Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to raise some problems with these amendments. I have to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, made an absolutely brilliant, compelling case for her amendments and has been amply backed up by others. However, I still think that, if you look at what these amendments would do, there is a danger here.

We have already discussed, in our debates on recent groups, mission creep in relation to the concept of harassment; we have talked about it a great deal. I am concerned about subsection (2)(a) of the proposed new clause to be inserted by Amendment 100, which relates to

“the prevention of gender-based violence and harassment of those in the workplace including the prevention of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse”.

Bringing that into the law would introduce a very wide and broad set of rules into the workplace.

I am absolutely sympathetic to taking on some of the problems that we have seen in workplaces—for example, people being stalked at their workplace or being stalked by fellow workers, as well as the kinds of domestic abuse that have been described, with the Harrods example of rape and so on—because all of those things are terrible. However, we should not shy away from the fact that it will be quite difficult to legislate on every aspect of every intervention between employees in a workplace if we are going to broaden it out to emotional and psychological issues. That is one problem: it is overly subjective.

The use of the phrase “gender-based violence” is in danger of confusing us as well, because we now know that there is a confusion between gender and biological sex. We should not shy away from the fact that that language has been confusing for some time. We need some clarity, not muddying. If we call it “gender”, this could turn workplaces into sites of perpetual ideological grievances and finger-pointing.

Let me give noble Lords an example. Proposed new subsection (3C), which would be inserted by Amendment 99, says that the aim is a “gender-responsive approach”. This, it says,

“means taking into account the various needs, interests, and experiences of people of different gender identities, including women and girls”.

I point out that women and girls are not a subsection of gender identities. Gender identities are, “Have ’em if you want ’em”, in my view. If we are serious about tackling violence against women and girls, do not throw them into this mix. We certainly cannot have gender identity created as a legal category by a well-intentioned amendment that would, in fact, undo the clarity we have recently had. These amendments completely conflict with the Supreme Court’s clarification of the distinction between biological sex as fact in law and gender identity, which is, I am afraid, often not just what people choose but part of an ideological activism that has, I would argue, been incredibly damaging to sex-based rights for women—often in the workplace.

We need to be very careful about proposed new subsection (3B) in Amendment 99. It talks of

“the duty of every employer to provide training to all employees on recognising and preventing violence and harassment in the workplace, with a focus on gender-responsive approaches”.

I get worried when the bosses are asked to provide training that is not about how you do your job, because training has become the vehicle that is often used not to protect employees from harassment but for viewpoint conformity and as an insidious form of harassment of anyone who does not conform.

We have to consider what this training consists of. I do not want to just say, “Oh yes, training, that is a good idea then”. The danger of training is that it can introduce all sorts of problems; and, in fact, training was the way that in most workplaces we now know that people misunderstood equality law. It was via training, informed by third-party organisations involved in the gender issue, that they started to adopt what has been called, by some KCs, “Stonewall law”. That is why so many organisations are now saying, “We were doing what we thought was legal”.

To finish, I will show the Committee how complicated it is. I hope noble Lords have read that incredibly moving and harrowing interview with Karen Danson, one of the eight Darlington nurses who are taking legal action against their employer, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, after they were forced to share a changing room with a male nurse who identifies as a woman and calls himself Rose.

As Karen explained in the interview, she had been abused as a child. She goes to work, where, as a nurse, she has to get to changed. In walks Rose, wearing only boxer shorts that are full of holes—details do matter in this instance—who keeps asking Karen why she is not getting changed. Karen, understandably, feels very disturbed. These amendments are about sexual harassment in the workplace. Karen and her colleagues go to their bosses and HR and say, “This is our changing room. We do not want to get changed in front of this man, however he identifies. What will you do about it?” What did HR say? It said that the nurses were the problem, called them transphobic and said they needed to be re-educated in trans inclusion; in other words, they were about to be sent on a training course.

I make my point that if you are the wrong kind of victim in a workplace in an ideological sense, you could be the victim of the training which tries to get you to accept “right” things, rather than protects your rights. I really admire the spirit of the way that the amendments were introduced. However, they are absolutely wrong-headed and we should reject them.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

I will just say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the greatest danger we have is that the Bill passes and yet we have groups of people in the workplace who are not in any way protected, or not sufficiently protected, either from violence or from harassment. I thought the case was brilliantly made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, backed up by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

I say to the Minister: carpe diem. Here is an opportunity to make sure that there is not a gaping omission in the work that the whole Bill is attempting to do to provide proper protection in the workplace. I find it quite ingenious that the approach here is to try to use the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. If the Minister has a better way of doing it, I am sure that everyone will be very eager and willing to listen. It contains within it the capacity for both investigation and enforcement. When we talked in previous groups, it was very evident that investigation and enforcement are very often the vital missing elements in the arrangements that we have set in place today. This seems to me to have been a very sensible approach to try to find an organisation that is appropriate and has the relevant kind of teeth.

I will not attempt to expand on the case as it has been made so eloquently. I am sort of filling in on this Bill when others have been called away—in this particular case to a NATO meeting. But I would have been very pleased to add my name to these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 101B, which seeks to amend the Equality Act 2010, I will also speak to Amendment 141A, which seeks to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996. I declare my interest as the general secretary of the Free Speech Union.

These amendments would protect job applicants and employees from being discriminated against by employers for their political opinions or affiliations, provided those opinions are not

“unworthy of respect in a democratic society”,

incompatible with

“the fundamental rights of others”,

and are not connected to a

“party, group or organisation which is proscribed for the purposes of the Terrorism Act 2000”.

In the Telegraph on Monday, a government spokesperson said these amendments are not necessary because:

“Any employee dismissed because of their political opinions can already bring a claim of unfair dismissal at any point”.


Well, they can. But whether they are successful or not depends on whether their political beliefs satisfy the Grainger test—a reference to a case in which an employee sued his employer, Grainger PLC, for discriminating against him because he believed in manmade climate change. It was established in that case that, in order to enjoy protected status under the Equality Act, a belief had to satisfy five separate conditions. This is the Grainger test:

“The belief must be genuinely held … It must be a belief and not … an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available”—


remember that one because I am going to come back to it.

“It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour … It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance … It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others”.


Noble Lords will notice that the test I am proposing is a simpler alternative to the Grainger test. It is, in essence, just the fifth limb of the Grainger test.

