International Women’s Day

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Friday 8th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger. Her dedication to international women’s issues is an inspiration to me and, I am sure, to everyone in this Chamber. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, for her presentation—it was very comprehensive—and for initiating this debate.

I had thought, when I heard the most reverend Primate in the foreign affairs debate earlier this week talking about most Anglicans being women in their 30s in sub-Saharan Africa who have $4 per day, that maybe I would have a go at the international aspects of women today. Then I thought, “Hmm, Lady Abinger is speaking, as is Lady Northover, and possibly Lady Amos”—although she did not do what was expected. I thought, “No, steer clear, Donaghy. Stick to the knitting; do what you know best”, so that is what I am going to do.

There is no better way of promoting the economic inclusion of women than ensuring they are safe from harm and supporting them when they are subject to abuse, whether that is violence, economic abuse or coercive control. There is a desperate need to increase funding for specialist domestic abuse services. I am grateful to my friend and mentor, my noble friend Lady Gale, for raising this subject. I strongly support what she said.

Refuges, as I said at Question Time on Monday, are having to turn away the majority of referrals as they do not have the long-term resources to cope. The Home Office flee fund was created to ensure that all survivors who want to flee their homes have access to the resources they need to do so safely. The welcome announcement in February of £2 million, as my noble friend Lady Gale has already said, was spent within a few days. It is a fraction of the actual need, as the Home Office itself accepts that one in four women experiences domestic abuse at some point in their lifetime.

It has already been mentioned that the cost of living crisis has a disproportionate impact on women, but imagine the impact on survivors of domestic abuse. It often forces them to stay within an abusive partnership. Of refuge front-line staff, 77% reported that the cost of living crisis was increasing barriers to leaving. There is a reported increase in coerced debt and fraud, and of survivors’ online accounts and devices being misused by perpetrators to take out debt in their name without their knowledge or consent.

Around 60% of Child Maintenance Service claimants are survivors of domestic abuse. Too often the onus is placed on survivors to chase payment. Some staff have pressurised survivors to put in place direct pay arrangements, which means that perpetrators know victims’ bank details and sometimes their location. The collect and pay system, which is often the safest option for survivors, demands financial charges from both sides, which makes it an expensive option. Are the Government satisfied that staff dealing with the 60% who are survivors of domestic abuse are receiving in-depth ongoing domestic abuse training?

Many will remember why Clare’s law was made in 2014. Some in the Chamber will have taken an active part in creating that legislation. The official name of it is the domestic violence disclosure scheme. It was named after Clare Wood, whose father— sadly, he died in 2020—campaigned for it after her murder by a former partner. Police knew the perpetrator to be dangerous, as he had served three prison sentences for violence and harassment of women. Clare’s family were certain that she would not have entered into a relationship with him had she known about his violent past. The law gives the right to ask and a right to know in certain circumstances. The question is: have things improved since 2014?

Only yesterday, Clare’s daughter Maddy said that she feared more people will be killed because of “poor” handling of the scheme. Some people who asked for a background check on their partner had been waiting for hundreds of days for an answer, when they should have received one within 28 days. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner found the findings of the BBC investigation “seriously concerning”. There were around 45,000 Clare’s law applications made in England and Wales in 2022-23, a rise of 300% in five years.

In addition to the delays, thousands of applications were declined. That might be because there is no information to disclose, but can the Minister say why information that was released dropped from 48% in 2018-19 to 38% in 2022-23? Are the Government satisfied that there is sufficient awareness of Clare’s law? One woman on the news yesterday, who was in a refuge after suffering domestic violence, said that she did not know about this. What conversations are the Government having with police forces to improve the position? Wiltshire Police has accepted a catastrophic service failure after reviewing its performance of assessing claims under Clare’s law.

Finally, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and the reply from the Minister, although I am content with an answer in a letter with the detail I have asked for.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on her heart-warming and inspiring maiden speech.

The gracious Speech covers a number of areas which will have a direct impact on local government. The Local Government Association—I declare that I am not a vice-president of the LGA—has identified 19 separate pieces of legislation which will, if taken together, bring significant changes to local government. Of course, reform is needed from time to time and each Bill will be scrutinised and treated on its merits.

My contribution will be about standards, which should not be lowered, and accountability and transparency. There must be a connection between policies and practical outcomes. These points have already been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Shutt of Greetland. These are areas of great concern to me as the Government’s approach to local government is to focus on structures and responsibilities, without a whiff of where the money is coming from or how much, and without any real accountability.

The retention of business rates may well be the answer for some areas but will lead to further deprivation in others unless there is some system of moderation or virement, essential in any relationship between central and local government. We need a touch of humility when it comes to reorganisation of local government. What is announced as radical may be a recycled bureaucracy—remember the county of Avon?

The Government say they will not force elected mayors on to a reluctant community, but the whole thrust of their policies does exactly that, with central investment virtually conditional on agreeing to metro mayors. How will the Government tackle the democratic deficit, the duplication of functions and the enormous financial black hole they have created? We have police and crime commissioners, which were hugely controversial during debates in this House. I am aware that my own party has now accepted these roles as the reality of politics, but is anyone able to say what they will become in the future? We could add fire authorities, make them deputy mayors or, even better, swallow up other police and crime commissioners. Better still, they could be mayors as well. Maybe the next step will be regional prime ministers. You might as well add the regional schools commissioners in there as well and make one central apparatchik for the region.

I will use a couple of examples from trading standards, but the disconnect between policies and delivery applies across the board—in social work, environmental health and planning. The Government carried out a review of trading standards, which is a chronically underfunded service doing important work. Possibly because the review has revealed that chronic underfunding, the Government have announced a delay in its publication. In the meantime, a review of local authority regulation will now take place under the cutting red tape programme. At the same time the Business Minister, Anna Soubry, calls for urgent action on laser pens.

