Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

251C: Clause 73, page 98, line 13, at end insert—
“(2A) Subsection (1) only applies where the protected industrial action is the result of a properly conducted ballot in accordance with sections 226 to 232.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that subsection (1) only applies where protected industrial action follows a properly conducted ballot under sections 226–232.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group seek to address gaps in our current legislation by establishing clear exemptions from detriment protections when workers engage in unacceptable conduct during industrial disputes, while creating a comprehensive framework that restores balance to industrial relations.

I am willing to be corrected, but we do not believe that these specific protections against certain leverage activities currently exist in legislation, which is precisely why Amendment 252 is necessary. However, this forms part of a broader package addressing systemic failures in our industrial relations framework. In our assessment, leverage may manifest in various forms, but at its core lies a deliberate strategy to publicly intimidate and humiliate employers, compelling them to make concessions in industrial disputes that they would not otherwise consider. We fundamentally reject this approach as unacceptable in civilised industrial relations.

When describing leverage in the context of the Grangemouth dispute, Unite the Union explicitly stated:

“Leverage targets all areas of weakness of an employer … Leverage is the translation of an organising mind-set into the planning and implementation of a campaign strategy, underpinned by the escalation of pressure to create uncertainty”.


Even more concerning, Unite the Union expressed the view that in a leverage campaign

“the employer is routinely treated as a target to be defeated not a friend to be convinced”.

This adversarial approach treats employers as enemies to be vanquished, rather than as partners in resolving legitimate grievances.

Amendment 252 specifically identifies actions that constitute leverage: intimidation at picket lines; protests at company premises or the private homes of senior managers; the harassment of non-striking workers; and deliberate actions designed to undermine business continuity planning. Workers who engage in these intimidatory tactics should face the prospect of dismissal without recourse to employment protection.

However, the problems extend beyond leverage tactics. Amendment 251C responds to the troubling rise of wildcat strikes and unofficial action lacking democratic mandates. The Grangemouth dispute exemplifies this. Leverage tactics were employed in pursuit of objectives that may not have commanded genuine workplace support. If workers are to enjoy enhanced protections, those protections should be reserved for action properly sanctioned through domestic process under Sections 226 to 232 of current legislation.

Amendment 251G seeks to address the growing problem of co-ordinated action by workers outside of established collective bargaining frameworks. We have seen increasing instances of social media-organised workplace action that deliberately circumvents union structures and creates chaos for employers facing industrial action without recognised representatives to negotiate with.

Amendment 251D seeks to address the very real risk that, without proper definition, every minor management decision during a dispute could become grounds for a detriment claim. We have seen in other jurisdictions how broad definitions create litigation cultures, where employers face constant threat of claims for routine operational decisions. This amendment would prevent the trivialisation of genuine grievances while protecting employers from vexatious claims.

Our compensation framework amendments respond to documented failures. Amendment 251K would establish three bands of detriment severity—minor, serious and extreme—addressing the current lack of guidance that leads to wildly inconsistent awards. Amendment 251L would require proof of “actual financial loss”, preventing the speculative claims that proliferate without such requirements. Amendment 251N would restrict compensation to economic losses, preventing the concerning trend towards “injury to feelings” awards that represent a fundamental category error in industrial relations contexts.

Amendments 251E and 251F seek to address the stark reality that industrial action has already compromised public safety. During recent NHS strikes, emergency cover was inadequate, putting patients at risk. The 2019 London Underground strikes left commuters stranded, creating security vulnerabilities. Amendment 251E would provide essential legal clarity for employers who must prioritise continuity of critical operations. Without this protection, fear of litigation prevents necessary operational decisions. Amendment 251F recognises that some industrial action poses direct threats to public health and safety. Such considerations must take precedent over detriment protections.

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[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her contribution, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for tabling these amendments. I ask noble Lords to bear with me as I respond to each of them.

I want to be clear about why this clause is required. Clause 73 inserts new Sections 236A to 236D into the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. New Section 236A is required because the Supreme Court ruled in April 2024 that Section 146 of the 1992 Act is incompatible with Article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Amendments 251C, 251F, 251H and 251J are unnecessary as their purpose is already covered in existing legislation. In the case of Amendment 251C, Clause 73 already requires a ballot compliant with Section 226, as specified in Section 219(4) of the 1992 Act, and makes it clear that protection is limited to cases where the action is compliant. Furthermore, in the case of Amendment 251J, secondary action is already prohibited under Section 224 of the 1992 Act, and the new protection of Section 236A will not apply where the industrial action was unlawful secondary action.

With regard to Amendments 251F and 251H, Section 240 of the 1992 Act allows for criminal prosecution of those who intentionally and maliciously endanger life or cause serious injury to a person by going on strike. Furthermore, if an act of an employer is motivated primarily by health and safety concerns, not for the sole or main purpose of preventing or deterring the employee from taking protected industrial action or penalising them, they have a defence from detriment claims, and the tribunals will consider whether the employer’s act or failure to act constitutes detriment.

Amendments 251D and 252 seek to prejudge a full and open consultation on this issue by setting out circumstances in which the detriment protection will not apply. We will prescribe detriments in secondary legislation only once we have conducted a comprehensive consultation seeking views across the public, including those of workers, employers, trade unions and all other stakeholders.

With reference to Amendment 252, that protection from prescribed detriment applies only where the sole or main purpose of subjecting the worker to detriment is to prevent, deter or penalise the worker from taking protected industrial action; for example, if a worker is subjected to detriment solely or mainly because they have harassed or bullied non-striking workers, the protection will not apply. I can be clear that criminal law will continue to apply to pickets.

Amendment 251E would be an unnecessary limitation on the protections from detriment. The prohibitions that new Section 236A places on an employer are clear: the sole or main purpose of the action must be to deter or penalise industrial action, which would not apply in the case of genuine maintenance of critical operations. Amendment 251G would be an unreasonable restriction to apply to detriment protections. Non-union members have the right to participate in official protected industrial action and, where that is the case, must be afforded the same protections from detriment as union members.

Amendments 251L and 251N would place a burden on individuals to prove that they had suffered financial or economic loss as a result of detriment, and would limit the circumstances where they were eligible for compensation. These hurdles and limits would potentially deter them from engaging in industrial action, limiting compliance with the Supreme Court ruling and Article 11.

Amendments 251M and 251P seek to restrict compensation with regard to business deeds. I want to be clear that an employer’s action or failure to act in relation to prescribed detriments will be a legal obligation that cannot be breached proportionately, and there is no legitimate business interest defence for seeking to deter or penalise an employee for taking protected industrial action.

Amendment 251K seeks to establish bands of detriment severity of “minor”, “serious” and “extreme”, and would require the Secretary of State to specify maximum compensation limits for each, which tribunals would have to comply with. New Section 236D is already clear that employment tribunals must have regard to any loss sustained by a claimant that is attributable to the actions of, or failures to take action by, an employer. Therefore, tribunals will award compensation based on what the tribunal considers to be just and equitable and will be able to proportionately determine the amount of compensation, taking into account all the relevant circumstances. I hope I have reassured the noble Lord. I therefore ask him to withdraw Amendment 251C.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his very comprehensive answer, and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for her comments. I will have to read Hansard very carefully, because there is quite a lot of detail in the Minister’s answer, but I will say that for months we have listened to Ministers speak at considerable length about the urgent need to address bad actors in our workplaces. On a number of occasions, they have painted fairly vivid pictures of unscrupulous employers who exploit workers, flout employment law and engage in practices that undermine good industrial relations. However, having been presented with clear evidence of equally concerning bad actors within the trade union movement, the Government’s response has been, in effect, to stay silent. I repeated those Unite comments, and I will repeat them again here, that

“the employer is routinely treated as a target to be defeated not a friend to be convinced”.

To use a word that came up in the last group, that is not “constructive” or collaborative; that is very hostile in intent.

Without going into enormous detail, Amendment 251L, for example, would require proof of actual financial loss, which is a basic principle that would prevent speculative claims. I do not see how that would deter anyone with a legitimate claim from engaging in industrial relations, so how would their Article 11 rights be infringed, as I believe the Minister outlined?

We will have to come back to these amendments because, as I say, there was a good deal of detail in there. Once again, the Minister is relying on the mythical consultation; I would like to know when that consultation on these aspects of these amendments will take place. Of course, that also calls into question when he expects all this to be implemented—a subject to which I am quite sure we will return on a number of occasions this evening. But for now, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 251C withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

254: Clause 75, page 101, line 41, at end insert—
“(4) The Secretary of State must conduct a review to assess the impact on emergency services arising from the repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023.”

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled after Clause 75, which would require the Secretary of State to assess the impact of repealing the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 in terms of emergency service provision and the broader resilience of our public infrastructure during industrial action. These are pragmatic and proportionate amendments, and I regret that they are even necessary, but the manner in which Clause 75 proposes to repeal this legislation—abruptly and with no review, consultation or supporting evidence—leaves us no choice.

The 2023 Act was narrowly drawn. It applied only to a tightly defined set of sectors—ambulance services, fire and rescue, health, transport, nuclear decommissioning and border security—in which a complete withdrawal of labour poses serious and obvious risks to life, safety, national security or national functioning. It did not ban strikes or criminalise union membership. It allowed a minimum service level to be set, by regulation, after consultation with affected sectors. In other words, it was a public protection measure, a mechanism of last resort, and it mirrored provisions already in countries across Europe and beyond.

The Government now seek to repeal the law, seemingly on the basis that it achieved nothing. They will no doubt point to the fact that industrial action has continued since the Act came into force. Indeed, we know from statistics that 160,000 working days were lost to strike action in the first quarter of 2025 alone. However, that statistic proves nothing about the value, or otherwise, of the Act. It proves only that the right to strike continues to be exercised, as it should be.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was never intended to eliminate strike action, and its success should not be judged by whether workers stopped striking. It should be judged by whether the public was kept safe when strikes did happen, whether ambulances still reached heart attack victims, basic fire cover was maintained and border infrastructure functioned at a minimum level.

That is a relevant test, and the Government have produced no evidence to show that those minimum protections were either unnecessary or ineffective. In fact, if the Act truly achieved nothing, why the rush to repeal it? Governments do not normally spend valuable legislative time repealing laws that they believe have no impact. The truth is that this law has teeth: it provides leverage, and it establishes a legal baseline. The Government want to remove it not because it is useless but because it places limits on how far certain interests can allow disruption to stretch.

Even if one believes the Act was flawed, the responsible course would be to review its effects before repealing it, particularly when the law was so recent and implementation across sectors was still under way. Consultations on minimum staffing levels had not been concluded in all sectors, practical guidelines had only begun to take shape and the real-world application of the law was still emerging, so to repeal it now is to abandon public protection in the name of political symbolism, to uproot a tree before it even had time to settle and declare it a failure for not bearing fruit.

What is most striking, however, is that the Government have provided no evidence that repealing the Act will lead to improved industrial relations, despite making that very claim in the impact assessment for this Bill. It is asserted almost in passing that the removal of the Act will restore trust or reduce tensions in negotiations, but where is the proof of that? Where is the analysis? Where is the independent data or stakeholder feedback to support that optimism?

We are told to take it on faith that repealing a legal framework designed to protect the public will somehow produce a more harmonious climate between unions and employers. But we are not here to govern by faith—we are here to scrutinise and to ask hard questions, and to legislate with due diligence. I put this to the Minister directly: can the Government point to any serious evidence, whether from unions, employers, emergency service leadership or international examples, that repealing this Act will improve negotiation outcomes, reduce disruption or lead to faster resolution of disputes? If not, why are we legislating in the dark?

What is the Government’s alternative? If we strip away the only existing mechanism for maintaining safe service levels during strikes, what replaces it? Nothing in the Bill offers an equivalent safeguard. There is no provision for voluntary cover agreements, no incentives for minimum staffing, no rapid arbitration scheme and no contingency powers for life and limb services. We must assume that the Government are content to simply let key public services fall to zero capacity during industrial disputes. There will be no legal recourse, no duty to plan and no obligation to protect the public. That is not reform.

