Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I thank the Deputy Speaker for his expert guidance. Your Lordships could be excused for a sense of déjà vu, perhaps because we are back in your Lordships’ House with the same issues we discussed on 28 October. They remain unresolved and, indeed, not addressed in any meaningful way.

Since the last very similar session of ping-pong, I have had an engaging meeting with the Lords Ministers and their officials, and I thank them for that meeting. The prospect of that meeting gave me a sense of anticipation. I expected some sort of legislative rabbit to be pulled out of the Government’s hat at that point, but no—there was nothing. At first, I thought something substantive was being concealed for tactical reasons, perhaps ready to be flourished in some dramatic prestige at the moment that pleased the Ministers. But it has become increasingly clear that not only is there no rabbit in the care of the Benches opposite but there is actually no hat. If there is a hat, it exists elsewhere, and for that I have some sympathy for the Ministers opposite, because they sit bare-headed at the moment, with nothing to offer.

Time has passed, however, and, if the Government’s position has not changed, what has? Well, the business environment has got worse. September saw negative growth in GDP, per capita productivity fell in the last quarter and unemployment rose to 5% as recruitment cooled. Yet this ping-pong represents a doubling down—but for what? The Government’s manifesto vowed to “make work pay”, and we agree with that. None of these amendments confound this. My Motion A1 does not in any way dent the worker’s right to convert zero hours to guaranteed hours. What it does is streamline the administration of that right. I explained last time that Motion A1 merely avoids unnecessary work, helping SMEs that have limited administrative capacity to get on with focusing on growing their business and, hopefully, creating more jobs. But, in the absence of an amendment in lieu today, I will insist on this.

Moving on to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe—Motion C1—we have consistently raised concerns about seasonal work. I welcome the Minister’s careful description of the issues in the current legislation—the problem being, of course, that there is outstanding consultation and outstanding details that make it difficult. We are not 100% happy with the noble Lord’s drafting, but we feel that it is a starting point for further conversations of the nature the Minister just brought up. We will support Motion C1 if it is voted on. Sorting the impasse on these Motions and those in subsequent groups requires political gumption. In the end, I suppose it will be up to No. 10—I understand that it might be preoccupied with other issues at the moment.

I close with one last statistic, this time from the Work Foundation at Lancaster University. There are now 1.79 million people out of work and looking for a job. With economic inactivity stable at a staggering 21%, the number out of work appears to be rising not due to increasing inflow but rather due to limited outflow caused by difficulties in finding work. That is 1.79 million people. The Government did not address the arguments we put two weeks ago, and therefore they deserve the same response as last time. I beg to move Motion A1.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, here we are, back again.

In the ping-pong debate last time, the noble Baroness, Lady Lloyd of Effra, stated:

“The Government have engaged extensively with stakeholders on their make work pay reform since August 2024. A major part of this engagement has been to seek the varied views of SMEs. As of 15 October, we had engaged directly with more than 250 stakeholders. This included 139 businesses, of which 75 were SMEs. This approach to engagement will remain throughout the various consultations”.—[Official Report, 28/10/25; col. 1246.]

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and of course I welcome the new team to the Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, will recall that we had pretty much the same debate in 2016, albeit that we were facing in different directions.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, referenced the debate on 23 July, which was day 4 of Report, about disclosure of payments made from a political fund. This is key, because if union members are going to have, in effect, an opt-in/opt-out arrangement changed, they need to know what the political fund is used for. When I pushed the Government on it, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said:

“My understanding is that the political funds will be required to continue to spell out how they are spending the money, but not for sums under £2,000”.


I challenged her, and said:

“I am sure the Minister would not like to have on record something that does not seem to be correct. I think she means that amounts under £2,000 need not be disclosed”.—[Official Report, 23/7/25; col. 281.]


The noble Baroness ignored my comment, and we carried on to a vote on whether payments made by the political fund should be disclosed to the certification officer and members of the union in respect of their own money, as has previously been the case.

On 29 August, over a month later, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wrote to me with what was described as a corrections letter, which, while lacking in my opinion an appropriate apology, confirmed my assertion that this Bill removes the duty of unions to disclose the detail of expenditure from their members or anyone else. Accordingly, it allows the union bosses to spend their members’ money from the political fund exactly how they like, with no one able to see where the money is spent. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, just said that political funds are controlled by their members; he then said that those funds are accountable to members. I take issue with that.

My concern is that the vote on this issue took place on the basis of information and assurances given to your Lordships’ House at the Dispatch Box which the then Minister—not the current Minister, I emphasise—has now admitted were factually incorrect. It may well have swayed some noble Peers. This seems a very unsatisfactory situation, as it allows a vote to have taken place on incorrect information and assurances.

In the end, my amendment was defeated by 18 votes out of 360 Peers’ votes cast. I ask the Minister to explain this situation from the Dispatch Box so that we have a clear record of what has happened and so that legislation may be revisited at a later date. I ask noble Peers to bear this in mind when considering whether to support the noble Lord, Lord Burns.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to advance a different argument from that which we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Leigh. It is rather more philosophical and was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. He mentioned “inertia”, and inertia sells.

Right across this House, your Lordships have worked on legislation that has sought to remove the perils for consumers trapped in deals and situations which are too difficult to get out of. We have made it easier for people to change their bank and to switch utilities. Those of your Lordships who lived through the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill will remember clearly a big debate about the automatic rolling over of subscriptions. Rather than the arguments that we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, I cleave to those that we heard from the proposer of this Motion. There is an element of liberalness and freedom about individuals choosing, rather than having to choose not to, which is what is asked by this change.