Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Monks Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to welcome my noble friend Lady O’Grady, my close colleague and friend. She will continue to liven up our debates with her passion and commitment, as she has done this afternoon, and we look forward to many future contributions. We also look forward to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, shortly.

As the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, said, the Government have produced a blank cheque for themselves to obliterate most of the 40 years of UK membership of the EU. Because of the skeletal nature of that Bill, we do not know what we are approving today except for some procedural issues which we will debate as this Bill goes through the House. A purge is going on: a purge of what the EU years did for this country. I happen to think that most of them did very well—plenty probably did not—but surely the resources that are going into this purge could be better deployed. By the way, perhaps we could be told how many civil servants have been transferred to work on this Bill, because it seems that a lot of people and resources are being thrown at a problem which is being totally exaggerated.

My focus today is on employment law, a topic that I am sure the Government have in their gun-sights—they have ever since the Maastricht treaty. In recent debates on EU employment law, the Minister has liked to downplay the EU influence on workers’ rights in the UK. He is right that many of the UK’s positive employment laws are homegrown: in fact, they were enacted by Labour Governments. But it is completely wrong to downplay the EU influence at the same time.

There are 60-odd laws on employment with an EU origin, but I will quickly pick out four areas that I want to focus and comment on. The first is TUPE, the regulations on transfer of undertakings. They protect workers’ terms and conditions on a change of employer; for example, under a privatisation. Is that really for the chop? Are the Government going to come forward on that issue?

The second is working time, which was a controversial issue in its day but is not any more. I draw particular attention to the provision on four weeks’ paid holiday. As the Minister has pointed out previously to the House, the average Brit might get more than that, but there are many who do not. By the way, before that was introduced, British workers were lucky to get three weeks’ paid holiday a year. Is that underpinning to be binned? It is not archaic or out of date.

The third is the requirement for a company to provide information and consult on changes in company strategy and key issues such as redundancy, and the related provisions for large multinational companies to have European works councils. When I left the European Trade Union Confederation in 2011, we had about 750 EWCs, with UK companies and workers playing a prominent part in 500. Are those very positive processes—European works councils, and information and consultation—to be consigned to the knacker’s yard in future?

Fourthly and finally, the EU took a particular interest in vulnerable workers: part-timers, fixed-term workers and agency workers. Are they now at risk?

The Government are very good at inventing problems, when they have enough problems of their own to deal with. Noble Lords will have a crucial part to play in combating that tendency, playing their part with vigour and commitment in getting a better outcome than this Bill will ever do.

Prime Minister: Trade Unions

Lord Monks Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

No matter how many times Opposition Members ask the same question, they will get the same answer. We have accepted the recommendation from the pay review body. The next step is that another pay review body will presumably look at the issue again next year and take account of the impact of inflation and workforce patterns on availability and recruitment, et cetera, for this year. That is the appropriate time to do it.

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, during the recent crisis, the mood of the nation was clearly that we were all in it together and people observed common rules—with a few exceptions in Downing Street and Barnard Castle. However, that is not the public mood in the current cost of living crisis; the mood is much more divisive, and the burden is falling almost totally on public servants. Is this not a recipe for strikes and for key workers leaving the essential services on which we all depend? Will the Government adjust their position and discuss with the TUC and relevant unions how we can recreate that mood of being in it together, come through this crisis and put an end to the damaging disruption?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We sit down with the TUC and others to discuss these matters, and we worked together during the pandemic. I remind the noble Lord that the TUC does not represent all workers; 75% of workers in this country are not in trade unions.

Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Monks Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Lords Chamber

I very much hope that the Minister will respond to my questions and those of all noble Members in this House, and I hope everyone will vote against this disgraceful union-busting proposal before us tonight.

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, this SI is the latest in a long line of steps, taken by successive Conservative Governments, to wrap trade unions in ever-more complex and restrictive dollops of red tape. It is almost a rite of passage for each Conservative Administration to slap fresh restrictions on unions. This SI is the latest in a long line. As my noble friend Lord Woodley has said, the Government were supposed to be introducing an employment Bill with new rights for workers—a positive step forward—but where is it? We keep asking, and again I pose that question to the Minister.

The Government were going to tackle the abusive practices of P&O Ferries in sacking staff and replacing them with agency workers, but where has that gone? Instead, they are now encouraging, through this SI, employers in a dispute to replace workers with agency staff. That looks to me like a U-turn, and one that is unacceptable to many of us.

A wiser Government would learn from their own successful experience with the furlough scheme, where they worked closely with unions and the TUC to devise a scheme that did much to see our country through the pandemic in reasonable shape. That degree of wisdom is sadly missing in this exercise we are talking about tonight.

