Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. In doing so, I accept that he is very sincere in the arguments that he makes. I would not necessarily wish to dispute his interpretation of ILO regulations or policies, but we are nevertheless being asked to accept the central premise of secondary picketing. Although I agree with the noble Lord—any reasonable person would—that the P&O dispute was an egregious example of malfeasance and inappropriate behaviour by the management, it should not be the basis of industrial policy and legislation that governs employment. On that basis, and with all due respect, I do not think that the noble Lord’s argument is very compelling. It is always bad law to work on the basis of unique circumstances, situations and anecdotes, notwithstanding the fact that we disagree with how P&O Ferries handled that situation, which was pretty lamentable.

That said, in the situation that we now have in the economy, where we have pressure on employment, rising inflation, difficulties in recruitment and ossified GDP growth, and where we are not achieving growth levels that we need, the last thing we need is to make the employment market more disputatious and more litigious. That is what this amendment would do, frankly. If one reads it carefully, the term “connected with” in proposed new subsection 4(a) would probably do a lot of heavy lifting in the future and no doubt be the subject of quite a bit of legal action, one would assume, were it to be incorporated into the Bill. In addition, the change in proposed new subsection 4(b) from employed by “that employer” to by “an employer”—that is, all employers—gives carte blanche, frankly, for going back to the bad old days of the 1970s when we saw behaviour that caused huge disputes and very significant dislocation between the workforce and employers across a wide range of industries.

As others touched on in Committee, and notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, said about the ILO, this is almost from a different era. We are no longer in the era, or we are less so than we were, of heavily mechanised, heavily unionised manufacturing, where that central argument for having collective action between different groups of workers at different locations—I could mention Saltley coke works and Orgreave, which is very topical—was a pertinent issue. We are no longer in that situation, because of technical change, communication change and the way that people work now. Many more people work from home and many more work on a self-employed basis. They are not accessing unions as members and it is not necessary for them to have that physical collective action.

There are, very briefly, other big philosophical and ideological reasons why it would be bad news were this amendment to be appended to the Bill. There would be a disproportionate impact of secondary picketing, which would undermine the confidence of employers, customers and suppliers in businesses that are not directly involved in the dispute. It would create economic damage that extends far beyond the scope of the actual workforce disagreement. It would unfairly target neutral parties. Secondary picketing affects businesses and workers in the supply chain who have no direct involvement in the original dispute. These neutral employers face disruption to their operations, despite having no control over, or responsibility for resolving, the underlying conflict. There would obviously be a multiplier effect in the economy of such disruption. There are also legal and fairness arguments and contractual rights. Secondary picketing can interfere with existing contractual relationships between neutral businesses and their customers, suppliers or employees, which undermines the security of commercial contracts and business relationships.

There is also the right to work. Workers at secondary sites who are not party to the original dispute have their own right to work without interference; secondary picketing would, of course, impinge on that right. Secondary picketing can effectively coerce those workers into supporting a cause that they may not agree with or have a stake in. In terms of property rights, secondary picketing often takes place on or near the property of businesses uninvolved in the dispute, potentially interfering with property owners’ rights to conduct their business freely.

The rule of law is important as well. There is a reason why there was consensus among the voting public at the 1979 election and onwards, with the continuing legislation brought forward by the Conservative Government, that secondary picketing was essentially retrograde, a bad thing and not good for jobs, prosperity and business.

There is a final point to be made about democratic legitimacy. Secondary picketing can give unions power to disrupt parts of the economy where they lack a democratic mandate from the affected workers, as those workers have not chosen to join the industrial action. The point is that if you wish to go on strike, having gone through the democratic processes of a union workplace ballot at your place of work, that must be respected and it must be proper and within the rule of law. However, imposing that particular dispute on other people through secondary picketing undermines democratic legitimacy.

I say finally that the Blair Government were not perfect, but they looked at this situation, as did the Brown Government, when Labour was in power from 1997 to 2010 and did not essentially resile from a settled position and a consensus on secondary picketing. For that reason, notwithstanding that I respect the great expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, I think that this is an unfortunate amendment and I oppose it.

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

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 150 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hendy, because I think that it is worth taking just a moment to consider the impact of the reduction in union bargaining power that we have seen on ordinary working people in this country. That will not take long, because it is plain to see, in stagnating living standards and the drag on fair growth, but it is also worth considering how the position of the party opposite on industrial action has evolved over time.

In April 1980, the then Secretary of State for Employment, Jim Prior, introduced an Employment Bill which restricted secondary action, but he certainly did not advocate that it should be banned altogether. The then Conservative Government’s position was that secondary action should in fact remain lawful if it related to a first customer and/or supplier that was of direct importance to the original dispute. Jim Prior said that

“the only other position that we could take would be to say that there will be no immunity for anything other than primary action. I do not believe … that that is either a practical or a reasonable position to take”.

