Employers: Fire and Rehire

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sure my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has heard what the noble Lord said. I am not going to give any commitments on her behalf. It is important to point out that only a very tiny minority of employers resort to these practices. The vast majority of employers look after their employees well and responsibly. As I said, we do not encourage these practices.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his answers so far, but can I probe him just a little further on his suggestion that there are certain circumstances in which fire and rehire would be appropriate or necessary? It is well-established in employment law that a company facing challenges can make lawful redundancies, so why on earth should they be able to get into practices of firing and rehiring? Is he really seeking to establish high levels of insecure and zero-hours employment?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

No, of course I am not. That is why we have one of the best employment law frameworks in the world. We have one of the lowest levels of unemployment. We have one of the highest minimum wages in the developed world and an excellent record on employment law. The point I am making is that in some very limited circumstances—which is not to be encouraged—if the alternative is the company closing and everybody losing their jobs, then it might be appropriate for a company to engage in this kind of restructuring because 90% of a wage is better than no wage.

TRIPS Agreement: Vaccines

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, this question of intellectual property is going to be really important in future pandemics. It is not absolute. We gave up liberties. People stayed at home and did not go to work. All sorts of sacrifices were made. Why cannot big pharma make its little bit of sacrifice as well?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is making sacrifices. I agree with the noble Baroness about the sacrifices that have been made, but if we want big pharma and the private sector to invest, then we need to preserve the intellectual property regime, because next time it will require billions of pounds of investment, production and research. That is best achieved by preserving the intellectual property regime, but we need to make sure that developing countries have access to these vaccines, which we have done. Many of these countries do not have the facilities, the knowledge, the expertise or the know-how to produce these vaccines.

Strikes: Cover by Agency Workers

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

If agencies do not wish to take part in the freedoms offered by these regulations then it is entirely their right not to do so.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, this is hardly St Francis of Assisi, is it? As this is not specifically about the rail workers, are the Government confident that they will find these armies of agency junior doctors and junior barristers down the track?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said, this applies in all sectors of the economy. Agencies already supply a considerable number of personnel in the fields that the noble Baroness mentioned.

Post Office: Horizon

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Again, I find myself agreeing in large part with my noble friend. I am happy to join him in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot, and to the many other noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber and indeed Members on both sides of the House of Commons as well who have campaigned for many years to draw attention to this outrageous situation. Again, I do not really want to apportion blame until we have the results of the inquiry. The job of the inquiry is to find out who or what was responsible for the case. We all have our suspicions but let us wait and see what the inquiry comes up with and then draw the appropriate conclusion.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I wholly endorse everything that has been said about Fujitsu and the possibility of applying the “polluter pays” principle in this area, as in others. Will the Government also consider the potential dangers of large bodies corporate—be they local authorities, the Post Office or others—abusing the ancient right for individuals and families of private prosecution? I urge the Minister and his colleagues to consider whether it is really appropriate for these bodies to be prosecuting serious crimes in their own interest in future.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. Certainly the Post Office has said it will not be conducting any further prosecutions. This is a wider question than this particular case, and it is not an area with which I am overly familiar. I know the question has been asked and other people are looking at it, but I will take it back to the appropriate department.

Vaccine Patents Waiver

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support a vaccine patents waiver at the World Trade Organisation.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

My Lords, the waiver proposal of the World Trade Organization goes beyond patents and vaccines, encompassing most intellectual property on all Covid 19-related products and technologies, with no geographical or duration limits. While HM Government remain open to initiatives that help with vaccine production and distribution, there is no evidence that waiving intellectual property protections would advance these objectives. We must focus on actions that will make a real difference, including delivering and administering vaccines globally.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that, but he will understand that my Question is in the context of a previous prime ministerial promise and an obvious logical need to vaccinate the planet. The UK is paying the highest recorded price for the Pfizer vaccine. What work are Her Majesty’s Government doing to encourage Pfizer to share its necessary technology—not just the recipe—with the 100 potential mRNA manufacturers in Africa, Asia and Latin America identified by Médecins Sans Frontières and Human Rights Watch? They could be producing these vaccines now.

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, we are still learning about coronavirus and about how to respond effectively to its mutations. One thing that we do know is that continued innovation by companies such as Pfizer is required to enable scientists to continue to develop health products and technologies, including vaccines to help tackle the virus.

