that small brewers can retain and expand their access to UK pubs and maximise drinkers’ choices, including through provisions to enable more guest beers.
At this point, let me echo the support for the work done by the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates and the Campaign for Real Ale in championing beer drinkers’ choice and pursuing the case for more independently produced beer in pubs. We will work closely with both those organisations, but also with the wider hospitality sector, to identify barriers to market access for small brewers and how they might be addressed. I want to ensure that we have a clear understanding of the current position, and of what interventions may be necessary and the impact of those interventions.
We want to find the right solutions to help small brewers gain access to the market, but to do that we will need to understand all the issues and ensure that any interventions are proportionate, that they address the problems, and that they do not result in unintended consequences. For instance, we will want to develop a good understanding of the extent to which tied tenants use existing flexibilities, by, for example, buying beer from small brewers through their pub companies on payment of a tied release fee. We will want to understand whether managed and retail pub chains could or do offer local beers, to understand the scope for increasing the provision of local beers in other licensed premises such as restaurants and hotels; and to understand the barriers preventing local brewers from gaining access to more pubs, and the reasons for those barriers. There are a range of issues that we will want to consider as part of the consultation. I can respond to my hon. Friend’s questions about what we would consider by saying that we are ruling nothing out at this stage, and that we intend to take a holistic view of the sector.
The next statutory review of the pubs code is due to take place next year, but it is only one part of the picture, as it applies to only about a fifth of all pubs in England and Wales. As has been mentioned, there is to be an interesting development in Scotland, whose pubs code will include a guest beer provision. That does not necessarily mean that the provision will automatically be transported to England and Wales, but it also does not mean that we would not be interested to see how it pans out—although, as it will not be introduced until March 2025 at the earliest, we will need a bit of time to understand how it works. We will be able to consider that as part of the consultation, and we will, of course, consult formally on all the options available to us to increase small brewers’ access to the market. It is important for us to get a handle on the complexities of the market before we undertake the consultation. We will work with SIBA and CAMRA and will engage with a range of stakeholders in the pubs and wider hospitality sectors before consulting on options.
In response to the questions about when this will happen, I can say that we will try to get on with it as soon as we can, but we do want to undertake that work before launching the formal consultation. We understand the points that have been made and the good intentions behind the suggestions that we have heard, but we want to ensure that this works for the industry as a whole.
Let me end by thanking my hon. Friend for initiating her first Adjournment debate. I look forward to working with her on these issues in the coming months, and I will certainly be taking up her offer of a drink—although, owing to diary constraints, I will probably do so on premises closer to the Chamber than to her constituency.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Radio Equipment (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. The draft regulations, which were laid before the House on 9 October, will implement common charger measures in Northern Ireland. In particular, USB-C will become the common charging point for a range of portable electrical devices that require wired charging.
The instrument is expected to have limited impact in practice. Many manufacturers have already moved to USB-C to continue to supply the European Union market and, as a result, USB-C has effectively become the industry default in Europe—I am sure Members are at this moment looking at their chargers and phones to see whether they have already moved to USB-C. Industry tells us that it is using USB-C for the whole of the UK to avoid supply chain complexity. Devices that comply with common charger requirements will also be able to be legally placed on the GB market, so we consider it highly likely that the same devices will be available across the whole UK.
The common charger measures aim to reduce environmental waste, increase consumer convenience and save money for consumers, as they will not need to buy separate chargers for each device. We consider that it could help businesses and deliver consumer and environmental benefits, if we were to introduce a similar standardised requirement across the UK. Accordingly, we have launched a call for evidence on that issue. The implementation of common charger measures in Northern Ireland also ensures our compliance with international law, which facilitates Northern Ireland’s continued unique dual access to the UK internal market and the EU single market.
I will set out a bit of the background. The radio equipment directive 2014 established a framework of regulatory requirements for specific categories of electrical and electronic equipment that is placed on the EU market or put into service in the EU. When we were in the EU, the UK’s Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 implemented that directive into domestic law on a UK-wide basis.
In November 2022, the EU formally adopted the common charger directive, which amended the radio equipment directive. The EU common charger directive requires, among other things, a common charging solution based on USB-C for smartphones and certain other portable electronic devices—there is a full list in the regulations—that use wired charging. That will be implemented from December 2024 and for laptops from April 2026.