He also said that, by protecting the right to take secondary action in relation to a customer or supplier,

“We are seeking to reach a position which we believe is fair and which recognises the traditional rights of the trade union movement”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/1980; col. 1490.]

Back then, a Conservative Minister could acknowledge that the relationship between an employer, on one hand, and workers and their unions, on the other, is an inherently unequal one. But, of course, Jim Prior did not last long in that role and, under successive Conservative Governments, the inequality of power between workers and employers was deliberately and repeatedly reinforced.

Secondary action, or solidarity action as it is commonly called, was effectively outlawed in 1990, but here is the problem that I invite noble Lords to reflect on when considering the arguments of my noble friend Lord Hendy. Business was handed a unilateral power to define what secondary action is and, unfortunately, that is an invitation to an abuse of power. This is not an academic point. It was only after a six-week strike in 1984 that Ford sewing machinists finally secured full equal pay, but the victory was short-lived. Ultimately, the company took the decision to outsource those jobs and so avoid any need for pay parity, secure in the knowledge that solidarity action from workers in the customer company would become unlawful. Today, some companies continue to use long supply chains and complex outsourcing arrangements to effectively balkanise workers’ bargaining power. For example, take a company that decides to boost profit margins by targeting one part of the work- force for wage cuts. To prevent fellow workers from participating in industrial action to resist those pay cuts, a company can simply divide itself in two. To paraphrase Jim Prior, is that fair?

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. Amendment 154 would remove another huge chunk from the legislation and, for the arguments that I rehearsed in the previous group, we will not support any move to force a vote on this occasion.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to mark that this is the moment—21 July, at 8.59 pm—when the Labour Government are going to put such unreasonable demands on small businesses that they will all come together and say, “This Government are not our friend. This Government are distracting us from growth, from employing more people and from productivity”. Just as small businesses are getting over Making Tax Digital, Covid and tariffs, this legislation will do irreparable harm. I wanted to make that point because I assure noble Lords that there will be future reference to this very moment.

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

My Lords, I too will be brief. I thought it might be helpful to inject a bit of balance into the debate. Noble Lords might recall that in Committee I spoke of how often there are positive voluntary agreements between employers and unions about access, because everybody recognises that in a modern, civilised society, workers should have the right to speak to a trade union. It is their choice whether to join, but it ought to be seen as a basic right to be able to meet a union at the workplace. In my experience, very often you go in and have a cup of tea and you get a chance to meet the workers, who will make up their own minds about whether they want to join.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 99 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, which, to me, smacks of common sense, while also acknowledging that Amendment 98, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, is a step in the right direction.

For those of us who have conducted disciplinary and grievance hearings—as an employer, I have conducted my fair share over the years—these are often stressful, time-consuming and sometimes very divisive, not only for the employee but often for the employer, the manager and the other team members who are involved. An officious approach, in which only a trade union official may accompany the worker into the meeting, makes this situation, if anything, more adversarial, more us versus them and, in my view, less likely to lead to a sensible compromise that works for both parties. This is particularly the case for small and micro-businesses in which trade union representation is lower and the worker very often does not have that option. To widen it out to other members, colleagues, friends or even family members, as Amendment 99 states, seems to me a sensible move.

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

My Lords, I want to take this opportunity to correct what I think has been a mischaracterisation of the TUC briefing, which makes it very clear that the right to be accompanied includes, yes, trade union reps but also workmates. I also want to correct what is a misunderstanding of the spirit of the right to be accompanied, which was very much about dealing with grievances, disciplinaries and procedures within a workplace. Hence, when a union is recognised by the employer and the worker is a member of the union and chooses their union rep to represent them, that is a good thing. Our experience is that that is about resolving issues at an early stage. Likewise, a worker may choose a workmate to represent them—somebody inside the organisation who can take a practical, common-sense view of dealing with a grievance and disciplinary procedure.

During the debates on the Bill, we have heard a lot about the worries of ending up in employment tribunals, disputes being protracted and lawyers and others who maybe want to make a pretty penny from representing workers in trouble. Noble Lords will find that many employers, like workers, want to keep resolution of those issues within the workplace because that is often the quickest, more effective and cheapest way that everybody concerned can sort out problems when they arise. Surely it is in resolving issues that we should all share an interest.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I rise to say simply that, in my experience, I have found that employees want to bring with them family members, often parents—particularly women want to bring a parent—and I am not sure that this will allow that anymore.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I, too, can be brief. I have deep concerns about proscribing Palestine Action. I do not think that the case has been made. I think this is a dangerous overreaction to populism expressed primarily in the British media.

I also want to take this opportunity to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for standing up and moving her amendment. We in this House talk a great deal about the principles of democracy, yet we are not often good at listening to unpopular or dissenting opinions, and I believe the way that she was piled on was completely inappropriate.

I also wish to associate myself with the contribution of my noble friend—and I underline that—Lord Hain. It takes courage to question a Government. I stand here and have the freedom as a non-aligned Member of this House. I was a member of the Labour Party for 45 years and, as noble Lords know, had the Whip removed and subsequently resigned. I have the luxury of standing here and criticising without repercussions from my party in government. My noble friend Lord Hain, too, has shown immense courage.