So what is wrong with the Grainger test? For one thing, it is overcomplicated and leaves too much room for the personal political views of the members of a tribunal panel to creep in. That is why it has led to some arbitrary and biased decisions. For instance, the tribunal has ruled that anti-Zionism is a protected belief, while a belief in Zionism has not been granted that status, at least not yet. A belief in manmade climate change is protected—that was the judgment handed down in Grainger plc v Nicholson—but climate scepticism is not, and that has been tested in the tribunal. A belief in democratic socialism is protected but a belief in conservatism is not, and that too has been tested. In the case of Ms K Sunderland v The Hut.com Ltd—a Free Speech Union case—the tribunal ruled that a belief in a small state, low taxes, freedom of expression and as few controls on an individual’s freedom as are consistent with human rights was not protected.

That is one reason why the Free Speech Union currently has five cases in which employees have been dismissed because of their links to Reform UK. One such case is that of Saba Poursaeedi, who is in the Gallery as I speak. He lost his job at the Hightown Housing Association because he was due to stand as a Reform candidate. He was told that Reform’s policies on immigration, net zero and housing were “in direct conflict” with the values of the Hightown Housing Association—as clear a case of discrimination against someone for their political views as you could hope for. He is taking Hightown Housing Association to the tribunal but, given the judgment in Ms K Sunderland v The Hut.com, he may not be successful. That is one reason to accept these amendments: to level the playing field so that many people with right-of-centre political beliefs enjoy the same protection as people with left-of-centre political beliefs.

Another difficulty with the Grainger test is that it disadvantages open-minded people who, as the late Lord Keynes did, change their minds when the facts change. Remember the second limb of the Grainger test:

“It must be a belief and not … an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available”.


Do we really want the Equality Act to encourage dogmatism and punish open-mindedness in this way? Why should someone’s belief be undeserving of protection if it is susceptible to changing if the facts change?

The amendments would bring the Equality Act into line with the European Convention on Human Rights. Articles 9, 10, 11 and 14 provide a higher level of protection than that granted by the Equality Act, particularly Article 10, which protects freedom of expression, including the expression of political views. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, would no doubt point out if she was in the House, if there is a discrepancy between the Equality Act and the convention then its shortcomings will be corrected by the courts eventually, since, as per the Human Rights Act, our courts must interpret legislation in a way that is compatible with convention rights.

However, bringing a claim before the employment tribunal is a time-consuming process and one that can be extremely expensive. The Free Speech Union helped a man to bring a case for unfair dismissal against Lloyds Bank to the tribunal two years ago, and it cost over £85,000. Not only can it be eye-wateringly expensive but it takes a long time, given the current backlog of cases. Mr Poursaeedi’s case has been scheduled for July 2027, more than a year hence. In the meantime, he and other victims of discrimination based on their political beliefs are awaiting justice. Why not short-circuit that process, bring the Equality Act into line with the convention and ease the burden on the tribunal at the same time, as well as protect people now from being discriminated against in this way, by accepting my amendments?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I put my name down on Amendments 101B and 141A, tackling employment discrimination on the basis of political opinions, because I wanted to probe whether the Government can see that it is a real, contemporary issue that needs to be tackled, however they do it. We know from the history of the labour movement that in the bad old days, as it were, attacking people’s employment rights, sacking them and suspending them were used by employers to discipline the workforce, and they were often focused on people who had the wrong views in the workplace. Often, the trade union organisers who were involved in left-wing parties and so on were the ones who were targeted, and we had McCarthyite-type purges, red scares and anti-trade union blacklists of individuals in workplaces—shocking, but those were the bad old days and it would not happen today, except that I think we are witnessing something similar today even if the political opinions of the victims might be very different and it might take a different form. This is an under-discussed phenomenon, and I hope the Government will see that the Bill is a way of tackling it.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Despite our remaining concerns on both those issues, we feel we have made our views clear to Ministers and, although they have chosen not to act—which, I am afraid, we believe they may come to regret—we must be responsible in our scrutiny. We will not, therefore, oppose the Government’s Motions today.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, despite the fact this is not being pushed to a vote—I respect that, and I concede that the Government have made some clarifications, and potentially concessions, along the way in this debate—I think that the issue is not yet resolved. I call on the Government to try to solve this problem now, rather than leave it open to more years of muddle, confusion and misinterpretation, and that can happen away from here. I have noticed that the Government are not averse to using the odd statutory instrument, to which I am usually opposed; in this instance, I urge them to use a statutory instrument to sort this out. I fear that, unless they do, it will undermine trust in the new system.

To clarify, we are looking to identify datasets that have muddled up sex and gender, such as data from HMPO and the DVLA, and those that have not, such as sex registered at birth. Because of that muddle, we cannot rely on those databases. Is that not the very point? We are trying at this point to provide clarity to DVS providers. By the way, this would not in any way result in outing individual transgender people when they are using the DVS system to prove their identity or other attributes, such as their age or whatever. We are trying to ensure that each database has some consistency. If a dataset allows some people to be recorded as the wrong sex, then the whole dataset is unreliable as a source of sex data.

It was very helpful that the Government clarified in the midst of this, for example, that an official document such as a passport, whatever is written on it, cannot be proof of a change of sex; it is simply a record of the way somebody wants to be identified and is no use as a reliable source of sex data. As I have said, there are other official documents such as the driving licence where that is not the case.

I would simply urge the Government, from their own point of view, so that we do not carry on having this muddle and confusion and so that this system becomes trusted, to make sure that they sort this out, even if they will not do so here and now.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her engagement and for defining what genuine scientific research is. I hope very much that the AI companies, when using this extraordinary exemption, will listen to the Government, and that the Government will ensure that the policy is enforced. The trust of the people of this country would be lost if they felt that their data was being reused by AI companies simply for product enrichment and profit, rather than for genuine scientific research. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their parties’ support.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I focus particularly on Amendments 83 and 84, which purport to deal with a hypothetical “banter ban”. I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said about these amendments because I have been struggling to understand why they are thought necessary. I regret to say, with the greatest respect, that I am still none the wiser.

The wording in those two amendments does not need to be included in the Bill because most overheard conversations that someone who hears might not like would already fail the test of unlawful harassment in the Equality Act 2010. Most overheard conversations would not fall under the definition of harassment in Section 26 of that Act. That would include the example given by the noble Lord of a blind person at a football match. To be caught by the definition, something an employee hears at work and finds objectionable or offensive would need to be relevant to a protected characteristic and would also need to have

“the purpose or effect of … violating”

the person’s

“dignity, or … creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment”.

