Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Hendy Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his Bill which largely follows the Welsh model. Should the Bill reach Committee stage—the noble Lord has not had much luck so far— I hope he, or indeed the Government, will accept some amendments in the footsteps of the Welsh Government, who have a draft social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill which is intended to put more meat on the bones of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act.

I draw to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, two particular features. One is the harnessing of the huge power of public procurement to impose the objects of the Act and the Bill. The other is the emphasis on social dialogue. In particular, the Welsh Bill proposes a tripartite social partnership council composed of government, trade unions and employers. It would be a huge step forward in the United Kingdom for the future, as the TUC has proposed.

I would go further and recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, an amendment making one of the well-being goals in his Bill the restoration of collective bargaining. As my noble friend Lady Blower mentioned, this is part of the scheme in New Zealand. The restoration of collective bargaining is a step essential to the well-being of future generations. In the United Kingdom, from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 1970s, collective bargaining coverage extended to 85% of the British workforce. Now it is less than one-quarter. That means that three-quarters of our 32 million workers have no say over the terms and conditions of their work. The well-being of future generations cannot be secured without them having an industrial democratic input into the conditions of their working lives. This is a step required by international treaties ratified by the United Kingdom and has been urged repeatedly in recent years by the International Labour Organization and the OECD. The Government accepted a commitment in the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU signed last December which states:

“each Party commits to respecting, promoting and effectively implementing the internationally recognised core labour standards, as defined in the fundamental ILO Conventions, which are … freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining”

and other things. Last week, this was emphasised in the Carbis Bay declaration by the G7. For the moment, the Bird Bill is a great step forward.

Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hendy]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the terms of reference of the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform include (1) reviewing existing employment rights, and (2) making recommendations for reform; whether trade unions will be consulted as part of any such review; and when they expect the review (1) to be completed, and (2) to be published.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the terms of reference for the task force have been published on GOV.UK. The task force has been commissioned by the Prime Minister to consider opportunities for regulatory reform independently, and to report to him in April. It is a matter for the task force to decide its focus within its terms of reference, and a matter for the Prime Minister as to whether the report will be published.

[Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. On 19 January, BEIS confirmed that a post-Brexit review of workers’ rights was under way; on 25 January, it was confirmed that the plan had been scrapped; on 2 February the task force was announced with a remit to

“scope out … how the UK can take advantage of our newfound regulatory freedoms”.

The chronology provokes nervousness but, for the moment, I do not pursue the reduction of workers’ rights. Instead, I ask: who outside government is being consulted and when will we see the Government’s employment Bill?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as to the employment Bill, I am not the Minister responsible but I will answer on the matter before the House. I draw the noble Lord’s attention to the third part of the terms of reference, which mentions

“maintaining the Government’s commitment to high environmental standards and worker protections”.

I hope that allays his fears.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Hendy Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Hammond of Runnymede, and the noble Baroness, Lady Shafik, on their excellent maiden speeches. I agree with my noble friend Lord Sikka and other noble Lords who have pointed out that the Bill does not go far enough to secure proper governance, financial integrity and measures against corruption. The current state of the law is a blot on the finance industry in the United Kingdom, which has seen outrageous criminal conduct on a massive scale go unpunished and sometimes uninvestigated. I am speaking of money laundering, fraud, false accounting and the like. I have in mind the collapse of BCCI, the Libor scandal, HSBC’s money laundering and other cases referred to by noble Lords. The case for a public inquiry into the finance industry is now incontrovertible.

A particular problem has been the current state of UK corporate liability law, the “directing mind” test, which effectively puts large companies and financial institutions beyond the reach of criminal prosecutors for many economic crimes other than bribery and tax evasion. The charities Finance Innovation Lab and Spotlight on Corruption have highlighted this in briefings, and I am grateful for their elucidation of the problem and their proposed solution.

This is a rule of law issue. An amendment to the Bill is needed to make it a criminal offence to facilitate an economic crime or to fail to take reasonable, necessary steps to prevent an economic crime. Individuals should be personally liable, and so should corporate entities in a sufficient relationship with a guilty individual to found vicarious liability under the ordinary principles of the common law. This would be a straightforward yet vital step to bring fraud, money laundering and false accounting into line with bribery and tax evasion. It would bring the UK into line with equivalent laws which exist and are used, sometimes with spectacular results, in the United States and the EU. Given the well-reported increase in fraud cases during the current pandemic, this is an urgent matter.