Take the Whirlpool scandal, where UK fire brigades received 926 reports of dryer fires between 2011 and 2013. The Government’s response has been dilatory in the extreme. The editor of the trading standards journal, Chris Fay, has said that he was baffled by the Government’s lacklustre response to the recommendations in the extremely timely product recall review. The director of policy at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, Melissa Dring, summed up one of the roles of trading standards very well, saying that enforcement against rogue traders and fraudsters not only protects the public but creates,

“a level playing field for legitimate business”,

allowing businesses to compete fairly and promoting productivity and economic growth. We need a properly funded trading standards service to help the good, law-abiding businesses.

My final point on transparency and accountability is around the role of local government and maintained schools. Although the Government have backed down from the enforced academisation of maintained schools, all the ingredients are still in place to make schools an offer they cannot refuse. As the Local Government Association has pointed out, councils are among the country’s most effective education leaders, with 81% of council-maintained schools rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding, compared to 73% of academies and 79% of free schools. The education for all Bill will pass the statutory role in school improvement from local authorities to the Secretary of State—a giant centralising move. In debate on the Bill, I hope the Government will clarify the role of parents in school governing bodies, in what circumstances councils will be considered underperforming or unviable, and how the regional schools commissioners will carry out their work—or will this all come out in regulation? Secondary legislation is an extremely powerful weapon in the hands of an overweening Executive. It will be interesting to see how often in this Session of Parliament local government is the fall guy for this power.

Economy

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, for initiating this debate and for the passionate and comprehensive way in which he did so. It is a positive move to encourage us to look and plan ahead. I intend to say something about good employment relations.

First, I congratulate the Minister on emphasising the importance of productivity. If I were his public relations adviser, I would caution against setting himself up as such an easy target. In planning for the future we do not know what the state of the economy will be by the time of the next general election. It is clear that thousands of jobs will be lost in local government, which will decrease its capacity and capability at a time when it is being given more responsibility for both local entrepreneurial development and picking up the pieces of the human cost of our unequal society. The future must include better financial settlements for local government, as well as for capacity building in what will be a much diminished area.

There is also huge uncertainty about the future of pensions, which will impact on a generation and on our economy. I believe that the abolition of annuities was foolish and that reform, which was of course overdue, would have been more sensible. The rush to swap pension pots for buy-to-let properties might look good at present but there is great risk. Pensions are so complicated that the state has a duty of care to protect its citizens from the market. I do not believe the Government are doing this.

On higher education, if the Government do not take action on the unsustainable student debt levels, that will also impact on our economy. Inflexible restrictions on foreign students going to British universities will mean that vital courses in STEM subjects and languages will close. Engineering firms are crying out for well-qualified postgraduates—who, unfortunately, are primarily from overseas—but they are not being allowed to stay. They are needed for those jobs now.

On skills shortages, particularly in the construction industry, there needs to be a step change in government action. The suggestion of a compulsory levy on the larger employers is welcome but further government intervention is vital if we are to tackle what I accept is a systemic problem.

Turning to good employment relations and their link to a successful economy, the general secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady, has said:

“When workers are engaged and getting a fair share from growth, they deliver better results”.

The Minister referred to the excellent work by ACAS in his speech on productivity earlier this week. His praise of ACAS is very welcome and I am pleased that he indicated that he would continue that dialogue. I had the privilege to chair ACAS for seven years. It has produced some excellent policy papers on UK productivity and the link with good management and good employment relations. One of the publications, Closing the Gap: Workplace Innovation and UK Productivity, suggests that,

“we need to rediscover the importance of how people are managed and deployed in the workplace if we are to make inroads into the productivity problem … Well under 30 per cent of UK workers are involved in decisions about how work is organised and the number has been declining steadily since 2001 … The UK compares unfavourably with several other Northern European countries against many comparable indicators. Unlike these countries, the UK also lacks a coherent policy framework to stimulate the adoption of better ways of working”.

Ineffective management is estimated to be costing UK businesses more than £19 billion a year in lost working hours, and 43% of UK managers rate their own line managers as ineffective. Yet how many line managers are given sufficient training and support to manage change effectively, to have that difficult conversation and to motivate? These workers are key to the solution but too often they are the weakest link because they are unsupported.

ACAS has also produced a paper giving seven practical solutions to improve workplace productivity. As my noble friend Lord Monks said on Tuesday, I hope the Minister will continue his welcome approach to good employment relations and his dialogue with ACAS. It makes a pleasant change from his Government’s ghastly Trade Union Bill and its shopping list of shoddy measures.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, my contribution to this debate will concentrate on employment relations and on why I believe that the Government have missed the point about them. Of course our economic success depends on improving our dire productivity record and rebalancing our economy so that we are not so reliant on the service sector, as well as on staying in a reformed Europe, making the most of our talent through training and improving pay inequalities, particularly for women. Therefore, it is with a feeling of near despair that I see in the Queen’s Speech proposals to take away workers’ rights in some areas and to have another go at trade unions. There are 31 million people at work and only 6 million in trade unions. Why does the Minister think that existing employment law, already the tightest in Europe, is in any way inhibiting job creation? Some of our most successful enterprises are strongly unionised, with a record of consultation, co-operation and flexibility. Why do the Minister’s Government seem to think it is possible to separate workers from trade unions? Whenever the words “worker” or “working people” are mentioned, Ministers go misty-eyed and husky of voice, with moistened lips; mention the phrase “trade unions”, and they take on attack mode.

We live in a country where workers can earn 80 times less than their boss. It is unequal and unfair. The contrast in Germany could not be greater: Angela Merkel speaks at the congress of trade unions and spends at least half a day listening to debates. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, came to the TUC last September and thanked workers—trade unionists all—for their sacrifices and answered questions from delegates afterwards. What is wrong with this co-operative model? You would expect a former chair of ACAS to say these things, and I want to ask the Minister what consideration will be given to ACAS funding. A lot of extra work was passed on to ACAS by the previous Government, most of it welcome. ACAS is good value, and has the trust and confidence of participants and the country, but it needs to be funded adequately. I can do no more than quote the noble Lord, Lord Marland, when he was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at BIS:

“We all agree that ACAS is a terrific institution … That is why we intend to put much more in the way of resources into it … We know it acts fairly and properly, it has a good track record, and we are keen to support it”.—[Official Report, 5/12/12; col. GC 197.]


