Employment Rights Bill: Productivity Debate
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Lord Londesborough
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Employment Rights Bill: Productivity
Lord Londesborough Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
The noble Lord is right: we will have many happy hours debating this Bill in Committee and on Report in due course. On the issue of freelancers, he will know that this is only one piece of legislation. The make work pay programme includes a much more substantial piece of legislation. Where issues cannot be resolved fully in this legislation, they will come up in the wider Bills going forward.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, this claim that the Bill supports productivity falls under the economic analysis section, which some have, perhaps rather unkindly, referred to as the economic fantasy section. The argument is similar to the one used for NICs Bill: increase the cost of employment; take out jobs at the lower-paid end; invest more in tech and innovation; and increase the average productivity of those left in employment. Does the Minister not agree that the danger with a flat economy, such as we have at the moment, is that we end up simply increasing unemployment, depressing real wages and lowering overall growth?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, we have to be clear about the fiscal inheritance which we inherited from the previous Government.