Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ban fire and rehire practices.

We have been very clear that using threats about firing and re-hiring simply as a negotiating tactic is completely unacceptable. We continue to emphasise that we always expect employers to treat employees fairly and in the spirit of partnership.

As we have been concerned by reports of inappropriate use of fire and rehire during negotiations, we engaged Acas to conduct a fact-finding exercise about how fire and rehire has been used in practice. We are now giving this evidence full consideration.