If extra work is to be given to the certification office, which is part of the ACAS family, I hope also that adequate funding will come with it.

Turning to the issue of political funds, I realise that this will press all the buttons about the party of the rich and the party in hock to the trade unions, so reason goes out of the door. Without state funding, which is unlikely to happen, we are faced with the unfortunate situation where the Conservatives receive £19 million from 27 of the 59 wealthiest asset managers included in the Sunday Times rich list and the Labour Party receives a substantial part of its income from trade unionists. Lady Thatcher introduced a requirement that trade unions should ballot their members every 10 years to see if members wished to retain or create a political fund. It takes a huge amount of time and money to set up the ballot, and not one has ever failed, but this is not enough for some Conservatives. They want to keep picking and picking at what they see as a running sore on the body politic, while blithely accepting cash from the least regulated financial area in the country.

For the record, the majority of trade unions with a political fund are not affiliated to the Labour Party. They are required to have a political fund if they wish to campaign on behalf of their members. What are the Government’s intentions regarding the non-affiliated unions? Will they be hit for six, so that it does not look too obvious that this is an attack on the Labour Party, or will they be exempt from the new requirements? The majority of trade unionists do not pay into a Labour Party-affiliated fund. Civil Service unions and teaching unions do not affiliate.

I was active in NALGO for 33 years, when it was not affiliated to the Labour Party. We were required, by a court of law, to set up a political fund because of the new legislation and we did that. I was chair of the general political fund at one time, and when it was agreed to merge with COHSE and NUPE, which were both affiliated to the Labour Party, the new union, UNISON, had to devise a solution to recognise the different cultures of the former partner unions. We came up with an elegant solution, which I have described before. Members could opt for the Labour Party-affiliated fund, the general political fund, both funds or neither fund—four choices. When the legislation is before us, I shall be very interested to see how non-affiliated unions will be treated and whether an opting-in process will make the 10-year ballot requirement redundant. This subject area may seem esoteric and faintly embarrassing to some noble Lords, but any proposed changes could have an important impact on trade union resources and income for the Labour Party.

The issue of strikes and public services was raised recently in a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington of Fulham. The new Secretary of State for BIS was elected on less than 50% of his potential vote, and police commissioners and Members of the European Parliament as well as local councillors will never reach the required threshold of 50%—so why apply it to trade union ballots? It is clear that the Conservative Government intend to ban strikes in public services without appearing to breach any international codes on the right to strike. I caution the Government on this; it will not stop strikes, but it will prevent trade unions keeping some control over events. If you give people no achievable outlet, they will find other ways in which to protest.

Finally, the Queen’s Speech talks about the security of a job but not about job security. It talks about reforming trade unions, but not about improving management skills. There is no hint of trying to improve employment relations—not even a crumb of comfort for the HR community. As a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, I would say that it presents a rather barren picture of the world of work.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may say a couple of words in support of these amendments. I was a member of the first Low Pay Commission when it was formally established in 1998. We obviously spent some time on the issue of enforcement. The difficulty was that the people who were in industries that did not pay a statutory minimum wage were very often reluctant to complain in the first place. Certainly, in some of the textile industries that we visited, it became fairly clear that if anyone put their head above the parapet, not only would they eventually lose their job in their own workplace but they would not find a job again in any textile industry within travelling distance. I am sure that that is not unique to textiles, so it will always be a major problem to enforce this and to get people to make a formal complaint and take that kind of risk with their future.

The Low Pay Commission is also keen for there to be a very good system of accessible information for people who want to know what their rights are. The original information issued by the Low Pay Commission was very good. Unfortunately, this Government changed it so that it was no longer fit for purpose. That was a statement made by the Low Pay Commission—that the website was no longer fit for purpose—so it is hardly surprising that the number of complainants is not only not rising but is probably falling in relation to the increased number of people in the labour market as a whole.

As my noble friends Lord Watson and Lord Whitty have said, the casualisation—or further casualisation—of the workforce makes this extremely difficult to enforce. My view is that the more headline news you get about successful prosecutions and fines, the more likely people are to put their head above the parapet. It always amazed me when people used to say about the previous employment tribunal system, “Oh, the penalties that you can get are £50,000 a year”, which was ridiculous; the level at the time when I was chair of ACAS was £5,500. That was the average settlement, not the headline figures that newspapers would imply. The reality of the minimum wage and its enforcement is so far removed from the kind of discussion that we are having today that it is almost difficult to know where to start. I urge the Minister to think about accessible information, and perhaps to consult the Low Pay Commission to ensure that it is adequate for both applicant and respondent.

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his amendments to Clause 147, and for giving us the opportunity to debate the important subject of the national minimum wage. I have heard a number of concerns raised by the Opposition about the underpayment of the national minimum wage. I hope that my notes will cover what the Government are doing about that.

Clause 147 is an important step towards ensuring that employers comply with the national minimum wage legislation. It will amend the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 so that the maximum penalty that can be imposed through a notice of underpayment will be calculated on a per-worker basis rather than per employer. This will substantially increase the penalty for employers who owe large arrears to a number of workers. My noble friend Lord Storey asked this question, so I am pleased to confirm that the penalty of £20,000 is per worker.

By applying the penalty to each worker, employers owing high arrears to a number of workers may be issued with a greater penalty overall, as well as a higher maximum penalty. The higher penalty will deter employers from breaking national minimum wage law in the first place, ensuring that workers receive what they are entitled to and to come down harder on those employers who continue to break the law.

I will now respond to each amendment. Amendments 68ZN and 68ZP are designed to increase the maximum civil penalty available for non-payment of the national minimum wage from £20,000 to £50,000 per worker. I heard what the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Watson, had to say on this subject, and we welcome the recognition from the Opposition that there is a need to increase these penalties but we do not see the evidence to set the upper limit at £50,000. As the impact assessment for the measure sets out, 6% of cases in 2013-14 involved total arrears in excess of £20,000. None of these cases was anywhere near the upper limit suggested in the amendment.

Under the Bill, the penalty will be applied on a per worker basis, as I said. When you look at the cases where HMRC issued a notice of underpayment in 2013-14, the change means that in almost every case, the employer would have been issued with a penalty equivalent to the total amount of arrears they owed, rather than having the overall penalty capped at £20,000. As a result, the amendment would have had very little impact on the level of penalties in those cases.