Meanwhile, the public, who continue to support the right to strike in principle, also expect a functioning state. They expect to be able to call an ambulance and get one; they expect transport to limp along during industrial disputes, not collapse entirely; and they expect public safety to be preserved. The amendments before us are not extreme; they merely require a clear-sighted review of the implications of this repeal, something that any responsible Government would do as a matter of course.

I urge noble Lords to support these amendments. If the Government are confident that repealing the Act would strengthen industrial relations and carry no risk to public welfare, they should have no objection to reviewing that impact and reporting to Parliament. If they are not confident, I submit that the repeal should not proceed at all.

In short, the issue here is not ideology; it is competence. We are about to discard the only statutory mechanism for ensuring minimum service level provision during strikes—a model recognised across Europe and endorsed by ILO principles—without evidence, without a plan and without a single word of accountability to Parliament. As I said earlier, that is not governance; it is recklessness. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to each of the three amendments in this group, starting with Amendment 254. A significant part of the reason for the minimum services, as my noble friend has just laid out, was to recognise that certain issues were affecting daily life.

It is worth while considering the timing of aspects of this, not long after the end of the Covid lockdowns, and recognising the economic challenges that our country faced. In combination with people’s need to access urgent medical support, bearing in mind that a number of activities had been cancelled many times already, the impact of seeing further strikes—cancelling a basic level of operation for patients—was starting to become potentially very difficult for the country to manage and for patients in getting better.

Other sectors were also discussed, and transport is a good example. I expect that none of the train operating companies used this, partly because many of them found different ways to keep trains running on a basic level—good examples of that would be Greater Anglia or South Western Railway. Greater Anglia will soon become a nationalised rail operator, so I would be very interested to know—I appreciate that the Minister may not have an answer today—what the practice will be in the future as a consequence of this. At the time, the operating company Abellio was able potentially to have gone to this piece of legislation to keep trains running, although it did not have to. Will nationalised rail companies be allowed to continue to keep services running so that users can get to work, or wherever they need to go, even though there are other people on strike? My expectation, candidly, is that no nationalised company will in any way go against any trade union strike. I cannot see a Labour Government Minister using that, so by repealing this legislation the Government will have lost a lever on behalf of many of the users of public services, or services put forward for public use, across the country.

At one point there was a discussion about schools. A similar issue had arisen with children during Covid, through no fault of their own and no fault of the teachers. Schools were kept open, by and large, physically for certain workers but also online. Undoubtedly, there was a challenge for education but also, frankly, the inconvenience to working parents when schools go on strike is particularly harmful and is disruptive to those families and the wider economy. But it was decided not to do that. We reverted back to making sure, in the spirit of the Act’s intentions, that we would keep it to what were deemed to be absolutely key public services. Otherwise, there would have been significant detriment to the wider public.

Amendment 258, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, on a review into the impact on small businesses, would be very helpful. Huge changes are being put in place after nine years of a piece of legislation that from the economy’s perspective has worked reasonably well. I appreciate that the trade unions may not have liked it—and I recall it being voted against, back when this was being debated in the House a decade ago—but it is vital to the wider economy that we get our companies growing.

It seems to change every time, but I think that overall the number one mission of this Government is growth and the economy. Yet they are starting to do things, through this Bill and other situations, that seem to be driven by ideology rather than pragmatism and practicality. As a consequence, the basics and the consequences of some of this legislation, or the repealing of existing legislation, need to be considered in proper economic depth. I would love this to have happened with an updated impact assessment for us to consider before we conclude the Bill. By the way, I am grateful to the Minister for making sure that the letter the Secretary of State sent me has been placed in the Library so that every Peer can see it, but it worries me that that issue will not be considered further.

Amendment 256 links with the idea of a certification officer. I will come to series of amendments on that soon, so I am not sure how much of a certification officer role will be left. When it applies its thoughts on how it goes about the enforcement of the laws to which it is subject—and which it is also doing on behalf of trade union members—it should consider our role in the world and, in particular, how that contributes to make sure that we have a growing economy. I am sure all Members of your Lordships’ House would agree that we need it to grow.

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If I have not responded to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, I will write to her and place a copy of the letter in the Library. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to withdraw Amendment 254.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his response, and to my noble friends Lady Coffey, Lady Noakes and Lady Lawlor for their comments. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for introducing the important amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which I neglected to speak to but will do in a second, for which I apologise. Regarding the Minister’s assertion that the unions do not cause chaos, perhaps somebody should alert the RMT to that. By its own estimation, it cost the economy £5 billion in 2023. I would call that fairly chaotic.

As we conclude this debate, I express some disappointment at the Government’s response to the modest and reasonable amendments that we have tabled. We have simply asked for evidence. A number of the assertions that the Minister made are based on none whatever. We have asked for an impact assessment—we repeatedly ask for impact assessments on all manner of aspects of this Bill. I will take him up on his offer of that meeting. However, to come back to the implementation plan, it would be a much better-informed meeting if we had an implementation plan and a timeline. We will not drop this until the Minister can provide one. I am sure he will be working “at pace”, in his noble friend’s phraseology.

All we have done is ask for the Government to pause and consider the real-world consequences of repealing a law that was designed to protect public safety during times of industrial action. The Government claim, with some optimism, that removing the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 will somehow improve industrial relations. However, when they were asked to produce any evidence from employers, unions, the public or independent experts, none was forthcoming. There is no analysis of outcomes, no tracking of safety impacts, no consultation findings and no plan for what replaces the protections that they are so eager to tear down. In short, there is no case, just conviction without content.

We could go on and talk about how this is not theoretical, and I would again point noble Lords to look at Birmingham. If the Government truly believe that the 2023 Act was flawed, they should prove the case with data, with stakeholder consultation and with a sober assessment of what ought to follow in its place, and not simply repeal it blindly, prematurely and with no credible alternative offered. We are not asking for the impossible. Our amendments ask for a review, a report and a basic assessment of impact. They are measured, responsible and in keeping with the House’s role in ensuring good governance.

I have two more points. I should have acknowledged and expressed very strong support for Amendment 258 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. That rightly seeks a review into the impact of Part 4 of the Bill on small and medium-sized enterprises, and I look forward to picking that subject up with him again when he is back.

I note that my noble friend Lady Coffey asked a very specific question about the nationalised rail industry. I am sure we would all like an answer, so perhaps the noble Lord will write with the Government’s intentions when it comes to governing that particular sector. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 254 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

256: After Clause 83, insert the following new Clause—
“Certification Officer: growth dutyWhen discharging its general functions, the Certification Officer must, so far as reasonably possible, act in such a way as to advance the following objectives—(a) the international competitiveness of the economy of the United Kingdom, and(b) its growth in the medium to long term.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Certification Officer to advance the objectives of the international competitiveness of the economy and its growth in the medium to long term.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Coffey mentioned a short while ago, we have been told by this Government on numerous occasions that growth is their number one priority. Growth, growth and more growth has become something of a mantra for Ministers, but the harsh reality is that their actions are consistently undermining this stated objective, and their latest economic performance demonstrates the urgent need for the amendment before us today.

The UK economy shrank more than expected in April. The standard measure of economic output, GDP, contracted a sharp 0.3% according to data from the Office for National Statistics. Additional costs on businesses were also levied during that month as employer national insurance contributions took effect, which businesses told the ONS played a part in their performance. The biggest part of the economy, the services sector, contracted by 0.4% and manufacturing dropped by 0.9%. The Government are manifestly failing to reach their stated growth target.

It is not enough for the Government to tell workers, businesses and the British public what they want to hear about growth while simultaneously implementing policies that actively undermine economic competitiveness. The trade union provisions in the Bill represent a perfect example of this contradiction: they expand the protections and rights that will inevitably increase costs, reduce flexibility and diminish our international competitiveness, all while the Government claim to be prioritising growth.

My amendment would require the Certification Officer, when discharging functions under the Bill’s expanded trade union framework, to advance the objectives of international competitiveness and medium to long-term economic growth. It represents a vital safeguard against the economic damage that unconstrained implementation of these provisions could inflict. The Certification Officer oversees trade union administration from registration to financial transparency to complaint procedures. Under the Bill, these functions will expand significantly as new rights and protections are introduced. Without a growth duty, there is no mechanism to ensure that the Certification Officer considers the broader economic implications of how these expanded powers are exercised.

We operate in an intensely competitive global economy. Our European neighbours and international competitors are not standing still while we load additional costs and restrictions on to British businesses. When the Certification Officer makes decisions about trade union regulation, registration and oversight, those decisions must be made with full awareness of their impact on our ability to compete internationally. Countries such as Germany, despite having strong trade union traditions, maintain regulatory frameworks that prioritise economic competitiveness. Singapore, Ireland and other successful economies have demonstrated that worker protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive, except when regulators are required to balance these objectives explicitly.

This amendment ensures that as we expand trade union rights and protections, we do so in in a way that enhances rather than undermines our economic position. It requires the Certification Officer to ask not just whether a decision serves trade union interests but whether it serves the broader national interest in maintaining a competitive and growing economy.

The concept of growth duties is well established across government precisely because regulators have learned that narrow focus on single objectives can create unintended economic consequences. Financial regulators have competitiveness objectives because financial regulation that ignores competitiveness can drive business overseas. Planning authorities must consider economic impact because planning decisions that ignore economic consequences can destroy local economies. Environmental regulators operate within frameworks that balance protection with economic considerations because environmental regulation that ignores economic reality becomes counterproductive.

The offshore employment trend demonstrates exactly why such balanced approaches are essential. When regulators focus solely on enhancing protections without considering economic consequences, they risk creating conditions where the protections become meaningless because the activity they are meant to regulate simply moves beyond their jurisdiction. It would be extraordinary if trade union regulation, which directly affects workplace costs, flexibility and productivity, were exempt from such considerations. This amendment brings the Certification Officer into line with best practice across government by requiring explicit consideration of economic impact.

The Government may argue that trade union regulation should focus solely on worker protection without economic considerations, but this position is fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons, and recent evidence makes it increasingly untenable. For example, it would create an artificial separation between industrial relations and economic policy that exists nowhere else in government and has proven counterproductive in practice. Every other area of regulation requires consideration of economic impact precisely because regulators have learned that ignoring economic consequences undermines policy objectives. It would also contradict the Government’s stated priority of growth while simultaneously demonstrating the practical impossibility of separating worker protection from economic performance.

When companies such as The Legends Agency can build multi-million-pound businesses by helping UK employers avoid UK employment law, the Government’s approach has clearly failed on its own terms. I beg to move.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I am a great fan of international competitiveness and growth objectives for regulators. When the first one was introduced for financial services regulators in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, I thought it was an incredibly important addition to the way regulation of financial services is undertaken. Just last week, your Lordships’ Financial Services Regulation Committee issued its report on how that international competitiveness and growth objective is working, and I commend it to noble Lords.

I support what my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom has said about applying the duty to the Certification Officer, but I invite him to consider whether there is a much more important area where such a duty should be applied in this Bill, which is to when the Secretary of State makes decisions about, for example, the enforcement provisions or making the various regulations that we know are necessary to make Part 1, and indeed other parts of the Bill, operate effectively.

The most important aspect of the Bill is going to be driven by what the Secretary of State does once it is enacted, but there is not an equivalent requirement on the Secretary of State to take into account the needs of international competitiveness and growth. It is essential for the Secretary of State to have that at the front of his mind when making regulations that will have such a big impact on the way that businesses operate in this country. I therefore commend my noble friend’s amendment, but if he is considering bringing something back on Report, he might consider something a little broader.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for tabling Amendment 256. We fully recognise the importance of supporting growth and international competitiveness across our economy, and we will of course continue to pursue policies that will deliver on our economic ambition. However, we do not consider this duty to be appropriate for the certification officer.

The certification officer is not a traditional regulator; they are an independent quasi-judicial officeholder. Their core functions are to oversee regulatory compliance fairly and impartially and to ensure trade unions and employers’ associations adhere to statutory requirements in relation to their finances and governance. This includes investigating complaints, maintaining accurate registers and ensuring that democratic processes are upheld. Imposing a duty to promote growth and competitiveness would cut across this role. It risks introducing competing priorities, blurring legal clarity and ultimately undermining confidence in the CO’s neutrality. We cannot require the certification officer both to conduct their judicial and regulatory functions and to deliver economic outcomes. The certification officer has no role in relation to the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom economy or its growth in the medium to long term.