To provide for its continued unique dual access to the UK internal market and the EU single market, certain EU legislation continues to apply in Northern Ireland under the terms of the Windsor framework, including the EU radio equipment directive. The instrument will therefore amend the 2017 regulations to implement the latest changes in Northern Ireland, enabling them to be legally enforced.
This instrument introduces new regulatory requirements for specific categories of electrical and electronic equipment that use wired charging and are placed on the Northern Ireland market. It amends the 2017 regulations to provide for simplification, whereby USB-C will be the common charging port, meaning that one charger will work for multiple devices, bringing cost savings and environmental benefits. The instrument will standardise fast charging technology, meaning that the charging speed is the same when using any compatible charger for a device.
The instrument will also introduce the unbundling of the sale of a charger, meaning that consumers will have the option, when purchasing a new device, of whether to buy a charger alongside it. That will hopefully reduce electronic waste and costs for the consumer. There will also be additional visual and written information about charging characteristics, the power that the device requires and whether it supports fast charging, thereby improving the information available to consumers. That will help consumers to understand whether their existing chargers meet the requirements of new devices and help consumers to select compatible chargers.
The common charger measures will apply to certain categories of handheld devices, including smartphones that use wired charging from 28 December this year and to laptops from 28 April 2026. Offences will be amended to cover the common charger requirements that I mentioned, including to ensure that consumers are offered the choice of purchasing specific categories of electrical and electronic equipment without a charging device if they wish, and that equipment is accompanied by visual information showing whether a charging device is included.
I assure hon. Members that enforcement authorities will continue to take a proportionate approach to compliance and enforcement activities in accordance with the regulator’s code. In almost all cases, we expect that by working with and supporting businesses, compliance will be achieved without the need for recourse to criminal penalties.
The Northern Ireland Department of Justice has confirmed that it considers that the offences provided for by the instrument are consistent and proportionate and will not have any negative impact on the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. Officials in the Office for Product Safety and Standards will provide industry guidance to ensure that businesses have all the information they need on how to comply with the new requirements, and they will liaise with Northern Ireland district councils, which are responsible for enforcing the radio equipment regulations in Northern Ireland, ensuring that they have all the necessary information to do that.
With USB-C charging effectively becoming the industry default, my view is that this measure could help UK businesses, if we provide regulatory certainty, and that consumer and environmental benefits could be delivered by introducing similar requirements across the whole of the UK, which is why we have launched the call for evidence. We expect the instrument to bring consumer and environmental benefits to Northern Ireland. It also ensures our compliance with international law in relation to Northern Ireland’s continuing dual access. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Justin Madders
First of all, I welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire, to her place, and I hope that we can work constructively across the Chamber. I welcome the comments that she made in support of the draft regulations. She made an important reference to our drawers and how many different chargers we all have in them. We can all see on a personal level why this change might well be a good thing for all consumers. I assure her that we are acting independently of the European Union, and are not blindly following its diktat. We are in the middle of a call for evidence on this subject, and the industry response has been that this was a direction in which it was travelling anyway. I assure her that we will consider all responses before we make a final decision.
The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim made an impassioned speech mainly on constitutional issues and the application of the Windsor framework, which is the legal remit within which we are discussing the regulations. He said that he was not particularly concerned about the subject matter. I do not know whether he has had any constituents raise the issue with him, but I can assure him that we have worked closely with the relevant officials in Northern Ireland, and indeed, to pick up on the contribution from the hon. Member for South Antrim, local authorities in Northern Ireland on the application of the regulations.
The impact assessment from the EU indicated that this would have a de minimis effect on the market, as the industry had already moved towards it. That has been echoed in the conversations that we have had, so an impact assessment would not have revealed anything that would be of significance today.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
The Government are committed to strengthening the collective voices of workers and restoring the principle that work should always pay. That is why we introduced the Employment Rights Bill, which will restore the school support staff negotiating body and introduce a framework for a fair pay agreement in adult social care. Combined with other measures in the Bill, that will empower workers, unions and employers to come together to negotiate fair pay, terms and conditions.
Ian Lavery
I thank the Minister for that answer. It was fantastic of the Labour Government to bring in the Employment Rights Bill within their first 100 days—an absolutely brilliant achievement. Experts say that sectoral bargaining is a force to be reckoned with for both employees and employers, so what plans might the Government have to extend sectoral collective bargaining in other sectors of the economy?