If this were put to the test, it would not just be about the employee’s subjective perception. If a case like this ever ended up in court, which is highly unlikely, the court would also have to take into account all the circumstances and would need to decide whether it was reasonable for the overheard conversation to have had the effect of violating dignity or creating a

“hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment”.

In other words, the subjective is balanced against the objective, and context will always be crucial.

The average everyday chat in the pub or elsewhere would not pass these tests, however much someone dislikes what they hear, so the Bill would not require employers to take steps to prevent conversational expressions of opinion on, in the words of the amendment,

“a political, moral, religious or social matter”.

Of course, in some circumstances, third parties do abuse and harass employees. It happens with depressing regularity, notably in hospitality, which the noble Lord seeks to exclude from the Bill altogether. It can happen when abuse is obviously directed at an employee by way of a pretended or fake conversation that is obviously expressly designed to be overheard and to offend. That is the whole point of this clause. Instances of obvious direct harassment and abuse of employees by third parties would, rightly, be protected by the Bill under current definitions.

It is important to note that steps to prevent this would not place an onerous burden on employers. As my noble friend the Minister said in her introduction, regulations will set out steps that employers should take, but many employers already take relevant steps to prevent this sort of offensive behaviour. For example, your Lordships will be very familiar with signs on public transport or in healthcare settings warning that abuse of staff will not be tolerated. That is very familiar to all of us.

The broader point here is that the Bill’s purpose is to require employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent their staff being harassed and abused by customers or members of the public. It is not about preventing or regulating private conversations or restricting free expression. I suggest that Amendments 83 and 84 would not add anything and are not needed.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the whole of Clause 20 should not stand part and should be dropped from the Bill. The amendments that I have put my name to are mitigating, in case this very dangerous clause is not dropped, but I remain hopeful that the Government will realise—despite what the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, just argued—that this clause will, no doubt unintentionally, be not only bad for business and a range of public-facing institutions but detrimental to workers.

I appreciate that the Government are seeking to reassure and dampen down the public unease about this clause with their suggestions that campaigners are hyping up the threat that it could pose to free speech, but I have yet to hear a convincing positive argument for why legislation is being used to create this sweeping new duty that will significantly expand all employers’ liability for third-party harassment of their employees. It is unclear why, if any employee has evidence of harassment as just described, they do not call the police. Should this not be left for criminal law to deal with, rather than extending employment law?

This clause puts the onus on employers to plan for, prevent and police alleged problematic interactions—a task they are simply not qualified to do, and indeed should have no right to do. This clause amends the Equality Act by reinstating liability for harassment of employees by third parties. As we know, that was in the original 2010 Act, but, when the then coalition Government consulted on the matter, there was such negative feedback that it was kicked out in 2013. Why has it now reappeared, with no consultation?

Moreover, this new duty is considerably more onerous. For example, there are no exemptions. One of the amendments that I have put my name to tries to at least carve out especially vulnerable sectors. As we have heard, employers would be liable for any single act of harassment by a third party. In the previous iteration, employers would have been liable only if the employee was harassed for a third time. Again, an amendment has been tabled to remedy this. To date, the Government have not presented any evidence that would justify ignoring the reasons why the original liability was rebutted, so what has changed that demands it?

Superficially, protecting employees from harassment sounds fair enough to all of us, but a lot hinges on what we consider harassment to mean. First, one confusion to clarify is that the content of this clause is sometimes bundled together with the issue of sexual harassment, giving it a moral force that is not merited. To be clear—as others have been—Clause 20 covers liability for third-party non-sexual harassment.

There is then the common-sense notion of harassment in people’s minds. This is understandable but misplaced. Lord Sumption, in Hayes v Willoughby in 2013, said of harassment that it is

“an ordinary English word with a well understood meaning”,

going on to describe it as

“a persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct targeted at another person, which is calculated to and does cause that person alarm fear or distress”.

If only that was the definition. Unfortunately, Lord Sumption’s wise thought that harassment has a well understood meaning is not true in the 2025 era of lawfare.

Section 26 of the Equality Act defines harassment as

“unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic”.

The EHRC guidance sets out that this can include “spoken words”, “banter”, “jokes”, “written words”, “imagery”, “physical gestures”, “facial expressions” and “posts on social media”. That is a very broad catch-all list of forms of harassment that employers will now have to protect their employees from when encountering third parties.

Harassment under the Equality Act includes indirect harassment. I cannot see any way for an employer to seek to comply with this when they will be compelled to take all reasonable steps to prevent their staff encountering, or even overhearing, those conversations, jokes and remarks that they might find upsetting in view of their protected characteristics. Harassment cases taken to employment tribunals increasingly concern conduct having the effect of harassment, rather than behaviour intended to have that effect. The motives or intentions of the third party are irrelevant.

I have noticed that, in response to previous speeches raising concerns about this clause, the Government have argued that it will not be enough for the claimant simply to claim that someone’s conduct is offensive, and that there will be an objective test in which the reasonableness and facts of the individual situation will always be considered. But in every iteration of harassment—in law; in codes of conduct, including our own, here in the Lords; and, for example, in all elements of the regulation of hate speech—a key factor is the perception of the claimant. That is unduly subjective—something I have raised as a problem on numerous occasions, only to be told by Government Ministers that victims’ feelings are a core component. I would be more than happy if the Government were proposing amending equality law to tighten this up and narrow down indirect harassment, but, in the present circumstances, Clause 20 is a minefield and opens the door to egregious and boundless litigation across the board.

I want to consider who these third parties are. Maybe in the Government’s mind they are lairy, drunken, rich businessmen shouting abuse, or some mythical, anti-social, boorish bigots roaming around public-facing establishments hunting down hard-pressed staff to harass. In reality, who is it who goes to the football or the rugby and may fall foul of the law, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, illustrated? It is other workers who relax on their days off by supporting their sports clubs, and who do not mince their words while doing so.

Who do the Government think frequents pubs? These third parties could well include workmates who go for a pint after a long shift and may want to let off steam by moaning about their bosses, only for a member of the bar staff to take their lively views personally and feel harassed. They could be a group of care workers, gossiping away as they get their nails done and discussing the local grooming gang scandal, to which someone who works at the beauty salon takes offence. What about a bunch of apprentices on a night out at a comedy gig who join the heckling banter and perhaps shout something that a staff member or steward says insults their protected characteristic? What about the ex-police officer reading a Brexity book in the cafe and chatting to a staff member about it, and so on?

