Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the thoughtful contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Russell of Liverpool.

I think I was responsible for some of the curveballs on illegal e-bikes and e-scooters that have peppered this Chamber in recent years. I regard their operation as dangerous, especially for elderly people and the disabled—“a Wild West” is the phrase I used before I became a Minister and learned my P’s and Q’s.

I hope the Minister will agree to the request from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for a discussion on what can be done to tackle the current loopholes, even if nothing can be done in this Bill. It is an important matter and we should try to progress a solution.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 323E, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is a curious but important proposal, addressing a very real challenge in the evolving world of work. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, pointed this out, as has the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Hendy.

The amendment seeks to clarify that substitution clauses in app-based platform work, such as food delivery, courier services and private hire transport, are valid only where the right to substitute is genuine, viable and actually used in practice. As many of us will know, much of our employment legislation was developed in an era when the labour market looked very different. The rise of app-based platforms and the gig economy has created new forms of work that do not always fit into the traditional categories of employment or self-employment, as has been said by previous speakers.

This amendment seeks to clarify one such grey area: the use of substitution clauses in platform work. It rightly asks whether these clauses are, in practice, genuine and workable, or whether they are being used to deny individuals the worker status that they would otherwise be entitled to. The noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Hendy, and others have explained in detail how that works in practice.

The broader point is that the Government must ensure that our workers’ rights framework is not stuck in the past. It must be up-to-date and dynamic enough to reflect the modern patterns of work and provide reasonable security for those engaged in them.

Too often, the flexibility of gig work is celebrated without enough attention being paid to the insecurity that can come with it: uncertain hours, low pay—which has been mentioned, including lower pay than the normal driver—and limited recourse to rights. Ensuring that the legal definitions we rely on are not open to exploitation is a vital step in protecting workers and maintaining fairness in the labour market. As other noble Lords said, this amendment may not be the final word on the matter, but it makes an important contribution to a conversation—the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, used the word “discussion”.

I give my compliments to the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and others for this conversation—or discussion. I hope that the Minister and the Government will see that there is a gap in employment legislation that needs to be looked at. We ought to deal with people, such as couriers and drivers, who are substituting to people paid even lower wages—and then scooting in front of you at the traffic lights, trying to push up the number of deliveries or collections they are making—in primary legislation, not in a statutory instrument somewhere down the line. I hope that the Government will look at this before we get to Report.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very warmly for accepting the amendment on pre-packs that I put down in Committee, on which I had the help of the British Property Federation. The amendment was designed to restore the power in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act. Amendments 37 and 38 have been drafted by parliamentary counsel and use a much more elegant formula to amend the original Insolvency Act, but to the same effect and with the same deadline of June 2021. I would like an assurance from my noble friend the Minister that that power will be used and that it will be able to deal with some of the pre-pack issues.

I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson, who has demonstrated his admirable virtuosity—he is not merely an expert on pubs and demography, as the House knows, but on insolvency, as well as many other things. I also support the thrust of his amendment. I should add that, without his oratory and argument last week, we would not have made the progress that we have.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill [V]]

My Lords, I support wholeheartedly the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. It seems sensible, and I hope that the Government will accept it. Having heard a previous speaker do so, I must declare my interest as a chartered accountant.

Many speakers in today’s debate have drawn a difference between selling or transferring a business and selling a company. The idea of a pool was meant to be a sort of bridge between the two, so that the business can survive—but there is of course a danger that it can be taken advantage of. When Vince Cable set out this principle, on the advice of Teresa Graham, it was to set up a pool. It might perhaps be useful to read into the debate the members of the oversight group, which comprises representatives of the founding parties of the pool: R3, the Association of Business Recovery Professionals; the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants; the British Property Federation; the British Printing Industries Federation; the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board; the Chartered Institute of Credit Management; and the Institute of Chartered Accountants. It is a long, long list.

To ask that one member of the pre-pack pool should say that the transaction is not unreasonable seems a sensible move to deal with what we believe will be a tsunami of liquidations and business problems, and it shows another way of skinning the cat rather than just using a monitor or going straight into liquidation. So I heartily support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson.

Advertising Standards Authority

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for setting out these facts so clearly and succinctly. I would add that the flexibility of the ASA, which he has not mentioned, is a big advantage—the way it was able to jump in in the 1990s and take on online ads and look at those showed that. It also ensures a strong industry stake in maintaining the system, ensuring high levels of consumer trust and, of course, good enforcement, because the industry is involved in making this a success.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has given details about what has been done. Can she tell us that they are satisfied that the ASA meets the criteria of the EU Directive 2006/114 which, as I am sure the Minister knows, requires the UK to provide,

“effective means … to combat misleading advertising”,

with recourse to the courts. Despite the eloquent responses of other noble Lords, the ASA is not a court.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Yes, my Lords, EU Directive 2006/114 concerns misleading and comparative advertising to traders in the UK, and by agreement the ASA administers the UK advertising codes. The system works well. It is a good, collaborative arrangement, with good back-up.