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is right to say that there is plenty of evidence worldwide that collective bargaining improves terms and conditions and the overall vitality of the economy, but we must start somewhere. About 5% of the entire working population are employed in adult social care, and with a 25% turnover rate and rampant abuse of zero-hours contracts and the minimum wage laws, we felt that that sector needed the most attention first. We must make a concerted effort to drive up working conditions, because those who work in that area have been undervalued and underappreciated for far too long, and that has to change. We must focus on getting it right in adult social care, and we will see where that takes us.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
Undoubtedly, Government legislation is empowering the unions—we saw that this week when the Secretary of State for Scotland was unable to meet CBI Scotland, an important body, because he could not enter his own building because of a picket line. We read in the papers this morning that ASLEF, a rail union, insists on using fax machines and will not allow its members to use email. How is that helping collective bargaining?
Justin Madders
I have to educate the hon. Member on what trade unions do. ASLEF is not a union in the adult social care sector, which is what we are talking about here. We want to work on a tripartite basis—business and workers, together with the Government—to get terms and conditions right. Given that we had the lowest increase in living standards on record under the Conservative Government, I would have thought that he would want to support that too.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
The Government’s impact assessment for the adult social care sector confirmed that collective bargaining will be very costly for business. If pay awards match those of junior doctors, the cost of the increased wage bill will be £5.8 billion, driving up business rates, reducing employment or hours, and imposing further costs on business. Can the Minister confirm when further collective bargaining will be rolled out, to which sectors, and by how much those businesses can expect to be clobbered?
Justin Madders
If the shadow Minister is complaining about the state of the adult social care sector, he should look to his own party and how the sector was left to rot for 14 years. The impact assessment says that the overall cost to employers will be 0.4% overall and, as the economic analysis says, the make work pay package will help to raise living standards across the country and create opportunities for all. I think 0.4% is a fantastic achievement to get such a deal. If he does not want to support improved working conditions for people, an end to fire and rehire and better maternity protections, he should continue to vote against the Employment Rights Bill, but I do not think his constituents will thank him for that.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
The Office for Product Safety and Standards within my Department has been working across Government and industry to protect consumers and understand the causes of any safety issues. That has included giving consumers clear information that enables them to purchase, use and charge products safely; assessing the compliance of manufacturers and importers to ensure that products are safe when placed on the market; and a programme of work to address the sale of non-compliant products available through online marketplaces, including e-bikes and their batteries. Last week, I visited the OPSS’s Teddington laboratories, where we launched the Department’s new “Buy Safe, Be Safe” consumer campaign.
James Asser
Two weeks ago, there was a fire in a 10th floor flat in Plaistow in my constituency. Thankfully, the quick reaction of the residents and neighbours and the good work of the London Fire Brigade meant that they were all able to be evacuated quickly and there were no serious injuries. Clearly, this could have been worse. Does the Minister agree that it is a perfect example of why we need to continue to work to make these batteries safer and run awareness campaigns, so that residents understand the safety issues and how they can be mitigated, and how the batteries can be disposed of if they need to get rid of them?
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Manufacturers must already ensure that products are safe and provide instructions for safe use, including safe charging. I pay tribute to the London Fire Brigade for the work it is doing on this issue. Unfortunately, as we have heard, there are far too many fires. That is why we launched our awareness campaign last week. We are hoping, through the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, to make sure we have powers to keep up with technological developments and ensure that e-bikes can be sold safely to consumers in the UK.
Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
As the Chancellor announced yesterday, the national living wage will rise to £12.21 an hour, meaning that a full-time worker can earn an extra £1,400 a year. We have also announced the stopping of the use of minimum service levels and tackled late payments for the self-employed. Of course, we have now introduced the Employment Rights Bill, which will raise living standards across the country and provide better support for businesses engaged in good practice. It also makes good on our promise to the British people that we will now make work pay.
Matt Turmaine
I thank the Minister for his answer. In my constituency of Watford, many people are employed in the hospitality, retail and construction sectors and, with a big hospital, in the health and social sector. Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s Make Work Pay plan will bring long-lasting benefits to them and to other workers?
