Covid-19: Businesses and the Private Sector

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, for tabling this debate. It provides an opportunity for the Government, through the noble Lord the Minister, to show their appreciation not just to private companies but to their workers and those in the public sector. Some 33 million of them form the tsunami of unemployment which is following the medical crisis. These are the people who provide the goods and services on which we all rely; who actually produce the wealth of this country; who have been keeping the country going, many of them risking their health to do so.

Perhaps the Minister will follow my noble friend Lord Liddle in crediting the 100,000 trade union workplace safety representatives who are working tirelessly to try to minimise the risk. Their unions have been working flat out to support the millions who are facing loss of income, loss of jobs, loss of health and, tragically, death. The Government were right to listen to the TUC’s proposal for a job retention scheme and they ought now to heed its call for a tripartite national recovery council that would give a role to private companies, public employers, government and workforce representatives. This is surely the way to solve the massive problems, particularly unemployment, which have been thrown up by this crisis, and to plan a new and better future based on dialogue.