In other words, beyond some abstract legalese, third parties in the flesh are fellow workers trying to spend their private time unassailed by undue, back-door state regulation of their speech and leisure.

I note that, in universities, third parties are not just external speakers but students, who are now considered consumers and customers. Already, without this clause, there is a growing phenomenon of university management imposing rigorous speech codes on the student body in the form of anti-harassment policies under the guise of dignity at work and study policies. Many of us who are campaigners for free speech, such as those at the Free Speech Union, or my colleagues at the Academy of Ideas and Living Freedom, are working with students to roll back these policies that are a serious threat to academic freedom. Clause 20 would not only justify such censorious policing of students’ speech but would, in effect, necessitate it, as it would be remiss of any university not to take steps to minimise the liability risk of students offending academic staff and making them feel unsafe and complain of harassment.

Finally, I am concerned about the disproportionate effect that this will have on groups in society who hold dissenting views, expressions of which are too easily and regularly misrepresented as harassment. Surely any businesses that operate venues as part of the hospitality industry will seek to manage their liability through a risk-averse approach to any potentially contentious gatherings booking their premises. You can just imagine the conversations: “Oh God, no. Those evangelical Christians want to book a room again. That could be seen as harassing our gay staff”; “Oh, damn—that pro-Israel group wants to hold a meeting here, but lots of the catering staff are pro-Palestinian migrants. It is a bit risky”; “Drat. That bolshy Women’s Rights Network and Let Women Speak lot have arranged to meet here with all those customers wearing ‘Women = Adult Human Female’ T-shirts. That is bound to wind up our right-on, trans-ally bar staff. Just tell them we’re fully booked”.

In other words, Clause 20 could lead to overly cautious, “better safe than sorry”, informal blacklists. It could radically change and toxify the relationship between businesses and their customers. It is no longer “the customer is always right”, and you can forget about improving customer service; now customers are third-party harassment risks to staff.

We live in an era of divisive cancel culture. This misplaced assertion of the right not to be offended threatens social cohesion. We as legislators should seek to dismantle this culture and not add to it, as Clause 20 absolutely does.

--- Later in debate ---

Do noble Lords think that this has had a chilling effect on free speech in this place?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I would like some clarity. There is some confusion over what the definition of harassment is in law. If you asked whether I was for the harassment of employees and workers, I would of course reply that I am not, but we have to look at the way the law defines harassment, particularly indirect harassment and some of the issues that were raised.

Despite the noble Lord, Lord Fox, imagining that we have all been whipped up into some synthetic rage by the noble Lord, Lord Young, because we are incapable of working out for ourselves what we think about a piece of legislation, there is concern about free speech. I am confused about what the Minister is saying free speech is. She keeps saying that we cannot allow unacceptable behaviour. Is that part of the legislation? What unacceptable behaviour is she referring to? Is it detailed in the law? Which things is she talking about? It is one thing to say that a football team has rules, but have the Government come up with a new behaviour code in this Bill that society must adopt? If they have, I have not seen the details.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

There is harassment, and what we are debating now is third-party harassment. Obviously, tribunals would have to take into account the practicality of enforcing third-party harassment, and I have been trying to set out the grounds on which it would be considered either reasonable or unreasonable. That would have to be considered case by case, but nevertheless the issue is very different from an employee’s absolute right not to be harassed directly in the workplace.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral in proposing this impact assessment and thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for making the case so persuasively from the Front Bench. I shall simply pick up on a few points that were made in the amendment and his speech. The amendment asks for an impact assessment on free speech. Proposed new subsection (1) asks for an assessment of Sections 19 to 22 of this Act on employers. Proposed new subsection (2) says:

“The assessment must report on … the impact of sections 19 to 22 on free speech”


and include

“an assessment of the likely costs to employers”

of these sections, which must include types of occupations at risk and proposals for mitigations.

I want to comment on this amendment in the context of universities. I spoke earlier in Committee about the mitigations a university might take in its rules and in the checklist that it hands out to potential candidates for a place who want to come to that university to study and who are asked to abide by certain arrangements or rules. These rules will, if the employer and the university follow what they are required as trustees of a charity to follow, protect the costs: whatever endowment of funds the university has, it will have to follow caution. I have no doubt that undergraduates or graduate students coming in for postgraduate work will be asked to promise not to complain, or be overheard doing so, or speak ill of lecturer A, whose lectures they may not approve of, may think are no good or whatever, as happens in normal intercourse in a university.

One of the standard things you will hear as undergraduates leave the room is, “What a rotten lecture that was” or “Isn’t it interesting that such a subject didn’t touch on the kernel of the matter?” or whatever they think is important. This is the sort of education we want to impart. We want students to question and challenge. We want them to make the case against what they have heard and to think about it. To make an employer liable for a student doing what a university education should encourage—we encourage it at school too—seems to me silly. We should have an impact assessment of what will happen and what sort of steps a university will take to curtail that freedom to argue or to criticise an employee of the university. We should ask for an impact assessment. It would not be very difficult to consult universities and find out exactly how they would get around this potential liability as employers.

The same goes for mitigation and the costs which will be incurred. For example, take the costs to an institution such as a university of fighting a claim in an employment tribunal. The member of staff concerned, against whom the criticism has been made, will be on tenterhooks all the time. They may be distracted, may have to continue to give evidence to the employer, and so on, with a lot of back and forth. As for the employers, think of the staff costs, counsel charges, legal charges, administrative costs and committee costs they will incur, and the time that will be spent on that rather than on running their universities to do what they ought to do—to educate undergraduates and do research. This is the most moderate request for an impact assessment that I have heard. Noble Lords would be well advised to agree that we need an impact assessment, both on free speech and the likely costs—particularly the costs of going to a tribunal and waiting for all that period.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I, too, have my name on Amendment 97, which would introduce yet another impact assessment. I know that so many impact assessments have been proposed in relation to the Bill that it has become a bit of a cliché, but I am especially concerned that this one is taken seriously because the third-party harassment sections of the Bill are ill thought out in a way that could lead to unintended consequences.

One noble Lord a few moments ago asked why there was a desire for an impact assessment rather than thinking of the potential positives of the Bill. The response of the Government in relation to concerns about Clause 20, for example, which is to say that there is nothing to see here—no problem at all—is an insufficient way of responding to some quite detailed scrutiny that has been put forward. If there is any exaggeration of the potential problems, an impact assessment should be able to resolve that for us.