As noble Lords will know, this Government have been active in requiring a number of regulators to apply a growth duty. Those bodies to which the growth duty currently applies are purely regulators—regulators that set strategies and make decisions that significantly affect the type, scale and location of economic activity in important sectors. The decisions regulators take can set the parameters for economic activity across the economy, and, of course, we recognise that; but the certification officer does not have this responsibility or power. We share the noble Lord’s commitment to economic growth, but it must be pursued in the right way. Furthermore, requiring the certification officer to follow a growth duty would not be practicable, and there is no evidence that imposing such a duty would have any meaningful impact on the UK’s growth or international competitiveness. It would be like asking a court to consider cases based on their impact on economic growth rather than on the evidence of the case.

For those reasons, I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, to withdraw Amendment 256.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her answer, but I have to say that I am unpersuaded. The gist of it was that the certification officer does not have either the responsibility or the power, but by definition this amendment would deliver both those things. I completely agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes, and I shall take her suggestions on board and have a careful look at this. I do not believe that this amendment and the suggestions she made are mutually exclusive; in fact, if anything, they are very complementary. I thank my noble friend Lord Fuller for his comments, which, frankly, were just an expression of complete common sense.

I express my disappointment at the Government’s rejecting this amendment. I think it reveals more about the Government’s true priorities, frankly, than all the rhetoric about growth that we have heard. The Government are absolutely right to identify growth as a priority, but they will not find it in this Bill. In fact, there is nothing in the Bill that will bring any growth. I challenge the Minister to identify a single provision in these hundreds of pages that will increase productivity, enhance competitiveness or create jobs. The Government’s own impact assessment suggests the same: it is a document notably silent on growth benefits, while cataloguing increasing costs and regulatory burdens.

If the Minister is genuinely confident that the Bill will support growth, and if she truly believes that the expanded trade union protections and enhanced worker rights will somehow boost economic performance, I am surprised and somewhat mystified that she will not accept this amendment. The argument was that the certification officer is not a traditional regulator, but they still have a regulatory function, so I do not really see what difference that makes, frankly. What could be the objection to requiring the certification officer to consider growth when discharging functions under a Bill the Government claim supports growth? If these provisions truly advance economic competitiveness, a growth duty should be welcomed as a validation of the Government’s approach.

I could go on, but I do not see the point. The Government have rejected a genuine opportunity to demonstrate that their growth rhetoric has substance. The amendment would have required no fundamental changes to their approach, simply consideration of the economic impact when implementing trade union provisions. It would have aligned trade union regulation with best practice across government, while preserving all the work protections the Government claim to champion. The fact that they cannot even accept a modest requirement demonstrates that the commitment to growth is hollow rhetoric. It is designed to disguise an agenda focused more on trade union empowerment, regardless of economic consequences. How very disappointing for our great nation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 256 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 257B simply because I did not see the answer in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill. This is quite a straightforward one for the Minister.

In Section 293 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, the regulations are normally done by negative resolution—or the annulment, as set out in new subsection (6). However, I want to understand why the Government felt that these particular regulations needed to be done through the affirmative procedure. They are not the only changes—that I am aware of—in the Bill to that section, or others, of the Act. Can the Minister explain why they have been singled out? Given the trend of your Lordships’ House over many years, why do we not move to having affirmative resolutions instead of annulments for these ones in the future? I beg to move.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for her amendments; they are measured, necessary and principled amendments to Clause 85, which rightly restore a degree of parliamentary scrutiny that had been quietly eroded in the original draft of the Bill. As we stated at Second Reading, there are 173 delegated powers in the Bill, which is unacceptable—not just to those the legislation will impact, but to the House.

In the Minister’s contributions on similar legislation in the past, she expressed her strong reservations about the use of delegated powers. I recall well her interventions, which were made with clarity and conviction, as she tabled amendments recommended by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. But we now find ourselves considering a clause that does precisely what she once warned against because it carves out certain sensitive and constitutionally significant areas and exposes them only to selective scrutiny.

The original version of Clause 85 created a two-tier system. Some regulations would require affirmative approval from this House, while others—no less consequential—would not. This piecemeal approach to oversight is not only undesirable but unnecessary. Regulations made under Section 293 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act are not merely technical: they pertain to fundamental matters, such as the rights of trade unions, the balance of power between employers and employees, and the protections afforded to those who take lawful industrial action. It is therefore only right and proper that all regulations made under this section should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure: they should be laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament.

My noble friend’s amendment achieves this. It does so with economy of language, but with significant constitutional consequence. It removes the artificial distinction introduced by subsection (5), and instead applies a uniform standard of scrutiny to the entirety of Section 293.

Since the Government took office, many of us across these Benches have expressed concern about the growing use of skeleton Bills, Henry VIII clauses and broad enabling powers that allow Ministers to legislate without adequate consultation or scrutiny. This amendment is a quiet but firm step in the other direction back towards balance, principle and the proper functioning of Parliament.

Again, I thank my noble friend for tabling her amendment, and I hope the Government will not merely accept it but embrace it to show their commitment to transparency and to the constitutional propriety of this House.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his contribution. I remember standing before him during the PRaM Bill and we discussed this very matter. Some of this negative resolution is required because not only does it save parliamentary time but it is technical. Anyway, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling Amendments 257B and 257C, which would make all the powers under Clause 56 subject to the affirmative procedure, as well as existing regulation-making powers that are currently covered by the negative procedure, by virtue of current Section 293 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

It is worth noting that most of the access regulations are already subject to the affirmative procedure. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, mentioned, only four of the 12 delegated powers are subject to the negative procedure. Given the technical nature of those delegated powers, and to save parliamentary time, the Government are of the position that making them subject to the affirmative procedure would not be appropriate.

Further to this, as mentioned in previous debates, all regulations under Clause 57 will be consulted on via public consultation, the outcome of which will be published for all to see. This is an important process, which will help ensure that our policy development is informed by the practical experience and needs of trade unions, businesses and stakeholders.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, will have noted in previous debates in this place that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said that

“it is heartening that in a Bill with so many delegated powers”—

the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, mentioned 173—it had

“only found four on which to raise concerns”.

Clause 56 was not one of those. Therefore, I ask that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to withdraw Amendment 257B.

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[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I address Amendment 287 on the creation of an office for a freelance commissioner in the name of my noble friends Lord Clancarty, Lord Freyberg and Lord Colville of Culross, who has managed to beat our limited motorway system but arrived just too late to speak, sadly.

I am somewhat conflicted about this thought-provoking amendment, in that I have argued at Second Reading and in Committee against the overreach of the Bill and its sheer complexity and burden on employers, especially for small and micro businesses. On the noble Baroness’s comment, I do not want to be seen to be adding baubles to the Christmas tree. However, I agree that year by year the arguments grow for the establishment of a freelance commissioner, partly because the number of freelancers is growing and will continue to do so. The current 2 million plus freelancers will easily rise to 3 million within the next 10 years in the UK alone as employers shed staff from payroll, weighed down by the combination of increased national insurance contributions, national minimum wages increasing much faster than the rate of inflation and all the new rules and regulations coming in this very Employment Rights Bill.

Just look at the recent and alarming drop reported last week by the ONS of 274,000 workers coming off payroll during the past 12 months. We do not yet have the data to track how many of them are transitioning to freelance or self-employment. Indeed, as my noble friends have pointed out, the data on this area of freelancing and self-employment is poor and not up to international standards, and that is a real problem when we are trying to assess exactly what their contribution is to the economy.

I am going to muddy the water slightly, but you could argue that there is a need for an independent commissioner for the self-employed. We have been talking about freelancers, but there are 4.2 million self-employed people, including freelancers, in the UK. Those numbers are going to increase given the impact of technology, digital communications, AI and, particularly, the practice of working from home. I accept that there are key differences between freelancers and many self-employed people, for example, sole traders or those running their own businesses or partnerships, perhaps with just one or two contractors, but freelancers, although independent and project-based, are also self-employed and are treated just the same way for tax purposes by HMRC.

I accept that freelancers and the self-employed are not as valued or appreciated by Governments of all parties as they should be. This was brutally exposed during the pandemic with furlough and other schemes. If we want to develop a proper entrepreneurial spirit and environment in this country, we should do much more to value and look after those who create their own jobs and face up to all the risks and jeopardy that that involves. That includes freelancers, not just in the creative industries, but in other sectors where they are prevalent, which are as diverse as construction, professional services and agriculture. The Government need to give Amendment 287 serious consideration and, while doing so, think through how the interests of all the self-employed, not just freelancers, should be represented.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Freyberg, Lord Clancarty and, particularly, Lord Clement-Jones, for their valuable contributions and amendments in this group and for the thoughtful way they have introduced them. I am very grateful for their tireless advocacy on behalf of the freelance workforce, who so often find themselves on the margins of employment policy. I will speak in particular to Amendments 301 and 302, tabled the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which I was happy to sign.

Amendment 301 introduces a new clause which, for the first time in statute, provides a clear and much-needed definition of a freelancer. This definition acknowledges the reality of modern working life, where individuals are often engaged on short-term contracts, operating through their own companies or via intermediaries and managing their own tax and national insurance affairs. These individuals, who are distinct from employees or workers as defined under current legislation, are nonetheless a vital and growing component of our labour market, as the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, has just pointed out. The amendment does not seek to blur the lines between employment statuses, but rather to draw a necessary and clarifying distinction that enables policy and legislation to recognise freelancers in their own right. The inclusion of the provision for the Secretary of State to issue guidance ensures that the definition can evolve with working practices and case law, and that is both sensible and future-proofed.

Amendment 302 builds on this by creating a duty—a statutory obligation—for relevant government departments to have due regard to the freelancer workforce when shaping new policy. Too often freelancers are treated as an afterthought, and they fall between the cracks of legislation designed for binary employment categories. This amendment seeks to correct that omission. It ensures that the realities of freelance working are considered proactively in policy design, not reactively after the damage has been done.

Furthermore, the amendment ensures that the freelance commissioner, a role established to advocate for and advise on matters affecting freelancers, is appropriately consulted in the policy-making process. That is a modest yet essential safeguard to ensure that expertise is brought to bear when policies may significantly affect freelance professionals, particularly in sectors such as the creative industries, technology and media, where freelancing is not the exception but the norm.

These are thoughtful and proportionate amendments. They do not create undue bureaucracy, nor do they entrench rigid definitions. They offer clarity, fairness, and recognition to a workforce that contributes enormously to our economy and cultural life, yet is often unprotected and unheard in legislative terms. These proposals are not about privileging one form of work over another. They are about ensuring that our legal and regulatory frameworks reflect the diversity of modern work. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and his cosignatories on bringing these matters before the Committee, and I urge the Government to give serious consideration to these amendments as practical and principled improvements to the Bill.

I will take this opportunity to speak more broadly regarding the wider group of amendments concerning the impact of this legislation on freelancers and the cultural and creative sectors. Amendment 285 proposes a temporary waiver for small and independent cultural organisations in financial hardship. This is a pragmatic and compassionate measure. We all support robust employment protections, but a one-size-fits-all rollout risks devastating unintended consequences: closures, lay-offs or the collapse of small institutions that are already on the financial brink. The idea of a grace period and progressive enforcement is a proportionate way of balancing worker protections with organisational survival.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

262: After Clause 86, insert the following new Clause—
“Impact on industrial action (1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, publish an independent assessment of the impact of this Act on the number of working days lost to strike action.(2) The assessment must include data comparing the number of working days lost to strike action in the 12 months following the passing of this Act with the 12 months prior.(3) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the assessment before Parliament.”