However, I reassure noble Lords that if, in future, there is evidence to suggest that a higher maximum is needed, we can make that change through secondary legislation. I hope that I am giving reassurance to the party opposite that if we think in future that £20,000 is not enough and we need to raise it, we can bring in secondary legislation to increase the penalty.

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Moved by

[Baroness Donaghy]

68ZT: After Clause 147, insert the following new Clause—
“Internships
(1) The Secretary of State must publish a report on the use of internships within the UK labour market.
(2) The report shall include details on, but is not limited to—
(a) the definition of an internship with reference to other forms of voluntary work and work experience;(b) the growth of internships in the labour market over the past five years;(c) the incidence of internships by industrial classification;(d) the range of contractual arrangements that apply to internships; (e) the average and median length of internships;(f) the proportion of internships that are paid;(g) the range, average and median pay for paid internships;(h) the expenses and allowances made available to internships;(i) the impact of internships on social mobility;(j) the subsequent career choices made by interns;(k) the relative progress in employment of those who have undertaken internships.(3) This report shall be published within one year of the commencement of this Part and must be laid before both Houses of Parliament.”

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, Amendment 68ZT asks the Government to publish a report on the whole issue of internships. Clearly, it is a probing amendment, and I make it clear that I am not against internships. Paid internships are not only fair but can be argued to be good for business, as they allow all to compete on an equal footing for valuable experience. Across all sectors, those firms offering paid experience get more applications from a broader range of candidates. By offering the minimum wage, or even the London living wage, firms are able to secure the most able workers.

However, where internships are informal and unpaid, they are likely to be unstructured and unhelpful for the intern and for the company. The proliferation of unpaid internships is now a barrier to social mobility and is blocking routes into higher-paid jobs for young people from low-income backgrounds. Although information on internships varies, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, of which I am a member, estimates that 21% of businesses offering internships do not pay their interns. According to the Sutton Trust, it is estimated that across the UK 22,000 interns are working unpaid at any one time. Data from the trust show that 31% of recent graduate interns are working for no pay. In the 2012 report on fair access to professions, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission noted that unpaid internships are concentrated particularly in the creative industries, the media, and financial and professional services.

The Sutton Trust report continues by stating that an unpaid internship can cost an individual £926 a month in London, or £804 a year in Manchester, on a six-month work placement. The cost of working for nothing rules out all but those from better-off families and discriminates against the majority of young people, who cannot afford to work for free. The trust goes on to say:

“All internships longer than one month should be paid at least the National Minimum of £6.50 per hour, and preferably the National Living Wage of £7.85 (or London Living Wage—£9.15—in London)”.

I am not making any particular proposals on this issue; I am simply indicating what other organisations support. If I am asking for an inquiry, it would be rather inconsistent for me to state what policies I particularly supported. The trust wants internships to be advertised publicly rather than being filled informally, and recruitment processes to be fair, transparent and based on merit. That reflects a statement issued by BIS regarding internships, so I do not think it contradicts anything that is already BIS policy.

An Ipsos MORI poll of 1,700 adults in England for the charity suggested that 70% felt that unpaid internships were unfair as only the wealthy could afford to take them, and some 55% agreed that internships of up to six months should pay at least the minimum wage, with 73% supporting it for placements of more than a year. The YouGov polling shows that 65% of businesses support the proposal to end unpaid internships, presumably because it gives an unfair advantage in certain cases if you do not level the playing field. Bodies such as the Institute of Directors, UK Music, the Royal Institute of British Architects and a range of bodies representing the PR and creative industries also support getting rid of unpaid internships. Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, has called on policymakers to adopt a four-week limit on unpaid internships. As I have said, BIS supports an open, fair and transparent process of appointment to internships and indicates:

“Anyone who is a worker is entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage, this includes interns who fall into the worker category”.

Thereby hangs the problem. The lack of clarity about what constitutes an internship is frustrating the application of the National Minimum Wage Act.

In conclusion, internships are becoming essential for access to many professions. Because a high number are unpaid and unaffordable to those from ordinary backgrounds, too many young people are being excluded from the opportunities that they deserve. Although I accept that there will always be a need for casual labour in a flexible labour market, the current position is unfair and disproportionate. A civilised society should be prepared to look at the obvious nooks and crannies in its system, not least if it might go some way to solving our poor productivity record. I cannot help but think that the increasing casualisation of our labour force and our poor productivity record have something in common. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I came along this afternoon intending to support my noble friend Lady Donaghy on this amendment and I shall attempt to do so, but I regret that so comprehensive has been her advocacy of it that it has left me with little to say. Perhaps I might stress two or three of the points that she made.

One of the aspects that worry me is undoubtedly the fact that unpaid internships are, by their very definition, exclusive to people who, by whatever means, are able to have their costs of living covered while they undertake them. That necessarily makes them exclusive and is unfair. Some people would say that life is unfair; yes, of course it is, but in terms of employment we can try to make the playing field as level as possible. I see no reason why anybody undertaking an internship of more than one month should not be paid. Up to one month, it may be genuine work experience; beyond that, it is a bit more. While the person may find personal benefit, the employer gets a benefit as well. That very important point should be looked at.

There is also a rather disturbing trend now of companies emerging that will charge people a fee for placing them in an internship. That is worrying and, while some of them are paid, you may have to pay even to get on to an unpaid internship. I do not believe that that is right. There are also situations where auctions for internships are held. They sometimes involve charities and, on the face of it, that is worth while but, again, it suggests that it is not an appropriate way to bring anybody into the workforce, paid or unpaid. I regret that development.

Most of all, it is important that anybody doing a job should be paid the rate for that job. Some Members of this House and some Members of the House just down the Corridor need to look at their own practices in this respect, because it has been revealed that there are more than a few unpaid internships within the Palace of Westminster. That does not set any kind of positive example for keeping anybody on beyond a month. With those brief remarks, I am pleased to support the amendment in the name of my colleague and noble friend Lady Donaghy.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank the noble Lord for that further clarification. There is a lot of common ground here. We need to address certain issues and, clearly, we are all keen to stamp out exploitation.

