Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Collins of Highbury

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and my noble friends Lady Lawlor and Lord Jackson of Peterborough because they rightly question whether this clause is necessary to establish what we all agree should be the vital place for equality of opportunity.

It is vital in the workplace that merit should win the day, but there should also be equality of opportunity. Women and men should have equal opportunities, fair treatment and the freedom to thrive regardless of their background. So I hope all those who have spoken, including the noble Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, would agree that we all support equality of opportunity, not just in principle but in practice.

Therefore, it is right that every time there is another step, particularly when it creates more paperwork and more bureaucracy—as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, put it—it is important that we just question whether this is the right way to proceed, particularly, as my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough pointed out, because this is really giving the Government power to do whatever they want to do whenever they wish to do it, by regulation. We do not know what the Government will do because they have not yet consulted on the power that we are about to give them. It is exactly what this House has always preached long and hard against. We should not give Henry VIII powers to the Government to do whatever they would like to do by statutory instrument.

I would have thought that my successor as chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie—would know that more than anyone else. Giving the Government this power has to be justified. My noble friend Lady Fox of Buckley does not need me to defend her against the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, as he saw her move across the political spectrum, but she is right to question this in the way she did. As my noble friend Lady Lawlor put it, we are, in a way, promoting positive discrimination, which undermines achievement on merit.

I hope that the Minister will give very serious thought to explaining exactly what is proposed, rather than wait for the secondary legislation. Let us know, straightaway and in detail, what additional equality action plans are being proposed. We have to pause for a moment to worry about the serious and often unintended consequences that policies such as these can have, particularly for women on the margins of the labour market. The principle behind the measure is commendable —to close the gender gaps, to support women through challenges such as the menopause, and to shine a light on structural inequalities—but, in practice, these kinds of top-down mandates too often result in box-ticking compliance, statistical quotas and public relations targets, and never in real progress.

What gets measured drives what gets managed. When employers are judged by headline figures—gender pay gaps, representation in senior roles—there is an inevitable temptation for them to focus their efforts where the optics are best improved, on high-status, high-visibility roles. As a result, employers might feel pressured to hire or promote individuals with certain characteristics into elite positions just to improve those diversity statistics, rather than genuinely supporting a larger number of people, who are often the minority, who hold lower-paid, insecure or part-time roles and who would benefit most from meaningful reform.

Regardless of sex, ethnicity or sexual orientation, merit should always be the basis for the advancement of an individual. I worry that we risk a situation where the beneficiaries of an equality policy are disproportionately those who are already relatively privileged, while those in cleaning jobs, care work, warehouses, and food processing and service are pushed further to the margins. Even worse, if statistical appearances become the basis of legal or reputational risk, employers may become reluctant to hire minority women at all into lower-paying roles for fear of what the data might suggest. That is not progress; it is perverse.

I warmly applaud the fact that this debate is taking place. Equality is not achieved by engineering the statistics; it is achieved when every person, regardless of sex, class, race or role, has access to fair work, safe conditions, proper pay and genuine opportunity to get on in life. I ask colleagues to consider: will these equality action plans bring meaningful change for working-class young men, people from ethnic minorities and women on zero-hours contracts, or will they largely serve the HR departments of large organisations by helping to polish their diversity reports while little changes on the ground? We cannot effect equality by appearance; we must demand equality by substance.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for initiating this probing debate on Clause 31. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, highlighted—I like to call him my noble brother after all these years of working together—it enables us to put forward a very strong case. One can always be concerned about Henry VIII powers and secondary legislation, especially when employers are not consulted and the objective is to undermine good industrial relations. I remind my noble brother about the debates we had on the strikes Bill, which was precisely about those issues of unintended consequences.

Ensuring that women can remain in and progress in work is crucial—vital—to economic growth, and yet the national gender pay gap remains at 13.1%. We know that women often face barriers in the workplace that impact their pay, progression and economic participation. Eight in 10 menopausal women say that their workplace has no basic support in place. This lack of support is a barrier and can lead to a significant loss of talent and, just as importantly, productivity.

This is not new. As a trade unionist, I, and my noble brother opposite, know full well—we have heard about all the legislation that has been brought in—that real progress has been effected in the workplace by supporting and amplifying that legislation and giving people the tools to ensure that that legislation has an impact. As a trade unionist, I have seen many initiatives that have delivered better facilities and ensured that women can remain active in the workplace.

I remember a campaign in the 70s and 80s about breast cancer. Many women would not even dare talk about it, but the trade union movement launched a campaign for workplace screening and opened up a debate, so that people could acknowledge the risks and address them, rather than live in isolation and fear. It is important that women are able to talk about the menopause openly and can address it. Breast cancer does not make women victims. We should all be focused on how we can deliver for women. That is really important, and there are many examples.

Since 2017, large employers have been required to publish gender pay gap data. The additional publication of an action plan is precisely to do what the noble Lord opposite has said. How do we see and assess the impact? The additional publication of an action plan has been encouraged, but it is voluntary. However, analysis in 2019 discovered that only half of employers reporting data were voluntarily producing a plan on how they can make improvements. What the noble Lord described is what has happened: they produce the data and do nothing. That is why this legislation is so important, and the next step for improvements for women in the workplace is to make that mandatory.

Of course, we recognise and applaud the best employers, which already recognise the value of supporting women to thrive and are already taking action—many noble Lords addressed that. Following their lead, large employers will be required to detail the actions they are taking to improve gender equality and support employees during the menopause. The intention is to motivate employers to take meaningful action, to break down the barriers and help all women to thrive.