A wiser Government would recognise that the current inflation is not due to wages but to Covid, the war in Ukraine and Brexit-related matters. In fact, our country’s experience is of stagnant wages and soaring profits, with real wages having been pretty flat since 2000, with the exception of executive pay, in the largest companies in particular, which grew during the pandemic alone by 29%. Is it any wonder that there could be an increase in labour unrest in the forthcoming period? Workers have got plenty to be restless about.

A wiser Government would seek to address this situation, not by playing to their own political gallery with this kind of gesture, but instead by seeking to work with unions, employers and all those concerned that might have some way of helping this country through a very difficult economic period ahead. Will the Minister, even at this stage, reflect on the request from many of us here tonight to put this SI in the recycling bin and tackle the real problems?

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Collins. Wages are rising at 4% per annum and prices are increasing at 11% per annum. It is a sad thing that the Government’s response is to take yet further measures to stop workers exercising the only leverage they have to maintain or even improve their standard of living. The Minister frankly admitted this evening that the purpose of the statutory instrument in relation to damages was to deter unions from striking, and that would be achieved by increasing the cap on damages by 400%. The point that I wish to raise with the Minister is that this further regulation of trade union freedom may well put the United Kingdom in breach of its international legal obligations, and it is to that that I will restrict my remarks.

My noble friend Lord Collins mentioned Article 3 of Convention 87 of the ILO, which is the most fundamental of all the ILO conventions, the international standards of labour. Article 3 guarantees that unions and employers’ associations can organise their activities

“free from any interference which would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise thereof.”

Among the activities that unions must be free to organise is, of course, industrial action. Consequently, the relevant supervisory committee of the ILO—the quasi-judicial Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations—has said:

“Provisions allowing employers to dismiss strikers or replace them temporarily or for an indeterminate period are a serious impediment to the exercise of the right to strike.”


My noble friend Lord Collins mentioned a decision of the Committee on Freedom of Association to similar effect. The authoritative interpretation of conventions by these committees is recognised not only by the European Court of Human Rights and other courts, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, but by our domestic courts. Those committees have held for some time that, among other non-conformities, British law currently does not comply with the requirements of Convention 87, Article 3 because workers taking industrial action are inadequately protected.

I hope that the Minister is not going to say that he disagrees with the rulings of those two ILO committees. They are the supervisory bodies of Convention 87, and it would sound like the first-year law student who writes an essay saying that he disagrees with a judgment of the Supreme Court. I am sure the Minister will not be saying anything like that.

I wish to make an additional point before I sit down. Breach of an ILO convention is bad enough, particularly one ratified by and binding on the United Kingdom, of which the United Kingdom was the very first signatory back in 1948. Secondly, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement of 2021 involved the Government undertaking post Brexit to comply with various international treaties by which they were already bound. The effect is that non-compliance with these treaties is not only a breach of them but is unlawful on the additional ground that it is a breach of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Paragraph 2 of Article 399 states:

“each Party commits to respecting, promoting and effectively implementing the internationally recognised core labour standards, as defined in the fundamental ILO Conventions”.

Paragraph 5 states:

“Each Party commits to implementing all the ILO Conventions that the United Kingdom and the Member States have respectively ratified and the different provisions of the European Social Charter that, as members of the Council of Europe, the Member States and the United Kingdom have respectively accepted.”


The UK has the obligation not only to respect and promote Convention 87, but also to effectively implement it. Those obligations surely prevent the UK adding an additional obstacle to the effective exercise of the right to strike by allowing agency strike breakers.

Trades Union Congress: Levelling Up

Lord Monks Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I fear that I am not familiar with the provisions in the procurement Bill. It is not a Bill that I am responsible for, but I will certainly have a look at the point the noble Lord makes.

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, might find that his voting figures are a bit shaky after last week’s by-election results. Why are the Government messing around with more antiunion legislation at a time when they are also lifting the cap on bonuses, doing absolutely nothing about inflation in boardrooms and in some parts of financial services, and ignoring their own experience of working closely with unions on the furlough scheme, which worked very well and was very successful? That experience should provide a blueprint for tackling the cost of living crisis, so will the Government make an effort, a proper effort, to find common ground in the current very difficult circumstances, instead of stoking conflict with the unions?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Nobody is stoking conflict with the unions. I do not know what antiunion legislation the noble Lord is referring to, but if he means the minimum strike guarantee, that was a manifesto commitment. I would have thought he would be in favour of a service being provided to the travelling public to enable other ordinary men and women to go to work when they want to do so.