I did not intend to speak this afternoon, but I cannot sit here and allow this to go through with my silence and, thereby, my agreement. If the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wishes to press her amendment, I will go into the Lobby to support her.

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

My Lords—

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, everyone will be able to speak in this debate. We will hear from my noble friend Lady O’Grady next, then the noble Baroness.

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

My Lords, I thank my noble friend and the noble Baroness, and I thank the Minister for always listening to different perspectives with respect. We do not have to agree to be able to respect one another.

I support the proscription of the paramilitary and white supremacist IRM—or RIM, as I now have to call them—and MMC. To me, they clearly meet the commonly understood definition of terrorism, which is the use of violence that threatens civilian lives. Palestine Action is different: in its bid to disrupt the arms trade, its members commit serious damage to property. In my view, they are not terrorists but criminals. Drawing the definition too broadly risks fragmenting the power of that term and our common understanding of what terrorism is. I also worry about the impact on community cohesion.

My question is, what message would my noble friend the Minister send publicly, including to minority communities here in the UK, who may sincerely see this proscription of Palestine Action as, at best, a terrible distraction from the true terror we are all witnessing on our TV screens? Instead, the Government should do everything we can to help bring the hostages home, to seek justice for all victims of war crimes, to meet our duty under the UN convention to prevent and to punish genocide, and to secure an end to the unlawful occupation of Palestine with a two-state solution and lasting peace.

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and I certainly agree wholeheartedly with her final sentence. I too support a two-state solution, but I also support this SI and I am very grateful to the Minister for his clear explanation of why it is necessary.

I have to say to the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Jones, for whom I have respect—we have often agreed on other issues—that to say that this group is not engaged in serious violence baffles me. I shall just suggest to noble Lords an incident from last August when Palestine Action used a repurposed prison van to smash through the perimeter of a research facility in Bristol. Of the security personnel who tried to intervene to stop them attacking the buildings, one was hospitalised with head injuries, two policemen who came along were attacked with sledgehammers and one ended up in hospital. So, when the Minister describes the tests for terrorism as being, one, to advance an ideological or racial cause, two, the intimidation of the public, and three, serious violence or serious damage to property that endangers life, I struggle to see how those examples do not meet the requirements for terrorism.

I am grateful to the Government for acting swiftly to try to prevent people actually being killed, rather than endangering their lives.

UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I do not quite agree with the noble Baroness. At the end of the day, the Government have to make a choice. We have identified the top eight sectors that we will support with this strategy going forward. At the same time, other industries will also benefit from the support because of its roll-on effect. Yes, ideally, we would like to support every sector, but we need to pick and choose. It is just like running your own business: you pick and choose who your customers are and you work with them, but you still serve everybody.

The industrial strategy focuses on eight sectors, but other foundational sectors will also be supported through the various plans set out in the strategy.

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

My Lords, I strongly welcome this industrial strategy, alongside the TUC and the CBI. It is about a mission for fair growth and delivering secure, skilled jobs in the parts of the country that need them most. I am also very conscious of the history of industrial policy. I remember when noble Lords opposite, as members of a Conservative Government, were responsible for temporarily nationalising Rolls-Royce because they saw the company as key to the defence sector and manufacturing. Making more things here in Britain matters.

I also welcome the focus on vocational training. Can the Minister say more about the role of higher education, which in successful countries has traditionally had a key role in supporting clusters such as R&D and innovation, with a view, obviously, to better productivity in the country?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

As usual, my noble friend makes a brilliant observation; she is spot-on. We have to focus on skills. This is another thing that is brought to my attention every time I meet with businesses in the UK, and with international businesses. They say, “You need to close the skills gap”. Skills are missing in certain places, and this strategy addresses that.

We are investing in technical excellence colleges through the further education scheme. As far as higher education goes, noble Lords know that four of the top universities are in this country. Businesses work with them and fund their research as well. We attract international business because of the higher education expertise and professionalism in this country.

Let me say more about skills. We have just announced £275 million of skills investment over three years, which forms a wider skills package made up of £75 million of government resource investment and £200 million of capital funding, made available from our new skills mission fund.

We committed in the industrial strategy to investing over £100 million to boost engineering skills. That is made up of £75 million of resource funding and £25 million of capital funding from the skills mission board. The Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Education have contributed funding for these engineering skills. We are also investing a further £187 million to support the digital skills package, which the Prime Minister announced at London Tech Week a few weeks ago. More details on defence skills will be set out in the forthcoming defence industrial strategy.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment so eloquently moved by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. There is not much more to add, but I will try. I also put my name to the amendment.

I thought we had gone past the stage where we look back at history and do not learn its lessons on protecting the franchise and the ballot in sensitive elections. There are no more sensitive elections than workplace elections, on which people’s very livelihood, careers, family and income depend.

