Employment Rights Bill

Michael Wheeler Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Martin]

I absolutely agree; I think the key word there is “exploitative”.

People in Portsmouth North and across the country deserve fairness, dignity and the ability to plan their daily lives and future. In sectors such as retail, hospitality, construction, social care and logistics, many workers are on unpredictable, variable hours,, with shifts cancelled at short notice or only a minimal work week offered in order for employers to control their labour costs. This makes budgeting, second jobs, childcare, healthcare planning and indeed everything in life almost impossible.

Let me give the House a local example. One of my constituents, “Sara”, has worked in a Portsmouth café on a zero-hours contract for four years. She is told at the beginning of each week what hours she might get. One week she might have 25 hours, and the next week she might get eight—and the next she might get nothing. Because she cannot predict her hours, she ends up in debt, skipping medical visits and having to rely on emergency credit to pay her bills. Under the Bill’s intended protection, Sara could request fixed hours and have far greater stability for herself and her family.

[Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point. Does she agree that for Sara and for my constituents who are on short or zero-hours contracts, the meat of the amendment, which would introduce the bureaucratic farce of an offering of an offer, instead of a right, would ruin the meaningful change in the Bill and that the introduction of an ability for workers to opt out would open up a loophole with detrimental effects in the real world, where people could be rewarded with overtime if they agreed to opt out?

[Amanda Martin]

Absolutely. It would leave workers unable to reject overtime, even if they were knackered, having already done 60 or 70 hours that week.

That brings me to Dave, a plasterer working on one of my local building sites. He is technically self-employed, but in reality he is also on a rolling zero-hours contract. Some weeks he earns enough to keep his mortgage, and some weeks he earns enough to put aside a little bit of money for Christmas; other weeks, he earns nothing at all. He is told to stand down when winter hits and work slows, with no pay, no notice and no safety net. That insecurity is corrosive and affects not just finances, but families, health and morale on jobs.

Let us be clear, the public are firmly with us. According to the TUC’s 2025 mega-poll, support for guaranteed-hours contracts sits at over 70% across the regions and nations of the UK. This is not about denigrating businesses and business owners—many are fantastic and provide great opportunities—but without the bill, unscrupulous employers will continue to sidestep responsibility and run a race to the bottom.

Arguments are made that these measures would impose burdens on business, discourage hiring and risk flooding employment tribunals. Those concerns should not be a pretext for hollowing out protections and should instead ensure that workers know how much they will earn each month so that they can plan and live their lives. Sara and Dave, who I referred to earlier, are just two names; behind them are thousands of lives blighted by unfair employment practices. Sara and Dave will not mind me saying that they are not young. Despite what the Opposition want us to believe, zero-hours contracts are not just exploitative for the young; they are exploitative for many other people in our society.

People deserve the right to security. I urge colleagues to reject these Lords amendments, which would weaken the Bill, because fixed-hours entitlement is not a radical idea but a basic standard of decency in the modern world of work. If we really mean it when we say in this House that we respect working people, we must deliver laws that protect them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent and well-made point. I am glad that he has managed to find the ctrl+F function with such speed. I always rely on him to provide such efficiency and clarity. The Bill will benefit more than 15 million workers. That is an incredibly powerful statistic to give at the Dispatch Box. More than 2 million people on zero-hours contracts could benefit, as well as the many workers he mentions who will benefit from further protections and rights at work.

[Michael Wheeler]

I thank my good and hon. Friend for giving way. Millions of workers, including those on zero-hours contracts, stand to benefit from the measures in the Bill. Does she agree that the amendments tabled by Liberal Democrat peers on the right to guaranteed hours are an unworkable bureaucratic mess that opens up scope for abusive practices in the workplace and removes the Bill’s meaningful protections from far too many workers?

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my good and hon. Friend for his important contribution. Like him, I meet many people in my constituency who do not know day to day whether they will have enough money for food and rent because they do not know how many hours they will work that week. That is why it is so important that we give people basic security by banning exploitative zero-hours contracts. We know that people value the flexibility that those contracts offer, which is why we are tackling the exploitative ones, as he rightly outlines. Those amendments might look for a different route to tackle exploitative zero-hours contracts, but we want to protect working people, because it is so important that they have certainty, week by week, on what they will be paid—that is what they deserve. I thank him for all his work in this area over a number of years. He brings a wealth of experience to this part of the Bill.

The Government are clear that we cannot build a strong economy while people are in insecure work. Employment law has not kept pace with modern working patterns, and that has allowed some employers to exploit gaps in the law, undercut responsible businesses and fuel a race to the bottom. Backed by our new industrial and trade strategies, the Bill will drive productivity, foster innovation and lay the foundations for long-term secure growth. It will level the playing field for good employers and put the UK economy in step with competitors in other advanced economies.

As we have heard today, I stand on the shoulders and build on the incredible hard work of many right hon. and hon. Friends. I pay tribute to them, and put on record my thanks and gratitude for all their work in getting us to where we are today. I hope that all hon. Members support the Government in our determination to get the Bill over the line and update our employment rights legislation in this country, for businesses and for employers, for the future and for growth. I thank hon. Members for their contributions.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1B.