Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Davies because I absolutely agree with what he says. I would add, just from my own experience, that, early in my working life, I worked in a retail organisation where there was a staff forum and where I and colleagues were organising to establish a trade union. The difference is this: that staff forum was set up by the employer. It was not set up by workers. That staff forum was funded by the employer; it was not funded by workers. That staff forum was not democratic, whereas the whole point of a trade union is that it is a democratic organisation of working people. I would hope that one of the aims we could share across this House is to see an increase—an expansion—of genuine collective bargaining, because the evidence is very clear that, internationally, we see that the demise of collective bargaining has been associated with growing inequality, worse conditions at work, a poorer share of the wealth that workers help produce and no independent democratic voice.

I would hope that, in this country, we recognise that there are many, many working people who feel they have been denied a genuine voice—an independent voice—at work and in society, and they are rightly fed up about it. If we want to tackle that—if we want to tackle inequality and the sense of powerlessness that many people feel—it is collective bargaining through the route of independent, democratic trade unionism that we all need to see grow.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak in this group and I am torn between both sides. I have some cynicism about the Opposition’s attempt at recognising non-trade unions and staff associations. I entirely understand the point that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has just made about employer-led staff clubs, which I have been, over the years, invited to join. While they have been very pleasurably good social forums, they are very different from trade unions.

However, I am afraid that there is a danger that we can romanticise what contemporary trade unionism is, based on the very fine history of 150 years of struggle. I do not actually think that trade unions at the moment should take for granted that workers will be loyal to them, because there have been far too many instances of trade unions not being fit for purpose. Indeed, there is often a huge gap between trade union leaders and trade union members. Many members are leaving unions or not joining them, and that is not always because of evil bosses in a kind of caricatured way.

At Second Reading, I made the point—and I am only repeating it here now—that, for example, the Darlington Nursing Union has been set up because the nursing unions have abandoned female members of staff who were nurses and who have been attacked by their HR departments and their employers for their political views in relation to gender and sex. As it happens, we now can appreciate that they were simply reiterating their right to privacy as biological women—something that the Supreme Court has now at least acknowledged is the law—but they have been harassed and bullied and so on, and the trade unions abandoned them.

I made a point about the Free Speech Union. I appreciate that it is not a trade union, and nobody, least of all me, is suggesting that the noble Lord, Lord Young, who is in his place, will become the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, of future negotiations. Despite the fact that that is an unlikely role for the noble Lord, Lord Young, the Free Speech Union has been forced into existence and has represented workers who have been done over by their employers when their trade unions have abandoned them. That is the point I am making.

The UCU is one example of a university union. I was a NATFHE rep for many years in the further education sector and I have watched in horror the way that that union has degenerated and sold out its members. So, for the record, I would prefer that we did not caricature each other in a way that does not represent the contemporary time. The trade unions today are not the trade unions of old. They could do with upping their game. Similarly, I do not think the trade unions are the evil enemy of employers, as is sometimes implied by people sitting closer to me on this side of the House.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said. We are having a good debate and I very much hope to keep it friendly. What the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said, was really rather flying pigs.

I, obviously not like most of the Committee, am old enough to remember the 1970s. I remember the destruction of the British automobile industry by the trade unions. London docks was destroyed by the trade unions. This led, through the 1970s, to the “winter of discontent”, which led to the necessary emergence of a Government under Margret Thatcher who sought to control the trade unions and do something about the destruction they were wreaking on the British economy. We all remember that; I am not fantasising about this. This 150-year story of the great things wrought by the trade unions is really difficult to let go by without saying something.

Right now, only 22% of workers in the UK belong to unions. Why is that? It is because of the destructive nature of those unions. Let us remember that, of that 22%, most are in the public sector. Public sector workers have a monopoly in the areas they occupy and in return are being rewarded by a Labour Government. We saw the sorts of rises, which were completely unjustifiable compared with what people in the private sector were earning, that the Labour Government awarded many public sector trade union workers when they came to power.