I take your Lordships’ Committee back to February 1834. Colleagues on the other side of the Chamber will be aware that in 1833 agricultural workers in the village of Tolpuddle in Dorset quite rightly formed a union to fight wage cuts. The following year they were arrested, arraigned, found guilty and transported not because they had administered oaths, which was the official reason for their incarceration, but because they assembled as a group. The point is that they did not have a secret ballot. They had an open meeting to form the union and a strategy for fighting those wage cuts, and they were betrayed by two union members. If you talk to Unite the Union and GMB, there is nothing new under the sun.

That said, the point was they did not have a secret ballot. One reason that the unions have evolved in a positive way over many years—hitherto, until we reached this Bill—is that we have had that workplace democracy, unlike in the bad old days of the 1970s and before, where people were pressured to join a union in the closed shop and sometimes pressured to support industrial action which was uncalled for and damaging both to their own jobs and to the business generally, as we saw, for instance, in 1984 with the miners’ strike. Amendments 247 and 248 tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral are very sensible. I would say: be careful what you wish for, because there is another historical example, although noble Lords on the other side may resile from it. The Jim Crow laws in the southern part of the United States existed for many years post-reconstruction in 1865. That they marginalised, traduced and undermined the right of black people, of African Americans, to vote was, in effect, because they did not have a secret ballot and had to register, and there were many legal impediments to them voting.

We respect the integrity of the secret ballot. We would not dream of asking local councillors, parish councillors, borough councillors, county councillors and certainly not Members of Parliament to seek election on the basis that their electorate would be corralled into voting a certain way and there would not be a secret ballot. That is as it should be and as it has been for modern times, and it is correct. Why are we now going back to a potential era of bullying, harassment and attacking people who may not support the union line? Give people a chance to think, reflect and choose the right way for not just themselves and their families but their union by means of a secret ballot. For those reasons I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment, and I hope the Minister will give it due regard.

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

My Lords, I oppose this group of amendments. I have to say that it is with deep regret, because my assessment of them is that they are trying to stir up a spectre of trade union intimidation, which reminds me strongly of the initiative going back in history—not quite as far as the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—to 2014, when the Government commissioned Bruce Carr QC, as he was then, to conduct an investigation of intimidation in workplaces. As it transpired, Mr Carr declined all opportunities to make any recommendations whatever on the basis of the evidence that he received. For the TUC’s part—and I was at the helm at the time—we described it as a party-political stunt and said that, frankly, the then Conservative Party in government should have repaid the taxpayer for the significant cost of conducting that investigation that led to zero—I repeat, zero—recommendations for changes in the law. In fact, Mr Carr went on just a year or two later to oppose the then Conservative Government’s Trade Union Bill as “a threat” to industrial relations and to civil liberties.

That brings me to safe and secure e-balloting. It seems to me that anybody who was a true democrat would be looking to increase opportunities for participation in safe, secure, secret and electronic balloting. Any boost to democracy should be welcome. I have to say that it is disappointing that those who oppose the right for trade unionists to cast their vote safely, securely and secretly by electronic ballot apparently believe that there is no threat of intimidation in respect of political parties. Therefore, it is fine for political parties to use modern methods of balloting; it is not fine for trade unionists. I would ask what view that gives us of the perception of trade unions from the Benches opposite, when, on the contrary, we should be proud of trade unions. We should tackle the causes and not just the symptoms of industrial action. We should be proud of constructive industrial relations in this country, which are vital for productivity and growth.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 247, 248 and 250 would introduce further requirements in relation to trade union ballots, particularly concerning the risk of intimidation, the use of workplace locations and the information that unions must provide to members. While the intention to ensure that ballots are conducted fairly without pressure is understandable, I question whether these proposals are justified. They appear to introduce new procedural barriers for trade unions, with little evidence that safeguards are failing. There is a broader concern that measures of this kind may tilt the balance even further against workers attempting to organise and exercise their rights. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out whether these amendments are proportionate and necessary, and how they align with the broader approach to employment and industrial relations.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I oppose Amendment 254 and the other amendments in this group.

I also admit to a certain degree of pleasure that they have been tabled, because they draw attention to the fact that such was the rejection, not just of unions or the minimum service levels Act but of the public and employers, that not a single employer used the minimum service levels Act and not a single work notice was issued. That was because the Act was so widely regarded as unfair and unworkable and, in addition, that it would put fuel on the fire of difficult industrial disputes when all decent people wanted to resolve those disputes. Finally, it ignored the fact that life-and-limb voluntary agreements are in place in the industries and sectors where safety is genuinely at stake.

I thank the Benches opposite for putting forward the amendments.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, and I took part in the debates on the 2023 Bill when it went through your Lordships’ House—obviously, on different Benches. She is right that no employer sought to use the powers in the 2023 Act, but the Act had only a relatively short existence in which it was available to employers before, in effect, we went into an election period.