Fire and Rehire

Lord Monks Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

That will depend on the individual circumstances of many people. The pandemic resulted in a number of people reassessing their life choices and if they have decided not to go back into the labour market, I am not sure that is something we can implicitly control. But as I said, we have 600,000 more people in work than before the pandemic and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the western world.

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government were right in their condemnation of the disreputable behaviour of P&O Ferries recently, but I also read a lot in the papers about the Government considering introducing a Bill which will make it lawful to replace striking workers with agency workers. I am puzzled about what the difference is between what P&O has done and the kind of thoughts that are obviously alive in Government at present. What is the difference?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The difference is very clear. What P&O did is potentially illegal. Investigations into both criminal and civil wrongdoings are ongoing, so I cannot comment on those particular investigations, but if trade unions are considering holding the travelling public to ransom, as many of them are, then it is right that we should look at all available options, and we will do so.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Monks Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, we know that the most vulnerable in our society are in for a very rough ride in the next few years and there is the real threat of a deep recession. Against that context, the Queen’s Speech is a disappointment, offering little hope of easement to many workers. With the very rocky period ahead, a lot of people must be extremely worried at the moment. I join those who have called for another look at the restoration of the universal credit uplift, a measure that should never have been done away with.

My remarks today are about another omission from the Queen’s Speech: a much-promised employment Bill, which has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Donaghy. Remember the manifesto of the Conservative Party in 2019, promising to make Britain

“the best place in the world to work”?

Promises were scattered on sharing tips, extending sick pay, more predictable contracts, flexible working, extended leave, new protections for women on redundancy and sexual harassment, and others. Since then, there have been regular promises of this new Bill on these and other matters. We have counted 20 at least, with the hapless Paul Scully, the Business Minister, responsible for 18 of them.

The need for new laws is obvious to any fair-minded person. There are 3.5 million workers in insecure work in this country; half of them get no sick pay at all. Guess what many of them did when they caught Covid? Of course, they continued to work. It was not just in Downing Street that the Covid rules were broken. Our sick-pay arrangements are among the worst in the developed world. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that almost half of employees went to work feeling unwell. Our absence rate is less than half the European average and one of the lowest in the OECD. It is not because we are healthier, unfortunately—it would be a good thing if we were. As little as 19% of the average UK salary is covered by statutory sick pay, again putting us very near the bottom of the league of advanced countries. The more generous occupational pension schemes, which are common for people in the higher-paid sectors, leave many others, including factory workers, carers and retail workers, at the mercy of inadequate support. Is this the best place in the world to work? I do not think so.

Another worrying feature of the UK labour market that I will just touch on is the growth of fire-and-rehire practices. We saw this recently in the P&O Ferries case, which followed a similar occurrence at Irish Ferries a couple of years ago. We currently also see it in household-name companies such as Centrica, British Airways, Clarks shoes and even the Girls’ Day School Trust, all of which have damaged their reputations by slashing terms and conditions of employment for employees. The boss of P&O even admitted deliberately breaking the law on consulting British trade unions—but we should note that he did not do that with the French and Dutch crews. The laws are much stricter in those countries, and we should match them in these kinds of protections. So I ask the Minister: when can we expect the much-promised actions that would make this country a much less nasty and brutish place to work, which it is for far too many of our fellow citizens?

Trade Union (Levy Payable to the Certification Officer) Regulations 2022

Lord Monks Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, to follow on from those last points, it almost seemed to be the case from the Minister’s presentation that unions had somehow agreed with quite a lot of the proposals being put, which is very far from the case.

I do not want to go over the 2016 Act, but, at the time, many of us thought it was the product of a certain mindset in parts of Conservative Central Office, which was still bent on fighting the battles of the 1970s and 1980s. If you were that kind of Tory, why not ladle extra dollops of red tape, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just said, on the old enemy? After all, it polishes your credentials in the eyes of some of the Conservative associations, it does not cost very much and it kicks your opponents hard, which with a workable majority you can do.

Unions are now to face a Certification Officer with new and extended powers to impose these fines—very steep fines in terms of union finances—and to make unions pay the bills of the Certification Officer. These are the motives of a suspicious, hostile Government, who regard unions as conspiracies, plotting mayhem and confusion—much as some of us regard the present regime in Downing Street. Yet unlike our views on Downing Street, the Government’s view is certainly not borne out by the facts. British unions are already heavily regulated by any standard applying in western democracies, yet the Certification Officer is rarely troubled by complaints of maladministration and injustice, as has been pointed out already in this debate. There is a handful of complaints each year, and the vast majority are dismissed or withdrawn, and there were no enforcement orders last year.