Justin Madders
Absolutely. We are determined to ensure that the particular sectors that my hon. Friend mentioned, where low pay and insecurity are rife, will benefit. We are working closely with businesses and employers across the spectrum to ensure that we get the proposals right because, for too long, insecurity and low pay have been rife in the UK economy. That has to change.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
After receiving millions from the trade union paymasters for its election, Labour is rewarding them with a package of 1970s, French-style workplace regulations, which will increase the cost of doing business in the UK to the tune of £5 billion a year, disproportionately falling on SMEs. That is before the £25 billion body blow to business delivered by the Chancellor yesterday in her anti-business Budget of broken promises. Does the Minister agree with the Office for Budget Responsibility that this Government’s decisions will make workers poorer, not richer, as increased employment taxes are passed on in lower wages, and that business investment will fall, not rise, as a direct result of this Government?
Justin Madders
I find it incredible that the Opposition quote French-style labour laws, because when they introduced the minimum services legislation, they always held up France as the example of where that works already. I wish they would make their minds up. The implication behind the question about trade union funding says rather more about their attitude to how legislation is made in this country than ours. We do things because we believe in them. If he looks carefully at what the OBR is saying, £1,400 into people’s pockets as a result of the national living wage increase is a fantastic achievement that we should all be proud of.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to get more people back into work, and need to support them to return. In the Employment Rights Bill, we are looking to increase the scope of sick pay to include people below the lower earnings limit, and to introduce payments from day one. We have no plans to increase the rate of statutory sick pay, but when we get the reforms through, we will no doubt look at how we can reform it for the better. My Department for Work and Pensions colleagues will consider that in due course.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Justin Madders
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. Under the “Get Britain Working” plan, more disabled people and people with health conditions will be supported to enter and stay in work, and I am happy to discuss with her how we can achieve that aim.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
The Government’s own impact assessment suggests that measures in the Employment Rights Bill could cost businesses up to £4.5 billion annually and increase the number of strikes by 54%. Does the Minister expect that legislation to enhance or undermine investor confidence?
Justin Madders
I gently point out to the hon. Lady that that represents a 0.4% increase on businesses’ total costs—a small price to pay for what the impact assessment says
“will strengthen working conditions for the lowest-paid and most vulnerable in the labour market, increasing fairness and equality across Britain. It will have significant positive impacts on workers who are trapped in insecure work, face discrimination, or suffer from unscrupulous employer behaviour like ‘fire and refire’ practices”.
If the hon. Lady does not support that, I am sure that she can talk to her constituents about why.
Paternity Leave and Pay
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on securing today’s debate, which has been very well attended. I did not think that we would see such unanimity, but there is clearly a fresh view in the House. We would not have had this sort of turnout or this kind of debate in previous Parliaments, but there is clearly a mood among newly elected Members—and of course among older, more experienced Members—for change.
I would reference all the contributions, but we will not have time for that. As always, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), for Livingston (Gregor Poynton), for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis), for Crawley (Peter Lamb), for Makerfield (Josh Simons), for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall), for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), for Congleton (Mrs Russell), for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge), for Gloucester (Alex McIntyre), for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies), for High Peak (Jon Pearce), and the hon. Members for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) and for Lewes (James MacCleary) for their contributions. I think that shows that across the nation there is great interest and appetite for reform. Apologies if I did not catch everyone’s contribution.
I will make a couple of points. The hon. Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo), and I think a couple of other Members, talked about the fact that those working in the gig economy and those who are self-employed do not qualify for any paternity leave. Clearly, we have set out in our “Next Steps” document on employment law reform a review of the worker status and self-employed issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton raised, as I would expect her to, the very important points about maternity discrimination. She will know that there are measures in the Employment Rights Bill to strengthen protections against dismissal for those on maternity leave. I cannot continue without mentioning and congratulating in advance my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak on his impending fatherhood for the third time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Telford was absolutely right that this issue is about not just the father’s role, but the wider role in society and the bond between father and child. He talked about his research into how Government Departments had handled the matter. It is fair to say that, as a newly elected Government, we want to see Government being an exemplar of best practice as an employer. He expanded our often-used phrase of being “pro-worker, pro-business” to add “pro-family”. I have no difficulty with that in this context.
The Government are committed to ensuring that employed parents receive the best possible support for their work and home lives. Our plan to make work pay will ensure that there is more flexibility and security for working families. Workers must be supported to work, while balancing the essential ingredients of their wider family life, whether that is raising children, improving their own wellbeing or looking after a loved one with a long-term health condition.
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Justin Madders
I am sorry but I do not have time to take interventions.