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 262 concerns an issue of considerable importance, not merely for those involved directly in industrial relations but for the health of our broader economy, the stability of our public services and the legitimacy of this legislation. The amendment would require the Government to commission and publish, within 12 months of Royal Assent, an independent assessment of the impact of this Act on the number of working days lost to strike action, specifically comparing the 12 months following its enactment with the 12 months preceding it. That report would then have to be laid before Parliament. This amendment is modest in scope. It does not seek to obstruct the Bill or alter its provisions. It merely seeks transparency, accountability and, above all, vital evidence-based analysis in due course.

There is a striking—if I may use that word without inflaming the debate—absence of hard data or persuasive analysis in support of the central justification for these changes, namely that repealing certain elements of the Trade Union Act 2016 will result in better industrial relations. Indeed, the Government’s own impact assessment acknowledges that there could be a benefit

“if Trade Union reforms lead to better industrial relations”.

I emphasise “if”. Hope is not a good substitute for policy. Nor should legislation of this consequence be built on assumptions rather than analysis. I will therefore structure my remarks around three core questions which the Government have failed to answer convincingly and which this amendment would help to address.

If we are to repeal elements of the 2016 Act, we must first understand what standard the Government are using to declare that Act a failure, or at the very least to assert that it is no longer fit for purpose. The Trade Union Act 2016 introduced significant changes: minimum turnout thresholds for strike ballots; requirements for information on ballot papers; limits on picketing; and restrictions on facility time in the public sector. It was controversial, certainly, but it was also justified by the Government of the time as necessary to ensure that industrial action had a strong democratic legitimacy, and that the wider public were protected from excessive disruption.

Now we are told that these measures must be rolled back, but we have at no stage been told what objective, or even subjective, measure of success or failure is being applied. Are we to believe that the 2016 Act failed because it did not eliminate all industrial action, because it was unpopular with some stakeholders or because it placed an administrative burden on unions—or, more worryingly, is it being repealed simply as a matter of political preference? To look at some figures, according to the Office for National Statistics, the number of working days lost to strike action was at a historic low throughout the period following the 2016 Act until a sharp rise in 2022-23, partly driven by inflation, the consequential erosion of real-terms pay and broader discontent in the traditional public sector.

Are we being told the legislation was ineffective because strikes still happened in 2022? If so, that ignores the very different macroeconomic context we now face. Or is the claim simply that industrial relations will somehow improve if these legal constraints are lifted? In any of those cases we must ask: compared with what? Compared with the pre-2016 environment? Compared with our European neighbours? Or compared with a model of workplace consensus that may not exist in reality? Without a baseline for comparison, the Government’s argument is essentially unfalsifiable and unjustifiable.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Government believe that these changes will lead to more equitable bargaining, greater union engagement and ultimately improved relations between employers and workers. Even if that were true, we must still ask at what cost. If these reforms lead to a rise in industrial action, that will have implications not only for the affected sectors but for the public at large. Trains will be cancelled, schools will be closed, hospital appointments will be postponed, bin collections will be missed and courts will be adjourned. These are not abstract costs, so it is extraordinary to repeal a major piece of industrial relations legislation without offering any quantification of the risks of increased disruption and without explaining how those risks will be mitigated.

The impact assessment leans heavily on the idea that increased union involvement could lead to improved communication and better outcomes, and perhaps it could. But the fact remains that the cost of getting this wrong will be borne not by policymakers but by the public. That is why this amendment is so crucial. It simply asks the Government to return to Parliament within a year and tell us whether this has worked. Has industrial action decreased or increased? Are we seeing the promised harmony or the feared escalation? If it is the latter, we as legislators have a responsibility to know that and to act accordingly.

Perhaps the most fundamental question of all is: what actual, empirical, verifiable evidence do the Government have to support their central claim? We have not been given a retrospective analysis of the Trade Union Act 2016 and its impact. We have not been provided with consultation data that robustly supports repeal. We have not seen sector-by-sector breakdowns of how these measures will improve the industrial landscape. We have not even seen clear articulation of the problem the Bill is trying to solve. Indeed, the rationale appears to be more ideological than evidential. It seems to be based on the belief that loosening legal constraints will somehow foster good will and reduce conflict. All the academic research and literature on industrial relations remind us that legal frameworks matter, that institutions shape behaviour, and that rules, when clear, consistent and fairly applied, help prevent conflict and not exacerbate it.

If the Government are so confident in their position, why not test it? Why not commit to measuring its effect? Why not, a year on, lay before this House and the other place an honest assessment of whether their theory of change has delivered the desired result? If the evidence proves them right, they will be vindicated. If not, Parliament should be empowered to revisit the legislation. There is, after all, considerable flexibility inherent in legislation so riddled with Henry VIII powers. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and I beg to move.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 262 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and others, because I want to talk about a simple economic truth. One of the provisions in the Bill will reduce the thresholds at which industrial action may be called or authorised. The truth is that when you reduce the threshold, the likelihood of industrial action does not grow linearly; it grows exponentially. The amendment is needed because the Bill, sadly, will provide the world with a real-life experiment that will inform political and economic science of that simple truth.

It could be worse than that. My experience comes from local government and my relationship with the National Joint Council. Local government employs 1.8 million local government workers. There are three principal unions: Unite, UNISON and GMB. Within the cohort of local government workers, I have negotiated with the craft workers, the Salisbury workers and the coroners. There is a red book, a green book and a blue book; there is even a gold book covering senior fire officers and police officers. There are 136 different activities that local authorities do and, of course, there are 350 principal councils. I have engaged with all this complexity over about 10 years sitting on the National Joint Council, the device through which the employers engage with the unions. I have sat alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, on that body for many years, and now we both find ourselves in here.

As part of the gang of four, the top four local government councillors engaged in these important negotiations, I have learned a lot of things. There is less beer, there are fewer sandwiches and there are palatial premises built by one of the unions in Euston. It has not been easy work, but we have had a series of national agreements engaging on a respectful basis. It has been valuable work. The important point is that there have been powerful incentives to avoid industrial action. The bar has not been impossible, but it has been a high bar against which strike action must be called. It has sort of worked, because there has been an equilibrium between the employer and the employees across 1.8 million unionised workers —just under a third of them all—in this country.

That equilibrium has meant that when there is a strike, it is serious. When people down tools, it is in the news. The Birmingham bin strike is a case in point: there is a strike, and it is serious. My anxiety about so many of the provisions in the Bill is that it is going to dissolve the powerful incentives to avoid industrial action and instead, arithmetically and structurally, put in the provisions where it is encouraged. The Bill sets the wrong balance, because we are not talking about simple organisations with single unions and small workforces in local government. We are talking about a very complex landscape. If you reduce the thresholds, people are more likely to strike because a minority, as little as 10%, of workers could call a strike. When 10% hold the 90% over a barrel, that is clearly not in the interests of the public; it is not in the interests of the workers; and I do not believe that in the long term it is in the interests of the unions.

Amendment 262 calls for a robust assessment of the effect of the Bill on days lost to industrial action. Not only is that the right thing to do but we would do a service, because it would demonstrate once and for all that simple efficiency of labour relations: if you reduce the threshold to call industrial action, the number of days lost to strikes will go up geometrically. I regret that we are going to do a service to political and economic science, but if that is the way it is, Amendment 262 is the way to achieve it.

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[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, for their contributions. I will be brief; I do not want to stand between noble Lords and their dinner break.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for his Amendment 262. We have already debated impact assessments at great length and I will not repeat the same arguments. Any industrial action is regrettable and all parties have a duty to seek a resolution to such disputes. Failure to do so is basically a lack of management and leadership by all. We have also debated the repeal of the 2016 Act in previous debates. I will not mention that either. Furthermore, it is a manifesto commitment.

Despite its good intentions, the amendment would impose a review procedure that in effect repeats what the Government already intend to do. We recognise the importance of ensuring that the impacts of these policies on workers, business and the economy are considered, and that analysis assessing these impacts is published. Our impact assessment also outlines a plan for monitoring and evaluating the impact of the Bill and subsequent secondary legislation.

As noble Lords will see from the impact assessment, our Employment Rights Bill could have a positive direct impact on economic growth, helping to support the Government’s mission for growth and ensuring that we raise living standards across the country and create opportunities for all. The Bill is expected to benefit people in some of the most deprived areas of the country by saving them up to £600 in lost income from the hidden costs of insecure work.

To conclude, I reassure your Lordships that we already have robust plans in place to assess and review the Bill’s impacts, including on industrial action. My commitment in an earlier debate to meet noble Lords to discuss the impact assessment further still stands. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, to withdraw Amendment 262.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for his answer, but I am, of course, disappointed. I must say to him that of course he could not repeat the argument about the impact assessment because it is manifestly inadequate and overreliant on the word “could”, which he just used again.

So it is with a sense of frustration that I close this debate on Amendment 262 because, let us be blunt, the Regulatory Policy Committee has already deemed the Government’s own analysis inadequate. It found that the assessment underpinning this Bill failed to consider important variables, lacked robust modelling of strike-related costs and omitted any real evaluation of how the repeal of the 2016 Act provisions might drive up the number of working days lost to industrial action. That is criticism born not of political bias but of technical expert judgment, but the Government persist in asserting that an independent stocktake of actual strike days would be superfluous.

During the Bill’s passage, no fewer than 160 government amendments were tabled on Report, some of the most consequential of which would fundamentally alter the trade union landscape: changes to ballot thresholds, as my noble friend Lord Fuller explained; adjustments to picketing rules; and alterations to facility time arrangements. Many came late, with scant time for meaningful consultation and no accompanying update to the impact assessment. In effect, we are being asked to sign off on a statute the final shape of which was revealed only in piecemeal fashion and for which no comprehensive evaluation has ever been produced. There is more flesh on the skeleton now, but it still makes for a pretty unsavoury sight.

The consequences of this are already evident. Businesses stand in limbo. They are unsure how to prepare—again, the lack of an implementation plan. HR directors, legal advisers and finance teams are all left guessing which rules will apply. If the Government can point to a single one who is not, could they please say so, because we have spoken to very many and cannot find a single one who is not left guessing? They require clarity, not uncertainty. They need to know, for instance, whether a union ballot will again require a 50% turnout, or whether the conduct of pickets will be governed by new or old prescriptions. In their absence, investment decisions are deferred, retention and, especially, recruitment strategies are on hold and the workforce, unsure of its rights and obligations, faces unnecessary anxiety.

To deny acceptance of this amendment is to deny the very notion that policy should be tested against outcomes and treats legislation as unchallengeable, rather than a living instrument whose impacts must be monitored, and it tells employers, workers and the public alike that we legislate in the dark. So I regret deeply that the Government have chosen to reject the amendment. Doing so signals a reluctance to subject themselves to the discipline of evidence, shirks the responsibility to measure the real-world consequences of their own handiwork, and turns a blind eye to the limbo in which businesses and the public languish. That is not acceptable. If the Government’s reforms truly will deliver better industrial relations, they should welcome the chance to prove it. If Ministers are as confident as they claim to be, let them fast-track the assessment. Let them demonstrate that strike days are falling, that workplaces are more harmonious and that public services are protected. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 262 withdrawn.

Corporate Liquidations

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. All I can say is that in my long years of business I have learned one thing. Turnover is vanity; profit is sanity. If companies keep chasing turnover without the support of working capital, they will be on the first and pretty fast step to failure.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, first, does the Minister accept that the spike in voluntary closures is directly linked to the Government’s decision to hike the entrepreneurs’ exit tax from 10% to 14%—soon to go up to 18%—as well as increases in capital gains tax, which are prompting many owners to race for the exit?

Separately, in answering a question earlier he relied heavily on GDP figures, which will be small comfort to those people who have lost their jobs, but I think I heard him say 7% growth. I do not think that is right—would he care to correct the record?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

Apologies; it is 0.7% growth. I thank the noble Lord for that. At the end of the day, what is really important is that we have to support businesses, and the Government are supporting businesses. Capital gains tax is still the lowest in Europe. In the G7, only the US and Japan are lower than us. Frankly, most employers go into business to create businesses. Sometimes they exit business, and some of our tax reliefs are still better than those of many other countries in Europe.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Debate on whether Clause 60 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to express my deep concern about the inclusion of the clause repealing Section 116B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and to urge that it be removed in its entirety from the Bill. The clause does not merely tidy up legislation or modernise outdated provisions, it seeks to dismantle a vital safeguard that upholds the principle that taxpayer funds should not be used to subsidise the activities of private organisations, no matter how long-standing or worthy those organisations may be.

