Employment Rights Bill

Lord Ashcombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I oppose Amendments 132 and 137. Both of them seek to expand the list of organisations recognised in law to represent workers. Amendment 132 relates to representation in reaching settlement agreements, while Amendment 137 refers to representation in hearings at workplace disciplinary and grievance hearings.

At present, the law specifies that individuals can be supported by trade unions, fellow workers or, in respect of settlement agreements, lawyers or other qualified people from, for example, the respected network of citizens advice bureaux. Both amendments propose that the right to representation be extended to professional bodies specified by the Secretary of State, and Amendment 132 refers in particular to CIPD members. I have to say I am genuinely puzzled about which other professional bodies would wish to take on this new role.

In short, the law should rest where it stands. Workers should be represented, where they are present, by workers’ organisations—trade unions—that, where appropriate, can provide legal representation. The CIPD is widely respected as an organisation of HR professionals, but it essentially represents employers’ interests and would surely be conflicted if it were to take on this very different role.

I know my noble friend Lord Pitkeathley is motivated by a wish to ensure that people working in small and medium-sized businesses without trade union representation should have relevant expertise available to help resolve difficult workplace issues. I support that aspiration, but ACAS—which I chaired for six years, to declare an interest—has the responsibility and the independent, impartial expertise to conciliate in such matters, and a considerable track record of success in doing so. Far better to ensure that it has increased resources to provide this vital service in the interests of both parties in any such dispute, rather than muddying the water on the issue of who is competent and appropriate to represent workers. I hope that both these amendments will not be pressed.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, it seems that, yet again, the noble Lord, Lord Barber, and I are not going to quite agree. I support both these amendments, particularly the one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer.

I would like to look at the amendments from the point of view of the employee. When an employee finds themselves in a disciplinary or grievance hearing—we heard from my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough earlier—it signifies a profound breakdown in their relationship with their employer. It is a moment fraught with stress, uncertainty and fear; one where an individual may feel their professional life is unravelling before them. They may question how they will continue to support their family, whether they can afford to remain in their home, and what their future may hold.

Large corporations, such as the one I work for, have the benefit of HR departments to guide them through such proceedings, ensuring that their position is well-organised and profoundly represented. I have had the dubious pleasure of having to make people redundant; it is not fun, even with HR beside you, but they had nobody. In smaller companies, personal relationships between employer and employee can add an additional layer of complexity to the situation. In either case, the individual facing the hearing is often isolated, and struggling to recollect past events and present their case clearly.

These amendments, particularly Amendment 137, propose a fair and practical position: the right to have the assistance of a certified individual—someone equipped to review the facts dispassionately, organise events in logical sequence and provide the employee with a much-needed sense of reassurance. As we have heard, the trade unions already fulfil this role, particularly in large companies. However, many employees, myself included, choose not to join a union for a variety of personal reasons. The absence of union membership should not mean a lack of support in such critical moments. This amendment would ensure that every employee, regardless of union affiliation, has access to a certified individual who may provide guidance when facing disciplinary proceedings, fostering a fairer and more balanced process. For this reason, I support these amendments to uphold the right of fairness in our workplaces.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, and in particular the noble Lords, Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for introducing their Amendments 132 and 137.

As has been said, not all workers have or want access to a union representative. In fact, the latest statistics that I have from the Department for Business and Trade suggest that only 22% of all employees are unionised. Not all workers have access to or can afford legal advice, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, pointed out, those in smaller workplaces or those performing more precarious roles. Allowing trained, certified HR professionals to provide advice could help ensure that more employees are supported when making important decisions about their rights.

It is important to recognise the valuable support already available through organisations such as ACAS—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Barber—citizens advice bureaux and others, which provide free and impartial advice. This amendment complements those services by seeking to expand the range of qualified advisers accessible to workers. The principle of widening access to competent support is a reasonable one, especially where safeguards are in place through certification by recognised professional bodies. As my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough pointed out, if nothing else, that ought to serve to ease pressure on employment rights tribunals, which, as we have discussed many times over the course of this Committee, are stretched to breaking point.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Ainsdale, that that was a classic case of the TUC advocating for a closed shop, and I applaud him for that. However, not so many employees are now members of trade unions, as I have pointed out, and the majority of trade union members are in the public sector.

The question of genuine independence will be critical, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response on that. I would also say, perhaps to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, that, without wishing to quibble too much with his amendment, I think that as currently written it gives the Secretary of State rather too much discretion in determining what is a professional body. If he wants to have a think about that, I am available for a chat.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, this is an interesting debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has pointed out, this idea was in both the 2022 Green Paper and in the paper that the Labour Party published during last year’s election. Clearly, there is an expectation that this needs to be addressed in this huge Bill, the main purpose of which, as I have said to this Committee before, could have been achieved through a statutory instrument.

However, one of the important things in the amendment, which has been carefully written by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, sets in place the idea that:

“The right to disconnect does not apply where … a worker is on call or standby duty and receiving appropriate compensation for such duty”.


In trying to get into this debate, which is a fair debate to have, we find that the legislation already addresses the majority of situations where this would already happen, and so all that would happen if this were to become law is that contracts would be written in such a way that, in effect, if necessary, everybody would be on call—which would not be a desirable outcome.