We recognise that parental leave and pay entitlement, such as paternity leave and pay, play a key role in that balance. It is an important of the lives of parents and children for the parent to be able to take time away from work when their child is born—or first placed, as we recognise this debate covers other arrangements—so that partners can provide support and families can be together for the first time. We know the parental system needs improvement. Hon. Members can look back on previous debates, where it is clearly on the record that Labour in opposition felt that the parental system was in need of reform. I will set out some of the changes we plan to make in relation to the Employment Rights Bill.
As has been said, there have been some modest improvements in arrangements in the last 12 months. On 6 April, changes were introduced that allow parents to take leave and pay in two non-consecutive weeks, at any point in the first year after the birth or adoption of their child, and to give shorter notice for leave periods. That was a move forward but we want to go further. The Employment Rights Bill will make paternity leave a day one right. Currently, parents are eligible for leave only if they have been employed in their job for 26 weeks, by 15 weeks before the baby is due.
We will remove the requirement for a continuity of service condition for paternity leave. That will allow eligible employees to give notice of their intention to take that entitlement, from day one in the job. It will make paternity leave accessible to all employees, including those who may have low job security and low continuity of service, not only those who are able to reach the current set qualifying periods. We believe this measure will bring tens of thousands more parents into scope for the entitlement, meaning that many more families will benefit from protected time off.
We will make other changes to paternity leave to make it more flexible for parents. We will remove the restriction requiring paternity leave and pay to be taken before shared parental leave and pay. Currently, when shared parental leave and pay is taken, fathers lose their right to take any paternity leave and pay that they have not already taken. We think that is creating unintended consequences, and we will remove that restriction in order to provide the flexibility for employees to take advantage of the different types of leave available to them at the moment to care for their child in whatever order works for them and their family. That will also remove the risk that parents will lose their entitlement to take paternity leave and pay by misunderstanding the restrictions. As several hon. Members said, it is a complicated process; I had not realised that there was a cottage industry in completing forms for shared parental leave. That is clearly something we need to consider in due course.
We are making other commitments to improve parental leave. We are going to make unpaid parental leave a day one right. The provision gives an employed parent the right to take up to four weeks of leave per year for their child, unless the employer agrees to more. The maximum leave per child is 18 weeks in total. Currently, an employee must have worked in their job for a year to qualify for that entitlement. The Employment Rights Bill will remove that continuity of service requirement, and regulations will then enable parents to give notice of their intention to take that leave on the first day in a new job. We are very keen on having day one rights for employees in a whole range of areas. That, alongside the changes to paternity leave and pay, will increase flexibility and solidify and enhance economic activity for employed parents. Evidence shows that people who move jobs get wage increases. The current system of employees waiting up to a year for parental leave entitlements when they change employer means that parents are put off seeking new jobs that could have boosted their family income at a time when they need it more than ever.
We also know that the whole parental leave system does not support working families. As Members have said, we have committed to a review of the parental leave system. Inevitably, we will not be able to do that without looking at the questions raised today about how paternity leave and pay work. It is clearly part of a larger interconnected web. The review will be undertaken separately to the Employment Rights Bill, but work on planning for its delivery is already under way.
I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Telford an opportunity to respond, so I will bring my speech to a close. We are listening carefully to the many representations we have heard. Our plan to make work pay is a core part of our Government’s mission to grow the economy, raise living standards across the country and create opportunities for all. It will help more people stay in work, improve job security and boost living standards. The whole approach we are taking will benefit families across the board. It will benefit workers and businesses beyond the important specific interventions we have talked about today. We have a very important package of measures that I am proud to be a part of delivering in this new Government.
Whistleblowing Protections
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Sir Mark. I start by offering my triple congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell): first, congratulations on returning to this place—it is good to see him back—secondly, congratulations on securing the debate; and thirdly, congratulations on being appointed chair of the all-party group for whistleblowing, which I am sure he will lead with distinction. We have heard a number of very important and passionate contributions today. I will do my best to sum them up, but it is fair to say that we are looking forward to working with all Members across the board on this very important topic.
Before addressing some of those points, I will start by discussing the current whistleblowing framework. As Members have said, it is essentially about employment protection, and that is the reason why I am here, as the Minister for Employment Rights, to respond on the Government’s behalf. The protections were introduced by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which amended the Employment Rights Act 1996.