Section 116B was introduced to ensure that where public sector employers agree to deduct trade union subscriptions directly from employees’ pay, a service commonly known as check-off, the administrative cost of doing so is reimbursed by the union. This is a reasonable and proportionate expectation. After all, unions are private membership organisations. It is not the role of the taxpayer to underwrite the cost of maintaining their finances, especially when alternative methods of payment, such as direct debit, are readily available and commonly used by the unions themselves. Repealing this provision would, in effect, shift the cost burden for this private financial arrangement on to public sector employers and, by extension, the taxpayer. These are costs that would be no longer recoverable, whether they involve payroll staff time, IT systems or administrative oversight.

Although each individual deduction might seem minor, across large public bodies—for example, the NHS, schools, local authorities or Whitehall departments —these costs accumulate. The public purse, as noble Lords opposite do not need reminding, is already under immense pressure and it should not be expected to shoulder this additional financial responsibility. There is a very real risk that this repeal, however well-intentioned, would result in taxpayers unknowingly subsidising trade union operations.

Moreover, Section 116B introduced a measure of transparency and accountability into the system. It ensured that unions have to make active choices about how they collect their subscriptions and whether to invest in alternative systems, such as direct debit. It also gave employees greater awareness of and control over how they supported union activity. Removing this provision without putting any comparable mechanisms in place risks eroding that transparency. It suggests a return to a one-size-fits-all approach in which the employer bears the cost and the worker has little visibility over the arrangements.

There is also the issue of equity. Public sector employers are distinct in that they are funded by the state and their accountability is to the taxpayer. In the private sector where check-off arrangements still exist, employers and unions are free to negotiate the terms of such systems, including where the cost should be reimbursed. Why should public employers uniquely be placed in a position where they must provide these services at their own expense without any form of compensation? It is a contradiction that undermines the rationale for removing Section 116B.

The proposed repeal would also remove the flexibility that currently exists in the system. Under Section 116B, the Secretary of State has the power to make regulations specifying exceptions, such as for devolved Administrations or specific categories of public bodies. That allows the provision to be adapted in a way that respects local autonomy; for example, in Wales, where different arrangements have been supported by the devolved Government. By removing the entire provision, this clause strips away that flexibility and imposes a blunt uniformity that does not reflect the complexities of public sector governance across the United Kingdom.

Finally, we must consider the broader message that this repeal sends. It risks creating the impression, fair or not, that trade unions are being afforded preferential treatment and being allowed to impose their operating costs on to the taxpayer without scrutiny. At a time when public trust in institutions is fragile and when every pound of public spending is rightly under the microscope, this is a deeply unhelpful signal to send.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for posing arguments against Clause 60 standing part of the Bill.

This clause seeks to repeal Section 15 of the Trade Union Act 2016 by amending the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to remove Section 116B. Section 15 required trade unions to pay public sector employers where they administer payroll deductions for trade union subscriptions, known as check-off. It further required that this service be made available only where workers have the option to pay their union subscriptions by other means.

The Trade Union (Deduction of Union Subscriptions from Wages in the Public Sector) Regulations 2024 were introduced as a cost-saving measure, with estimated annual savings of £1.6 million, totalling £12 million over the following 10 years. However, as the impact assessment acknowledged, the regulations would bring a cumulative cost of £17 million to public sector employers and trade unions over that period. This is far higher than the estimated cost savings.

The current system places bureaucratic processes on both trade unions and public sector employers that can be clearly simplified to support productive trade union relations. There should be no costs to employers associated with withdrawing the check-off regulations. Employers will have the choice to continue with or amend any agreed arrangements regarding the deduction of union subscriptions from their employees’ wages, in discussion with their recognised trade unions.

We feel that there is a need to simplify this process, which is what our proposals intend to do. While I thank the noble Lord for this very short debate, I urge him to support this clause, for the reasons I have set out.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation, although I am not particularly persuaded.

Clause 60 agreed.

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[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Woodley, are I think as people have outlined. I have been on the wrong end of that legislation on a number of events—official strikes, unofficial strikes and secondary picketing. As a shop steward you are responsible for taking those actions for a company; there are consequences and I have suffered consequences from that.

It is not that I agree with the rights being taken away, but I think times have changed and unions have moved on now. The right of anybody to remove their labour, if they are pushed to it, should be a universal right, but it should be used very sparingly and in very special circumstances. It is all very well rushing to legislation and quoting the European Court, but we live in the real world and when things happen to people at work and people are treated badly, sometimes we have not got time to go and contact the KC and get case law. We just do the things that we used to do and take that action straight away. Sometimes that resolves the matter fairly quickly, because a reasonable employer will see the action you have taken as a direct result of another manager doing something that was not in agreement. So I get the thrust of this.

I have had notes typed and I have been writing my own notes, but I think the top and bottom for me is the amendment is seeking to restore a trade union’s flexibility in choosing which members to ballot and removing some procedural requirements and obligations to notify employees in advance of ballots. I think that time has gone as well.

Reinstating rights for prison officers, the group currently subject to significant legal limitations, is one I would like to slightly explore. The intent behind these amendments is to strengthen trade union rights and promote collective bargaining. The concern is potentially around impact, industrial relations and public safety, especially with the actions of prison officers. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and to the Government that the way to protect prison officers is not to enshrine the right to strike but to remove the reasons why they would want to strike. That really is about improving the Victorian conditions that we have in 2025 prison systems, where people go into prison and come out worse criminals or nine out of 10 as drug addicts or whatever.

Governments, instead of trying to give extra law for prison officers, should be looking at the root cause. I know there is a prison plan being built and we are trying to get more education into prisons—if you want to speak to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, he can give you chapter and verse on that, as I have listened to him doing. I hear why it is being done, I understand why it is being done and I know that it is not got a hope in somewhere else of getting through. But I thank the noble Lord for bringing it forward, because sometimes it is good to realise that things that we used to do are perhaps today not even politically correct to do. Human rights and the rights of people who go every day to work, to earn a living and support their family, need airing and need protecting. I know this is a probing amendment, but I thank the noble Lord for bringing it because it is interesting. Now and again it is good to be reminded of how it used to be and how it can be now.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I join the general thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. I thought it was a most interesting introduction and I learned a great deal. I particularly liked the phrase “constitutional benediction”, which I am planning to nick—although not in this context, because I rise to join the Minister and express my clear and firm opposition to the proposed new clause after Clause 64. It seeks to enshrine in statute a so-called positive right to strike even in breach of contract, as opposed—if I follow the noble Lord’s arguments correctly—to the freedom to strike. It strikes me as somewhat semantic in terms of the practical outcome, which I suspect is an argument we will hear again.

Let us be absolutely frank about what the amendment would entail. It would insert into the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 a wholly unprecedented and therefore dangerously broad provision that every worker shall have the right to take industrial action, whether or not it is in breach of any contract. It would not be subject to employer agreement or tethered to lawful procedures but would be an absolute statutory right to break contract terms and withdraw labour.

Industrial action, particularly strike action, is obviously a serious matter, and I think everybody would agree on that. It affects not only the employer but the public, the economy and, critically, the most vulnerable in society, who rely on public services. That is why we believe our existing legal framework strikes a careful balance. It protects the right to strike but does so within clear procedures and obligations: balloting requirements, notice periods and protections against unlawful disruption. This amendment would ride roughshod over all that.

What does it mean to have a right to breach your contract, regardless of process or proportionality? Surely, that is not a right; that is just carte blanche. This provision would displace the carefully constructed framework that governs how industrial action can be taken lawfully and responsibly. It would empower disruption without accountability. The purpose of employment law is not to tilt the playing field in one direction or another but to ensure that fairness, order and mutual obligations between employers and workers are respected. The right to withdraw labour must remain conditional on lawful procedures and not granted in the abstract, regardless of impact or legality.

Moreover, the proposed amendment would likely bring the UK into direct conflict with established contract law and create endless legal uncertainty. If workers are told that they have a statutory right to strike, even in breach of a contract, what does that mean for essential services, public safety, or the ability of schools, hospitals and transport systems to function with any consistency?

I do not think we should be mistaken. This amendment is not some minor clarification; it is a fundamental rewrite of the basis of workplace relations. It would undermine the principle that contracts entered into freely carry obligations and it would sweep away the balance between rights and responsibilities. I also have to ask: once a principle of contract breaking is established, how long before that is used as precedent in other contractual disputes?

Nobody denies that workers must be able to organise, speak up, bargain collectively and act where necessary. That is already protected in the legal framework. This amendment would take a sledgehammer to that balance. It would replace legal clarity, we believe, with legal radicalism, and accountability with absolutism. For those reasons, I urge the Government to reject the amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hendy for tabling Amendment 238, which would establish a broad statutory right to strike. I thank him also for our constructive and amicable meeting a few days ago and for his impressive tour of international conventions this evening. I have to say to him that anything I subsequently say does not mean that I do not take our international obligations seriously. In fact, in this increasingly uncertain world, we have more of an obligation to work collaboratively across countries. I think there is a lot to be gained from countries if we do that, not only on these sorts of issues but obviously on other issues of social justice as well.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Jones, for adding to this short debate and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard. He raised some of the issues around prisons. I will be addressing those in the next group of amendments, but the point is well made that we certainly have to look after and defend our prison officers and recognise the service that they do for us.

The Government recognise the intention to reinforce protections for industrial action but it is important to emphasise that the right to strike is already protected under UK law, as set out in Sections 219 and 244 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, provided clear conditions are met. Introducing a specific codified right to strike would cut across the uncodified nature of the UK constitution and lead to a far-reaching and undefined statutory right that risks legal uncertainty and conflict with long-established frameworks that carefully balance the rights of unions and employers.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Moynihan, and the noble Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Hutton. I will come back to their amendments shortly.

I will speak to Amendments 245, 251B and the question of whether Clause 68 should stand part, which is tabled in my name. On the clause stand part, this clause represents a dangerous step backwards. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, objected to it in the sense that he thought it might introduce a lack of clarity. But the fact is that the clause itself is a step backwards in transparency and democratic accountability that this Committee must not allow to pass unchallenged.

The provisions that Clause 68 seeks to remove, notably subsections (2B) to (2D) of Section 229, are not bureaucratic obstacles but fundamental pillars of informed democratic participation. They require that voting papers should include a summary of the dispute, specify the types of industrial action proposed and indicate when such action is expected to take place. These are not unreasonable burdens. They are the basic information any voter needs to make an informed decision.

Democracy thrives on transparency, not opacity. When we ask working people to vote on whether to take industrial action—a decision that may affect their employment, their families’ livelihoods and their future prospects—surely they are owed the courtesy of clear, comprehensive information about what they might be voting for.

Consider the absurdity of what this clause actually proposes. It is a ballot paper that asks, “Are you prepared to take part in industrial action short of a strike?” without specifying whether this means a work-to-rule, an overtime ban, a refusal to cover additional duties or any combination of actions. How can any reasonable person make an informed choice without knowing what they are agreeing to participate in?

The Government may well argue that these requirements impose administrative burdens on the trade unions, which is an argument we have heard on a couple of groups tonight. But since when did we consider informing voters to be an administrative burden rather than a democratic duty? We would not accept a general election ballot that failed to specify what office candidates were seeking or what their party stood for, so why should we accept industrial action ballots with less information?

Furthermore, these information requirements serve to protect union members themselves. Clear information helps ensure that workers understand not just what they are voting for but the potential consequences of their actions. This protects both their interests and those of their unions by reducing the likelihood of disputes over the course, scope or nature of mandated action.

Turning to Amendment 245, I agree with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard. I will speak to this amendment, although I must emphasise that my primary concern is not with the amendment itself but the Government’s fundamentally flawed approach to this critical issue. To be absolutely clear, the 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots should be maintained. This threshold exists for the very good reason that it ensures that strikes and other industrial actions have genuine democratic legitimacy, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, pointed out, and that they represent the will of a substantial portion of union membership and not merely an activist minority.