I accept that, at the time, employers did not wish to take advantage of the Act’s provisions. The main purpose of the Act was to protect individual citizens to ensure that they had the levels of service that they needed. That goes beyond safety issues, which are the minimum levels to which unions tend to sign up for, so that ordinary citizens have minimum service levels to get themselves to work, to get themselves to their hospital appointments and so on. We did not give that Act enough time to see: first, whether it would work in practice, which I believe it would; and, secondly, whether it would be popular with the British public, which I am absolutely certain it would have been, if it had had a proper amount of time to come into effect.

I accept that those in the party opposite, throughout the passage of that Bill, registered their strong opposition to it. So I understand that, in power, they seek to expunge it from the statute book. However, that is a grave mistake that ignores the needs of ordinary citizens and places unions above the needs of ordinary citizens.

I particularly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which seeks an impact assessment on SMEs. I will always support an impact assessment on SMEs, because we have not had a proper one yet. I do not believe that Part 4 of the Bill will have the biggest impact on SMEs—other parts, particularly Part 1, will decimate SMEs—but I support any opportunity to get full public exposure of the impact of the provisions throughout the Bill on the health of our very important SME sector.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

My final point is that there are plenty of examples where we have cherry-picked international obligations. With the Hirst No. 2 case of 2005, on prisoner votes, the then Conservative Government, I think probably agreed with by the Labour Opposition, completely disregarded the idea of giving a full franchise to prisoners serving a custodial sentence. My noble friend on the Front Bench is nodding her head: as a very accomplished Home Office Minister, she will no doubt concur with that. So there are occasions where we have disregarded our obligations for political reasons, and we can do it again. If the choice is bringing back secondary picketing and all that goes with it, or disregarding some obligations that have been established by a foreign legal entity, I know which decision I would make for the long-term future of employment, business and commerce in this country.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It seems to me that the key purpose behind this group of amendments is seeking to shift the balance of power a little bit more towards working people. I think you would find that many people in the country agree that that balance of power has swung too far against ordinary working people for too long.

I just want to very, very briefly say a word on Amendment 253 and underline the very grave sense of injustice that prison officers feel about the removal of what is a fundamental human right, the right to withdraw your labour, back in 1994. There is a sense that that did not in any way improve the Prison Service; I think many of us would agree that the Prison Service has subsequently faced huge challenges. We know of the huge problems that prison officers face very often, day to day, in their workplace: violence, poor conditions and vermin. I stress the appeal made by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. Given the grave sense of injustice that is felt by people who not only stand up for fellow workers as members of the POA but stand up for a service that we could become proud of as a country, a prison service that also, I hope, does the job of rehabilitating people, we must look to engage with the POA to find a remedy to the real sense of injustice that they feel.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I will quickly follow and agree with my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Jackson of Peterborough in their speaking against the amendments in this group. We feel that these amendments collectively represent a dangerous and retrograde step that would just take us back to the industrial chaos of the 1970s.

Such amendments would fundamentally undermine the carefully balanced framework of industrial relations that has served this country well for, now, over 30 years. I suppose the conventions of the House require me to address each amendment in turn, starting with Amendment 239. As the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, described, this would remove Section 223 of the 1992 Act, which currently renders unlawful any industrial action taken in response to dismissals for unofficial action.

When workers engage in unofficial action—that is, action not sanctioned by their trade union and without proper balloting procedures—they are essentially taking the law into their own hands, so employers must retain the right to dismiss workers who breach their contracts in this manner. To permit official industrial action in response to such lawful dismissals would create a vicious circle where lawlessness begets more lawlessness. It would effectively immunise unofficial action from any meaningful consequences, and encourage workers to bypass the proper, democratic procedures that unions themselves have surely fought hard to establish.

Amendment 240 is perhaps the most pernicious of all these proposals. It would restore secondary action, the ability of workers not just to strike against their employer over their conditions, but to support disputes elsewhere. We banned secondary action for compelling reasons. It allows disputes to spread like wildfire across the economy, dragging innocent third parties into conflicts that have nothing to do with their industrial relationships. A dispute between workers and one employer could paralyse entire supply chains, disrupting businesses that have committed no wrong and harming workers who have no stake in the original dispute.

The amendment would also remove the sensible restrictions on picketing, allowing pickets to target any workplace, rather than just their own. This opens the door to flying pickets and the mass intimidation tactics that we witnessed in the darkest days of industrial conflict. When pickets can descend on workplaces with which they have no employment relationship, the result is not legitimate industrial pressure but mob rule. Furthermore, by changing the definition of trade disputes from those “wholly or mainly” relating to employment matters to those merely “connected with” such matters, this amendment would politicise industrial action. Strikes could be called on the flimsiest of pretexts, with only the most tenuous connection to genuine workplace issues. This is a recipe for politically motivated disruption that serves no legitimate industrial relations purpose.