The legislation was intended to provide a route for workers to make disclosures of information that they reasonably believed were in the public interest and tended to show a relevant failure or someone covering up a relevant failure. Those relevant failures could include criminal offences, the endangerment of health and safety, causing damage to the environment, a miscarriage of justice or a breach of any legal obligation.
Disclosures need to be made in line with the requirements of the legislation, usually to a worker’s employer or lawyer, or a prescribed person. As Members may know, there are more than 90 different prescribed persons under the legislation to whom relevant failures can be reported. They are usually regulators, such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and the Financial Conduct Authority. I will not go through every single prescribed person today, but most have a statutory obligation to report on the disclosures that they receive and to publish the reports annually.
Since the reporting requirements came into effect, there has been an increase in the number of disclosures that are made to prescribed persons. The volume of disclosures is around 50,000 a year and, as we can probably tell from the contributions today, they are highly concentrated in the health, public administration and financial and insurance sectors. The reports summarise the actions that a prescribed person has taken, but there is variation in how that information is protected. As we have discussed, workers have, under the law, a right not to be dismissed or subjected to a detriment as a result of making a protected disclosure, and there is recourse to an employment tribunal. The number of employment tribunal complaints under the jurisdiction for protected disclosure in each year since 2017-18 has increased, reaching 3,128 in 2020-21. That is the latest year for which a full dataset is available.
But enough of the overview. We need to talk about some of the important contributions that we have heard from Members. This debate is really about how whistleblowing affects individuals. We know that it can fundamentally and irrevocably damage, indeed end, that relationship with the employer. We know there are reasons why people will not speak up: some are in senior positions and fear for their career or their reputation, some may be at the other end of the spectrum and fear insecurity and power imbalances that may make it difficult to speak up, and some may have a link to the organisation but may not be covered under the legislation.
I would like to make a few comments about the contributions in this debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for contributing. I am sure if he had come in earlier, his speech would have covered many of the points that had already been made, but that is the lottery of Westminster Hall, and I am sure there will be many opportunities for him to speak earlier in other debates. He referenced a number of Members’ speeches.
It was particularly pleasing to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Sarah Russell), who brought her professional experience to bear today. She made an interesting suggestion about the use of “some other substantial reason” as a potentially fair reason for dismissing someone in whistleblowing cases. We probably need to look at the use of “some other substantial reason”, as it is likely that it gets overused. However, as she will be aware, the current Employment Rights Bill has enough in it for us to be getting on with. She made an interesting suggestion in respect of the potential use of the Fair Work Agency here, and that is something we will bear in mind.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), highlighted some of the legal issues under the current legislation, including the question whether someone is within scope, the hurdles that they have to overcome to qualify for protection and the public interest test. Those are all things that we want to look at in a broader sense, if we get around to a review of the legislation. I take his point about officials in the Department for Work and Pensions, but I hope that this Administration would want to be an exemplar of best practice, and we would want people to feel confident that they can speak out if they see a wrong or an injustice.
It was a pleasure, as always, to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), in his customary place—I may have swapped positions, but he remains a permanent fixture over there. He spoke very movingly about his friend Brian and the great personal cost of his efforts to expose wrongdoing. Brian’s resilience came through in the hon. Member’s description of his fight. As he said, it was about doing the right thing, and his message was that,
“you are not alone when you do the right thing.”
We should be sending that message to anyone who thinks about blowing the whistle. Of course, the matter is devolved to Northern Ireland, but that message should ring out across the whole of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) raised some specific issues about the Department of Health and Social Care and her constituent Sarah McMahon. I am sorry to hear of the three years of personal difficulties Sarah McMahon has suffered as a result of doing the right thing. Unfortunately, too many organisations make it very difficult for individuals who blow the whistle. I understand that the Department for Health and Social Care has concluded a review of the statutory duty of candour, and it has issued a call for evidence, which I think is ongoing. I take her message of frustration about the length of time that these things take, and I will pass that message back to the Department.
However, my hon. Friend made the important point that some organisations have got it right and encourage people to speak up when they see a wrong. There are some very good examples, including the aviation industry, which is a particular exemplar of that. It is the standard that we should be aiming for.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, who opened the debate, said that the law looks at how things happen after the disclosure, and always through the prism of an employment relationship. That was a good analysis of where we are and perhaps why there are shortcomings in some of the legislation. I agree that this is about the law giving people the confidence to speak up. I am sure we will return to some of the things we hope to do on that.