I will focus largely on Clause 20, looking first at its potential cost to employers. That is especially important given that the Minister’s counter to my remarks earlier was that Clause 20 will be good for business. The Government’s own assessment advises that the total economic impact of complying with Clause 20 will be under £10 million and will have negligible economic impact on businesses. That is irresponsible; some might go so far as to call it misinformation. For example, that assessment says that the cost of familiarisation with the Bill and its ramifications will be £30 per medium business and only £19 per small microbusiness. I am not sure where these woeful underestimates come from or what they are based on, but if noble Lords have never met an employment lawyer, I can assure them that that is an unlikely figure.

We need a serious cost-benefit analysis. Let us consider what this section of the Bill requires businesses to do. Employers must show that they have taken all reasonable steps; that sets a high threshold for preventive action, as we heard earlier. Let us think what that means. There are direct costs for the initial implementation of anti-harassment policies, including familiarisation with the new regulations and checking exactly what their legal liabilities will mean. As we have seen during this debate, it is not necessarily as clear as day what the Bill requires.

As we have been arguing, if you are a small microbusiness trying to concentrate on being a business and trying to grow bigger, having to study the Bill and work out what your liability will be could be quite time consuming, nerve-wracking and so on. They will have to seek out third-party and legal advice—no doubt, there will be lots of consultants queuing up—because, as responsible businesses, they will want to safeguard themselves from the financial risks of not complying. One of the main risks they will be trying to ensure they do not have to deal with is the possibility of employment tribunals.

In what seems like an entirely arbitrary figure, the Government predict that only 30 employment tribunals a year will come from these clauses. There is no explanation as to how the Government reached that figure, and it is certainly completely at odds with industry experts who expect that Clause 20 alone will see an increase in employment tribunals of 15%—in other words, an additional 14,750 cases a year. As we heard earlier in a different context, already in 2023-24, employment tribunal courts received 97,000 cases, up from 86,000 the year before. That is an increase of nearly 13%. More and more people are forced into employment tribunals for a variety of reasons.

This Bill threatens to create even more cases—an unknown figure because it is a new provision. The Government are saying that it will be only 30 a year, but that is just making it up. There is, at least, an attempt in this amendment to try to work it out. According to the chambers of commerce, the cost of one employment tribunal is, on average, about £8,500, and if a claimant is successful, there is no financial limit to the compensation in a harassment case. Imagine you are a business worried about what is going to happen: this clause will lead to risk-averse and overcautious behaviour, not detailed in the Bill, to try to avoid being held liable. Some of us fear that this is what this kind of over-regulatory, precautionary approach will lead to.

Businesses will not be able to be slipshod about their potential liability. Smaller SMEs and microbusinesses —often with no dedicated HR or EDI offices—will need to think about employing new staff dedicated to protecting them from claims and giving them advice. The idea of a whole new generation of HR and EDI staff roles in every business in the country is frightening enough, but, anyway, it has nothing to do with their core businesses. Let us also note that the average salary of an EDI officer in the UK is £42,084.

I want also to stress why an impact assessment must include which occupations might be at particular risk of third-party harassment claims through no fault of the employer and the impact, specifically, on free speech. These parts of the amendment are very important because we were asked earlier in a different group why there had been a focus on hospitality, sport and universities. There may be other sectors but, in a way, this is an assessment to see which sectors would be affected. It also asks for an impact assessment on free speech. As we have heard, the Government simply deny that there will be any impact in relation to free speech. I disagree, but let us scrutinise it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made the point that we should not worry about free speech because it is protected by the convention on human rights. She cited a number of clauses. It is true that, on paper, none of us should be worried about free speech; our free speech in this country is fully protected. And yet, daily—I stress, daily—there are more and more instances, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who is not in her place, indicated earlier, in which free speech is under stress in this country. More and more people are walking on eggshells and are, in many instances, getting sacked or disciplined for speaking their minds in workplaces, so I am not convinced by “Nothing to see here, don’t worry about it, all is well”.

Earlier, the noble Baroness—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness; I will be brief. I want just to respond to her point, because she referred to what I said earlier. I am not trying to suggest that there are not challenges and there is not, on occasion, over-policing of people’s freedom of expression. Believe it or not, I probably read the same newspapers as the noble Baroness. I was trying, perhaps inadequately, to make the point to the noble Lord earlier that we have overarching legislation in the Human Rights Act which guarantees free speech and does so in a way that is legally and constitutionally stronger than any amendment noble Lords could pass to the current Employment Rights Bill. If that is not working, then we need to enforce it better. I am just suggesting that, as a matter of law, we have the protection for free speech; we just need to enforce it.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am all for enhancing in any way the free speech duties required by the law, and I am happy to talk to the noble Baroness in a moment about how we can do that.

Earlier, the Minister said that the Government were on the side of workers and not the abusers, and she got a lot of, “Hear, hears!”. I would like to point out that the people who are worried about these clauses are not on the side of the abusers against the workers. That characterisation is not particularly helpful in a Committee in which we are trying, in good faith, to understand the implications of this set of clauses. Imagine that you are an employer and you hear these proposals; you will think, “Oh, my God, if I don’t completely over-comply, I’m going to be accused, demonised, as on the side of abusers, not on the side of my employees”.

It is therefore very important that this impact assessment is done to reassure those of us who are worried. If the Government feel that we are over-worrying, then a detailed impact assessment, which we have not had for these clauses, would help to reassure us properly, with facts and evidence, rather than assertion and soundbites.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I have a brief point to make about the impact on minority businesses, which may need extra assistance, and to ask whether the cost has been taken into account in an impact assessment. If it has not, I highly recommend that the Minister consider the many thousands of businesses across the country which will have to comply. If there is not a fully programmed impact assessment incorporating all those businesses, she will undoubtedly find that a lot of them will come out on the wrong side of implementation.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there have been some excellent debates in this group. I ask for some clarification, particularly from the Government, on something I am confused about. I am sympathetic to Amendment 74A. The noble Baroness, Lady Cash, made a very useful and insightful contribution that brought another layer to the discussion. There is a danger of us talking about these things technically, yet in a rather old-fashioned way, when there is a lot more evidence and new phenomena to consider.

Amendment 74A looks at the impact on—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but we are not debating Amendment 74A. It is grouped elsewhere.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I have the right group; I have just said the wrong thing.

