European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Baroness Crawley

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to Amendment 16 in my name and that of others and support all the amendments in this group. I will not delay the Committee for long, but it is important to explain and emphasise why I and parliamentarians across parties and across both Houses wish to pursue this amendment. As previous speakers have explained, the amendment covers protections for groups with protected characteristics who are covered by secondary legislation that arose in the EU. We need these protections built in before Article 50 is triggered because otherwise they could be altered by the Executive and might not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

We are simply asking for oversight by one Parliament, the European Parliament, to be replaced by that of another, the UK Parliament. We believe that women will be disproportionately affected and at risk. Protections already mentioned include: preventing less favourable terms for part-time workers, under the part-time workers’ regulations; the duty of employers to assess health and safety aspects of work for pregnant workers afforded under the pregnant workers directive; the right to return to work to an equivalent post or equally favourable conditions after maternity leave, in the maternity and parental leave regulations; and, perhaps the most at risk—and one over which the Government dragged their heels for two years in implementing—the working time directive, which protects rights to rest breaks, annual leave and not to be required to work excessively long hours.

We are not saying that the Government would use the opportunity to get rid of worker protections in this way, but it would reassure this House if they were not able to do so without scrutiny from both Houses of Parliament. We must not wait until Article 50 is triggered. As soon as it is triggered, these rights become exposed and unprotected. If the Government have no intention of taking the opportunity to change some of these protections without benefit of parliamentary scrutiny, there is no reason why they should not accept this amendment.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I particularly support my noble friend Lady Drake’s compelling case for preserving and improving workplace rights for women after we leave the European Union. That is not least because I, as a former MEP, like the noble Lord, Lord Balfe—or “another obscure MEP”, as the Daily Mail put it—played a modest part in the creation of the maternity leave directive 25 years ago. As my noble friend Lady Drake said, so many British women—hundreds of thousands—have benefited from that EU law in the intervening years.

Maternity rights for British women have indeed progressed—in that sense the Minister is right—and we should be proud of that. But in the early 1990s, they came from a very low base, much lower than the rest of the European Union, and we do not want to go back to that low base. Therefore I call on the Minister to give us what guarantees he can that we will not go back to bargain-basement rights.

In this debate on the importance of securing transitional arrangements, as my noble friend has said, I ask the Minister whether he agrees with his noble friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie—he was in his place but I do not see him now. In our debate on this Bill on Monday, in answer to a question on the EEA from my noble friend Lord Liddle, the noble and learned Lord said,

“I do not accept that we face a cliff edge—there is no cliff and therefore no edge”.—[Official Report, 27/2/17; col. 588.]

Does the Minister agree? That was certainly not the message that the Prime Minister took to the CBI last autumn when it was extremely worried, and it continues to be worried about the need for transitional arrangements.