Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo what my noble friend Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent said about our friend Jo Cox. We remember her more so today than any other day. She was the best of us, and let us be the best of her.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Anderson on bringing this proposal as a Private Member’s Bill and hope that it can swiftly pass through its remaining stages. I admit that I was more than a little shocked to discover that the provisions and protections of this Bill were needed. When it comes to zero-hour contracts, the default position has been to offer one-sided flexibility—an awful example of political double-speak, which attempts to disguise the unbalanced and exploitative relationships between employers and some of the most vulnerable people in our workforce.

In 2015, exclusivity clauses on zero-hour contracts were made unenforceable for many workers, but this right was not extended to those earning less than £123 per week until December of last year. Let us consider what this really means: workers in low-paid jobs, facing double-digit inflation and mostly impacted by food inflation in the high teens, have been entitled to non-exclusive zero-hour contracts only for the last six months. That is shameful. It pains me to think how many people may have been so desperate that they remained trapped into staying with an employer who could treat them as an afterthought, with little sense of the human being and their family depending on unpredictable wage packets, week after week.

My noble friend’s Bill improves their position a little further, supporting workers who have been employed in this way for some time, whether directly or through an agency, to request that it becomes formally recognised in their employment contract. This will add a much-needed layer of security for those teetering precariously on the very fringes of the world of work. It has been estimated that the net cost to businesses of this legislation will be only £16.9 million annually. As a businessperson and an investor in many SMEs, I recognise that some micro-businesses may find even the smallest additional costs challenging, especially with the current cost of living crisis. However, I was surprised that it was such a relatively low figure for the whole UK economy, given that it could make an enormous difference to thousands of our most vulnerable citizens. We should remember that many of the employers facing these costs will not be micro-businesses or SMEs—not at all. In a country where the average FTSE 100 CEO earns 103 times the average worker and more than 150 times a full-time worker on the minimum wage, this minimal cost that can be met.

We know that the cost of living crisis disproportionately impacts the lowest paid. Just last week, the publication of annual reports of some well-known British companies revealed that their CEOs received seven-figure bonuses, which more than doubled their enormous so-called basic salaries of around £1 million. I do not think it would break their business models to ensure that some of this money found its way to their lowest-paid employees, perhaps demonstrating some “other-sided” flexibility.

The potentially life-changing social and economic impact on the lives of the lowest-paid workers, who would be helped by the Bill, and the resultant benefits to the employer of a more engaged and stable workforce will, in my view, quickly repay the relatively small additional cost. I believe—indeed, the Labour Party was born out of this belief—that treating employees with dignity, providing them with the stability that comes with a regular wage, leads directly to improved self-esteem and loyalty, which in turn builds a more positive, productive and profitable business. Although investment in equipment and technology is important, investing in the workforce should always take account of the people behind the spreadsheets. People are the drivers of any business, and this will always be the case. As employers wrestle with artificial intelligence and the much discussed “rise of the machines”, we should be looking after our employees.

Although much more can still be done to improve workers’ employment rights, as my noble friend Lord Davies and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said, I have enormous respect for my noble friend’s efforts in bringing the Bill before us. It is definitely a step in the right direction, and I urge noble Lords to support it.