[A noble Lord]

It is in the next group.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

All right; thank you.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in what has been a very interesting debate. I will try to reflect on what I have heard as I speak; that will make my job quite difficult and probably make my speech completely incoherent, but I will do my best.

We closed last week with a couple of de-grouped Conservative amendments. I promised to reserve what I would say on statutory sick pay for this group, which means that I am unlikely to speak on the next group. Last week the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt, spoke firmly against the Government’s proposed changes. I have seen evidence of businesses arguing strongly either for the status quo or for a two-day threshold.

I am not a behavioural scientist, but I can read a room politically. The party that is sitting on a huge majority in the Commons has made it very clear where it stands on this issue, and that has been reasserted by some of the even stronger comments we have heard from the Benches opposite. Businesses have drawn the same conclusion. Many of those I talk to are seeking ways to ameliorate this, rather than eliminate it, which is probably unlikely.

I was interested to hear the noble Lords from the Conservative Front Bench speak to Amendments 71A and 71B. Their version of amelioration appears to be to reduce the amount of SSP, or at least severely limit it. We heard a different story from the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady O’Grady, who set out why SSP is important and why the rate is meaningful. To contextualise poverty, we are talking about the poorest people who are working people but still extremely poor. It is difficult to overestimate the generosity of this scheme, but that is what I have heard from several on the Conservative Benches. This is a very modest offer. With her statistics, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, set it out very clearly, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.

Before I talk to my own Amendment 74 and Amendment 73, I will deal with the others. In Amendment 75, the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt, call for a reviewer to report within two years. I mentioned there is a subsequent group which also has impact assessment amendments in it. I am not really sure why we are debating them separately. Rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I am going to mention 74A to 74C, which have been shunted into a separate group. Taken together, there is a slightly curious mismatch of timings: Amendment 75 is after two years, 74B and 74C after six months and 75A after a year. I agree that there do need to be impact assessments following whatever your Lordships decide, perhaps on a more systematic calendar than the ones suggested.

I am interested in the pre-emptive impact assessment. For the benefit of your Lordships’ Committee, it would be good to hear the Minister spell out the detail of the impact assessment of business on the current proposed measures. If, as the Minister says, the costs will be relatively modest, the costs of Amendment 73 or 74 would also be relatively modest, which takes me to the point in question.

As we have heard very eloquently from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, she and I have come up with very similar suggestions in terms of amelioration, which is what I was talking about earlier. Rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I slightly prefer the version from noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, but that is not the point—this is not a competition. We would like to sit down with the Government and thrash through a way whereby a rebate scheme can be reintroduced. This seems to be the sensible approach. We care deeply about SMEs—they drive a huge part of our economy. This is a way of making sure that they do not get disadvantaged as employees get what they deserve as SSP. That is what I am asking for from these Benches. Very sensibly, the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Noakes, and others supported it. I hope that the Minister will be able to make a positive noise about that and we can sit down and have that conversation.

Today, we have heard that SSP is absolutely vital for a section of society who are already massively disadvantaged. We should not be drawing lines and pushing them further down. We should be finding ways of making sure that they are not disadvantaged even more and, at the same, we should find ways of making sure that our SME sector is not also disadvantaged.

--- Later in debate ---

I therefore urge the Minister to continue to consider the potential conflicts between these provisions and look for ways to align them, in order to avoid creating undue burdens on businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I should have spoken in the other debate—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

But I will carry on. I also want to refer to the issue of absenteeism, but I feel as though I have wandered into the skivers debate, and I do not necessarily want to be involved in that.

I am not worried that sick pay will create a nation of skivers or everybody phoning up and saying, “I am off sick”. But I am confused—maybe the Minister can help me here—about what seems to be a conflict in government priorities concerning our attitude to work and, in a way, our attitude to sickness. There seems to be some tension between the discussion around reforming the welfare system and PIPs, for example, and the concerns raised in that debate about ever greater numbers claiming disability benefits, especially for mental illness. I thought that the questions asked by Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary—quoting experts and evidence on the problem of overdiagnosis and of encouraging a culture in working-age adults, especially young people, of feeling incapacitated and dependent on the state in a demoralising way, such that they are written off—are in fact a very mature way of looking at that discussion that we should consider.

We also have to acknowledge a phenomenon that we discussed quite a lot during the passage of the Mental Health Bill. Being unwell, particularly mentally unwell, has now become integral to many people’s identities. The figures given in the earlier debate—when I meant to speak, and when the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, and others made the point about huge numbers of people now being off work as a result of disability due to mental ill-health—indicate that there is an increase not in mental ill-health but in a new cultural phenomenon of people feeling unable to cope in some capacity.

I raise this issue in relation to the Bill because, although the Government are having a mature and interesting discussion on welfare in the other place, I cannot see that it does not conflict with the statutory sick pay provisions and debate we have had on this Bill. On Amendment 74A, which calls for an impact assessment regarding absenteeism, I am concerned in a different way about absenteeism. If Liz Kendall and Wes Streeting are incentivising or encouraging people who have been on long-term sick leave to return to the workforce—maybe to all those care home jobs that have just been created—will they willingly do that, or will they take advantage of this new flexible sick pay from day one? Is that likely to happen? I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, made this point. In what way would they be encouraged to employ somebody who has been on long-term sick leave if they must say, “Come and work for me—by the way, you can have sick pay from day one”, when they have taken all that time trying to persuade them to get back into work? At the very least, it becomes a bigger risk for the employer to take on such people: the very people the Government want to get back into work and who, for their own sake, should be in work, because the alternative is not doing them any good.

We need to be honest in this discussion. Sick pay was hard-fought for for all those years, but we live in a different time, when sickness is viewed differently. It is almost like a badge of honour in some instances, but it has also become a way of coping. To give your Lordships an example, when I was a further education teacher, some 25 years ago, it was the first time I had come across people taking time off for stress-related sickness. It was often when there had been a political dispute or some big row at work, or a disciplinary action had been taken. Instead of it being dealt with politically, people went on stress-related sick leave. Fair enough—that was fine when it was one or two people. But at one point, a third of the staff in a further education department of humanities were off on stress-related sick pay. As you can imagine, it was a dysfunctional department.

So I agree with the Minister when she said earlier that we are hoping that a happier workplace is going to have less stress. I get that point, but I genuinely think that something else is going on. That form of sickness has become a means for people to express their problems in a range of ways, and they lose the habit of work. My concern is that the Bill, particularly in respect of some of the less flexible ways this issue is being dealt with—in this instance, sick pay—will incentivise those regressive ways in which people are retreating from the workplace.

