Employment Rights Bill

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my support to this group, in particular to Amendment 76 in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister. I commend her illuminating and penetrating introduction. Indeed, all the speeches that we have heard set out a very strong case.

When I worked in an organisation, I had women colleagues whose partners could not afford to take even the leave they were entitled to, thus further burdening the tired mother and losing those irreplaceable bonding first days, to the detriment of both child and father, as many noble Lords have said. That bonding and support for the mother is just as important for adoptive fathers and stepfathers. Why should self-employed fathers be unequally treated? They are just as much fathers. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will carry out the review as set out in this amendment.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 127, 128 and 139 from my noble friend Lady Penn. I too am a father, so I have an interest in that regard. These amendments will be very useful to the poorest families in the country because currently, only the very well paid get access to serious paternal leave.

As someone who comes from a community that has suffered horribly from the absence of fathers, I know that an early intervention that ties a father emotionally, financially and in any other way to that family unit is very important. The impact it has on educational outcomes and the finances of the family into the future are hugely important. My community is more than three times more likely to be impacted by poverty and all the downsides that poverty inflicts because of that lack of an initial paternal connection to the family.

This country is also facing a very low birth rate. Many young men in this country will tell you that they cannot afford to have children. Paternity leave will be a big part of addressing that. So, supporting our birth rate in this country—addressing that demographic time bomb—is very important.

The mental health of men in this country has been poor for a very long time. Part of turning that around is improving how fatherhood is perceived, so that young men in particular lean into that role and take pride in being a father. That also has a strong knock-on effect for the women involved: they receive support in the home, and it helps them return to their own careers, as we have heard from so many Members of your Lordships’ House. In the poorest communities in this country, many of the real breadwinners in the household are the women. If they can be supported back to work, that will have a profound impact on the mental well-being of the entire family.

I have been on a personal journey to make this a day one right. Because of the profound effect that the lack of a father in the household has on many aspects of society, this should be a day one right. Basically, some things are just worth paying for, and if this has a cost to the Government, so be it, because the upsides, socially and financially, are massive and beyond measurement.

Lastly, as is well documented and as many noble Lords have already said, the benefits to companies are profound. The challenge will be the smaller companies, where one or two people form a significant proportion of the workforce. That is where this conversation has to be sold, where the rhetoric is important, because if smaller companies adopt this approach, I believe it will happen. Larger companies already know the benefits this has for their workforce.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the debate on this amendment be adjourned.

Steel Industry

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the comments about how wonderful it is that the staff have been able to open Parliament on a Saturday to facilitate this very important debate.

Of course the Government had to act quickly—speed is of the essence here—but it remains to be seen whether that speed will be of any use. The Government will have to focus on the many things going on now and will have to make very quick decisions. The Bill would have been far better if there had been a longer debate because, as has been said many times in your Lordships’ House, some very draconian powers are about to be handed out. How they are to be administered will send a message around the world about who we are as a place to do business.

I will concentrate mainly on the effects on the community. The noble Baronesses, Lady Ramsey, Lady Brinton and Lady Redfern, very clearly highlighted the reverberations that this will have for communities in Scunthorpe, where the blast furnaces are. We Londoners have very few relationships with steel, but we do have some. Rainham Steel, a business out in Essex, is very close to London; it has been a viable employer for years. It is exactly the kind of business that pushes our economy and provides employment, and it will suffer if this situation is not resolved correctly.

Having said that, I have three questions for the Minister. Again, as a Londoner, steel is not my specialisation, but communities are. I come from a community that struggles hugely with high levels of unemployment. The idea that an entire community’s employment will be whipped away makes this a social question for our country as much as a financial or strategic development one. How can British Steel survive under the current burdensome regulations and unrealistic net-zero targets, especially those around importing materials from abroad rather than using coke from here? I want to be clear: I am not saying that we should not have the net-zero targets, but we have to ask whether they are the correct ones. Are they driving our industries into the ground, making it uncompetitive to run a business in this country, or are they cleaning our environment? We need to make sure we do not do one at the expense of the other.

Has a financial impact assessment been made of the cost of this Bill? It may not lead to nationalisation, but the effect for the British taxpayer will be the same: a huge, growing and ongoing bill. If that has not been considered by an assessment, it really needs to be done urgently. Unfortunately, that cost will reverberate with other communities in this country, and we will be unable to afford the support that they need because we are spending money to subsidise this industry.

How long will this arrangement last? There is no sunset clause but there also seems to be no idea of how long it will go on. I repeat my earlier question: if you have a growing bill, and no way to end it, what happens if the British taxpayer is on the hook for it again and again? We need to get a handle on that.

I wish this Government every success in resolving the situation speedily, but history would suggest that Governments are not good at procurement or at running businesses efficiently. Ultimately, if this business cannot stand on its own two feet, what will we do then? It is very important that we keep the strategic ability to deliver our own steel. What will the Government do to make it work as a business? We have heard lots of talk in the Chamber about the large amount of steel that will be needed in the future but, if that is the case, surely the business is viable today. What work will the Government do to make sure that those orders come in and that this business works, to protect this community and our strategic goings-on around the production of warships in particular?

Can the Minister answer my questions in a direct and simple way that people from my community, as well as other communities across the country, can understand? There has been an awful lot of finger-pointing in the Chamber today, and the people of Scunthorpe, whose jobs, livelihoods and families are at risk, do not want to see that; they want to see a resolution.