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for his comments. Of course, there is no intention to interfere with the perfectly well known volunteer system or with anything to do with sandwich courses in universities. I think we all know what we mean when we talk about these cases, but we are not very strong on analysis, and we need to pin that down.

My noble friends have certainly pointed to the exploitation issue—that somebody can be very willing because of the future opportunities that an internship can give them. Because their family can support them they might grit their teeth and say, “Well, let’s put up with this for a few months, because it will open doors that otherwise will never be opened”. It is still exploitation. The vast majority of people that I am talking about do not even get through the front door; they do not even get through the door to enable themselves to become disgruntled, so that they can go for enforcement or to various websites to ask about it. They are outside this semi-privileged circle. That is the issue that I want to pinpoint.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

It certainly has not been my experience—and I used to work outside London—that all internships are a gilded circle. Internships and work experience are quite broadly based in the cities of Britain, which is a very good thing. I am keen that that should continue in big firms and small firms, in the public sector and in the voluntary sector. We have to be careful that we do not take steps which, with the best will in the world, have a perverse effect, so it is right that we should debate these issues. Like the noble Baroness, I have a lot of passion to make these things work and to encourage more opportunities for more people.

[Baroness Donaghy]

I thank the Minister for that comment. I think that we are not too far apart on the need to identify and be more objective about what we are talking about. I am referring all the time in this amendment to unpaid internships. As I have said, I think that there is an element of exploitation. Perhaps any report or further discussion that we might have could look at some time limits that are acceptable. I am grateful for the Minister’s comprehensive reply. I will look at that in more detail but at this stage beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 67ZT withdrawn.

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[Baroness Donaghy]

I want to say a brief word about this because I must admit that I have a personal dislike of the phrase “zero-hours contracts”. Casual labour has existed for a very long time. It has had different names and different fashions have been followed. I think we are all aiming to ensure that while we do not completely get rid of a flexible labour market, basic employment rights are available to those who have spent any significant length of time in a particular job. We know what we are talking about here, do we not? There is the story of the burger operative—or whatever they are called—who was told that he was not working when not serving a customer. His pay was therefore suspended so that he was receiving pay only when he was serving customers. The argument then was, “Of course, the franchisee went beyond his remit”. That is a marvellous excuse made by some national brands; they can blame a local manager for doing something when the tone has probably been set at national level.

This could be extended to all sorts of other areas by saying, “You are not actually working”. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, used to work for the National Union of Railwaymen. I wonder if the same would apply to a train driver who is not driving his train while stopped at a signal, and therefore should perhaps not be paid until such time as the signal is green. That was how ridiculous some of these practices were on the ground. To go back to the reality of the casual world of work, as we know it in this country, those practices are not really funny. They are quite serious examples of exploitation so I make no apology for supporting my noble friend Lord Young on these amendments, if only to try to get to a situation where we are paring back all these gimmicky phrases and looking at people’s basic employment rights.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for these amendments and for the debate we have had on this part of the Bill, which went slightly wider than the amendments. I ought to say that Labour did nothing about zero-hours contracts for 13 years. The number of them went up by 75% between 2004 and 2009. What we have done is to carry out a review into these contracts, so that we can deal with any abuse. As a result, we are banning the type of contracts which mean that employees are not allowed to work for any other employer, while still allowing people such as students to benefit from the flexibility that they offer.

We introduced Clause 148 to deal with this mischief and I am glad to hear the noble Lord’s support for it and my noble friend Lord Stoneham’s perceptive analysis. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, rightly tried to improve our English and not talk about zero-hours contracts. It may be that like one of the terms we were struggling with earlier, the term is an Americanism. Wikipedia does not give its origin but I will hunt it down.

At present, an individual subject to exclusivity terms in their zero-hours contract cannot seek work elsewhere, regardless of whether the employer offers only occasional, minimal, or even no hours of work. Exclusivity terms are unfair for the individual who, as a result, is prevented from boosting their income or building on their work experience. Frankly, it is also damaging to the economy because it prevents people from reaching their full employment potential.

As my noble friend Lady Harding made clear at Second Reading, from her own experience of running a supermarket in Yeovil, zero-hours contracts are an important element of a flexible, vibrant labour market, and they work for employers and individuals alike. I even heard the shadow Business Secretary agreeing that sometimes people quite like to use them. However, I think that we also agree that people working under such a contract must get a fair deal.

The ban on exclusivity terms in zero-hours contracts, as set out in the clause, is straightforward. From the moment the clause commences, individuals can simply ignore an exclusivity clause and work for another employer as well if they wish. There is no process, no admin and no need to discuss this with the employer—I am not sure that people understand this—and any attempt by the employer to stop a second or third arrangement would be unenforceable. This is a major change and a reduction in employer flexibility, but one that we believe is right.

Amendment 68ZU seeks to provide a route of redress for zero-hours workers who need to enforce their rights, allowing for regulations to set out the details. The clause already provides for an order-making power that will allow for this.

Amendment 68ZW seeks to make the use of that order-making power mandatory. However, given the fact that routes of redress will be delivered through the order-making power, I am sure that the Committee will agree that in this case the amendment is unnecessary. The Government will have to bring forward regulations; otherwise, the ban on exclusivity terms in zero-hours contracts will have no meaning. For this reason, I do not believe that we need to make this amendment. The regulations that will be possible under the order-making power will also be able to address the issue of redress that is covered in detail in Amendment 68ZAB; that is, that an employment tribunal will have the power to consider claims related to the exclusivity ban, including providing remedies to the individual and issuing penalties to the employer. The Government recently consulted on using the order-making power. We are currently finalising the details with a view to publishing the government response shortly on how we plan to tackle avoidance.

Amendment 68ZZ suggests that the definition of an exclusivity term is too narrow. However, the Government have looked at this and consider the description in new Section 27A(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which will be inserted by Clause 148, to be sufficiently broad. It covers any provision in a zero-hours contract that prohibits working for others, as well as terms that require an individual to seek permission from their employer to do so.