Amendment 241 would restore the right to strike for union recognition. We have established statutory procedures for union recognition that are fair, democratic and effective. These procedures protect workers’ rights to choose whether they wish to be represented by a union, without the coercion that inevitably accompanies strike action. When recognition can be achieved through industrial action, the process becomes tainted by intimidation, rather than informed by genuine worker preference. No worker should ever face the choice between supporting their family and supporting union recognition demands.

Amendment 242 would remove the requirement for unions to provide employers with notice of strike ballots. This seemingly technical change would also have profound practical consequences. Employers need advance notice to make contingency arrangements, to protect vulnerable service users and to engage in meaningful dialogue that might resolve disputes before they escalate. In essential services—our hospitals, schools and transport networks—such notice is crucial for public safety. To remove this requirement would be to abandon the vital principle that industrial action should and must be a last resort rather than a first response.

Amendment 243 would eliminate the requirement for separate workplace ballots, allowing unions to aggregate completely different workplaces and employment relationships into single ballots. This strikes at the heart of democratic participation. Workers in one workplace may face entirely different conditions and concerns from those in another. They should not be bound by the votes of workers with whom they share nothing but a common union membership. Workplace-specific ballots ensure that industrial action has genuine support from those who will participate in it, rather than being imposed by a union hierarchy pursuing its own agenda.

Taken together, these amendments would create a perfect storm of industrial instability. They would restore the legal framework that gave us the winter of discontent, when rubbish piled up in our streets, bodies went unburied and hospital patients were turned away by striking workers. They would empower union leaders to spread disputes across entire industries, to bypass democratic procedures and to hold essential services hostage to political demands. We must not forget the lessons of history. The industrial relations reforms of the 1980s and 1990s did not destroy trade unionism; they civilised it. They required unions to be accountable to their members and responsive to legitimate concerns while preventing the abuse of industrial power.

The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, would have us believe that they simply want to restore workers’ rights. But rights without responsibilities are merely privileges, and privileges being exercised without regard for their impact on others quickly becomes tyranny. The right to strike is not an absolute right; it is a powerful tool that must be used judiciously and with proper safeguards.

Moreover, these amendments would do nothing to address the real challenges that face working people today. They would not raise a single wage, improve a single workplace or create a single job. Instead, as my noble friends pointed out, they would create uncertainty, discourage investment and ultimately harm the very workers that they purport to be helping. Businesses need stability and predictability to grow and prosper. Industrial relations law that encourages conflict and chaos will drive investment elsewhere, taking jobs and opportunities with it.

I urge this Committee to reject these amendments. They represent not progress but regression, not liberation but license, and not workers’ rights but workers’ wrongs. We must maintain the balanced approach that has served our economy and our society so well. Let us resist the siren call of those who would drag us back to an era of industrial warfare that all of us hoped that we would never see again. The choice before us is clear. We can preserve a system that protects workers’ legitimate rights while maintaining economic stability and social peace, or we can return to those bad old days of secondary picketing, political strikes and industrial anarchy. I think and I hope that I know which path this Committee would choose.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a freelance TV producer. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, whose amendment this is, has waited and waited to be able to debate it, but now, when the big moment arrives, he is prevented from taking his place in the Chamber by an unbreakable commitment—so the Committee has me.

This amendment is an attempt to address the wretched, exploitative workplace faced by far too many people wanting to enter work. It attempts to create a new definition of “work experience”, which would ensure that participants are educated, and not exploited, as they attempt to join the workforce. I am sure that noble Lords would agree that it is important for new entrants to spend time in a workplace, finding out whether they like the work environment and, even better, whether they are seen as a possible fit for the company.

Much energy has been spent focusing on how to get young people, and people returning to employment, back into the workplace. I am glad that there has been reform and improvement to the apprenticeship schemes, but that is for those who want training in a specific sector. However, many people do not know what they want to do and, for them, internships have been a way to discover whether they can engage with a particular industry and whether it can engage with them. Unfortunately, so many of these internships have turned out to be exploitative.

I have worked in the creative industries all my career, so I have first-hand experience of young people coming in to find out about the industry, only to discover that they are expected to work for either no pay or well below the minimum wage. This is happening not just in the creative industries but across the economy. I have been told about a strengthening coach, working for a major professional sporting body, who was initially on a short-term internship, which became a two-year, daily commitment. During all that time, he was not paid. He loved what he was doing so was afraid to ask for payment and was forced to take a second job to sustain himself.

Internships are essential, and they are covered by the National Minimum Wage Act, so any intern who qualifies as a worker, under the criteria laid out in the Act, should be paid. A new survey by the broadcasting union BECTU reveals that 49% of people joining the creative industries have been pressurised to work for free. In their desperation to get into this competitive industry, many succumb and work for free. The highly respected Sutton Trust found last year that 61% of internships undertaken by recent graduates were underpaid or unpaid. The largest percentage of these jobs are in the south-east, where accommodation is notoriously expensive. It means that those people from the regions and nations, or from more socially disadvantaged families, who cannot afford the accommodation, are prevented from taking up those places. For a Government who are determined and dedicated to getting people into work in well-paid jobs, this is a failure that must be rectified rapidly. Social mobility realises the talent of the whole population; it is the only way to ensure that our nation succeeds economically.