By the same token, since Brexit and the failure to secure any deal in relation to financial services, the need to restore the reputation of the finance industry and highlight its effective regulation by passing such an amendment is particularly pressing. It is understood that the Law Commission is currently reviewing corporate crime, but this Bill presents an unmissable opportunity now to create such an offence, and I hope the Minister will be able to tell us an amendment on these lines will be introduced.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, 100 two-minute speeches today is what passes for scrutiny of this vital treaty. We surrendered our right to debate and challenge it when, last week, we passed Section 36 of the future relationship Act, disapplying Section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. I will spend my two minutes endorsing the speech of my noble friend Lady Blower.

The trade and co-operation agreement insists on the UK’s right

“to determine the labour and social levels of protection it deems appropriate and to adopt or modify its law and policies”.

It permits the weakening of levels of protection below existing EU standards. There is a complex mechanism for challenging such weakening of protection, but it is open only to the EU, and only if it can show: first, that the UK has implemented “significant divergences” in protection; secondly, that these have

“material impacts on trade or investment”;

and thirdly, that the link is “based on reliable evidence”.

No worker, trade union or even employer has access to this or any other remedy. In fact, the TCA cannot be invoked at all in the courts. The EU did not seek a tilted playing field of this kind. It was the British Government who insisted on power to degrade the rights of British workers. The intent is clear: the Government intend to degrade the rights of British workers. We are warned. We are shamed.

Covid-19: Economy

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Eatwell for this debate and his superb opening speech. The Covid crisis has revealed the wholesale failure of workplace law to protect workers. The plain and unambiguous requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 and the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 have been flouted by many employers, not just in the NHS and this week in the House of Commons. The failure to enforce these laws is a disgrace and a tragedy. It is an affront to the rule of law.

Labour laws have also failed to ensure a decent income. We now realise how appallingly paid are our key workers, doctors excepted. The laws that should protect, do not. The gender pay gap remains at 17.3%. Some 25% of those entitled to the minimum wage are paid less than it. Statutory sick pay is a mere £95.85 a week. The wage share of GDP has fallen from 65.1% in 1976 to 49.2% in 2019. Some 9 million people live in poverty in a household in which at least one person is in paid work. Sir Michael Marmot reminded us that inequality of income means inequality of health and life expectancy. This week’s Public Health England report brings that fact starkly home in relation to coronavirus.

We need a whole new transformation of our labour laws, in which the voice of the workers must be heard. Above all, we need the reinstitution of sectoral collective bargaining, which was the way out of the crises after the First World War, the great depression and the Second World War.

Income Equality and Sustainability

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate for tabling this debate, and for citing in his opening remarks the speech of Sir Winston Churchill introducing the Trade Boards Act 1909. A wealth of academic research shows that greater even than the effect of progressive taxation and minimum wage legislation on diminishing inequality is the impact of extensive collective bargaining. That is what marks out the more egalitarian economies of Scandinavia.

From 1909, we had extensive collective bargaining in this country. By 1979, at the end of the most egalitarian decade in British history, when 65% of GDP was in the form of wages, 82% of British workers were covered by a collective agreement. Today, collective bargaining coverage is less than 25%. Consequentially, the wage share of GDP has fallen to less than 50%. Workers have lost their collective voice in determining their terms and conditions, as the current crisis has emphasised.

I urge the Government to take a leaf out of Winston Churchill’s book and, in discussion with the TUC, CBI and experts, reintroduce compulsory sectoral collective bargaining as Churchill did in the Trade Boards Act 1909. The wages councils, as the trade boards were subsequently renamed, were abolished in 1993 and voluntary sectoral agreements terminated and undermined in both public and private spheres. To cope with the transformation needed after this crisis, we need to bring them back to life, as we did to deal with previous crises: after the First World War, in the 1930s after the crash, and during the Second World War.