We saw how there is—I am not saying anything we do not all know—a wonderful relationship between the unions and the Labour Party. I saw a number—I do not stand here asserting it is true, but I saw it and it seems reasonable—that, since 2011 the trade unions have given £31 million to the Labour Party. Whether that is true or not, we know the figure is of that order. This is wonderful, but it increases the size of government, because of the deals the Labour Government have to make with these trade unions. It increases the cost and complexity of government, and it increases in general the cost of regulation to all employers.

All those things destroy the economic growth which, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, said earlier, we are all trying to achieve. I ask the Government please not to give us guff—I hope it is not unparliamentary to say that—about the positive effects of the trade unions. They are destructive.

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I believe the Government should trust workers to take responsibility for their own employment decisions. If workers want to request guaranteed hours, of course they should have the right to do so, and the freedom to ask without fear of discrimination or retribution. By undermining this basic principle of worker autonomy, the Government are sending a dangerous message on the real value they place on workers’ rights. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, until my earlier rant on trade unions, I had not been available to speak consistently in the debates on Clauses 1 to 8, although I have been listening in or following them. I have not been able to be here because of the problems of contemporary work: a portfolio career running from one job to another and never having time to do everything I want to do.

One of the reasons I am very keen on an impact assessment on the impacts of Clauses 1 to 8 on these sectors—the subject of the amendment to which I added my name, looking at hospitality, retail and health and social care—is that I feel as though the modern employment landscape has changed so dramatically. Despite the fact that we have a Bill about modernising employment rights, I have sometimes felt that there has not been an adequate recognition of how things have changed. As I hinted at earlier, there is a rather caricatured view on a variety of sides of the Committee, as though we were stuck in the 1970s and every employee and every worker was a public sector worker with a nine-to-five job. That is just not what it is like. The contemporary workplace often needs flexibility, for the sake of the workers as much as anything. But it is an argument, and I am not going to go into the details.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt—of wherever—for allowing me to put my name to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, explained well the different issues that have been raised in the debates until now, as I understand them. On different Bills I have raised the problems in these sectors, so I will not repeat them. But I note that, in a debate on Martyn’s law—which has now become an Act of Parliament as the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act—I raised the real problems that the hospitality sector is facing at the moment because it is under the cosh and overregulated. People who work in that sector feel that it is not going to survive. There are the national insurance contributions and the regulations being brought in. The retail sector, such as convenience stores, will now face a whole barrage of assaults in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill; I talked about that at great length, so I will not repeat that.

I fear that the health and social care sector has exploited care workers via zero-hour contracts; I have talked about that in the past. A modernisation of the health and social care sector is required, and I am disappointed that the present Government have not brought that forward. The one thing that I would like a Bill on is the modernisation of the health and social care sector, instead of these other Bills, which I think do some damage. Despite that, all that the amendment I am supporting calls for is an impact assessment of Clauses 1 to 8.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am delighted that consultations are occurring but, as legislators, we are asked to vote on a Bill without having seen the consultations. The Minister can tell me that there are no gaps because it will all be done for us. I do not know why we do not sack ourselves; what are we doing, sitting here, reading through line by line in Committee and discussing a Bill that we are told not to worry our little heads about? Those are the gaps.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

First, I did not say “little heads”. It is important that we continue to have conversations with stakeholders. Most noble Lords know, and I am sure the noble Baroness knows, that employment law includes a lot of regulations. Previous employment legislation puts further regulations in place. It is important and right that we speak to a wide group of stakeholders, businesses, workers, trade unions and everybody involved in this, so that we get it right.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

One last thing: to be frank, I want the Government to speak to wider groups of stakeholders than the official bodies that represent people. It is simply that it should have been done before the Bill was brought to us. I want it to be noted on the record that wide consultation work should have been done, but the Government should not have brought legislation that could have unintended consequences that damage workers’ rights, while they proclaim that it will save workers’ rights. If they had not done the consultations, they should never have brought it to Parliament to be discussed.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Baroness has said. The Bill has gone through the other House and been scrutinised line by line. We have also taken the point on board here and we will continue with further consultation.