I believe that our approach will deal sensibly and effectively with both avoidance of the ban and routes of redress for individuals on a zero-hours contract who suffer a detriment. I hope that on this basis the noble Lord will agree to withdraw the amendment.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan]

I support the amendment and my noble friend. In 2002, I was the chair of a Select Committee that looked at retentions. At the time, it achieved a degree of notoriety in so far as, once the six weeks had elapsed, we got a letter from the department—I should say from the Minister, even though he was a member of the Government of my own party—but frankly it was not worth the paper it was written on. It was the most feeble response on this issue. Therefore, perhaps uncharacteristically, I am not here today to make party points, because my lot were as bad as the other lot. However, the fact was that the civil servants were somewhat uncomfortable when we took them word by word through their communication. Eventually, with them having a second bite at the cherry, we got a rather better ministerial response.

Given the glacial speed at which this matter has been dealt with by the respective Governments, it was not a surprise but a matter of some satisfaction that in 2014 we had the question of retentions being dealt with included in the fair payment charter. Both sides have already spoken today about culture change but 23 years to secure a culture change on a matter as fundamental as payment seems to be a rather relaxed, laid-back approach to this issue. While there is always more rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repenteth—and there seem to be a number of sinners repenting on this issue at the moment—the fact is that the bus to Damascus is taking a lot longer to arrive than it should.

Therefore, I encourage the Minister to look afresh at the dates. The payment charter was important and a significant advance but I do not think that we should rest on our laurels in this respect. A number of businesses are short-changed as a matter of course because of retentions and it is indefensible that the public sector should be part of that. On the other hand, it is almost inevitable because 40% of all construction work in the United Kingdom is paid for by the state in one way or another, whether by local government, the health service or those authorised to do so by other people. There is even a fair amount of work carried out at the behest of regulatory bodies which, although independent of the state, are nevertheless instruments of the state in one way or another.

We should not underestimate the significant contribution that could be made by a Government prepared to increase the pace of change here. While the advance that has been made in the past two or three years in terms of payment generally is to be applauded, this most pernicious form of payment retention cannot be justified. It has been said that this is a means of regulating bad practice, but it is a most unsatisfactory one. There was a time when the supply chain was a somewhat feisty, disagreeable means of doing business, where there was quite considerable ill feeling between relative tiers of that chain. That is no longer the case but a significant minority of businesses is still prepared to hold on to money that legitimately should be given to people who have fulfilled their work.

We could go into anecdotal evidence of this kind of practice. For example, the people who prepare the foundations for a building project are very often still waiting to get paid because the car park turf has not yet been laid. They have long departed the site and finished their work but are still waiting because the project is not completed. That kind of sharp practice should not occur in an efficient economy or decent society. I would like to think that the Minister had a bit of scope here, could take this amendment away and, if it is not quite to her needs, do something more with it. If I were to individually ask the Members of this Committee whether they agree with this practice, think it contributes to the efficiency of the British economy or even think it is fair, they would probably answer that “No” is the only answer. It is not fair and it does not promote economic efficiency. It enhances distrust between sectors of an industry where this Government and their predecessors, through the appointment of a chief adviser on construction and the like, have been trying to bring the parties together to get them to have a concerted approach—that is, the management, unions and various sectors of the industry. As long as we have this kind of practice, we will not have the trust that lies at the heart of an industry that can do so much but sometimes falls at the first hurdle. The first hurdle of any business is payment, as we have said already today.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends in this amendment. My experience is really only in the construction industry but there may be issues that are general to other areas where there are a large number of subcontractors. In construction, the retention system—if we can call it that—is about 100 years old, but in practice it is positively medieval. It is holding back money owed for work that has been done and completed. There seems to be little or no recourse because, if a subcontractor tries to take on the principal contractor in public through the legal system, they suddenly find that the work dries up.

I know for a fact someone who is owed £1 million by a principal contractor. After several months and being told that the accounting system had changed—a very common thing to be told—he was then informed that if he paid £50,000 up front, he would get his money. I know another company with a turnover of £45 million that wrote in last November: it has retention outstanding of £762,000. In some cases, as my noble friend Lord O’Neill said, people have to wait for so long for areas that are completely extraneous to their own work, and wait for years until—sometimes—the main contractor has gone out of business and they do not get their money. This encourages a bullying culture: a clamping down from the top so that undercapitalised principal contractors squeeze the next layer down.

That has implications—which is where I come in, if you like—for the way that building workers are treated. They are the ones who, in the end, have to pay for all of this. We as taxpayers have to pay, of course, for failed companies and lost hope and opportunities, but building workers are paying for a system that really ought to be reformed. This proposal is long overdue. Germany manages without such a system, as does Japan. We do not need this system, rather we need a fair system where money goes into a bank on trust and is paid out automatically on the satisfactory completion of a particular tranche of work. That is not a lot to ask for. The noble Baroness opposite talked about culture change, and I agree that that is extremely important. But the only way in which that is going to be done is by making some of these pernicious practices illegal.

Autumn Statement

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, one phrase that, for me, leapt off the page in the Chancellor’s Statement was:

“In fact, the net contribution of the richest 20% will be larger than that of the remaining 80% put together, proving that we are all in this together”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/12/14; col. 311.]

I thought that that took some brass neck—and then the Minister repeated it in his Statement yesterday. I assume that the Government are adopting the Boris Johnson approach to wealth and poverty: to paraphrase him, “The top 1% keep you lot in shoe leather and Sky television”. I can only hope that that strap line is played in the streets of Peckham, where I live, during the general election—and incidentally, I hope that the Lib Dems will be too ashamed to use it. To make a virtue of the country’s inequality points to a new school of PR, which I have not come across before. A report by economists at the LSE and Essex University has found that in the past four years there has been a significant transfer of income from the least well-off half of the population to the more affluent. If I had time I would deal with that in more detail.