Gareth Snell
I ask the Minister and his colleagues across Government to look at the way we fund and support our regulatory bodies. Often, the failure reported by a whistleblower would have been prevented from happening in the first place by a properly funded and resourced regulator. As much as anybody else, he will know that times are tough and budgets are tight, but investment in the regulatory framework early doors could help to save money and lives, and prevent people from having to put their own homes on the line to do the right thing.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. I suspect that a week ahead of the Budget we will not get the kind of investment he would like to see. He talked about the legislation, focusing on existing employment relationships and the broader ambit of employment. The legislation was probably framed in that way in the first place because that is where the biggest power imbalance lies: between an employer and their employee.
We can consider how we would broaden this out, but we will bring in particular measures with our Employment Rights Bill. Hon. Members will be aware that Second Reading took place last night, when we made some specific announcements on our overall package. The Bill is the biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in a generation, and in it we will address specific issues about whistleblowing on sexual harassment. The Trades Union Congress states that 58% of women have been sexually harassed at work. That is a staggering, appalling figure that must be tackled, and it is one of the reasons why we want to improve people’s ability to ring the alarm bell when sexual harassment occurs.
The Bill will require employers to create and maintain workplaces and working conditions free from harassment, including by third parties. It will strengthen the legal duty of employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment before it starts, and it will enable regulations to specify steps that an employer must take to protect their employees from sexual harassment to ensure that effective steps are taken. It also includes protections for whistleblowers and will make clear that sexual harassment can be the basis for a protected disclosure, which is one of the most important steps we can take to make workplaces safer. Workers who make a protected disclosure will then have legal recourse if their employer subjects them to a detriment for speaking up.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned, as did several other Members, the possibility of an office for the whistleblower. There were a number of suggestions about the potential remit and role that it could have. Clearly, the cost and precise functions and powers of that would need careful consideration, particularly in how it would relate to current regulators. The point he made about the resources of regulators is relevant to that. There would also have to be some consideration given to how it would exist as an independent body from Government. I must disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton by saying that the pledge to create the office did not make it into our final manifesto, but that is not to say we are ruling it out forever and a day. We will consider it as we look at a broader review of the whistleblowing framework.
On that point, I will address the remarks made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, about the review initiated by the previous Government, which was intended to assess the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework against its original objectives. As he rightly pointed out, that review was not released before the general election. It certainly does not seem appropriate for us to let that work go to waste; I will talk to my officials about how and when we can release that information, but I see no reason why we should not do so. It will be a starting point for further work in this area.
The number of issues raised today shows that the appetite for reform in this area is much broader than the review commissioned under the previous Government recognised. Of course, other measures are due to be enacted in the next 12 months, but we can do more to ensure people feel confident when they speak out.
As several Members said, the King’s Speech made clear that we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to implement a Hillsborough law to introduce a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities. The Prime Minister made clear that that Bill will enter Parliament before the next anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. We believe it will be a catalyst for a change of culture in the public sector by improving transparency and accountability where public services have failed. It will help to address the unacceptable defensive culture that is prevalent across too much of the public sector. It has been said several times that the NHS is one of the worst examples of that; certainly, from my experience, there is a hard focus on trying to justify actions, rather than get to the root of the complaint.
Bishop James Jones’s report made it clear that those things have to change, not just in the NHS, but across the whole public sector. That Bill will be an important starting point in changing the culture both in the public sector and across the country. We all want it to improve so that whistleblowers have the confidence to speak out and have the assurance that, if something happens to them as a result, they will be protected and supported.
Gareth Snell
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his summation. I will make a couple of final points. I absolutely understand that the office of the whistleblower did not make its way into our manifesto, but I say to the Minister that the circumstances that led us in opposition to support to such a suggestion have not changed. Although I appreciate that we have had an election and Governments have changed, even an undertaking to meet those of us who think this proposal is part of the solution, to discuss it and go through it, would be welcome—
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. The Act will make significant changes to the UK’s competition and consumer landscape that will protect small businesses, save consumers money, boost innovation and drive growth.
Part 1 of the Act will establish a pro-competition regime for digital markets that will promote more dynamic markets and ensure the most powerful tech firms treat consumers and business fairly.
