Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Holmes of Richmond

Report stage
Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to move Amendment 103 in my name. As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill on Report, I declare my relevant interests as set out in the register as a member of the global advisory board of Endeavour plc and of the science and technology advisory committee of the Crown Estate, and I had a speaking engagement with the FCSA earlier this year.

Amendment 103 is incredibly simple and extraordinarily important for all those young people who have the most appalling start to their career through finding themselves on the wrong end of an unpaid internship. This has been going for decades and it goes on in some of our smartest industries in the 21st century.

The amendment is a reincarnation of a Private Member’s Bill that I brought forward in 2017. I am delighted to say that when I brought that Bill, which is now Amendment 103 to this Bill, it received full-throated support from the Labour Opposition, whom I thank. It also received full-throated support from the TUC and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, whom I thank.

The amendment simply seeks to give young people the right to have a positive experience—often their first—of entering the labour market. Unpaid internships are already illegal under the National Minimum Wage Regulations, but this amendment further clarifies and specifies what work experience is and, crucially, what it is not. It stops work experience being used as a cover for unpaid internships.

When I drafted the amendment, my first inclination was to have work experience paid from day one. But after wide consultation with businesses and trade unions and across civil society, it was clear that four weeks was the right point to suggest that young people—indeed, any person—could do genuine work experience, overseeing, learning and replicating tasks. If that person is brought on board and is doing work from day one, they are protected by the National Minimum Wage Regulations and are entitled to pay. Work experience has a vital role to play in our society and, as the results of my consultation underpin, four weeks is the right point at which to set the limit.

When the amendment was debated in Committee, when sadly I could not be present, a number of views were put forward that suggested there were difficulties with it because unscrupulous employers could simply have numerous rounds of four-week or part-of-four-week periods, but that is not accurate. The wording describes it as a

“continuous or non-continuous period which exceeds four weeks”,

so the drafting already caters for employers who might seek to get around it by having continuous periods of unpaid work experience.

As one young person put it to me, you cannot pay the rent or pay for food with a glowing CV. Ultimately, it is just a question of talent. Why would we want businesses and organisations not to be able to take from the widest, broadest and most diverse talent pool to go into these roles? Some of these roles are at the classier end of the labour market, but it goes through all strata of the labour market. Surely these positions should be open to all on a fair and equitable basis. That is what this amendment would allow for.

We have the ideal opportunity with this Bill to put this right. It seems more than extraordinary, with so many of the other issues that are covered in this not unsizeable Bill, that there is nothing on unpaid internships, nothing to protect those people who find themselves being exploited at the beginning of their career. I ask the Minister: if not this Bill, what Bill? If not this amendment, will the Government not bring forward some wording to end this pernicious practice, which still prevails in 21st-century Britain—a desperate, dispiriting, Dickensian practice that still goes on across our labour market? Why would the Government, alongside all their other measures, not take this opportunity to close this loophole? It would allow young people, or any person seeking to get their first foothold in the labour market, to have a positive, supportive work experience into paid employment. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for introducing this important debate. As he has pointed out, the challenge is to strike the right balance. We must protect individuals from being exploited or drawn into extended unpaid roles that are in effect jobs by another name, but we also must avoid placing undue burdens on organisations whose motives are benign and whose placements offer genuine social and developmental value. I welcome the debate that the amendment has prompted, and I hope that as the Bill progresses, the Government will engage closely with stakeholders to ensure that any future regulations achieve the twin goals of fairness for individuals and viability for those offering valuable early opportunities.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Holmes of Richmond

3rd reading & Report stage
Monday 19th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to these amendments, both of which are in my name. In doing so, I declare my financial services interests as set out in the register. I will move also Amendment 40A when we get to that stage.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for the way that he has engaged not just on this amendment but across the whole of the Financial Services Bill. Indeed, I thank the whole ministerial team and all Treasury officials for having numerous meetings with myself and other noble Lords. It has been the model of how to progress legislation through your Lordships’ House.

There is a very simple and, I hope, clear purpose at the heart of the amendments: to enable cashback without a purchase. As with so many other areas of our lives, Covid has had a dramatic impact on cash usage across the United Kingdom, which has been divergent across different nations, regions, socioeconomic groups and people with different protected characteristics. If cash is no longer king, to millions across the UK it is certainly still more than material. It is beholden on all of us to ensure that people have a right to rely on cash and that a network exists across the country where they can reasonably access it. ATM withdrawals have dropped by over 50% since 2019. We have to look to other resources, other things that we have across the country where individuals and small businesses can access cash. That is the purpose of my Amendment 37D.

Currently, it is possible to get cashback with a purchase and, under the Payment Services Regulations, it is not possible to get cashback without a purchase. This amendment would change that, enabling cashback without a purchase and taking it away from what would be considered a payment service under the PSR 2017. The amendment has wider implications, I hope, than just the ability to access cash. It speaks to well-being, social isolation and a real sense of community, and to using the resources that currently exist far more efficiently and effectively for the benefit of all. In 2019 there were 123 million cashback with purchase transactions. Clearly, there is huge potential for cashback without purchase if we pass the amendment this evening.

The amendment is drawn in a deliberately permissive way to enable innovation. For example, if a fintech wanted to offer a service across a number of locations on behalf of those locations, the amendment would enable it to. Similarly, if a rural café wanted to offer cashback without a purchase on its own behalf, the amendment would enable it to.

We have seen such dramatic changes in the use of cash in recent years, heavily accelerated by the Covid crisis, yet cash still matters. If we do not act, the network that supports cash could disappear in a trice, or become inordinately expensive and leave millions of people without access to cash and, through that, to social inclusion, financial inclusion and an ability to play the part that they have a right to in our society.

Amendment 40A merely enables the regulation to come in two months after the passage of the Bill to give a reasonable period post passage.

I hope that Amendment 37D is clear and that it achieves what it seeks to: enabling cashback without a transaction for millions across the country. I believe it is good for individuals, financial inclusion, business and the high street. Cashback without a transaction could enable part of our Covid build back. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I again draw attention to my interests as set out in the register, particularly as an independent non-executive director of LINK.

In speaking to an earlier amendment, I touched on the challenges of financial exclusion. The problem is complex and the answer, in so far as there is one, is never going to be simple. However, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, particularly on his vision in seeing a way to at least meet the problem that he so clearly set out. I welcome word that the Government propose to act along the lines set out in this amendment and the subsequent one to help create greater flexibility in access to cash. Of course we all accept that financial services require regulation, but that regulation should always be proportionate, not stifling.

In some respects we have been fortunate in the past year. Not only have food supplies been maintained, but our digital infrastructure held up remarkably well, despite the increased demands on it. Imagine if it had not—if the internet had crashed for a few days or our banking system had cracked and digital payments had failed. I believe there would then have been rather less talk of cash being a thing of the past.

The principal theme of recent months has been resilience, which demands diversity and innovation. The amendment, and my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond’s vision and thinking behind it, perfectly captures that.

For the foreseeable future, cash will continue to be a vital medium of exchange for millions of people. The viability of our system for providing access to cash is therefore a necessity, not a luxury. I pay tribute also to the foresight and leadership shown by my noble friend Lord True. These decisions demand innovation and flexibility, and the kind of thinking captured by my noble friend’s amendment will be vital. I know that everyone involved in the payment system will be very supportive.