On a different subject, why is there no mention of local government? I presume that it will suffer disproportionate cuts, similar to those in defence and the Foreign Office. No doubt any news will slip out quietly over Christmas. Local government is important, and we should be standing up for local government and its workers, not consigning them to the ranks of the disappeared. The same applies to the Civil Service. It is the lower-paid who need and use our public services. The Government pay lip service to the national minimum wage, but fail to enforce it. A quarter of a million people are paid less than the national minimum wage, and the Government have had four and a half years to deal with that. Putting £3 million into enforcement in their very last Autumn Statement does not impress.

As we have already been told, the Chancellor’s target to see debt falling as a share of GDP by 2015-16 was abandoned two years ago. Now the structural deficit will almost certainly grow, which means that borrowing could increase by a further £2 billion. The economics editor of the Times, Philip Aldrick, said this week:

“Having softened austerity in this pre-election year, breached his golden rules, taken three years longer than expected to eliminate the structural deficit and doubled the length of the austerity programme to a decade, questions should be asked about the chancellor’s credibility”.

The measures announced to crack down on tax avoidance by such companies as Google and Amazon may be welcome, but the revenues are difficult to estimate. My question is: if the Chancellor is relying on this income to balance his books, what are his estimated odds for achieving it?

The Government have promised to deal with the banks, yet despite government sweeteners, there is no evidence that they are changing their behaviour. RBS has had to apologise for misleading the Treasury Select Committee on profiteering from winding up companies, and the scandal of mis-selling payment protection insurance still haunts the financial sector. Banks have paid out £16 billion to people after 13 million complaints in seven years. A further £23 billion has been set aside for further claims. Time and time again we hear that most of these problems are caused by rogue juniors. Even if that were true—which I doubt—what does it say about the corporate governance of the banks? How much will it take to have a system which prevents these massive scams in the first place and saves the individual or small business money, time and unnecessary stress? Claims management firms have charged £155 million in commission in the past year to people applying for compensation. One company has made £40 million through its 39% commission on payments. Why is that not illegal?

Finally, we need to put a spotlight on the Government’s assertion that the gender gap is closing and poverty levels are falling. When the tide goes out, nearly everyone is paid less and it goes without saying that the relativities narrow. This is being touted as an example of government success. As I said earlier, the Government really do have a brass neck.

Employment: Private Sector Jobs

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that is an interesting idea, and I will pass it on to colleagues in BIS. While in the past year there was a 22% rise in inward investment overall, which bucked a downward trend internationally, there was an increase in FDI of 191% in Wales and 41% in Northern Ireland, so it is not the case that all benefit of growth and inward investment is coming to London and the south-east.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, earnings are not keeping up with prices and the housing stock in London is not keeping up with demand. How will his Government protect the losers in this equation who far outnumber the winners?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I do not agree with that basic proposition. I do not think the losers far outnumber the winners. I remind the noble Baroness that there was an increase in employment of some 450,000 in the past 12 months. All those people are winners. Many people on modest incomes have benefited by several hundred pounds as a result of the increase in the income tax threshold. There are very many winners already, and as the economy continues to grow, there will be a lot more.

Families: Cost of Living

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lady Prosser for introducing this debate. I think that it is very appropriate that we are having this debate on Halloween, described in the dictionary as the “eve of All Saints Day”, which is observed by dressing up in disguise, party turns, et cetera.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, will be responding to the debate, no doubt in his usual balanced and intelligent way, and he will be the treat. Unfortunately, he will also be the disguise for some extremely nasty tricks from the majority in the coalition Government. The key test for any Government is the resilience of families to withstand the hard times. I maintain that we have a higher proportion of people in the UK who have no safety margin in the hard times, or even in the good times. I want to focus my contribution on inequality and low pay—in particular its impact on women.

Women have been clobbered by this Government—not surprising as they have been virtually barred from the Cabinet. On female employment, the UK performance ranks 15th in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The Commission on Living Standards said that this,

“underperformance stems from a toxic mix of unusually high childcare costs, a lack of high quality part-time work and a poorly designed tax and benefit system”.

It continues,

“patchy and inadequate social care prevents many over 55s from working, as they care for elderly parents or partners”.

The report concludes:

“Compared with the best performing economies, around 1 million women are missing from the UK workplace”.

If policies do not change, a typical low-income household in 2020 will have 15% lower income than the equivalent household in 2008. I am not saying that solutions are easy, but this prediction is avoidable. We need to be far more active in promoting increased wages, employment and working hours in low to middle-income households. Today’s workplace is polarised, with employment growing in highly skilled jobs and in low-skilled, low-status service sector roles, but declining in middle-skilled jobs. While it is only part of the solution, we need massive investment in intermediate skills in tackling basic literacy and numeracy levels.

Let me turn, as other noble Lords have, to the issue of low pay. I am proud to be a founder member of the Low Pay Commission. It is 14 years since we set the first statutory national minimum wage of £3.60 but more importantly, its framework, which has stood the test of time. The figure was very modest because we wanted to establish a national minimum wage safely and securely.

The adult rate has increased by 72% since its introduction in April 1999. I am aware that the Low Pay Commission works within tight constraints and the fact that the hourly rate has increased by more than the increases in average earnings or prices is commendable. However, despite the increase this month to £6.31 an hour, it still means that the national minimum wage has not even doubled in 14 years. This is no criticism of the Low Pay Commission. It should have a wider remit, as has been said, and I welcome the statement by the Secretary of State, Vince Cable, that he is inviting the LPC to extend its expertise in this area. Let us hope it will come to something.

We need not only to extend its remit but to be much tougher on compliance. Research commissioned by the Low Pay Commission showed that around 6% of the bottom decile of adult earners in the UK were not receiving their entitlement to the national minimum wage. Areas of non-compliance are found in apprenticeships and internships; among those on work experience; in social care, especially domiciliary social care; and among hotel cleaners and home workers. The LPC recommended that more needs to be done to ensure that all available tools are fully utilised. It expresses disappointment that after two years only one non-compliant business has been publicly named.

Let me give a couple of examples of non-compliance. A company can show in its books that it pays the national minimum wage to its employees, but they then work substantial amounts of overtime at a lower rate off the books, bringing the total earnings to below the statutory minimum. We met complainants but they were not willing to raise the matter with their employer; they knew they would never get another job in the industry because of the close communications within it. We met home workers who were being paid 50p per pleated skirt whose circumstances prevented them going out to work. They were reluctant to complain because they knew that there was a huge queue of women waiting to take on the work.

