Employment Rights Bill

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st July 2025 Lords Chamber

Finally, there are 6 million workers working for small and medium-sized enterprises; I think it is around a third of the private sector workforce. The idea that they would be denied that right just because they happen to be employed by a small employer seems wrong to me. I remind noble Lords one final time that this is about the rights of workers to speak to unions in their workplaces and doing so with agreement. The CAC becomes involved only if you cannot come to an agreement between the union and the employer. I am afraid I very much oppose these amendments and support the Bill as it stands.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, last week the chairman of the junior doctors—or, now, resident doctors—committee of the BMA put out a tweet saying, “You do not have to tell your employer if you are striking”. I thought of that as I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, talking about how reasonable, collaborative and useful this union participation was. There is a difference between people wanting to work together and people seeking to inflict maximum disruption, as is plainly the case in the doctors’ strike. I have to say, by the way, that the Secretary of State for Health in another place has made the same point that I have: he thinks it is extremely disruptive and has said all the right things about it. But can we really blame the BMA or any other union for walking through a door that is being so ostentatiously unbolted with the passage of this legislation?

I do not want to get into a Second Reading speech, but I agree with my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley: we have done extremely well with low unemployment, unlike almost every other country in Europe. With the financial crisis and Covid, we have had structurally low unemployment because of a flexible labour market. That is beyond this amendment, but I do not see how anyone could reasonably oppose the amendment just put forward by my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea. If we are in a world of wanting to be collaborative, it seems to me that informing an employer before coming and organising in that company is a matter of minimal courtesy. It seems to be an oversight in the legislation, and I hope that Ministers will at least be able to concede that point.