The body charged with enforcing the minimum wage Act is HMRC. Part of the problem is that if the intern is not paid, they do not appear on HMRC’s radar. This is not helped by the fact that so many small companies do not have anybody focusing on personnel issues and, even when they have an HR department, surveys show they are not well enough informed about the law. I ask the Minister: how many prosecutions against employers have there been under the National Minimum Wage Act for unpaid internships?

Amendment 129 is an attempt to sort out the complicated and often exploitative system for those trying to get into the job market. It is crucial to ensure that there is a difference in law between interns, who should be paid, and those undertaking work experience, who should not. Proposed new subsection (4) in the amendment sets out a new legal concept of “work experience”, defined by

“observing, replicating, assisting with and carrying out any task with the aim of gaining experience of a particular workplace, organisation … or work-related activity”.

The most important criterion for what constitutes work experience is that it is voluntary, and participants are not under the control of anyone else. It has to be a learning experience, and must ensure that participants are shadowing and not actually doing the job. Work experience is already part of many T-level courses for young people. Some universities facilitate work experience, but not nearly enough of these places are available. It is a crucial pathway into work life. At a time when we are hearing of so many people who are out of the workforce, it is important that this stage of their career is clearly established and legally defined.

I am pleased that the amendment has a time limit on what counts as work experience. A maximum of four weeks seems like a good duration. It would allow the participant sufficient time to get a grip on what happens in a specific workplace and to decide whether they want to embark on a career there, but, in my view, is not enough time for them to become established as an unpaid intern. So many underpaid or unpaid internships carry on for many more than four weeks, and this amendment would ensure that that does not happen.

The highly respected Sutton Trust says that access to the workplace is a central obstacle to social mobility. I beg the Government to take the suggestion in this proposed new clause seriously. I ask the Minister to examine it as part of a possible solution to the crisis facing new entrants to the creative and other industries. I hope your Lordships will discuss this further when the Committee gets to my noble friend Lord Clancarty’s Amendments 286 and 287 on establishing a freelance commissioner.

Meanwhile, this amendment is focused on the many thousands of young people who want to get into work but do not know what they want to do. If the Government take up the work experience category laid out in this amendment, it will give those people a taste of the workplace, which is crucial to engaging them and crucial to getting them engaged in the job market. I beg to move.

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

My Lords, as somebody with long experience of campaigning against unpaid internships, I have a huge amount of sympathy with the motivation behind this amendment.

Certainly, it is true that a key reflection of the reversal of social mobility in this country has been the growth of unpaid internships. It started with the creative industries, where, in the past, a young person from a working-class background used to be able to start as a runner in broadcasting, or as a cub reporter on their local newspaper, and then found their path to national newspapers or progression within broadcasting blocked by the parachuting in of very often young people from wealthy backgrounds, often to senior positions, on an unpaid internship that nobody from a working-class background could afford to take. It costs thousands of pounds, particularly if the position is located in London and you do not live in London. I absolutely agree that unpaid internships have been a block and a major barrier to young working-class people’s progression.

My concern is that, from my perspective, the problem is not the law but the enforcement of the law. As trade unions, we have campaigned to get HMRC to take this seriously. There was a flurry of action around cracking down on unpaid internships, but, since Covid in particular, there has been an uptick—you have only to scan any recruitment agency website and you will see that they are brazenly advertising unpaid internships that lock young working-class people out of the professions, and doing so in flagrant abuse of the law.

Sadly, I cannot support this amendment. I fear that bad employers would be able to offer rolling unpaid internships, shoving young people through a revolving door of not getting paid as they are entitled to be for the productive work that they do. They should be paid at least the national minimum wage. What I would support is the proposed fair work agency launching a major crackdown on young people being robbed of their dreams and opportunities through the exploitative practice of unpaid internships.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

Finally, it was a Conservative Government, eight years ago in 2017, who brought in the regulations on the gender pay gap under the famously Trumpian right-winger, the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead. Our proud record includes creating, for instance, the national living wage in 2015 and other progressive policies for working people. We all have done well for working people over the years, and the Labour Party does not, in any sense, have any kind of monopoly on that.

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

I hardly know where to start.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

Give it a go.

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

Certainly, I believe that everybody at work—whatever background they come from and whatever their class, sex, gender or sexuality—should have the right to be treated fairly. I believe that our legal system, our Equality Act, precisely provides that protection for people, but that we can build on it through equality action plans and so on. But I have to say that maybe some noble Lords opposite also need to consider people’s real experience.

I was elected as the first ever woman general secretary of the TUC. Clearly, we were not a movement that rushed things, because it took an awful long time to get to that point. I have enough self-awareness to know that it was not because there were not talented women, black or white, who could have been elected and who had the talent, skills and ability. There was something else going on, and I hope that there would be enough honesty in this House to recognise that black people and women face real barriers that will not be overcome unless we take positive action.

