Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

It is a time for a change of approach, and this Bill, together with a new industrial strategy which is being worked on, can help provide it. I call on the Opposition, probably in hope rather than expectation, to give it a fair wind.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I am generally somewhat nervous about purpose clauses, but I can see the argument in the case of this Bill, because there is a lot of confusion about what it is trying to achieve. Indeed, it serves to highlight the incoherence of this Government’s approach to generating economic growth, because it places far too much of a burden on businesses and will deter them from innovating, recruiting and investing in skills training, which we know is so very important right now.

That is particularly pronounced within the tech sector, which is one of the Government’s priority sectors because it has the potential to drive a vast amount of growth, but it is also one where we need to do far more to encourage investment so that our homegrown tech firms can scale and compete around the world. We must not forget that investors have a choice as to where they invest, and they will not go to countries where the costs are higher.

Although it is not properly an interest to declare, it is perhaps worth reminding your Lordships that until very recently, I chaired the Communications and Digital Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, and during my term in the chair we looked at the tech sector quite a bit, as noble Lords would expect. Our final inquiry was about scaling up in AI and creative tech.

I am sure the Minister, who is also a DSIT Minister, has seen that techUK, the industry’s trade body, has this morning raised some genuine concerns about the Bill. Its website says:

“With no economic modelling underpinning these proposals, businesses are being asked to shoulder new burdens without a clear understanding of the impact. There is a growing risk that entrenched positions will lead to a worst-case outcome, one that stifles innovation and investment in jobs. This is counter to the government’s pro-growth mission. We urgently call for further discussion and refinement to ensure the Bill supports businesses and protects workers”.


Alongside techUK, the Startup Coalition, which focuses specifically on start-ups, says in its briefing note on the Bill that it is concerned that without careful tailoring, the barriers the Bill currently introduces into hiring and scaling at the early stages of business development could undermine the start-up ecosystem and the economic growth it drives.

I do not know whether I would have succeeded had I tried to do this, given what my noble friend said about the punctiliousness of the Table Office—and I would be interested to hear more from my noble friend about this—but I suggest that any purpose clause also refers to growth and competitiveness. When the Minister winds up, I would welcome her explanation of how this Bill supports the Government’s growth agenda.

I know, from talking to a range of tech firms and businesses from all sectors and of all sizes, that while they all support good employment practices and condemn those firms that do not uphold high standards—as do I—there is frustration that the good employers are paying the price, literally, for the poor conduct of the bad. For them, the Bill represents a desire by the Government to do something to them that makes it even harder for them to create the economic growth that the Government have promised the electorate and, indeed, their workers. Let us be clear: it is business, not government, that generates economic growth.

As I say, a purpose clause has some merit in the context of this Bill, but I would like growth and competitiveness to feature within it. If we were to do that in the purpose clause and get some agreement from the Minister up front today, that would help to shape the Bill as we go through Committee, so that it actually delivers on what I think it is trying to do: to ensure that there are good employment practices that support economic growth and competitiveness.

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

My Lords, I admit that I am a little perplexed by Amendment 1, particularly in the light of the latest TUC-commissioned poll that was published last night. Not only is the Bill popular with the public, including a majority of Conservative and Reform voters, but, when they are faced with robust arguments against its key provisions, the Bill becomes even more popular with voters.

I am not sure that your Lordships or the public need this amendment to know that the Bill is about fairness, security and the right to an independent voice at work. The public are already well aware and, frankly, appalled that, under the previous Government, low pay and insecurity became mainstream in British working life. They want change.

Underlying this amendment—this might be my suspicious mind—is the worry that it is really about undermining the role of independent trade unions in representing workers’ interests. The ILO uses the term “workers’ organisations” for a reason. International law upholds the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association. Independent trade unions are workers’ best chance of getting their rights enforced and built on for better pay, safer workplaces, training opportunities and family-friendly hours, and they provide a democratic voice at work.

Without repeating the arguments from Second Reading, I encourage your Lordships to look at the evidence about just how far Britain has fallen behind other countries in employment protection, and how giving ordinary working people a stronger collective voice can help deliver more responsible businesses and a healthier and more equal society.

I encourage the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to cast his mind back to Labour’s introduction of a national minimum wage. He may remember that the Conservative Party and the business lobby said that a national minimum wage would cause mass unemployment and that businesses would collapse. In reality, the national minimum wage is now widely respected as one of Britain’s most successful policies. It has made a difference to millions of working lives in the teeth of opposition from the business lobby at the time. It is worth remembering that.

I end by saying that it is time to get on with and get behind the Bill, so that Britain takes the high road to improving business productivity by treating workers fairly, as human beings and not just commodities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak on this group but the noble Lord, Lord Barber, has painted a horrific picture of the impact of zero hours on some workers. For some people I know who have been on the receiving end of zero-hours contracts, sometimes it has been even worse. I know of people who have been required to turn up at work at 4 am for a shift and been sent home again at 5 am, so I know how bad this is. However, my noble friend Lady Verma makes a strong argument as to why just removing all the measures, which would happen by virtue of the Bill, would also have a detrimental effect.

