Employment Rights Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I can be very brief because the Minister has brought glad tidings. I thank him very much for that and for the way that he set out this debate.

As noble Lords who followed this narrow but important issue will know, this confusion stems from the question of how a 1920 Act of Parliament applies in the modern era to volunteers and young employees on heritage railways and tramways. For more than a decade, this has been taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, who has been campaigning to clarify this in law; I pay tribute to him for 10 years of hard work and for his efforts behind the scenes to secure this important change today.

I am grateful to the Minister and to the noble Baroness, Lady Lloyd of Effra, whom I welcome to her place. We had a very helpful meeting last week with them both. They were in listening mode and I am glad they have taken this away and helped to solve it. We welcome the drawing up of guidelines, as we said in our meeting, and I am glad to report that the Office of Rail and Road and the Health and Safety Executive have already begun their work with the Heritage Railway Association, as the Minister said. I am delighted to hear that the target is for that to be completed by 31 March; I am sure that work can indeed be done.

The sticking point for us is that this needs to be clarified in law as well as in guidelines. In our debate on Report, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler- Sloss, said that it is no use Ministers saying that guidance shows that organisations will not prosecute; the fact is that the law forbids it—and if the law forbids it, no respectable organisation should allow it to go forward. That is why I was so keen that these guidelines should be given some statutory backing. In effect, the amendment that I tried to table sought to describe what the Government, the Office of Rail and Road and the Health and Safety Executive have offered and are happy to happen. I am delighted to hear that the Government are happy for that to be written into the Bill. I accept that my version has some drafting deficiencies, which I would be very glad to work with the Government to clear up.

I have a non-financial interest to declare: I am the unremunerated chairman of the Heritage Railway Association. I am very pleased to have succeeded the noble Lord, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, who had to give it up to become the Rail Minister. Next week, I will be in Southampton with heritage railways from across the country, which will be delighted to hear that this long-standing problem, which holds back young volunteers from getting experience and skills in our heritage railways, will finally be solved, and I am grateful to the Government for their part in solving it.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I am almost lost for words. As the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said, this campaign has been running for almost 15 years. The first stage was when I took a Private Member’s Bill through your Lordships’ House to attempt to address the problems of the 1920 Act. It passed without any opposition, except from the Government Front Bench, sadly—not this Government Front Bench but previous one.

We have reached this point because the organisations involved—the Office of Rail and Road and the Health and Safety Executive—have been instructed by the department to come to a conclusion. We had an excellent meeting on 21 October, which the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, referred to, which my noble friends Lady Lloyd of Effra and Lord Leong also attended. I offer them, the ORR and the HSE my warmest congratulations and thanks for what is a very satisfactory outcome.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, in addressing Motion C, I thank the Government for their amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Katz, in particular, has been very patient and has provided us with his time. He has responded to an issue that was first raised by Sir Ashley Fox in the Commons, when one of his constituents, who was a special constable, presented the unfairness of the fact that he could not get time off from his employer as a right. That issue was raised in his amendment, which was dismissed in the Commons but was supported in the Lords by the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Evans, which I appreciate.

Of course, I would have preferred that the specials were added to the list of those who get that right, but the Government responded by saying that they would have a review. I then said that reviews often do not happen—and if they do happen, they do not get any outcome. They replied, “In that case, how about making it a statutory one that is time limited? Now what is your argument?” That is a fair point, and I accept that the review will take place and is time limited, and I look forward to its outcome.

The Government’s other point was that, of course, there are other groups that might want a similar right on a list that is waiting to be addressed, and it would be unfair to consider the specials only. That is a fair point. Nevertheless, I am glad of the progress that has been made and the support that the Government have shown.