The other point I would just like to reflect on is that, whenever I spoke about seeing more women playing active roles in not just the trade union movement but in public life, including, by the way, lending my support to women who were arguing that we needed more women in the boardroom—I supported that principle—I was always fascinated that, whenever I raised those issues, people, largely men I have to say, would start talking about merit. Well, I have to say, when I look at the upper echelons, I do not always see in those male-dominated and white-dominated ranks people who got there on the basis of merit. I have never seen an advert for a position on a board. I have never known any board member to go through an open recruitment process to get that position. It has very often been a case of a tap on the shoulder.

If we look at how many judges and newspaper editors we have, and specifically at race, sex and gender, yes, the picture has progressed, but we still have a very long way to go. Therefore, I think this amendment is a little disingenuous in trying to suggest that people who have been held back for years because of their class background, race or gender, if given a helping hand and a bit of encouragement to go for it, will somehow cause a meltdown of society.

Achieving what my noble friend said is, quite rightly, part of my history and our history. I hope that it is part of our progress as a country that we value equality. We know that ultimately it is good for all of us, and long may we keep struggling to achieve that goal.

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friends on this side of the House have commented on this amendment in far better terms than I could, but I will make a supplementary point. I was very surprised to see this amendment, because one of the perennial themes that we have heard throughout all stages of the Bill in this House has been a complaint about the alleged level of extra bureaucracy that it is supposed to impose on employers. Yet here we see a veritable feast of form-filling and requirements to report on those forms at regular intervals. I suggest that this amendment is not needed; it is surplus to requirements because it places unnecessary burdens on employers.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, on his maiden speech. I thought he was not going to be in his place, so, in his absence, I was going to risk his reputation by saying that when he was Transport Minister, I think the unions always had a good-faith relationship with him.

I welcome the repeal of the scheme that saw £700 million of taxpayers’ money squandered on sending four volunteers back to Rwanda. We should also commend the Government’s determination to crack down on organised crime which trades in human desperation. Those gangsters are not the only ones who have raked it in. The likes of Serco have also profited hugely from past failures to process asylum claims quickly and effectively, so I am pleased to see this Government tackling the backlog, which not only racked up hotel bills but left traumatised refugees in limbo, barred from work and unable to contribute to society. Labour’s approach must be clear: we punish the villains, not the victims. We need a system that is not only firm but fair and humane too.

This Bill focuses primarily on people who come across the channel in small boats. However, as we have heard, that is a small part of the immigration picture. In the second half of the 20th century, Irish, Caribbean and Asian immigrants helped to build our NHS and transport system, often facing racism and discrimination for their trouble. This century, we face the challenge of an ageing population and falling birth rate; unfilled vacancies, not least in health and social care and in construction; and universities, which critically rely on international students’ fees.

We do need to tackle the root causes of people’s concerns about migration. There are radical right forces, well organised and resourced, which seek to scapegoat migrants for all of Britain’s ills. However, migrants did not slash funding for skills training, schools, hospitals and youth services. They did not sell off our utilities and abandon whole towns to rot. They did not neglect building council houses in favour of luxury flats or jack up private rents. The blame lies elsewhere and the remedy, including urgent investment in our public infrastructure, is clear.

Alongside this Bill, the Government need a clear strategy to ensure that we are welcoming to newcomers and that we are good neighbours to each other. Let us remember that, before funding was cut, free classes in English for speakers of other languages helped to build community cohesion and friendships.

I want to raise three specific issues. The first is modern slavery. The Bill repeals many of the most harmful provisions contained in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 but retains provisions—notably Section 29—which would disqualify modern slavery victims from support, safety and protection because of detention or convictions which had resulted from their exploitation. This could put the UK in conflict with its duties under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings and put vulnerable people at risk of re-trafficking. As well as repealing those provisions, will the Minister consider granting modern slavery victims who are in the national referral scheme the dignity of a right to work?

Secondly, the Bill makes no mention of safe routes for asylum seekers, yet people risk only their lives taking dangerous journeys to reach sanctuary and loved ones, when safe routes are not available. Also, the current family reunion rules are complex and, for many unaccompanied children, almost impossible to access. To break the people smugglers’ business model, will the Minister consider, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Bryan, building on the success of the humanitarian scheme for Ukraine to create more safe routes?

Thirdly, regarding workers, those who genuinely care about stopping those employers who abuse migrant labour to drive down wages should back the Employment Rights Bill. It must include more fair pay agreements, so that everyone, wherever they were born, gets a fair rate for the job. In the wake of extreme exploitation scandals, including in social care, domestic service, food production and the fishing industry, can the Minister ensure that there is a proper risk assessment of employer exploitation before sponsorship licences are issued? Can he also ensure that, as in Australia, workers on visas have the right to report bad employers without fearing the risk of destitution or deportation as a result?