Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Report stage
Monday 14th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 104, to which I have added my name. I do not intend to repeat the case I made in Committee for paid carer’s leave, and which was put very fully by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, but I am still unclear as to why the Government now, in effect, question that case, having made a commitment to paid leave on a number of previous occasions, as was demonstrated by the various quotes from Front-Bench spokespeople that I and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, presented in Committee.

My noble friend Lord Katz rejected an earlier amendment in Committee, as we have heard, on the grounds of the costs to business, especially small business, and that it would create a situation of differential treatment. The present amendment, although detailed, simply commits the Government, as I understand it, to the principle of paid carer’s leave—a principle that had previously been accepted. It leaves to regulations the details of how paid leave would be designed. As regards the costs to business, as I said in Committee, many employers are very supportive and a CIPD consultation of its members found that support among SMEs was not much lower than among large employers.

Although it is welcomed that the Government are reviewing carer’s leave to see whether further support is needed, surely there is already more than enough evidence that, to be effective in supporting carers, the leave needs to be paid, and thus any review needs to focus on how that is best done rather than on whether it is needed. That said, can my noble friend the Minister tell us more about the review? To echo in particular the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, what are its terms of reference and objectives? What is the timeline? Will the outcome be published and debated in Parliament? The paucity of information about the review contrasts poorly with the recent Statement about the parental leave review.

In conclusion, if my noble friend the Minister is unable to accept the amendment, will he—I am not quite sure which Minister will reply—at least put on the record the Government’s commitment to paid carer’s leave as set out in Labour’s New Deal For Working People? Will he provide us with the requested information about the review of the Carer’s Leave Act?

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 104, in the name of my noble friend Lord Palmer, to which I too have added my name, I must apologise that I have been unable to speak at earlier stages of the Bill. I also strongly support Amendments 31 and 32 regarding kinship carers. I have spent a lot of time on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, where we have spent a lot of time talking about the importance of kinship care. We need to see join-up between that Bill and this Bill, so that kinship carers, who play such a critical role, get the support they need.

On Amendment 104 and the proposal for paid carer’s leave, which was set out admirably by my noble friend Lord Palmer, it is clear that it is both a modest proposition and incredibly important to unpaid carers trying to juggle work and caring. As we have heard, it would, in effect, turn the current provision—normally up to five days leave within 12 months, as set out in the Carer’s Leave Act and so already a clearly defined right—into a statutory pay entitlement. If you have supported a relative who needs care and worked at the same time, which many of us have, including me, you will know how time poor you are, that it is an incredible juggling act, and that paid carer’s leave can make a real difference.

I have spoken directly to carers who do not have paid carer’s leave in the workplace. They say that taking annual leave is exhausting and they never get a proper holiday. Unpaid leave was a useful step forward and it is right and important, but the unpaid nature of the leave can be challenging. As we have heard, a number of employers have already voluntarily embraced paid carer’s leave because they understand the beneficial impact it has, particularly on productivity and staff retention.

There are all sorts of examples of good employer practice. We have already heard about Centrica. The Phoenix Group offers two weeks of paid carer’s leave and recently added five days of unpaid leave. Some 6% of colleagues took up the offer, with an average rate of 2.64 days. We are not talking about an open cheque here. The employer said: “We have had extremely positive feedback from our colleagues and there have only been benefits to the business as a whole”. Paid carer’s leave would support workers of all ages, from young carers to adult carers and older workers. It would be a positive all-age and all-gender policy, but the reality is that women are more likely to be carers and at risk of working part-time with lower incomes in retirement, so paid carer’s leave is a positive equalities policy.

The final point I want to make is about what is happening internationally. There is a move to deliver more paid carer’s leave support, recognising ageing societies, a greater proportion of retired population to workers and the imperative for people to work for longer. Australia and Germany have 10 days of paid carer’s leave, and Germany has longer-term provisions as well. It is seen in those countries as an important strand of reducing economic inactivity, something we badly need to do here, as the Treasury quite rightly reminds us. With a shortage of social care and carers taking on more hours of care, there is a huge need to ensure that unpaid carers are supported to juggle work and caring responsibilities. It is not a “nice to have”; it is essential.

I will finish with the real-life example of Michelle White from the TSB, who was happy to have her name quoted. She said, “Paid carer’s leave provides a vital lifeline in my ability to care for my sister, often at short notice, and we would both struggle without it. This important measure allows me to provide support during an emergency. I can be there when it matters, with peace of mind that my career will not be jeopardised simply because I am a carer. I cannot speak highly enough about paid carer’s leave and the need for all carers to be supported in this way. Working for a business like TSB that recognises carers and offers this type of support is priceless”.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 173 in my name, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for adding her name to it. I am extremely supportive of Amendments 67 and 505, which were very powerfully introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.