Trade Policy: Environmental Considerations

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

We will certainly raise the impact of trade policies at COP 26. On the noble Baroness’s point about where our trade agreements are being made, of course it might have been better if Australia and New Zealand were close to Europe, but they are not. They are important countries to make trade agreements with, and that trumps the question of geography, in this case.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

Would the Minister explain the process within government to audit trade or other policies to ensure that climate catastrophe is given priority in these considerations?

Private Equity Takeovers

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is difficult to give specific examples, but there are grounds under national security, financial stability, media plurality or public health emergencies for the Secretary of State to intervene in mergers and takeovers, and, of course, the CMA monitors competition grounds. Beyond those factors, we welcome inward investors and I agree with the noble Lord that we should be an open and accessible economy.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, everyone agrees that there is a benefit in investment, but we are not talking about long-term or even medium-term investors. We are talking about short-term profiteers. They are opaque, undertaxed and underregulated. Will the Minister sense the mood of this House and consider regulating in this area, not just on national security grounds but on human security and economic security grounds?

Office of the Whistleblower Bill [HL]

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have no current relevant interest, but I speak as a former government lawyer and a long-serving director of Liberty. I have advised Ministers on breaches of, for example, official secrets and represented whistleblowers who have exposed serious wrongdoing in their workplaces at great personal cost and even greater risk.

I join the chorus of congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her important and timely Bill. In the press just this morning Zelda Perkins, a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, calls on Her Majesty’s Government to ratify ILO convention 190 on violence and harassment at work. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity while summing up to respond directly to her request.

However, there are many other forms of very bad practice which would justify public interest disclosure. Like other employment legislation, our whistleblowing laws lack sufficient accessibility and effective enforcement mechanisms, not least now that our civil legal aid system has been completely obliterated. On the one hand, organisations are entitled to expect a reasonable relationship of trust and confidence with their workforce and many others, as we have heard—even more so in the most sensitive areas—but on the other there is considerable public interest in serious bad practice up to and including illegality being exposed from within. How on earth can we expect vulnerable individuals to walk this ethical and legal minefield and face the dangers of discipline, dismissal, blacklisting and, in some cases, even prosecution without the kind of help that a body such as that proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, would offer? Every day we see new evidence that institutions—whether commercial, media or banking empires, government departments and even, tragically, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, recently uncovered, the Metropolitan Police—simply cannot be trusted to police themselves. Their internal mechanisms for advising whistleblowers are, perhaps inevitably, wholly inadequate. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, proposes a way through. I hope that the Government are listening.

National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction to these regulations, which of course must pass this evening. Some will no doubt welcome in particular the 19p rise to the national living wage and its extension to those aged 23 rather than 25, but I suggest that many more people will feel, as I do, that neither measure is enough in practice or in principle, especially in a pandemic that has so amplified poverty in our nations, including in-work poverty, and inequality, sometimes with quite deadly consequences.

Surely it is time to move more quickly towards breaking the £10-an-hour threshold for those in the lowest-paid work. I could not agree with the Minister’s suggestion that the current rates are fair in relation to low-paid workers, many of whom are literally saving our lives in this pandemic.

Surely it is time to end this age discrimination. Even the move from 25 years old to 23 for the national living wage is inexplicable in discrimination and human rights terms. I do not believe that a 23 year-old’s rent will be cheaper or that they will need less expensive food or fuel every week.

Surely it is time to ensure that no one has to risk their own health or that of the community by leaving home to go to work—often insecure work—when they are symptomatic. Surely we have learned during this pandemic that financial insecurity breeds health insecurity, not just for individuals but for society as a whole. Surely it is time to explore a minimum guaranteed income for everyone in our nations.

I was particularly interested in the Minister’s discussion of compliance and record-keeping but I wonder whether, in his summation of the debate, he might say a little more about enforcement. How are these national minima enforced and how much enforcement action have we really seen, not least over the last year?

Finally, given the levels of food poverty and insecurity in our nations in recent times—again exaggerated during the pandemic—can the Minister set out the proportions of the national minimum wage and living wage that have been calculated for adequate food? I believe that the time is right for a legally enforceable right to adequate food in our nations, one of the wealthiest nations on earth.