Part 2 makes several enhancements to our wider competition regime, to give the Competition and Markets Authority greater powers in tackling illegal, anti-competitive, behaviours and to focus competition regulation on the areas of greatest potential harm.
Parts 3 and 4 strengthen the enforcement of consumer law and introduce new consumer protections, including tackling fake reviews and drip pricing, new rules for consumer saving schemes and introducing new rights relating to subscription contracts.
Part 5 contains miscellaneous measures including provisions which deal with investigative assistance to overseas regulators, disclosing information overseas, providing for a duty of expedition on the CMA and sectoral regulators, and giving the CMA new information gathering powers to support a function of monitoring competition in the retail motor fuel sector in the UK.
A key focus of the Act is providing greater powers and responsibilities for the CMA, the UK’s primary independent competition and consumer protection authority. This will help the CMA meet the challenges of the modern economy.
The Government recognise the importance of implementing the Act as soon as possible so that businesses and consumers can reap its benefits. We also understand those affected by the Act need to know when its changes will come into effect. That is why the Government are publicly setting out our plans for implementation.
Key steps must be taken to implement the Act. Secondary legislation must be laid in Parliament, under powers set out in the Act, before the Act’s measures can be commenced and enter into force. The CMA must publish guidance setting out how it will carry out its functions and use its powers. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade must approve CMA digital markets guidance. The Government are working closely with the CMA to ensure these are in place as soon as possible. Of equal importance is the need for secondary legislation and guidance to be detailed, robust and clear to ensure the Act’s changes are understood and can be complied with.
The Government aim to commence parts 1, 2 and 5 of the Act in December 2024 or January 2025. In the autumn, secondary legislation will be laid before Parliament for scrutiny before it enters into force. Commencing part 1 will bring the digital markets regime into effect, and we expect the CMA to launch the first strategic market status investigations shortly afterwards. The reforms to the existing competition regime, the new motor fuels function and other part 5 measures will take effect on the commencement date.
The commencement order will be made at least 28 days before the commencement date.
In April 2025, the Government expect to commence part 3 of the Act, which provides for the consumer enforcement regimes, and part 4, chapter 1 of the Act, which replaces the unfair trading regulations. Secondary legislation will set out rules for the CMA’s new direct enforcement powers, alongside guidance on these new powers. New savings schemes rules will not commence before April 2025, and this timeline is subject to continuing engagement with consumers and industry. Reforms to subscriptions contracts and alternative dispute resolution will follow later, with subscriptions reforms not commencing before spring 2026, at the earliest. These timelines follow commitments made in the previous Parliament, and reflect the quickest possible delivery of the reforms, while ensuring that the necessary consultation and other steps can take place.
The Government’s implementation plans will deliver the Act’s benefits as quickly as possible, while ensuring its changes enter into force smoothly, allowing those that will be affected by them adequate time to prepare.
[HCWS74]
Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023: Repeal
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
Minimum service levels unduly restrict the right to strike and undermine good industrial relations. The introduction of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 was met with widespread condemnation from employers and trade unions. Many employers across different sectors pointed to its unworkability and impact on the ability of employers and trade unions to negotiate and to resolve disputes.
As such, the Government announced on 6 August 2024 that we will repeal the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 to get public services back on track and strengthen the rights of working people. The Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade have also written to other Secretaries of State, the First Minister of Scotland and the First Minister of Wales asking them to encourage employers to avoid imposing minimum service levels on their workforce, until the Act is repealed.
We have begun preparations to repeal the 2023 Act as part of the forthcoming employment rights Bill. Amendments made by the 2023 Act to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 will accordingly be reversed and any minimum service regulations will lapse automatically once the employment rights Bill has Royal Assent.
Although the ability of employers to give work notices will legally continue until the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 has been formally repealed and amendments to the 1992 Act are accordingly reversed, in this interim period we have strongly encouraged employers to seek alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution, including voluntary agreements, rather than imposing minimum service levels.
I also wish to make clear that, following the High Court ruling in August 2023 which upheld the judicial review challenge on the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022, employment businesses are prohibited from providing agency workers to cover the duties normally performed by a worker of an organisation who is taking part in a strike or other industrial action. In the light of the High Court ruling, it is not necessary to repeal these regulations.
The upcoming employment rights Bill will remove barriers to effective dispute resolution and we will continue to work with businesses as we develop and implement our plan to make work pay.
[HCWS75]