Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and I thank my good and hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for having secured this important debate. I also draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The employment landscape has been fundamentally transformed since I first left school aged 15. The shipyards, factories and foundries that once dominated our skyline are all but gone, and today we inhabit a world dominated by Amazon warehouses and artificial intelligence. Gone, too, is the right to well-paid, secure and dignified employment that my generation took for granted. So I welcome the Taylor review’s recognition of the need to reform existing working practices. I am also glad to see it call for equal pay for agency staff and sick leave for low-paid workers, which I have no doubt would be warmly welcomed by the over a quarter of a million workers who were forced to self-isolate with inadequate sick pay, or even no sick pay, this December.

But I am afraid that the scale of the challenge before us has not been fully grasped. At a time when millions of people are trapped in a vicious cycle of zero-hours contracts and poverty pay, bold and transformative change is needed: tinkering around the edges simply will not cut it. As a veteran of the labour movement, I know that there is no more powerful vehicle for improving the lives of working people than the unions. Time and time again, research has found that workers in countries with higher trade union density are better paid, happier and more secure in the workplace, but this report fails to afford trade unions the vital role that they must play in building a Britain that works for all. There is no acknowledgment of how reinstating sectoral collective bargaining would help to drive up wages and improve the quality of work. There is no recognition of how trade unions can facilitate the negotiation of fairer working conditions, including a right to flexible working. There is also not a single mention of the urgent need to repeal the draconian Trade Union Act 2016, which has done so much to curtail the ability of unions to stand up for their members.

There are other issues that need addressing. In response to the plague of bogus self-employment, the Taylor review offers a number of solutions, but none goes far enough in guaranteeing workers the security they deserve. As such, I urge the Minister to adopt the Labour party’s call to abolish the three-tier system altogether and introduce a single, universal employment status that would grant every worker in the country fundamental rights from day one.

Similarly, when it comes to enforcing employment rights, this report falls short of recommending the establishment of an independent labour organisation with the statutory power to stand up to bad bosses and enforce employment rights and collective agreements, as called for in the Institute of Employment Rights manifesto for labour law. At a time when covid has highlighted the gross inadequacy of the UK’s rate of statutory sick pay, I am afraid that the recommendation for SSP to be accrued based on length of service risks leaving new starters out in the cold if they fall ill.

I understand that the Government plan to adopt the Taylor review as the basis of their future reform of employment law. I look forward to the Minister telling us about those plans in more detail. Any measures, however limited, that give workers greater protections in the workplace ought to be welcomed, but after all that UK workers have gone through to get us through to covid, surely they deserve better. The Government must go further, be bolder and deliver more for the millions of working people struggling to get by in our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I will come to what we have done and what we intend to do in just a second. I highlight the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller): quite a lot has happened since. She is right to say that the Government have been busy and that parliamentary time has been precious, but the nature of work itself has significantly changed since that point.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) spoke about the right to request flexible working from day one. She is right to focus in on that. It is a key area, not just for the idea of flexible working, but for people who have caring and parental responsibilities and other pressures on their life outside work, so it can have a significant impact on other areas that we want to tackle. We have been able to take the opportunity throughout the pandemic to reflect on the changing nature of work, which will extend beyond the pandemic, as we move towards endemic covid and a sense of normality, and being able to reflect on what flexible working might look like at that stage, rather than what it did look like and what our ambitions were, back in 2016. We want to make sure that we can take the necessary steps for our labour market.

[Mick Whitley]

We tend to blame everything on the pandemic. Zero-hours contracts were here before the pandemic. All that has happened is massive exploitation of zero-hours contracts. The Government cannot turn a blind eye and turn round and say, “It’s the pandemic”, because it is not.

[Paul Scully]

Actually, what we are saying about flexible working is not about blaming the pandemic. Work has changed. The hon. Gentleman talks about zero-hours contracts—they have changed somewhat as well. The flexibility of the workforce—the people who have been feeding us, caring for us and moving us around—has really shone a light on that.