There is a report out today that says that Gen Zers, or whatever the term is, believe that the workplace itself makes them ill and that workaphobia has to be taken into account. I know that these concepts seem a bit flaky, but it is an academic study, so I am citing it. It says that what needs to be considered is that is why young people should be treated with leniency about not going into the workplace, because they find going into the workplace and interacting far too stressful. It is that kind of nonsense, to be frank, that I hope that we will not encourage inadvertently by this Bill.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Motions 32A and 52A which, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, appear eminently sensible.

The Minister—to whom I am also grateful for the meeting that I was able to join—assured us that we can trust the digital verification services because they will be based on the data accuracy principle of the GDPR, but that principle has been in place for a decade during which, as Professor Alice Sullivan recounted in her important report that the Minister welcomed earlier, statistics have become utterly muddled and confused. That is particularly so in this area, because sex and gender identity have been collected and conflated in a single data field such that the meaning of sex has been obscured.

I welcome the Minister’s support for the Supreme Court judgment, but, as he said, that judgment confirmed that sex in the Equality Act can only mean and has only ever meant biological sex. However, that has been the case for 15 years, during which all this muddle has taken place. The Minister tells us that we can trust the Government to respect the judgment and to reject the amendments but, before considering that, can he answer a few questions?

First, why is it not appropriate to ensure that in this Bill, on data use and access and which specifically talks about a digital verification system, unreliable datasets are not used for digital verification? If it is not in this timely data legislation, then when? The Minister referred to the forthcoming Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance, but I suggest that we do not have to wait for that guidance in this area. We have this Bill, this vehicle, and it is surely appropriate to enshrine everything that the Minister said in this legislation.

Secondly, have the Government considered how the digital verification system will work with regard to an estimated 100,000 people who have a different record for their sex across different public bodies—for example, the birth register, Passport Office, driving licence authority and NHS? How is that going to pan out? How will the Government ensure that this mixed data, such as so-called passport sex, is not relied on as an authoritative source to provide an answer to the sex question in the DVS? I respect the concerns that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, rightly raised; my point is how we will ensure that the data verified for the sex field in the DVS, irrespective of any other field, is accurate and corresponds to biological sex.

Will the Government publish clear guidance for data users so that they know which sources of sex data can be trusted and which remain conflated? How will they put technical measures in place to ensure that unreliable sources do not come through the information gateway? Is it impossible that a person who expresses themselves as gender fluid or non-binary could have two different digital verification services apps—one that shows them as female and the other as male, but both bearing the digital verification trust mark? That may not seem terribly common, but it is a possibility for which we need an answer.

Finally, the Government have argued that it is very unlikely that digital verification services will be used for applications such as single-sex services. The point was well made about a woman who wants a woman healthcare provider and health screening—by the way, that is also important for trans people to make sure that they are appropriately treated in services such as health. If the aim of the DVS is to provide trusted, interoperable, reusable digital identities that people can use to prove facts about themselves, is it not likely that this will be used in the services spoken about in the Supreme Court judgment and which advised should legitimately be kept as single sex and based on biological sex?

If the Government do not like these amendments from the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, but they agree with their aim, I cannot honestly see why the Minister should object to enshrining them in more than the data accuracy principle, which, as I have said, has been, in the last decade, respected more in the breach than in the reality. I am not yet reassured that his assurances, as much as I respect his personal sincerity and integrity, are enough for us to rely on, as opposed to having something on the statute book.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too will speak to Motions 32A and 52A. Just to follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, I really appreciated that the Minister understood the concerns of those who moved these amendments. But, as the noble Baroness pointed out, reassurances have been given in this House, over many debates, that there was nothing to worry about in terms of confusion in relation to sex and gender. We have now ascertained via the Supreme Court that we needed some clarity and we have now got it. I do not want us to make the same mistake again.

I ask the Minister to clarify one thing he said in his opening remarks: that it would be overreach to ask the Secretary of State to declare biological sex as a material reality in all instances. I think that is what he said. I point out that biological sex is a material reality in all instances. Despite the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in relation to his friend, it is not, to clarify, about passing or appearances; it is about biological material reality. In that instance, the Minister called on us to have kindness. Of course, we should all have kindness all the time, in every instance. However, nobody here is trying to be unkind; the intent is to clarify. I liked something the Minister said in the past when he stated that

“we must have a single version of the truth on this. There needs to be a way to verify it consistently and there need to be rules”.—[Official Report, 21/1/25; col. 1620.]

I agree. It is not about kindness or unkindness; it is about clarification.

In addition to what has already been argued, this surely has to be about trust. I can tell the House that quite a lot of people I have spoken to are rather distrustful of digital ID of any sort. They are already cynical and anxious about what is going on with this data collection. I do not raise that point other than to say that the one thing you would want in order to counter such worries is that this particular measure should be trustworthy. Yet, to quote an article by Joan Smith in UnHerd, we are talking about “an officially sanctioned app” that will allow the falsification of sex, even if that is not its intent.

It would be a form of self-ID that appears to be endorsed by a government TrustMark based on documents that could be based on gender identity rather than sex. A government TrustMark ought to be trustworthy. It is supposed to guarantee that the data it contains is accurate, and that includes sex.

Something important happened with the Supreme Court’s clarification, but, of course, this is an ongoing discussion of the implications it has on a wide range of public policy. I understand that, but I fear that there are times when people suggest we should leave the Supreme Court to some kind of relativistic mishmash. People keep saying to me, “What’s your reading of it?” It is not about a reading; it is a clarification of the law. If this Bill inadvertently adds to that relativised muddle or is used as an excuse to dismiss the Supreme Court, that would be an unintended consequence of what the Government are doing. It could be simply sorted out by the Government themselves.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I want briefly to add my voice to that of my noble friend Lord Colville, to say that in Committee I asked a number of times whether the science of conditioning—that is, the science of persuasive design that would extend the use of children—could be considered science under the current definition, and I never got an answer. So, although I am very sympathetic to the idea that science must be possible, whatever we do with the Bill, I would like to ensure that it is not, as the noble Viscount says, an excuse for any kind of commercial activity that could be perpetrated on the user.

