Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

Debate between Lord Higgins and Lord Prior of Brampton

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s general point about the underlying theme of the report, I shall quote to him from the beginning of it—these are Matthew Taylor’s words and not mine—where he says of our flexible labour market that,

“the British way is rightly seen internationally as largely successful”.

Everything that comes through this report tells us that while the system is not perfect it is actually working quite well.

The noble Lord is right that even where people are working quite a few hours under a zero-hours contract they still find it very difficult to get a mortgage because the mortgage company sees it as zero hours. That is why one recommendation of the report, and it is an eminently sensible one, is that where an individual consistently works a number of hours on a zero-hours contract, after a year they can request that it be converted to a fixed-hours contract. That is one of the report’s recommendations that we will take extremely seriously.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, it seems that both the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench and my noble friend are under some misapprehension regarding the relationship between Uber and black taxis. It is now perfectly easy, on a free app, to summon a black taxi on one’s iPhone and there is no competitive advantage, as far as Uber is concerned, in that respect. It also emerged from the debate the other night that it is very necessary for there to be some control over the number of minicabs. At the moment, neither Transport for London nor this House nor anyone else has any control over the number of minicabs given licences.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My noble friend makes an interesting point which is slightly outside the remit of the report but is something that I am sure will be drawn to the attention of the mayor—I think it is the mayor’s responsibility.