Employment Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Main Page: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am sorry to hear that the noble Lord is disappointed with our progress on employment, but I am delighted to share with him the great news that unemployment was down again last month to 3.9%, one of the lowest rates in Europe. If we had adopted some of the proposals of the Opposition to have a rigid, inflexible labour market, unemployment would go up and many people would lose their jobs. Surely that would be a bad thing for workers’ rights.
My Lords, it is understandable that the Minister cannot give any commitment to what will be in the Bill when it comes. However, given that it was in the 2019 election manifesto and the Government were elected on the basis of delivering that promise, can the Minister give a commitment that they will in fact implement a Bill before this Government go out of office?
I can certainly give the noble Lord a commitment that we are going to attempt to take forward many of the measures that were outlined. There are a number of different vehicles that would enable us to do that, but we have to proceed carefully and cautiously. We do not want to damage the excellent, flexible labour market that we have in this country, which has delivered excellent results, including under the last Labour Government, who also decided not to change our flexible labour market.