One way to assist compliance is to have effective, clear and accessible guidance on all aspects of the minimum wage. However, the Government replaced the guidance which previously existed with a website which lacks the depth and breadth of that which appeared on the previous Government’s sites—the LPC’s words, not mine. Although the Government accepted the LPC’s recommendation about an improved information site, unfortunately it has not been implemented. There is no point in beefing up the national minimum wage if no one knows about it. Stakeholders have confirmed that the existing site does not meet their needs.

We should not forget that the floor provided by the national minimum wage is not intended to be a substitute for a low pay strategy—the two are entirely different. Too many employers rely on low pay rather than a skilled workforce and the taxpayer foots the bill for low pay. In-work benefits have been slashed by the Government, making the prospects for low-paid families far worse and saving money only in the short term. However, low pay will still be a cost to taxpayers because of the absence of savings and pensions to cushion any rises in the cost of living—not least because of increased debt, arrears and homelessness—which will eventually cost the Exchequer.

According to a Which? survey, 28% of men say that they are living comfortably on their incomes, but only 19% of women say they are. The gap between wealth and poverty continues to be obscene. When it comes to total disposable income, 45% is enjoyed by the highest earning fifth of the population and a mere 5% by the bottom fifth. The irony is that there has been a reduction in income inequality because of the recession but, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, it is a temporary phenomenon.

I wonder how many in government have a clue about how difficult life is for those on low incomes. They seem to be invisible to this Government. It is a hand-to-mouth existence and includes people running from low-paid job to low-paid job, probably consuming gas and electricity via meter, the most expensive way, and being told they have a spare bedroom, which gives them either less money or less flexibility in managing their family life. Crocodile tears from the Liberal Democrats do not wash when they consistently troop through government Lobbies, cutting health services, health and safety, and welfare. I ask the Minister: when will his Government stop wagging their finger at the low paid and start to actually do something about it?

EU: UK Membership

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on initiating this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, on his maiden speech. He may not remember that we worked together at Hamilton House in the late 1960s, and it is very good to have the opportunity to work with him again now. I am also glad that we have more than three minutes to speak on this debate; noble Lords who took part in the debate on the Prime Minister’s speech on Europe will remember that we were all rather rushed.

Simply putting a case for the benefits of UK membership of the European Union will not convince many people. It is important to recognise the levers that we have and those that we face, and not to argue this in a vacuum. For instance, we will never have a mass-circulation press that loves Europe. It is a fact and—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, on Tuesday—we should “get over it”. The media are more balanced about Europe, but even that leads to hysterical reactions from some newspapers about pro-European bias in the media. We have also to accept that the UK will never love Europe. Except for Guernsey and Jersey, with huge consequences for those islands, we have not had foreign enemy troops tramping across our borders; we are an island, and proud of it. We can never appreciate the strong emotional element that applies to most of continental Europe about the need to bond on economic and social alliances.

That emotional commitment was palpable when I was a member of the European TUC for nearly 10 years. You have only to visit Jersey or Guernsey on Liberation Day—in Liberation Square, for example—to witness the effect that invasion has on people. We have to accept that our hearts will never be in the EU, and that we can live with that. However, if our hearts are not there, our heads are in Europe and I am sure that they will continue to be.

What are the levers which will effect this? One is the number of countries desperate for entry to the club, which will convince people that there must be perks. Another is the support for social Europe from those seeking to protect workers’ rights, which will win arguments. However, it is the support of significant sections of business which will win the day. Others have already mentioned last month’s CBI survey, in connection with YouGov, which indicated that 78% of companies—both small and large—favour staying in the EU. I will not elaborate on that except to say that the majority of companies believe the EU has a positive impact on their businesses without prohibitive taxes or tariffs, recruiting staff from across the EU and participating in EU supply chains. CBI companies were against attempts to create similar employment laws across the EU, working hours being the least popular. This is hardly surprising, since the UK has a higher proportion of overtime worked than most other countries, with employees working longer hours and all the social consequences we know about.

Businesses believe that the UK has influence on EU policies that affect them: 72% felt there was significant or some influence and 27% felt there was not very much or no influence. So support is not enthusiastic but it is absolutely solid. As I have been involved in negotiations most of my life, I realise that you cannot walk away from difficult problems and you cannot opt out when the going gets tough. As I have said before, the TUC and CBI meet as social partners at European level. They know about tackling difficult issues and, for a while, when some of the employment-related directives were being introduced belatedly into the UK, it might have looked as if the unions were making progress and the employers were not. Since then, the boot has been on the other foot. They will have differences on regulation of the market and workers’ rights but no one can afford to throw their teddy bear down just because a problem is difficult.

We can do some things now, without waiting for a referendum or fresh negotiations; I thank Richard Corbett for some of this information. First, there is already a requirement for EU proposals to go to national parliaments first, with eight weeks’ notice before they are dealt with in Brussels. We should implement this, so that Ministers appear before Parliament, or the specialist parliamentary committee, to explain the issues. Secondly, there is already a procedure to check on subsidiarity, to prevent the EU straying beyond its remit. National parliaments can object to European Commission proposals. Thirdly, the Government have a duty to maximise their impact in the European Parliament and are not doing so. Tory MEPs were trafficked onto the goonish fringes and this was an unworthy move.

We are all calling for more transparency in the EU, yet our own Government have failed to strengthen Commons scrutiny of Ministers and failed to publicise their proposals to safeguard the City of London. I could have mentioned the European arrest warrant or cross-border tax evasion, but there is insufficient time. We should not forget that tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance are of such magnitude as to have an effect on government deficits. Acknowledging that employment protections are unpopular with employers, we cannot have a single market where workers’ rights are diminished in a race to the bottom. Unfairness leads to distrust in institutions and, as I have said before, employment protections have been in place for long enough to have become part of the workplace.

Finally, some have accused the Government of being asleep at the wheel on European issues and completely concentrating on the referendum. They are not, in fact, in danger of being asleep at the wheel but of jumping into the boot and closing the lid.