Employment Rights Bill

Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st July 2025 Lords Chamber

This situation could be wholly averted if some of these amendments were considered and incorporated into the Employment Rights Bill. Better still, the Government should reconsider bringing forward a cross-sector AI regulation Bill. What we know fundamentally is that regulation is right: right for workers, right for employees, and right for all aspects of our economy and society. When I say that regulation is right, I mean the right size regulation. What we know from history, not least from recent history, is that right-size regulation is good for innovation, investment, citizens, creativity and our country. Would the Government be good enough to agree?

[Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I am aware that many of the amendments in this group have a rather different focus from the points I wish to make. I acknowledge the amendments by the noble Lords, Lord Clement Jones and Lord Holmes of Richmond. I believe they provide a valuable opportunity to reflect on the particular nature of working in tech and AI. This is, as has already been alluded to, a sector that makes a significant and growing contribution to the UK economy, and it is rightly seen as one of the priority strands of the Government’s modern industrial strategy.

As the rather scary AI 2027 forecast by Daniel Kokotajlo and other makes clear, developments in this space are accelerating incredibly rapidly and are already reshaping how we live and work. Even as I say that, I wonder whether I may have triggered an algorithmic alert somewhere—let us hope that parliamentary privilege covers some of it. AI is happening, regardless of how we feel about it, and the opportunity it provides makes it all the more important that firms are based and regulated here rather than elsewhere.

Jobs in this area tend to be highly skilled and well paid, but that does not mean workers do not need some protections. In many cases, the things that matter most are not issues such as minimum wage and paid leave but how easily people can move between companies, start their own ventures and work across several fast-growing enterprises. Here, it is non-compete agreements which pose a particular challenge. Understandable concerns over safeguarding intellectual property have led some firms to restrict employee movement, yet this comes at a cost to innovation, competition and the free flow of ideas that underpin these industries. I know the last Government carried out a review of these clauses in general terms, but no meaningful reform followed. Does the department have a view on how widespread these clauses now are, particularly in fast-moving and competitive sectors? Has any formal assessment been made of their impact on innovation, start-up activity, and people’s ability to move freely and fairly between roles?

I fully appreciate that this Bill is focused on establishing baseline rights for all workers rather than addressing sector-specific concerns. However, I hope the Minister can say something about how these challenges are being considered as part of the Government’s wider thinking on the future of work and on how we ensure that the UK remains a good place to innovate, as well as a fair place to work.

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, I support the timely and vital amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Holmes of Richmond, concerning the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. These amendments, which cover transparency, accountability, consent, fairness and the protection of workers’ rights, speak to one of the central challenges of our time: how we align the rapid deployment of AI with the rights, dignity and agency of working people.

Just 11 days ago, a few of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, had the privilege of attending the round table on aligning AI for human flourishing, hosted here in the House of Lords by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and convened by Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics in AI and the Accelerator Fellowship Programme. It was led by Professor Yuval Shany and brought together leading international voices, including Professor Alondra Nelson, who designed the US Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, later embedded in President Biden’s executive order on AI.

That discussion made one thing clear: we are at a crossroads. As Professor Nelson put it at a recent AI action summit in Paris:

“We can create systems that expand opportunity rather than consolidate power for the few”.


If we are serious about that aspiration, we need laws that embed it in practice. I hope we will soon see legislation introduced in this House—an AI Bill of Rights rooted in the UK context—that reflects our democratic values, legal traditions and the lived realities of British workers. That will require leadership from the Government and support across parties, and I believe this House is well placed to lead the way.

That is precisely what the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, seek to do. Amendment 168 outlines the core principles employers must uphold when using AI on workers: safety, fairness, transparency, governance, inclusion and the right to redress. These are the bedrock of responsible innovation. Amendment 169 proposes the appointment of designated AI officers within organisations, ensuring that someone is directly accountable for the ethical and unbiased use of these powerful technologies.

Amendments 171 and 172 tackle perhaps the most urgent concern: consent. No worker’s data should be ingested by AI systems—or decisions made about their employment by algorithm—without their meaningful, informed opt-in. We are not speaking in abstractions; AI is already determining who is shortlisted, scheduled, surveilled or sidelined. These systems often operate in secret and carry forward the biases of the data they are trained on. If we do not act now, we risk embedding discrimination in digital form.

This is not the first time that this House has stood up for fairness in AI. On 12 May, and in subsequent ping-pongs on the data Bill, many of us voted in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness,sb Lady Kidron, which called for transparency over copyright and AI. That debate too was about rights—to control one’s work, one’s data and one’s identity. The same principle is at stake here. If the UK is to lead on AI, we must lead not just in capability but in ethics. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, are not radical but responsible; they bring our values into alignment with our technologies. I therefore urge all noble Lords to support them, even though it is highly unlikely that they will be accepted.