If the Government are determined to weaken these democratic protections, and regrettably it appears that they are, they must not compound this error by hiding behind secondary legislation. Businesses across this nation deserve better. They need to know the regulatory framework within which they will operate—a theme to which we have returned a number of times through the Bill. They cannot plan for investment, assess risk or make employment decisions when fundamental aspects of industrial relations law are left hanging in regulatory limbo. The Government’s approach creates precisely the uncertainty that undermines economic confidence and job creation.

I urge the Government to reconsider entirely and maintain the 50% threshold to provide the certainty that businesses need and the democratic legitimacy that industrial action requires. If the Government insist that they are going to lower the threshold, which we think will be disastrous, it should be in the Bill, so that we can scrutinise it fully, which is what my amendment would ensure. As my noble friend Lord Moynihan pointed out, a 20% threshold could lead to only 10% of a workforce supporting strike action. The House deserves the opportunity to examine and debate such fundamental changes properly and not have them smuggled through in statutory instruments with minimal parliamentary oversight.

I will speak very briefly to Amendment 251A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton. I could not agree with him more. It would be a very regrettable error if the Bill were to inadvertently introduce an unintended consequence of potentially swingeing fines for airlines, for reasons that are not really any fault of their own. It is to be supported, and I hope he will return to the theme.

My Amendment 251B proposes a modest but vital extension, from 10 to 14 days, of the notice period required before industrial action can commence in the railway sector, for slightly different reasons. This is not an attempt to restrict workers’ rights but rather a recognition of the unique role that our railway system plays in the economic and social fabric of the nation. The railway network is not just another industry. As my noble friend Lady Coffey pointed out, it is the circulatory system of the economy and it moves millions of passengers and vast quantities of freight every single day. When railway services are disrupted, the effects cascade through every sector of society, from healthcare workers unable to reach hospitals to students missing examinations and businesses losing millions in productivity. The current 10-day notice period that is proposed is simply insufficient for the complexity of railway operations. I could go on, but I think I have said enough on the subject.

Four additional days may seem modest, but, in the context of the operations of the railway and airlines, it represents the difference between chaos and managed disruption. It allows time for proper contingency planning, for negotiations to continue and for the travelling public to make alternative arrangements. With that, I shall wind up, but I hope the Government are paying attention and will at least listen to these carefully considered amendments.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Goddard of Stockport, and my noble friends Lord Hutton of Furness and Lord Hendy for tabling amendments on the subject of industrial action ballot mandates, thresholds and notice. Despite the late hour, I recognise that there is significant interest here. I will try to do justice to all those amendments and to the opposition to certain clauses standing part of the Bill.

Before I go into the detail, I want to make it clear that a lot of what we are discussing relates to the repeal of the great majority of the Trade Union Act 2016, which was a clear manifesto commitment for this Government. I think it is worth framing why that is the context. This does, in a way, speak to a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned. Far from supporting the economy, the strike legislation in the 2016 Act that we inherited from the then Opposition did not actually prevent strikes. In 2022, we lost more days to strikes than France. In 2023 and 2024, NHS strikes alone cost the taxpayer £1.7 billion.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

With respect, there are definitely elements in the group of amendments we are talking about that relate to the 2016 Act. I was simply setting out the context for my remarks. Perhaps the noble Lord will let me make some progress, and, if he is still not satisfied towards the end of the speech, we can spend a bit more time on this.

As I was saying, 2.7 million working days were lost to strike action in 2023, up from 2.5 million in 2022, and these were the highest annual number of working days lost to strikes since 1989. Put frankly, the 2016 Act did not achieve its objective of reducing strikes—in fact, it made things worse.

Amendment 244, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and Amendment 245, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, both seek, in different ways, to remove the repeal of the 50% industrial action ballot turnout threshold. The Bill as drafted repeals this threshold in its entirety, returning us to the situation pre 2016, where only a simple majority of members voting in favour of strike action was required for industrial action to be deemed lawful.

We want to create a positive and modern framework for trade union legislation that delivers productive, constructive engagement, respects the democratic mandate of unions and reduces bureaucratic hurdles. The date for repeal of the 50% threshold will be set out in regulations at a future date, with the intention that it is aligned with the establishment of e-balloting as an option for trade unions. In combination with the delivery of modern, secure workplace balloting, we hope that this will ensure that industrial action mandates will have demonstrably broad support.

I turn to the opposition to Clause 66 standing part. In answer to the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, this clause does indeed seek to amend Section 226 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act to reverse the change made by Section 3 of the Trade Union Act 2016. Section 226 is amended to omit subsections (2A) to (2F), thereby removing the requirement for industrial action ballots in six defined public services—health; fire services; education for those aged under 17; transport; decommissioning of nuclear installations, management of radioactive waste and spent fuel; and border security—to have the support of at least 40% of those entitled to vote for the industrial action in order to be valid.

Alongside Clause 65, which removes the turnout threshold, a trade union will need only a simple majority of those voting in the ballot to vote in favour of industrial action for the industrial action to be deemed lawful. This was the case prior to the Trade Union Act 2016. This clause is a key part of the Government’s agenda. Again, I want to be clear that this is part of our commitment to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016.

I turn to Amendment 246, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, and will speak to the opposition to Clause 69 standing part of the Bill. The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to retain the current six-month mandate period for industrial action following a successful ballot. The Government want to strike the right balance between ensuring that industrial action is based on a recent vote and reducing the need for re-ballots. Strike action is always a last resort; it is costly to workers as well as employers. For this reason, we consulted on the appropriate length of time before a trade union should re-ballot its members.

In that consultation, trade unions were very keen to have no need to re-ballot for a mandate at all. However, following the consultation, the Government have set the mandate period at 12 months, because the majority of industrial action concludes within that time. This will ensure the appropriate balance between reducing the costs of re-balloting and allowing mandates to continue for longer where they are likely to have continued members’ support, without prolonging disputes or permitting action to be called based on a more than year-old mandate. Retaining the six-month mandate period would prevent the Government delivering on their commitment substantively to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016.

I turn to the opposition to Clause 68 standing part from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. The purpose of this clause is to reduce the information that unions are required to include on a voting paper for industrial action, through repealing Section 5 of the Trade Union Act 2016, which introduced additional requirements into Section 229 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Section 5 of the 2016 Act required trade unions to include on the ballot paper a summary of the issues that are in dispute between the employer and the trade union; the type of industrial action that amounts to action short of a strike; and an indication of the time period during which it is expected that those specific types of action are to take place.

Repealing Section 5 will not remove all the information requirements. Under Section 229, the ballot paper will still require unions to ask their members on the ballot paper whether they support industrial action and which type of action they want to take part in, expressed in terms of whether it is strike action or action short of a strike. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, made an analogy with ballot papers not containing details such as the names of candidates or the nature of the election. I respectfully point out that there is a danger in that analogy; I do not think it is fair. After all, noble Lords opposite would not expect democratic elections for elected office to carry the kind of mandate threshold that they are insisting trade union ballots should have. Whether they want to make the analogy that democratic elections are like union ballots or not, there is a bit of a pick and mix going on—

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That is fair enough; I accept the noble Lord’s point when it comes to general elections but, in effect, this is a referendum, which is usually much more clear-cut.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

This amendment seeks to close the loophole that allows some employers to exploit unpaid workers as a means of avoiding their responsibilities under the National Minimum Wage Regulations. The challenge is to weed out the unscrupulous employer who misleads young people to extract free work with no real interest in employing them afterwards. This not only exploits individuals but highlights the need for clear safeguards to prevent bad employers abusing the system under the guise of offering experience. That said, we must be careful not to discourage genuine, well-structured opportunities for young people at the beginning of their careers, where learning, mentoring and future progress are real and meaningful. The goal here should be not to eliminate work experience but to ensure that, when it takes place, it does so on fair terms. I hope the Minister will reflect on this amendment and consider how best to balance access and protection with the views of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes for tabling this amendment and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, with his perspective from the creative industries, for introducing it so well.

This amendment highlights an important issue: ensuring that work experience opportunities do not become a means to circumvent minimum wage regulations, thereby protecting young people and others seeking to gain valuable experience in the labour market. At the same time, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, noted, it is important to recognise that many charities, non-profit organisations and others rely to some extent on unpaid work experience placements, partly to deliver their valuable services but also to provide opportunities for individuals who might otherwise struggle to enter the workforce. We must acknowledge that many young people who leave education not knowing what they want to do, as the noble Viscount noted, find them a useful way of testing various sectors. The practical impact of this amendment on such organisations merits careful consideration to ensure that their ability to provide meaningful work experience is not unduly restricted, while maintaining fair treatment for those undertaking such experience.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this short but focused and interesting debate. I too regret that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, was unable to attend; with my Whip’s hat on, I note that perhaps if we had made better progress on earlier days of Committee then we would have heard from him directly. I pay tribute to him for tabling Amendment 129, which seeks to prohibit unpaid work experience for a period exceeding four weeks. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for stepping into the breach and making a more than worthy understudy in moving the amendment. I thank my noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway and the noble Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for contributing to this debate. This is an important issue, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and others are right to raise it. I pay tribute on the record to his previous work campaigning on this issue, not least through his Private Member’s Bill in the 2017-19 Session.

This Government made a commitment to deliver the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation. This includes tackling unfair working practices. As we heard from the noble Viscount, there are examples not simply in the creative sector—although that area of our economy is rife with them—but beyond it. This Government absolutely stand by the national minimum wage, and on 1 April delivered an increase of 16.3% to the 18 to 20 national minimum wage rate to make it £10 an hour—a record amount in both cash and percentage terms, making progress on closing the gap with the national living wage. This is an increase of £2,500 to the gross annual earnings of a full-time worker on the NMW. It was the first step in the Government’s plans to remove the discriminatory age bands and ensure that all adults benefit from a genuine living wage, making a real difference to young people.

I think it is worth saying in passing that we welcome, on this side of the House at least, the Conservative Party’s conversion in recent years to supporting the national minimum wage. However, as a member of the party that introduced it in the first place, in the teeth of some quite vehement opposition at the time, I assure noble Lords that this Labour Government are absolutely committed to supporting it and making sure that it applies in all cases where it should.

Work experience or internships can offer individuals, especially younger people, invaluable opportunities and experience. We do not want to close the door on these opportunities, but we do want to ensure that they are open and fair. Most importantly, where workers are due payment, they should be paid the wages they are entitled to, and I have to say that the current legislation already protects them.

As my noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway—to whose years of campaigning in this area, through the TUC, I pay tribute—said, there is an aspect of this amendment, very well-intentioned though it is, that would create unintended consequences and raises the spectre of, as she put it, rolling internships of four weeks, on and on.

As we know, according to the Department for Education’s 2022 employer skills survey, around 5% of employers had offered internships, either paid or unpaid, in the preceding 12 months, and there were around 200,000 people on internships. The vast majority of these—88%—were of two weeks or more in duration, and nearly 30% were over six months. It is only right that these people should be paid the national minimum to which they are entitled.

As we have heard, the national minimum wage legislation provides for a number of exemptions to recognise the importance of gaining work experience. It is important to recognise that these examples have a strong and firm place in the economy, including students on placements for up to one year, as required as part of a UK course of either further or higher education, pupils below the compulsory school age, participants in certain government programmes to provide training, work experience or temporary work, and—the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, made this point—voluntary workers employed by a charity or voluntary organisation, providing they receive no monetary payments, except for expenses.

The Government are committed to banning unpaid internships, unless they are part of an educational or training course. Because of the way legislation is drafted, they are already largely banned. For national minimum wage purposes, the crucial fact is whether someone is considered a worker due to the nature of the work they do. Employers cannot simply call someone an intern or say they are doing work experience and not pay them. What matters is whether the arrangement they have makes them a worker for minimum wage purposes. However, one valid exception is work shadowing, which is where individuals are observing others perform tasks and are not performing any work themselves.

