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.

Baby-changing Facilities

Lord Leong Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I think we can all agree that the principle of free access to baby-changing facilities in as many different hospitality situations as we can reach is desirable. Under the existing building regulations there is already a requirement for new non- residential properties to consider this, as well as for buildings which are undergoing substantial reconstruction.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, as most mothers and fathers will tell you, taking an infant out, especially to eating places, is a real chore—you have to pack nappies, a changing mat and wipes, among other things. Having to find a place to change nappies is another chore. They should not be forced to do this in unsuitable places. Most child-friendly restaurants and cafés already have baby-changing facilities. This makes good business sense, contributing to a healthy “bottom” line, as parents will look at these eateries positively. There have been suggestions from many people that cafés, pubs and restaurants should be required to provide baby-changing facilities by law so that parents can have peace of mind. Will the Government look at this again?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments—in all respects. My noble friend made a very good point about how this needs to be practicable. There are a lot of existing hospitality venues where it is not practical to provide additional services, either from a financial point of view or, more importantly, from a space point of view. However, the principle holds good that, whenever the opportunity arises with anything new or anything that is being rebuilt, consideration should be, and indeed is, required under the building regulations improvements.

Automotive Manufacturing Sector: Support

Lord Leong Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

As I have expressed, the importance of investing in this area remains paramount. We have the automotive transformation fund, which is over £850 million, and the Faraday challenge. I have listed some other important aspects that the Government are focusing on. This has led to important investment, including into Pensana, Jaguar Land Rover, Mahindra & Mahindra, Motherson Group, TVS and the Hinduja Group, and a whole new range of investments into hydrogen-powered buses, which is a great success flag for Northern Ireland.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, my first car, which I loved, was a British-made MG Midget in racing green. It is very sad that we are now at a point where unless the UK Government develop a credible automotive industrial strategy, Britain will soon have no automotive industry and the memory-making cars that come with it. We have world-class British automotive designers, internationally renowned British engineers and a skilled and hard-working British workforce. What plans do the Government have to utilise these assets to improve productivity, invest in research and innovation and ultimately transform the sector as it moves away from petrol and diesel?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for telling us about his car history. My first car was a Fiat Regata; I doubt that anyone in this House has ever driven one of those, and I would not necessarily advise it. It is important to look at some of the other aspects of where we are investing and have been successful in this country, and to trumpet the successes and triumphant elements of our car industry. Formula 1 is a very good example of that: two-thirds of the Formula 1 teams are effectively located here and the technology is developed here. There is our luxury car industry, where Bentley has recently announced £2.5 billion for further investment. We lead the world in luxury cars including, I am pleased to say, the rebirth and renewal of the important brand of Lotus. I met those in its owning company a few days ago and heard of their commitment to investing in this country, because we have the expertise to do the design, development and, ultimately, manufacture.

Post Office Executives: Bonuses

Lord Leong Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his new role and look forward to working constructively in the months ahead. I thank him for coming to this House to address these concerns.

The Post Office Horizon IT scandal is the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history. For more than a decade, this Government have allowed the scandal to drag on. Thousands of lives have been ruined and, tragically, more than 30 families have lost loved ones. Despite all this, continued delays mean that thousands of victims have yet to receive financial compensation.

It is appalling that, instead of these victims seeing anyone held to account for their lives and livelihoods being ruined, they are instead suffering the indignity of watching those who contributed to their suffering rewarded. CEOs who allow such behaviour disgrace the business community. Does the Minister agree with me that this is pure corporate greed? Does he really believe that paying nearly half a million pounds in bonuses to those involved in the scandal is justifiable in this case? Does he agree that the payment of these bonuses undermines the fight for justice and insults the hundreds of victims for whom Members on both sides of this House have campaigned so hard and for so long?

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (The Earl of Minto) (Con)]

My Lords, no doubt this is a serious error in corporate judgment, coming on top of the Horizon scandal and the misery and false accusation that it caused. In this regrettable situation, the Post Office was right to apologise. This is an extremely serious issue, at a time when it is essential that the public have confidence that the culture and processes at the Post Office have been improved. Government has acted swiftly, calling for an immediate explanation from the Post Office of how this mistake occurred and what steps its board is taking in response.