My amendment seeks to require the Government to prepare and publish a national neglect strategy to galvanise a sustained focus on neglect. For far too long, neglect has been absent from or underplayed in our conversations about supporting children and families. The role it can play is critical in reducing the number of children in care, which will be central to many of our discussions on this part of the Bill. The scale of neglect is significant and its impact on children far-reaching. Neglect is the most common form of maltreatment reported as the initial category of abuse on child protection plans. It was also the main reason for adults reaching out last year to the NSPCC helpline; indeed, new research from the NSPCC underlining this point will be published this week.

Neglect has some of the most profound negative and long-term effects on a child’s behaviour, educational achievement, emotional well-being and physical development. It impacts every area of a child’s life. Unaddressed, it prevents children developing their full potential and puts them at serious risk of harm. That it is the very antithesis of well-being, which is what Part 1 of the Bill is all about. However, unlike other forms of maltreatment, there is no national strategy for neglect, and existing practice guidance rarely refers to neglect-specific approaches and models. The NSPCC has reported that professionals have concerns about the lack of a national focus on neglect and how this has left many children without the right support at a time when family pressures are at an all-time high.

Requiring the Government to prepare and publish a national neglect strategy, as my amendment would, would make sure that we provide greater protections and support for children and families, better understand and address common drivers of neglect, such as poverty and insecure housing, standardise the use of evidence-based neglect tools to identify and respond to neglect and improve information sharing across agencies. Taken together, that package could be very powerful.

While neglect is prevalent in child referrals and assessments, a lack of action being taken to address it has become the norm. Indeed, so commonplace is neglect that it can be easy for professionals to either stop noticing it or become desensitised to its potential severity. Neglect is a complex harm, and it requires a great deal of professional skill to understand and assess its impact. I know that many professionals feel they are simply underprepared and underresourced to do so, and there are limited specialised professionals or interventions for them to draw on.

Indeed, research last year found that 83% of professionals in healthcare, the police, children’s social care and education believed that there was not enough service available to provide support for children experiencing neglect. Equipping professionals to identify concerns about neglect early, enabling parents to reach out for support in a non-stigmatising way and ensuring there are available sources to respond effectively to neglect are all vital to reducing the devastating impact it can have on children and—this is absolutely critical—to reducing the number of children going into care, which is currently at an all-time high.

With neglect being such a prominent category of abuse and often the earliest sign of mistreatment, surely it should, and indeed must, form the cornerstone of early intervention, which I think we all agree is so important. If we are serious about supporting families and helping children as early as possible, as I know we are, preventing and tackling neglect must become a central plank of our policy response. The need for a national neglect strategy needs to be given very careful consideration. I hope it is possible to do so during the passage of the Bill and I very much look to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to add my name to Amendment 67, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff.

For me, this is very much a question of children’s rights. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child makes it clear that children must be free from violence and that Governments must do all they can to protect them from violence, using all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures. This amendment would ensure that the whole of the UK, not just Scotland and Wales, complies with the UN convention. Moreover, if we are taking children’s well-being seriously, we cannot continue to allow them to be subjected to physical assault. They are the only group, as the noble Baroness said, who are not legally protected from it.

Ministers say they are open-minded but want to see the review of evidence from Wales and from a range of voices. But, as already noted, we have ample evidence, from numerous countries, both of the negative impact of physical punishment on children’s well-being and the positive impact of its prohibition in terms of it having the desired effect of reducing the use of physical punishment. If she has not seen it, I would refer my noble friend the Minister to a recent article in Children and Youth Services Review which brings together much of that evidence.

As has already been noted, the evidence is sufficient for all the Children’s Commissioners, including from Wales, to be calling for reform. Indeed, they call the current law “outdated and morally repugnant” and reject the argument that it would lead to the criminalisation of parents. Polling shows consistent support among the general public for reform and new polling shows a majority of safeguarding professionals in support of change. Over half of social workers and teachers said the current law makes their work of safeguarding children more difficult.

I fear that the “waiting for Wales” argument is becoming a legislative form of “Waiting for Godot”. How long will we have to wait for another Bill that would provide such a perfect opportunity for reform? The Children’s Commissioners and a range of health and social care organisations are calling for urgent action now. Surely, we should be listening to them and stop prevaricating.