There is a risk that the broad-brush nature of this amendment could create loopholes, leaving interns or individuals on work experience open to abuse. Where an intern is carrying out tasks, they are a worker and therefore entitled to the national minimum wage. Accepting the amendment could mean that these individuals could be recruited for short-term roles and lose their entitlement to the minimum wage, even if they are performing work. The Government will be consulting on this issue soon. We want to engage with businesses and individuals who carry out internships or work experience. This is how we introduce change to ensure that individuals are protected and treated fairly.

We have heard from both the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and my noble friend Lady O’Grady that enforcement is the issue here. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, asked about the number of prosecutions. I am afraid I do not have that number to hand, but I will certainly undertake to write to the noble Viscount. Enforcement of any law is important, and I am sure that part of the consultation will cover issues of enforcement. Creating more laws but not solving the problem of enforcement would not actually get to the heart of the issue, which is making sure that, when people work, they are paid the national minimum to which they are entitled.

In that vein, I hope that we can deal with the issues the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, wishes to address most effectively outside the Bill. I therefore ask the noble Viscount, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, to withdraw Amendment 129.

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[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 131, 297 and 314 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, so movingly introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

Each of these amendments seeks to address long-standing inequalities that disabled people continue to face, particularly in the context of work and access to goods and services. Amendment 131 raises the important principle that workers should not be compelled to contribute to the development or sale of products that are knowingly inaccessible—which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised. I hope that the Government, through the Department for Business and Trade, will publish clear guidance on what constitutes inaccessible products and services. Such guidance is needed. It would be invaluable in informing decision-making for businesses and helping workers recognise when they may be asked to contribute to the creation or sale of goods that fail to meet accessibility standards.

Amendment 297, meanwhile, calls for a royal commission. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, I veer towards saying that we do need something formal such as a royal commission to investigate the persistently low employment levels among blind and sight-impaired people, a disparity that deserves serious attention. The questions that these amendments raise are valid and warrant a considered response from the Government.

I am also interested in the reasoning behind Amendment 314, which calls for a programme and timeline to develop an action plan aimed at closing the disability gap. Recent research from the TUC revealed that the disability gap stood at a staggering 17.2% in 2024, which was an increase on the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, from 2023. The same figures do not reoccur every year—they are going up—and these figures show that. The amendment represents a measured and practical approach, reflecting a growing consensus on the need for greater transparency and accountability in tackling workplace inequality.

Even if the Government are, unsurprisingly, not minded to accept the amendments in their current form, I hope that Ministers will consider how their intent may be taken forward through alternative means—and there can be alternative means. These are not radical demands but thoughtful suggestions for achieving progress in areas where it is long overdue. I hope that the Government’s heart will be in favour of the reasoning behind these amendments, and that we can all work together towards bringing the legislation into line with what our conscience is saying.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond for his amendments in this group, and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral for introducing them on his behalf. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for his contribution.

There is no doubt that those with disabilities, including blind and partially sighted people, face different challenges in the workplace, and the more we can do to increase awareness and representation in the workplace for these people and these groups, the better. We must also recognise that for many disabled people, the challenges begin long before a job interview. Structural barriers, from education and training to transport and technology, can compound over time and create a labour market that is harder to enter and harder to stay in. If legislation can help remove those barriers and create conditions for more equitable access to work, it is our responsibility to act.

It is also important that employers are supported and not penalised, so legislation should provide clarity and encourage inclusive practices. It should offer the right incentives and should not raise the cost or the perceived risk of hiring somebody who may already face disadvantage. Unfortunately, some elements of current legislation do just that.

I hope that the Government and the Minister listened to the concerns that were so well articulated by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. These are not radical demands, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, pointed out, and I hope the Government will address them.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, for moving Amendment 131 and speaking to Amendments 297 and 314, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I go back a long, long way. When I was in the T&G, he was frequently instructed by my union to defend workers, so I appreciate that he is absolutely on the right side of this agenda.

Of course, this is an issue that we have been debating for a very long time. I particularly pay tribute to the late Alf Morris, Lord Morris, who absolutely focused on this agenda and was responsible for the Disability Discrimination Act, which has been the foundation of all the other changes since then.

On Amendment 131, it is important to be clear that the Equality Act 2010 already places a duty on providers of goods, services and facilities, and persons exercising public functions, to make reasonable adjustments for disabled service users. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, as Great Britain’s national equality and human rights body, safeguards and enforces the laws that protect people’s rights to fairness, dignity and respect. In the context of this debate, it monitors and has powers to enforce the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination, harassment and victimisation in a variety of settings, including work. The commission has been active in monitoring disability equality, including as part of its regular comprehensive reviews of how Britain is performing on equality and human rights, as well as its work in monitoring compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The commission’s powers do not extend to monitoring the accessibility of manufactured goods or the development of services and, as such, it would not be able to respond to reporting of the kind suggested in the new clause. Therefore, the Government are unable to support the amendment.

Turning to Amendment 297, again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for speaking to this amendment and drawing attention to this important issue, and of course I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, who has been a strong voice on this and recognise his contribution in championing the rights of blind and sight-impaired people. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, can go back to the days when my union heavily supported the National League of the Blind and Disabled—a union that had been representing blind and disabled workers for nearly 100 years, certainly when we were engaged with it.

I agree that addressing the level of employment for blind and sight-impaired people is still an important issue, which is why we have a range of existing specialist initiatives in place to support individuals, including those who are blind and sight-impaired, to stay in work or get back to work. Our existing measures provide tailored support to disabled people more broadly and are designed to be flexible to meet the range of needs, including the needs of those who are blind and sight impaired. I repeat the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, made: existing measures include work coaches and disability employment advisers in jobcentres —working with employers, absolutely right—and access to work grants, again to facilitate and support employers in doing this, as well as joining up health and employment support around individuals through employment advisers in NHS, talking therapies, individual placement and support in primary care, as well as WorkWell.

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[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, it seems that, yet again, the noble Lord, Lord Barber, and I are not going to quite agree. I support both these amendments, particularly the one in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer.

I would like to look at the amendments from the point of view of the employee. When an employee finds themselves in a disciplinary or grievance hearing—we heard from my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough earlier—it signifies a profound breakdown in their relationship with their employer. It is a moment fraught with stress, uncertainty and fear; one where an individual may feel their professional life is unravelling before them. They may question how they will continue to support their family, whether they can afford to remain in their home, and what their future may hold.

Large corporations, such as the one I work for, have the benefit of HR departments to guide them through such proceedings, ensuring that their position is well-organised and profoundly represented. I have had the dubious pleasure of having to make people redundant; it is not fun, even with HR beside you, but they had nobody. In smaller companies, personal relationships between employer and employee can add an additional layer of complexity to the situation. In either case, the individual facing the hearing is often isolated, and struggling to recollect past events and present their case clearly.

These amendments, particularly Amendment 137, propose a fair and practical position: the right to have the assistance of a certified individual—someone equipped to review the facts dispassionately, organise events in logical sequence and provide the employee with a much-needed sense of reassurance. As we have heard, the trade unions already fulfil this role, particularly in large companies. However, many employees, myself included, choose not to join a union for a variety of personal reasons. The absence of union membership should not mean a lack of support in such critical moments. This amendment would ensure that every employee, regardless of union affiliation, has access to a certified individual who may provide guidance when facing disciplinary proceedings, fostering a fairer and more balanced process. For this reason, I support these amendments to uphold the right of fairness in our workplaces.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, and in particular the noble Lords, Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for introducing their Amendments 132 and 137.

As has been said, not all workers have or want access to a union representative. In fact, the latest statistics that I have from the Department for Business and Trade suggest that only 22% of all employees are unionised. Not all workers have access to or can afford legal advice, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, pointed out, those in smaller workplaces or those performing more precarious roles. Allowing trained, certified HR professionals to provide advice could help ensure that more employees are supported when making important decisions about their rights.

It is important to recognise the valuable support already available through organisations such as ACAS—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Barber—citizens advice bureaux and others, which provide free and impartial advice. This amendment complements those services by seeking to expand the range of qualified advisers accessible to workers. The principle of widening access to competent support is a reasonable one, especially where safeguards are in place through certification by recognised professional bodies. As my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough pointed out, if nothing else, that ought to serve to ease pressure on employment rights tribunals, which, as we have discussed many times over the course of this Committee, are stretched to breaking point.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Ainsdale, that that was a classic case of the TUC advocating for a closed shop, and I applaud him for that. However, not so many employees are now members of trade unions, as I have pointed out, and the majority of trade union members are in the public sector.

The question of genuine independence will be critical, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response on that. I would also say, perhaps to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, that, without wishing to quibble too much with his amendment, I think that as currently written it gives the Secretary of State rather too much discretion in determining what is a professional body. If he wants to have a think about that, I am available for a chat.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

133: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause—
“Impact on farm businessesWithin 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish an assessment of the impact of the provisions of Part 1 of this Act on farm businesses in the United Kingdom.”

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 133 in my name.

I have to start by saying that the family farm tax introduced by this Government is a disastrous policy. According to the NFU, it has put 200,000 jobs at risk—a staggering number that should have stopped Ministers in their tracks. I am disappointed to see noble Lords opposite are laughing at that number. A recent economic report on the combined effect of these measures lays the facts bare. It estimates the direct cost to the Treasury at £1.9 billion by 2030, stemming from lost tax revenues and increased benefit claims due to job losses and reduced productivity. More than 60% of farmers are expected to cut investment by over 20%, choking off future growth and innovation. The cost to the wider economy will be staggering—a staggering £14.8 billion blow to gross value added, all for the sake of political posturing masquerading as employment reform. The effect on food security alone could be catastrophic.

I must also highlight a concern that has been brought to light by recent tragic events and official responses, and that is the case of a farmer who took his own life just before the Government’s Budget, which is a heartbreaking example of the immense pressures our rural communities face. These pressures are exacerbated by the looming inheritance tax changes that threaten the very future of family farms.

Despite the seriousness of this issue, the official statistics on farmer, landowner and family business owner suicides are woefully inadequate. There is a significant delay, often of years, before accurate data is published. This delay means we will not see reliable figures for suicides in 2026 until 2028 or later, and that is simply unacceptable. Without timely, detailed data, broken down by occupation, policymakers cannot fully understand the human cost of these policies. Would the Minister acknowledge the urgent need for this and commit to working with the Office for National Statistics and other relevant bodies to improve the frequency and detail of suicide data by occupation, particularly for farmers and rural workers, so that we can properly address and understand this crisis without delay?

Turning to this legislation, it represents a further devastating blow to British agriculture. This Bill introduces unfair dismissal rights from day one of employment without a shred of evidence that it is workable in sectors such as farming. The extension of unfair dismissal protections from two years to day one of employment is being pushed forward with no clear guidance, no transitional arrangements and no defined probationary period. There is only speculation, and speculation is not a legal framework.

The Minister will say that this is currently being consulted on, but in the meantime farms are exposed. Every hiring decision becomes a legal and financial gamble. If a worker turns out to be unsuitable, which can happen quickly in physically demanding and safety-critical environments, the employer may be already too late to act without risking litigation. In farming, where work is seasonal, strenuous and sometimes requires immediate action, farms cannot afford to spend months navigating HR processes. They cannot afford legal exposure every time a hire does not work out, and that is exactly what Bill sets out.

Then there is the matter of zero-hours contracts. This Government, in their detachment from rural life, believe that these contracts are exploitative, but on farms they are essential. Harvests do not run on clocks, and weather does not obey timetables. Labour demand swings sharply: one week it is quiet, and the next week it is all hands on deck. Therefore, flexibility is all. Without zero-hours contracts, many farms simply cannot function, so replacing them with rigid guaranteed-hours contracts is not just unrealistic but destructive. The Bill would force the farmers to guess months in advance how many workers they will need—or pay the price when nature does not co-operate.

Rural employers, particularly farms and estates, rely heavily on seasonal and zero-hour staff to meet unpredictable and time-sensitive labour demands. That is not a loophole but a necessity born of reality. But the Bill introduces a new legal obligation that completely fails to take account of how agriculture works. Under the proposals in Part 1, if a casual worker ends up working a regular pattern—say, 20 hours a week over a few months—the employer will be legally required to offer a guaranteed-hours contract reflecting that pattern. That will fundamentally alter the nature of seasonal hiring.