So far, I have not heard from those on the other side a response to the argument put forward by my noble friend Lord Wolfson, which is that we have to find a way forward on this matter that addresses the employment rights issue, which the Minister has said is the purpose of this legislation, but also allows business to deliver the kind of economic growth that the Government are also saying is the purpose of the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is not in his place at the moment, but we have to take heed of the point that he made in the debate on the first group: we should not be in a situation where this is a stand-off. Hopefully, through some responsiveness and empathy from the Minister, we will find ourselves in a position where the Bill will not have a detrimental effect on business but will address the worst work practices, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Barber.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I think I am allowed to come back in Committee. I want to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, because I probably did not articulate terribly well what I was proposing. I certainly was articulating a right to request, but I was also assuming there would be an obligation to meet that request, given certain thresholds that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, was talking about. It would not be an option for the employer as long as the request was within those thresholds. I suspect that is not what the noble Baroness thought I was proposing, and I just wanted to set the record straight.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

Of course I will write to the noble Lord. It will be within the ICO’s normal powers to make changes where he finds that they are necessary.

I move to Amendment 160, tabled by noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which seeks to create a new exemption for advertising performance cookies. There is a balance to strike between driving growth in the advertising, news and publishing sectors while ensuring that people retain choice and control over how their data is used. To exempt advertising measurement cookies, we would need to assess how intrusive these cookies are, including what they track and where data is sent. We have taken a delegated power so that exemptions to the prohibition can be added in future once evidence supports it, and we can devise appropriate safeguards to minimise privacy risks. In the meantime, we have been actively engaging with the advertising and publishing sectors on this issue and will continue to work with them to consider the potential use of the regulation-making power. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that this is work in progress.

Amendment 161, also from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, aims to extend the soft opt-in rule under the privacy and electronic communications regulations to providers of auto-enrolment pension schemes. The soft opt-in rule removes the need for some commercial organisations to seek consent for direct marketing messages where there is an existing relationship between the organisation and the customer, provided the recipient did not object to receiving direct marketing messages when their contact details were collected.

The Government recognise that people auto-enrolled by their employers in workplace pension schemes may not have an existing relationship with their pension provider, so I understand the noble Lord’s motivations for this amendment. However, pension providers have opportunities to ask people to express their direct mail preferences, such as when the customer logs on to their account online. We are taking steps to improve the support available for pension holders through the joint Government and FCA advice guidance boundary review. The FCA will be seeking feedback on any interactions of proposals with direct marketing rules through that consultation process. Again, I hope the noble Lord will accept that this issue is under active consideration.

Amendment 162, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would create an equivalent provision to the soft opt-in but for charities. It would enable a person to send electronic marketing without permission to people who have previously expressed an interest in their charitable objectives. The noble Lord will recall, and has done so, that the DPDI Bill included a provision similar to his amendment. The Government removed it from that Bill due to the concerns that it would increase direct marketing from political parties. I think we all accepted at the time that we did not want that to happen.

As the noble Lord said, his amendment is narrower because it focuses on communications for charitable purposes, but it could still increase the number of messages received by people who have previously expressed an interest in the work of charities. We are listening carefully to arguments for change in this area and will consider the points he raises, but I ask that he withdraws his amendment while we consider its potential impact further. We are happy to have further discussions on that.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I apologise to the Minister for intervening on her when I have not spoken earlier in this debate, but I was reassured by what she just said on Amendment 162. Remarks made by other noble Lords in this debate suggest both that members of the public might not object to charities having the same access rights as businesses and that the public do not necessarily draw a distinction between businesses and charities. As a former chairman of the Charity Commission, I can say that that is not what is generally found. People have an expectation of charities that differs from what they would expect by way of marketing from businesses. In considering this amendment, therefore, I urge the Minister to think carefully before deciding what action the Government should take.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much for that very helpful intervention. If she has any more information about the view of the Charity Commission, we would obviously like to engage with that because we need to get this right. We want to make sure that individuals welcome and appreciate the information given to them, rather than it being something that could have a negative impact.

I think I have covered all the issues. I hope those explanations have been of some reassurance to noble Lords and that, as such, they are content not to press their amendments.

Generative AI: Intellectual Property Rights

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, shall we hear from the former Leader of the House next? Then we will hear from the Cross Benches.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. Copyright clearly affects a lot of different sectors, but given the value of real-time news to the AI platforms, particularly in the production of services and products that they offer to consumers, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that there is a mutually beneficial deal between the platforms and news organisations, so that we can safeguard the content that will be so important to the continuing advancement of this technology?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know that there was an attempt to come to a voluntary agreement on this under the previous Government that would have been a way forward for both sectors. Unfortunately, that voluntary agreement did not work out, so the ball has bounced back into our court. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about journalism: if we do not have a vibrant journalistic bedrock for this society, we do not really have a democratic society; we need to know what is going on in the UK and the world. The noble Baroness is right that we need to protect journalists: we need to ensure that their work is rewarded and paid in the right way. We are working on this. I am sorry that I am beginning to sound a bit like a stuck record, but I assure noble Lords that we are working at pace to try to resolve these issues.