Fire and Rehire Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Patricia Gibson
Main Page: Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)Department Debates - View all Patricia Gibson's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Fire and Rehire
Patricia Gibson Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]
Firing employees and rehiring them on reduced terms and conditions is a shocking way to treat workers, and I am very proud of my SNP colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), for his tireless work on the issue. It is important to recognise his efforts in this area, even though there has sadly been a collective oversight of his Bill in the debate so far.
Frankly, many of us are fed up with the members of the UK Government condemning this practice while doing nothing to address it. Finger-wagging and head shaking are not going to stop this appalling practice, but legislation will, yet the Government refuse to adopt my hon. Friend’s Bill. While the Government do nothing, we see Centrica workers fired without redundancy for refusing to submit to this appalling treatment. British Airways staff, too, have been subject to this repressive and regressive practice, with Tesco also guilty and others sure to follow.
It is a matter of deep regret and anger in Scotland that the Labour party, working alongside the Tories, conspired in the Smith commission against Scotland having power over employment law, which would have allowed us to protect workers in Scotland. Clearly, the Union is more important to the Labour party than the rights of workers, many of whom fund the Labour party. That is flawed logic indeed, a logic that workers in Scotland are increasingly rejecting. The sudden change of heart from the current leader of the Scottish Labour party to support the devolution of employment law to Scotland—this Damascene conversion as we approach election day—is unconvincing and extremely cynical, since it was Labour that blocked such devolution in the first place.
Let us stop all the hand-wringing and bring my hon. Friend’s Bill to the House again, and let us support it. As for Scotland, we will make our own decisions on employment law soon enough, when we secure and go on to win an independence referendum. Then workers in England will be able to look to Scotland to see what protecting and supporting workers in a fair and just society really looks like.