Small Businesses: Late Payment

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, in the public sector there are clear rules. Payment has to be made within 30 days, so in the BIS department, which I can speak for, 99.5% of invoices are paid within 30 days, and 80% within five days. We have been trying to move to a five-day practice across government. In addition, interest is payable on late payments and administrative costs. It would probably be difficult to confirm that every small business is always paid on time, but we do what we can, the direction of travel is clear and we are leading from the front in the public sector.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, while I welcome the actions of the noble Baroness and the Government, the mistreatment of small firms goes much wider than late payment. As an example, there is a new practice in some large firms requiring small firms to pay an upfront, flat fee to be considered for further contracts, which puts great stress on small firms. Can the Government include that in their deliberations?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, we can. The small business conciliation service is designed to help small businesses resolve business-to-business disputes while avoiding expensive legal costs. We will consult shortly on what exactly should be done to make sure that the new service has a real impact on the ground.

Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 3rd November 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Lord makes the fair point that a precedent exists. However, if you are going to introduce provisions into a new area, it is necessary to look at the detail, to consult and so on.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

When I took up a position in this industry on an advisory board, the question I asked immediately was: what happens if the letting agent goes bust or into liquidation? The three redress schemes mentioned by my noble friend, starting on 1 October, are jolly good but do not provide any monetary redress if anyone goes bust or is fraudulent. This Bill is about consumer protection and it seems that there is a need to protect consumers’ money as well as anything else. The redress schemes do not help any individual whose money has gone astray, be they landlord or tenant.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention, and perhaps I may return to the mandatory client money protection proposals.

Mandating insurance cover for money received or held by letting agencies in the course of business would introduce additional costs for the agencies, and these could simply be passed on to landlords and thus to tenants in the form of higher rents. I am sure that I do not need to remind the Committee that tenants’ deposits, which are an important aspect, are already protected as a result of separate legislation. I know this from a problem one of my children had, and I was able to offer him advice thanks to the debates we have had in this Room. That is a crucial element of tenant protection which is already in place, so we are not talking about deposits here, but other aspects. This amendment seeks to protect other funds but, I fear, at a potentially higher cost to tenants.

I can reassure noble Lords that the Government already encourage agents to join client money protection schemes via the Safe Agent kitemark, which denotes that the participating agent is a member of a client money protection scheme. Our How to Rent guide encourages landlords and tenants to choose agents with client money protection. Ensuring that tenants know their rights and landlords their responsibilities will empower consumers to make the right choices and, if things go wrong, to find appropriate redress. Yet further regulation could deter letting agents and make it difficult to encourage landlords to invest in properties. This investment is much needed to expand the overall supply of housing and help meet the country’s urgent housing needs. I am sure that that is an objective we all share. However, we have had an interesting debate and I will reflect on the detailed points that have been made by my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

Turning to Amendment 105R, I share the concerns raised about the practice of “double charging” by estate agents. In the lettings sector I can understand that an agent is providing a service to both parties and therefore may in some cases charge both. I can see that there are some justifications in other consumer markets. However, in the case of estate agents, I share the concerns of noble Lords. Estate agents have to be transparent in their dealings. Under the existing legislation that this amendment would affect—the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008—as well as their own self-regulatory industry codes, estate agents must already make fees and charges clear for both buyers and sellers. This means that fees and charges must be transparent. While I have serious concerns about the practice, I believe there is a danger that if we were to rush into further legislative measures, we could impose unjustified new burdens and risk damaging this important industry.

We believe—and I think that we have said this elsewhere—that a better way of addressing the rise of double charging is through estate agent redress schemes. My predecessor, my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie, and my colleague Jenny Willott met with the Property Ombudsman and Ombudsman Services: Property earlier this year to draw their attention to issues around double charging and sale by tender. They told us that while they had not yet received complaints about double charging, they shared our view that this was not a practice that should be encouraged. As a result, the Property Ombudsman committed to addressing the matter with the industry to ensure that its code of practice is properly adhered to and high standards of behaviour are followed. I can today confirm for the Committee that positive discussions with the industry have taken place and updated guidance is being finalised. The aim is to have updated guidance ready to come into effect early in December.

This guidance will ensure that agents recognise their obligations under the Property Ombudsman Code of Practice in respect of transparency, disclosure and avoidance of conflicts of interest. If the guidance is not complied with, agents will be in breach of that code. Breach of the code could result in removal from the redress scheme. This would effectively prevent them from operating as an estate agent, as membership of one of the redress schemes is a legal requirement for estate agencies.

Given this ongoing work, I do not believe that it is currently necessary to legislate against double charging by estate agents. However, I reassure the Committee that action is being taken to protect consumers from the worrying and emerging trend of double charging, and we will monitor developments. In the circumstances, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.