So what is the problem? There is not really one at all. The motive for this legislation is ignoring the fact that unions are a hallmark of a free and democratic society, and a force for greater equality in an increasingly unequal society.

The new Certification Officer could well be like a police officer looking for work to justify his or her existence, no doubt having actively to encourage people to come forward with complaints. The Certification Officer can take them themselves, as we heard the Minister spell out. Perhaps there will be advertising for complainants, to boost the workload if it is meagre. The aim is to tie up unions in expensive litigation and force them to pay the costs of that litigation, as well as for the administration of the Certification Officer’s office.

Can the Minister tell us precisely whether there are any other regulators of voluntary, not-for-profit, democratic organisations which have to pay for their regulator? Political parties do not, as we have heard, and charities do not, so who else does? It is not the same as the City or the banks, which are profit-making, private sector bodies, yet unions collectively are likely to face a seven-figure bill for the privilege of being complained against. After all, this is fertile territory for opponents of the national executives of unions. Unions are lively, democratic organisations, with all the cut and thrust that goes with that, and sometimes it is fair to say that the losers do not always lose gracefully.

These regulations and the Act which spawns them are unworthy of a great democracy. I take this opportunity before the regulations pass into law to register my disgust and contempt for them and their promoters.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, first, I should declare an interest as the president of BALPA, the TUC-affiliated union for pilots.

This is just unnecessary, is it not? The Act was passed in 2016. I remember that my noble friend who just spoke was the Minister then and we had one or two set-tos, but in the end, to my mind, her knowledge of the trade union movement helped ameliorate that Bill and get it on to the statute book. I had liked to think that the non-activity over the past two or three years meant that the Government had had another thought and decided that these regulations did not need to be brought into being—and of course they do not. They are not going to add anything. We have heard about the 34 complaints with no enforcement orders and about the fact that no other voluntary organisation pays for its regulator, and we know that the whole of this office is really not needed for the purpose for which it is being put forward.

What I would say though, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, is that we should not make this a battle between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party over funding. It is not. It is about unnecessary control of the trade union movement. The majority of my union members voted for this Government. I am absolutely convinced of that, having talked to them. Some 30% of paying trade unionists vote Conservative. We have got to get over this idea that somehow the trade union movement is comprised of hard-working, left-wing socialists.

My wife was a district councillor for some years; she dealt with unions in rural England, and said that most of them were well to the right of her in their political beliefs. Most of them were voting for the Conservative Members of Parliament to be found in the depths of East Anglia. So let us get over this idea that union members are all Labour and not Conservative. It is important to get over it because I think the Minister needs to get over it and the Government need to get over it.

I have said over many years that we will have reached an achievement in this country when, just as the leader of the Opposition goes to the CBI on a regular basis, so the leader of the Conservative Party appears at the TUC and makes a speech and answers questions. Breaking down this divide is really quite essential if we are going to have industrial relations peace in this country.

We have not got a lot of time, so I am going to leave the Minister with just two questions, one of which has already been asked in one form. First, what, if anything, are the Government prepared to do about vexatious litigants? There will be people who will go to the regulator purely to cause trouble—every union has them; even BALPA has the odd member who gets great pleasure out of trying to run rings around its national executive. To what protection are the Government prepared to look to protect vexatious claims against unions? Secondly, the Government have pussyfooted around on electronic balloting the entire time I have been in this House. There are no questions about having a secure electronic ballot. Is it not time that the Government made a generalist gesture to the trade union movement and let it have what is a totally secure system, at its own choice, for running internal elections?

Those are two things the Government can give us. It will cost them nothing but it will show the Conservative-voting trade unionists of this country that the Government are a Government of the country and not just one part of it.

Cost of Living

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on his prescience in the timing of this debate. Barring a Russian incursion into Ukraine or more wine o’clock Downing Street shenanigans, inflation is very much at the top of today’s news. It is not good news, as has already been spelled out: we are in very difficult waters at the moment and things show all the signs, in the coming period, of getting worse. With inflation now at a 30-year high and a record increase in energy bills expected from April, poorer households are under particular pressure, as essentials such as energy and food form a larger proportion of their shopping basket than discretionary items. We also have the increase in national insurance to come, adding to the pressure on jobs and living standards. I believe that to be a bad idea, certainly at this time in the cycle of our economy.

I recognise that the Minister is very much bound by the Statement on energy made by the Chancellor today. These new measures, and the inclusion of a government-backed £200 discount in bills by offering loans to suppliers, as well as the council tax rebate of £150 for those in lower-cost housing, are welcome and a recognition by the Government that we have a big problem. They are welcome, but they will not offset the other measures that we are going to experience with the Ofgem price cap announcement, which could catapult the average home bill to £2,000 from April. That is a lot of money for many households.