I want to build on that. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, referred to a variety of anecdotes and his personal experience. Personal experience matters in considering how a good employer can act. For what it is worth, in my private office, which was very busy, and in my parliamentary office when I used to employ people, I required everybody to have their “do not disturb” setting on. The setting works such that if somebody really needs to get hold of you—if you are a Minister, say—switch will get through to you eventually. I have to say to the people on the Front Bench that that is the case even if you do not have your phone on. Those situations are already addressed.

One of the things the Bill is trying to do overall is to get that balance. However, it is fair to say that not everything needs to be put into legislation. It is about having a positive relationship, and some of that can be done through ACAS and in other different ways, such as guidance. Trying to micromanage every single relationship that the millions of workers have directly with their employer risks overcomplicating things. The fear that I have, given that this is in the Government’s manifesto, which they seek to put in place—it will be interesting to see how they want to make this happen—is that this will make for very tricky legislation. Although there may be instances where this would work, ultimately, it comes down to employment tribunals and somebody else’s judgment.

For what it is worth, we have an evolving variety of workplaces. A lot of people who used to work at home have now come back to the office so that they can leave their job behind, as opposed to feeling that they will open something up after dinner or whatever.

I look forward to hearing the Minister set out how the Government are planning to fulfil their manifesto commitment while trying to make sure that they do not micromanage every single element of how a job can be done in the workplace.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Baroness said, because this is about fairness and making sure life works. There are a lot of companies, big and small, where, to a great extent, what has been proposed is already working. However, there are a number of instances—including somewhere like where I work—where I do not think this would work.

I will just give your Lordships one quick example. I work in insurance for a huge insurance broker. We had a client in the United States who by 5 pm had not decided whether to renew his insurance contract in London. If he had not renewed it by 1 June—which I guess was a Sunday—he would have had no insurance on that specific part of his business. A member of my team kindly stayed online, for want of a better word—he was probably out and about with the phone in his pocket—and the call came through at some time after 9 pm. Looking at the way the clause is drafted, I am not sure whether that would be considered enough of an emergency to get a member of staff out of bed, so to speak. Equally, that company might have had to stop working, doing whatever it was doing in the oil and gas industry—I know that will not endear me to the noble Baroness, but that is a fact. But we had to bind that insurance contract once we got the order. It was all ready to go; it was just a question of sending a number of emails to say that it was done. So there are huge swathes of the country where it is in fact in place already, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, has said, but in some of the big City environments where you are working across time zones particularly, it is extremely difficult to enact.

On working from home, we all worked at home for some time; personally I loathed it—I am back in the office almost as much as I can be. However, I have members of staff who like working at home, and, let me tell your Lordships, they know how to turn themselves off when they do not want to talk to us anymore, and they are good at it. So they should be, and I respect them for it. But if you really need them, you can always find them.

Finally, you can turn the damn machines off. Be it a telephone, a computer, an iPad or whatever it is, there is an off button out there. Certainly when I was a child, we were told never to call anybody after 9 pm, and that was friends and family. So there are some unwritten rules out there that are already very effective.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, we are very grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for introducing us to a fascinating debate. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, put us in touch with the real world, and then my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Ashcombe reminded us about what happens in real life. I suppose I have immediately to declare my interest as a practising solicitor. My phrase, which I always used to share with Albert Blighton, was that I was available 168/52. The number 168 is 24 times seven. So you quickly appreciate that, as a solicitor, you have to be available all the time.

When I won the contract to represent cricket with the England and Wales Cricket Board, they wanted to know whether I would be available on a Sunday evening when there was an incident at a Sunday league match, and I said, “Yes, of course I would”. So it is very much up to the individual to make themselves available.

When I was asked to join the Front Bench in the House of Commons in 1977, I do not think anybody expected that I would refuse to answer an Adjournment debate, even though it might have been at 3 am, which it was on one occasion. Therefore, you set your working parameter in the way in which you develop your own workaholic tendencies, but you should not expect it of everyone, and I think that is what the amendment is all about.

Do you have the right to disconnect? Although I am sympathetic to the idea that you should be able to switch off, which the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, put in context, when the Bill is already introducing considerable uncertainty for employers around shift notice periods, payment for cancelled shifts and wider questions of how flexible working is to be managed in practice, we have to be very cautious about layering on yet another rigid and potentially burdensome obligation.

The noble Baroness may have put forward what appears to be a straightforward proposal, giving workers a right not to respond to emails or calls outside their contracted hours, but in reality, as the Government have quickly realised, despite what they may have said in advance of the election, this whole proposal raises serious practical and legal questions. What does “working hours” mean in a world of flexible, hybrid and self-managed work? How do we define an emergency? What happens in small teams, in customer-facing sectors, which my noble friend Lord Ashcombe highlighted, and in businesses operating across time zones?

Employers, especially small businesses, already face growing compliance costs. This would add yet another administrative requirement. There would have to be a written policy on the right to disconnect, a consultation process, enforcement procedures and, of course, exposure to tribunal claims. So, we must ask: is this really the right moment to introduce such sweeping regulation?

The Bill already creates new rights and obligations that will take time to bed in. There is uncertainty around shift scheduling, compensation for cancellations and the cumulative compliance burden. I have to say to the noble Baroness that I believe the effect of this amendment would be to increase that uncertainty further and risk undermining flexibility for both sides. Most workers and employers already navigate these boundaries reasonably and sensibly. A blanket legislative approach risks making day-to-day communications feel legally fraught, especially in smaller organisations where roles are not so rigidly defined.