Workers’ Rights

Lord Leong Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that question. I am afraid this is not my department, but I would be delighted to come back to her with a Written Answer.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, both the Minister and I founded and ran our own businesses before coming to this place. I hope he will agree not just with me but with many business leaders and trade unionists, such as my noble friend Lord Woodley, that decent working conditions for employees’ security, health and well-being directly lead to improvements in productivity. Will he remind his government colleagues that a surefire way to make UK plc more productive would be to enshrine the highest standards of workers’ rights in legislation and not to seek to weaken or remove them through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill or the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill going through both Houses?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that point and for the extraordinarily high level of collaboration we engaged in last week when we were doing exactly this: bringing in protections for workers—in this case, the Carer’s Leave Bill, which will allow carers the flexibility to have a much-needed one week of unpaid leave. Ultimately, the best way to strengthen the workforce in this country and to enable businesses to give pay rises is to encourage the sorts of policies this Conservative Administration have brought into play, which have resulted in nearly 4 million new people in work, the average and minimum wages going up by over £8,000 and—

Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my honourable friend in the other place, the Member for Barnsley Central, Dan Jarvis, and congratulate him on his important Bill. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for sponsoring the Bill and introducing it with a passionate and powerful presentation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his very warm welcome. I always look forward to hearing my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton’s enthusiastic speeches. I thank everyone for their contributions on the Bill.

Many noble Lords will recall this feeling: the sense of anticipation and trepidation; the gratitude for the work of the team around you; and the hope that the delivery will be successful, sensing that after this day your life will never quite be the same again. The first time, one cannot help but feel especially anxious, despite knowing that some people have been through this experience many times. I am of course referring to standing at the Dispatch Box to speak in support of a Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, have already mentioned that some 54,000 new parents each year are potentially affected by the issues addressed in the Bill. Delays since 2019 mean that a further 200,000 people may have faced dismissal or compulsory redundancy because of pregnancy, marring what should be a joyful, if exhausting, time in their lives. So although this has taken a rather long time, I am pleased that, at Third Reading in the other place, the Government committed to supporting the Bill. I can confirm that the Labour Party also gives its full support.

Let me be very clear. The Bill should not be seen as providing the absolute minimum baseline for how employers should respect and treat their female employees. As many noble Lords will be aware, some of the charities working in this space do not support the Bill because they do not feel it goes far enough.

While I recognise those concerns, I argue that although the Bill is not a silver bullet, it is at least a step in the right direction. But, if we delay it any further, we should be mindful of the 54,000 people each year who will not be protected by the support that it offers. Of course, there is more to be done in changing attitudes and improving legislation. I was disappointed to discover that five years after the Equality Act 2010 became law, a survey showed that one-quarter—one-quarter!—of employers still felt it was reasonable to ask women about their plans to have children, and almost three-quarters felt that women should declare if they were pregnant during recruitment. While I hope that these attitudes will have improved since 2015, I am sure that they will not have disappeared.

The world of work and the demographics of the workforce in this 21st century are going to be completely different from what many of us experienced in our younger days. The cost of housing means that most young couples need two incomes to run a household, and especially—as many of us can testify—to bring up a family. Birth rates are historically low. Furthermore, the proportion of people of working age in relation to those in retirement is falling. This has been aggravated since the pandemic by the increase of people in early middle age leaving the workforce, as vacancy rates testify. We should be supporting—not penalising—people who want to remain in work. Furthermore, it is in the interests of employers, who want to attract the best and brightest employees of the future. We should remember that around 60% of UK graduates are now women, so it makes sense to have policies and practices around maternity which offer security and support, free from fears of discrimination.

The increasing shift to hybrid working in many jobs—it will only increase as technology develops—should permit innovative and creative solutions to some of the physical and mental challenges faced during pregnancy and early parenthood. While we should encourage employers to do far more than the statutory minimum, the Bill should reassure new parents—and those who tragically lose their babies through miscarriages—that they do not have to become embroiled in litigation or expensive and long tribunal processes at what will always be an incredibly stressful time.

While I do not want to get ahead of myself, I draw the attention of those in your Lordships’ House who are concerned that this does not go far enough to Labour’s A New Deal for Working People. My party has committed to

“extending statutory maternity and paternity leave, introducing the right to bereavement leave and strengthening protections for pregnant women by making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who is pregnant for six months after her return, except in specific circumstances.”

Under a future Labour government, I feel sure that we will be revising and revisiting this legislation and addressing the concerns of those who feel that the Bill does not go far enough.

I urge noble Lords to support the Bill, which represents the minimum that new parents should expect from employers as they begin one of the most important, joyful and essential journeys—though often challenging and sleep-starved—that a human being can make: bringing a new life into this world. I urge noble Lords that we turbocharge this Bill through this House—and perhaps we can set a precedent by having a political group hug.