Trade Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, my memory goes back to Committee and the powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, who set out the arguments against ISDS extremely well. There was a lot of powerful argument there. But I am also grateful for the intervention of my noble friend Lord Lansley, who always manages to sow those little seeds of doubt as to whether we are going in the right direction. Notwithstanding those seeds of doubt, I believe we are going in the right direction with these amendments, on the simple basis that ISDS permits any investor in this country to sue the UK Government for anything that might harm their profits in any way.

Therefore, I have one particular question on this matter for my noble friend Lord Grimstone. I believe I am right in saying that, since 1986, we have had an ISDS agreement with China. If that is the case, are the UK Government not widely exposed on the Huawei case? In relation to banning Huawei from operating in this country, there is no clause within the agreement, as I understand it, that says that we can ban a company from operating for national security purposes—so is not the UK hopelessly exposed? As a result of that, should not all our bilateral agreements be rethought, as suggested by my noble friend Lord, Lansley, because there is this loophole?

My second question to my noble friend concerns the Government’s eagerness to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As my noble friend will be aware, New Zealand is seeking an exemption from the ISDS. In our negotiations to join this organisation, will we also seek an exemption from ISDS, and if not, why not? If New Zealand has set a precedent, it would be only logical for us to follow because that must be the right way forward.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure briefly to follow those who have already spoken on this group, and I support Amendment 19 in particular. I am no expert in international trade law, but I rest assured that my noble friend Lord Hendy will speak very shortly.

Briefly, my concerns about ISDS are that the mechanism overrides the supremacy of Parliament—including your Lordships’ House and the other place—overrides the domestic rule of law, discriminates on grounds of nationality in favour of foreign investment corporations and prioritises the profits of investor corporations over people and the planet, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Therefore, I see the mechanism as a fundamental challenge to the rule of law, both domestically and internationally, and not what taking back control is about in the minds of most people in the United Kingdom and further afield, I suggest.

My one question to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who spoke so clearly about her own concerns, is: will the multilateral tribunal that she anticipates really be capable of addressing those fundamental concerns about prioritising corporations over the wider public interest—climate catastrophe, human rights and so on? Will it be capable of designing something that is not the wolf in sheep’s clothing that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, described? With those concerns firmly on the table, I support Amendment 19.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the authors and mover of these two amendments have done the House a great service. I welcome my noble friend the Minister to his place for the first of these debates that he will be summing up this afternoon. This is a very vexatious area in trade disputes, and it has been very much at the fore of this critical stage of an agreement on free trade with our EU partners— I know that is not the subject of this afternoon’s debate. It is worrying that, at this late stage, we are still arguing—and have been for two years, since the European Union (Withdrawal) Act was passed—about what the dispute resolution mechanism will be.

I will make a general point: it is extremely important at this stage that we know what the dispute resolution mechanisms will be. I place on record my acceptance as less than satisfactory of the arrangements of the World Trade Organization. I think it fair to say that the current position of the United States in this regard is less than clear. As I understand it, in his time, President Obama made moves to remove the US from the general World Trade Organization dispute resolution mechanism scheme—the next stage after disputes have been raised. It is by no means clear, and I have not yet heard—I may have missed it—what the incoming Biden Administration will do in this regard.

My noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned the Huawei decision, and, obviously, we are also caught, as I understand it, in the Boeing situation, with infringement tariffs being whacked on us for the Airbus scenario—and, latterly, we have come forward, seeking to do the same to Boeing, for similar infringements of the World Trade Organization arrangements there. As such, I am very uneasy that, in the current state of the Bill, I do not see any reference to what the dispute resolution mechanism will be in the agreements that fall under this—unless I have missed it—so I would like confirmation of what that resolution mechanism will be.

I welcome that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said that the UK has been at the forefront of setting this in the EU-Canada arrangement—but then my noble friend Lord Lansley said that those arrangements have never been brought into effect in relation to the EU. This is a very grey area, and it is vital that, before the Bill leaves Parliament, we know what the dispute resolution mechanism in this regard will be. Mindful of the lengthy debate that we had in Committee, I seek further clarification at this stage, using these two amendments as an opportunity to probe in this regard.