NHS: Single-sex Spaces for Staff

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am involved in the Employment Rights Bill and have been looking to put an amendment to guarantee that all NHS and healthcare employees have the right to access separate-sex changing rooms. Because of the awful experiences of the Darlington nurses and Sandie Peggie in Fife, who were forced to take their NHS trusts to tribunals just to assert their right to get changed in single-sex areas without the presence of male colleagues who identify as women, I had completely forgotten that there are already statutory health and safety laws and regulations that mandate that provision, dating back to 1992. Single-sex changing rooms are also part of NHS England’s good practice guidelines.

It is a story of our times that, right across the NHS, those legal rights have been flouted. The Health and Safety Executive, usually so quick to complain about breaches, has failed to make the law clear or enforce it. Trade unions have stayed shtum. Even worse, it is bad government guidance that has allowed NHS trusts and boards to adopt politicised ideology in the guise of transition at work policies that, I am afraid, have misled trans people by describing privileges as rights.

Now the Supreme Court has ruled with such crystal-clear clarity, you might assume that all private and voluntary organisations, care regulators and, of course, the NHS, would voluntarily want to issue statements making their enthusiastic commitment to implementing the law. Instead, too many are at best fudging and some wilfully misunderstanding the ruling. The problems seem to be that institutions have internalised all these rainbow-badge schemes and the LGBT Consortium and Stonewall’s EDI training, so that unlawful policies are now embraced as kind and progressive rather than unlawful and wrong. Women’s rights have been sidelined as a consequence.

That is why the Government must proactively ensure that NHS bodies act decisively. It should not be left up to Sex Matters to have to write to the likes of Matthew Taylor, CEO of the NHS Confederation and my erstwhile “Moral Maze” colleague, urging him to urgently withdraw guidance that is incorrect and unlawful. Ministers need to help. While the BMA junior doctors have announced that biological sex is scientifically illiterate, I would like to remind them and other trade unions that nursing is a stressful front-line job. What female nurses need is some privacy when getting changed into their uniforms. The last thing they need are some HR apparatchiks denouncing them as bigots, their unions, RCN and Unison, throwing them under the bus, or bosses suspending and shaming them. I think those were the bad old days and I am hoping that, now we have the Supreme Court judgment, the Government will proactively ensure that women’s rights are rightfully restored and nurses can get changed without having to look over their shoulder all the time.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in principle I welcome this Bill’s aspiration to enhance protection of workers’ rights, but I had one nagging doubt ploughing through this huge, red-tape-laden, unwieldy legislation: how does it fulfil its boast to modernise employment rights and make them fit for the modern world? To me, it seems bizarrely out of sync with shifts in modern workplace culture.

For example, we are told by government that more sick leave entitlement aims to reduce the number of

“infections in the workplace—boosting productivity and benefiting businesses”.

Really? Has the Minister not noticed the crisis created by large swathes of workers too readily not going into work, pleading sickness, stress et cetera? Also, surely, making flexible working a default position will exacerbate the modern fashion for working from home as a regressive retreat from collective workplace solidarity. It is hard to cultivate a one-for-all, all-for-one culture from the individualised isolation of your bedroom office—a privilege, by the way, accessible only to white-collar workers.

On trade unions, I am delighted to see the back of the ludicrous Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, which I argued against in this Chamber. But I am also worried that modern trade unions are not fit for purpose: their ideological priorities seem often to put them at odds with their members. I thought of this listening to today’s maiden speeches. By the way, I offer a warm welcome to the noble Baronesses, Lady Cash, Lady Berger and Lady Gray—this Chamber always benefits from more feisty women. But let me focus on the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, the founder of the Free Speech Union, which invaluably defends workers’ rights when facing a specifically modern form of employer mistreatment: being punished or sacked merely for expressing legal, if dissident, viewpoints.

The FSU is necessary because, tragically, too many, particularly public sector, union bureaucrats seem to have been radicalised by the toxic ideology of identity politics. Trade union officials often act as the censorious enforcers of HR departments’ equality, diversity and inclusion policies—policing their members’ speech rather than protecting their rights, which is the very opposite of the role that the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, described earlier. To give one example, the UNISON conference passed a motion pledging to combat so-called “gender-critical narratives” and distributed materials that conflated sex-realist perspectives with far-right extremism.

It is no surprise that a group of nurses from County Durham—more feisty women I like—have been forced to set up their own Darlington Nurses’ Union. They are taking the NHS trust to an employment tribunal, alleging that the hospital’s HR department intimidated and harassed them when they objected to sharing their female changing room with a biological male who identifies as a trans woman. The official nursing unions were useless, simply repeating their NHS boss’s inclusion mantras.

Yesterday, Sussex University was rightly fined over £500,000 for failing to protect Professor Kathleen Stock’s free speech. Do not forget, as Professor Stock noted at the time, it was her own Sussex University union, backed by the UCU and its general secretary Jo Grady, who threw her under the bus. Things are so bad, members are taking unions to court. Two academics, Deirdre O’Neill and Michael Wayne, makers of the film “Adult Human Female”, have launched a tribunal action against the UCU for viewpoint discrimination after campus branches blocked screenings.

Meanwhile, Rick Prior, chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation, is taking legal action against his union. He was locked out of his union email and suspended after a TV interview in which he suggested that many of his 30,000 rank and file officers were increasingly nervous about challenging people from ethnic minorities. I note that the Met’s professional standards department concluded that his remarks did not amount to misconduct.

These trends reflect the modern world of trade unionism. If they remain unacknowledged and the Bill uncritically extends the bureaucrats’ powers, it might not help but hinder workers’ rights.

Electronic Media: False Information

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I reiterate to the noble Lord that we have very high expectations of companies that have access to the British economy and society. If they do not adhere to the law or act in any way that contributes positively to our society, we will be increasingly assertive in our response, including by making full use of the powers brought in by the Online Safety Act. They are not above the law, and we will monitor their activities carefully.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, can the Minister acknowledge that there is some concern that the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” are being weaponised to justify partisan censorship, although free speech is vital for democracy. Can she comment on the seeming immunity for some misinformation? An example is when high-profile anti-hate NGOs terrified local communities by announcing that 100 far-right protests were planned. When they did not materialise, the NGOs admitted that it was probably a hoax, but they were congratulated because it led to positive “stand up to racism” headlines. It seems like double standards.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

Where people are instigating violence, hatred, misogyny and so on, we will take action against them, however we define it. This is a very difficult area, because we have to balance free speech with the regulations we will introduce, but people have to comply with the law.