I had hopes—there is no surprise here, with my background—that rising real wages would help to ease the position of working people. Indeed, labour shortages and union action in a number of industries have secured impressive pay rises for some. For example, I read in the paper the other day that the GMB has secured a very decent rise for binmen in Eastbourne, while Unite has secured good settlements to disputes in South Yorkshire, Mercedes Benz and Nottingham. But this is not the general picture: the majority of workers face a fall in real pay and the heroes of the public and related services, who have done so much in the current pandemic, will be poorer at the end of it than they were at the beginning, despite being showered with thanks and claps by a grateful nation.

Worryingly, firms and employees do not expect the squeeze to end soon; we will have to live with this for a while. So what can we do about it? Some things are being done about it and I have mentioned my welcome for those. I hope that the Minister can undertake at some stage to revisit two other areas to help the low paid and hard pressed. These are raising the national living wage more than it has just been raised. Wages are too low in many sections of our society and raising them will be crucial to the success of any levelling-up agenda. If we do not raise people’s spending power in the weaker regions, we will not get very far with the levelling-up agenda. The other thing that I hope will be revisited is the premature withdrawal of the £20 uplift to universal credit, which helped many get through lockdown. That and the furlough scheme were two massive supports for the economy and for the hardest hit at a time when they were most needed and I unapologetically welcomed them at the time.

More generally, will the Government not make the George Osborne mistake? In the last period when we had recessionary pressures after the financial crash, the then Government tackled our indebtedness with growth-killing policies of austerity. It was a disaster from which we are still reeling. We should have given growth a better chance than was done at the time and I hope that the orthodoxy of that time has now passed. This time, the economy should be allowed to expand. The Government should be looking at other areas for their revenue. Lower capital gains tax payments are an obvious area for attention, as are windfall taxes. Can the Minister encourage us today by saying that those things are still on the table and are being considered?

Status of Workers Bill [HL]

Lord Monks Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Hendy on both his excellent preparation of the Bill and the clear presentation of it that he has made. This is a horrendously technical area that has become more complicated over the years, and clarifying and simplifying it is in everybody’s interests. A Bill along these lines should have been in the Queen’s Speech but for some reason or other it has been omitted, despite promises from the top of the Government that they would “protect and enhance” workers’ rights post Brexit. As we wait for the Government to act, my noble friend Lord Hendy is doing their job for them; I hope he will get an appropriate vote of thanks for doing that and that the Government will follow the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, embrace his Bill and get on with it.

According to the TUC, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, just said, 3.6 million people are in some kind of insecure work. They could be on zero hours, on temporary or seasonal work or classed as self-employed, and in all these categories they often earn less than the minimum wage. They need levelling up, and an end must be made to the four different statuses of categories of working people.

I first came across part of this problem in the 1970s, when labour-only sub-contracting became the norm in many parts of the construction industry. Regular employees were reclassified as self-employed, and unscrupulous employers—in the end followed by those who wanted to do the right thing but who were being undercut—led the way in avoiding national insurance, PAYE administration, employment rights, pensions entitlements and training obligations. Bogus self-employment drove out regular contracts of employment. Older Members here will recall the practice being termed the “lump”.

Variations on the “lump” have now spread well beyond construction, not least into sectors defined as the gig economy. It can even be found in the NHS and in public services; the Finance Sub-Committee of this House has been finding out about the role of personal service companies, which has led to all the problems with the loan charge. A major tax-evasion operation has been under way, and so far we have not got to grips with it. The Bill could be a contributing factor in helping that.

Exploiting the gaps between those classed as employee and those classed differently has become an unattractive feature of our labour market in this country. Although Matthew Taylor’s report is now out of date in certain areas, and I would have liked him to have gone further, he did a job in bringing a lot more people’s attention to the problem. It is time to put an end to those practices. They are a blot on our landscape, and the Bill can help consign those practices to history. I hope the Government will give it a fair and supportive wind and that this House sends its smartly on its way today.

Uber: Supreme Court Ruling

Lord Monks Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course, it is always better if these matters are settled without court action. As I said in a previous answer, we are committed to bringing forward an employment Bill. I thank the noble Lord for his support.

[Lord Monks (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. Will the Government now enshrine the very welcome Supreme Court judgment in statute by including its principles, plus the availability of workplace pensions, in the long-promised but long-delayed new Bill on employment rights and the gig economy? Will they also reject the expected campaign by Uber and other global tech companies to reverse or limit the judgment and so strike a blow against bogus self-employment, with all the risks to the tax base and other problems that it incurs, and eliminate abuses in the gig economy?