Instead of flexibility, farmers will be locked into fixed commitments, which mean guaranteed pay even if the work disappears. In farming, it often does: crops cannot be harvested in a thunderstorm, livestock routines change, and machinery breaks down. Labour needs fluctuate by the day and employers have to adapt. The Bill removes that option, forcing them to guarantee wages based on past patterns and not future needs, and the result of that inevitably will be higher staffing costs, less flexibility and more legal risk. Farmers will no longer be able to adjust hours week to week based on workload and may instead reduce hours across the board, or simply hire fewer workers to avoid triggering these new obligations. That is not security for workers; that is lost opportunity.

Then we come to flexible working—another ideological insertion into a sector where it simply cannot apply. The Bill increases the burden on employers to justify denying flexible working requests. But who in this Committee honestly believes that lambing can be done from home or that dairy herds can be milked on a four-day week? Farming needs people physically present on time and able to adapt to sudden changes. This measure will destroy farms and open the floodgates to legal claims, rather than improve their working conditions.

I turn to another deeply flawed proposal in the Bill: the changes to statutory sick pay, which will hit farm businesses with immediate and unsustainable costs. Under the current system, employees are entitled to SSP only after three consecutive days of sickness absence. That allows employers, especially small family farms, to absorb short-term minor absences without being penalised for every cold, sprain or missed morning. The Bill proposes to remove that protection entirely, and statutory sick pay will become payable from day one of absence. For most farms, this is not just a technical change but a fundamental shift in financial exposure.

Agricultural work is physically demanding, often outdoors and highly seasonal. Casual absences are common and often unavoidable. But, under the Bill, every single one of those absences now comes with an automatic cost from the very first missed shift. Under the current rules, if a farmhand calls in sick on Monday and is back by Wednesday, the farmer pays nothing. Under the Bill, the employer must pay statutory sick pay from day one. Multiply that by three or four casual workers, each with intermittent absences through lambing or harvest, and you have a significant unpredictable cost burden for a farm with already razor-thin margins.

It does not stop there: the Bill also proposes to reduce the lower earnings limit—currently £123 per week—meaning that even fewer workers on minimal-hours or short-term seasonal contracts will now be eligible for sick pay. These are precisely the workers whom farms hire during calving, lambing, crop picking and harvest, often working flexibly as needed. Under this system, a farm might be required to pay sick leave to a casual labourer who worked only a handful of hours the week before and might not be scheduled for any in the week ahead—that is not financial protection.

Farmers are also now expected to put in place formal absence tracking and management systems. That means logging each instance of sickness, reviewing attendance histories, holding review meetings, drafting improvement plans and, if things do not improve, potentially going through a formal dismissal process. If that were not enough, we now face the proposed cancellation payments. Farms will be penalised for calling off shifts at short notice, even when the reason is pouring rain or a late-season frost. These changes will force employers to choose between operating at a loss and paying people not to work, and in what rational universe is that considered progress?

The Bill, particularly Part 1, is not reform but sabotage. Amendment 133 is therefore essential. It does not block the Bill or repeal any of its measures; it simply demands what the Government have utterly failed to do, which is to deliver a detailed impact assessment of how these reckless changes would affect UK farm businesses. If the Bill proceeds unexamined, the consequences will not be theoretical: more farms will close, more jobs will disappear, and rural economies will contract. The very people this Government claim to support—working families, small businesses and so on—will be left to pick up the pieces. I reiterate my point about the necessity of food security in troubled times.

If the Government have nothing to hide, they should have no objection to analysing the impacts of this legislation on farm businesses, and they should accept Amendment 133. I beg to move.

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[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I have listened to every noble Lord’s concerns. To be fair to the Secretary of State for Defra and my fellow ministerial colleagues at Defra, I should say that they are in regular contact with the farming community and farmers. The Secretary of State has recently spoken at the National Farmers’ Union conference. My noble friend Lady Hayman comes from a farming community and understands the problems that noble Lords have raised.

I turn to Amendment 133, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. As I have repeated multiple times throughout the debate in this place, we have already published a comprehensive set of impact assessments, based on the best available evidence, on the workers likely to be affected by these measures. This includes an assessment of the economic impacts of the Bill, including impacts on workers, businesses, sectors and regions. We intend to publish further analysis in the form of an enactment impact assessment when the Bill secures Royal Assent and, as I have said previously, further assessments when we consult on proposed regulations to meet Better Regulation requirements. The 23 amendments on impact assessments tabled by the Opposition would pre-empt work that the Government are already planning to undertake.

It should also be mentioned that this Government are steadfast in our commitment to Britain’s farming industry. It is why we will invest £5 billion into farming over the next two years, the largest amount ever directed to sustainable food production in our country.

It is with immense sadness that we hear about suicides in the farming community, and I agree with noble Lords that we need to have accurate and timely data. I promise noble Lords that I will speak to my ministerial colleagues at Defra and the ONS as far as their request is concerned.

It will be no surprise to the noble Lord that we oppose Amendment 133 and ask him to withdraw it.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate. I particularly thank my noble friends Lord Deben and Lord Roborough for their expertise, which I think noble Lords around the Committee will agree shed great light on this tricky subject. I also greatly appreciate the support of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for what is a very modest amendment, and I am therefore disappointed with the Minister’s response, although pleased that he will consult Defra further.

On the subject of inheritance tax, the noble Lord asserted that Defra has been steadfast in its support for the farming community, but it is not clear that the farming community has recognised that steadfastness, because over a dozen leading farming organisations, including the National Farmers’ Union and the Country Land and Business Association, have condemned the Government for a lack of transparency. Those groups have written directly to the Treasury demanding the release of modelling and evidence behind the policy.

When pressed to explain why they rejected the fairer clawback option for inheritance tax reforms, Treasury Ministers offered nothing more than vague assertions—no consultation, no published impact assessment—and when challenged under freedom of information laws, the Treasury responded by saying that it was

“not in the public interest”

to disclose this analysis. How can the Government possibly claim this is not in the public interest? Are they really arguing that the means of food production and all that pertains to it are not in the public interest? We are talking about reforms that could rip through the foundations of multigenerational farms, force land sales and strip the viability from small rural businesses.

If this Government’s approach so far was not reckless enough, a fresh report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has added yet more weight to the call for caution and transparency. The cross-party group of MPs has urged the Government to delay its proposed reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief for two years, pushing back the implementation date from April 2026 to April 2027, with any final decisions postponed until October 2026. That is because the reforms are intended to tighten inheritance tax reliefs on farms and agricultural businesses and were introduced without adequate consultation or any formal impact assessment. The committee highlighted that rushing ahead without proper analysis risks serious consequences, including impacts on land values, tenant farmers, family farms and food production, and it warned that this could disrupt the food supply chain, potentially driving up supermarket prices and hitting consumers across the UK. Noble Lords should take seriously my noble friend Lord Deben’s warning about food shortages and what it does to government popularity.

What is particularly striking is the committee’s citation of a March 2025 survey which found that 70% of farmers were optimistic about their rural businesses before the Autumn Budget, but that figure plummeted to just 12% afterwards. That collapse in confidence speaks volumes about the uncertainty and fear that these policies have created within rural communities, and the same attitude is now evident in this Employment Rights Bill. Once again, we are seeing major legislative changes with profound economic impacts pushed through without proper consultation, without proper published impact assessments and without any serious recognition of the realities facing British farmers, and that is precisely why this modest amendment is so important.

At the bare minimum, before further damage is done, we should demand an independent, published assessment of how these employment law changes will affect UK farm businesses—not months after the fact and not hidden behind opaque Treasury memos. It is in the public interest, so it should be within 12 months of this Act passing. That is a modest, proportionate and entirely reasonable request. I will withdraw the amendment on this occasion but reserve the right to return to it. Again, I refer to my noble friend Lord Deben’s suggestion, or perhaps warning: 9 million people are watching.

Amendment 133 withdrawn.

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[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I will speak briefly to this amendment, which proposes to prohibit unpaid trial shifts by ensuring that those who undertake such shifts are paid at least the national minimum wage. This issue echoes concerns raised in earlier debates on unpaid work experience.

The amendment seeks to clarify that shift trials, defined as work undertaken in the hope of securing a temporary or permanent position, should be fairly compensated. This would address that potential gap in existing legislation and offer clearer protection for workers, ensuring that their time and labour are respect and valued. Such clarity is important for both workers seeking fair treatment and employers, and in maintaining transparent and ethical recruitment practices.

At the same time, it is important to consider the practical implications for employers who may rely on trial shifts as part of their recruitment process. I therefore invite the Minister to consider carefully whether this amendment strikes the right balance between protecting workers’ rights from exploitation and allowing employers reasonable flexibility in assessing candidates.

I look forward to the Government’s view on the best way to achieve a proportionate and effective approach that serves the interests of all parties involved.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this relatively brief group. I agree with my noble friend Lady Coffey. At first glance, the idea of banning unpaid trials seems fair, because no one wants to see people, especially young people, exploited under the guise of a try-out, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out when she was introducing the amendment.

However, we also need to be honest about the likely effect of the change, particularly for those very people it is trying to protect. In many sectors—in particular hospitality, retail and care—trial shifts are often the only realistic way for somebody without a formal CV to show that they can do the job. Trial shifts can therefore open doors for young people, school leavers and those coming back into work.

If we start requiring every short work trial to be paid at minimum wage then the reality is that many of them simply will not happen at all. Employers, especially small ones, may decide that they are just too risky or costly. The obvious result will be fewer opportunities and fewer chances for somebody to get in front of an employer to show what they can do. I worry that this amendment, although well intentioned, could have the opposite effect: closing off relatively informal routes into work for those who need them most. The measures in the Bill already create the wrong incentives, and we do not need any more of them.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his powerful and clear speech; he has said it all. I just want to add that this issue has arisen from the P&O scandal that took place three years ago. The maritime unions are particularly concerned about this, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to provide some comfort for the arguments that have been presented. The issue of pre-emptive injunctive relief for seafarers and other workers is a crucial issue and it is possible that we will need to return to it on Report.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate the intent behind Amendment 143. After all, we are all familiar with the high-profile cases, such as P&O Ferries, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, referred in his introduction.

I cannot pretend that I was au fait with the case details that the noble Lord explained, but we have some concerns about the practical and legal consequences of what is being proposed here. It seems to us that the amendment would allow employment tribunals to declare dismissals void and as having no effect; therefore, in effect, reinstating employees regardless of circumstances.

That is a major departure from the current legal framework, where the remedy for a breach is compensation, not nullification. That obviously raises serious questions. What happens if a dismissal is declared void months later? Is the employee reinstated, and are they entitled to back pay? What if the role no longer exists or has been filled? For many businesses and many workers, that would create uncertainty and not protection.

There is also the issue of enforcement. Giving tribunal decisions the force of the High Court, and allowing contempt proceedings for breach, risks confusing two fundamentally different judicial systems. Tribunals are meant to be accessible and the High Court is not.

I also question whether this change would meaningfully deter bad-faith employers. Those who already factor in the cost of breaking the law may simply budget for this risk too. Meanwhile, small and medium-sized employers acting in good faith could face disproportionate legal exposure for administrative or technical errors. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of my noble friend Lady Warwick on an issue that, as far as I am aware, has not appeared anywhere else but is of some importance. There is growing unease in the higher education sector about the potential implications of Clause 30. Universities UK has said it is frustrated that its letters to both officials and Ministers—they would be the same thing, I imagine—remain unanswered. UUK is probably being a bit polite in saying that it is frustrated; I suggest that it is unacceptable for a letter from any UK-wide organisation not to receive a response. If nothing else, I hope my noble friend will be able to give an assurance in her reply that she will ensure that Universities UK receives a considered response to its very legitimate concerns.

As my noble friend said, the higher education sector is concerned at the potential impact of measures proposed in Clause 30, which relate to outsourcing, on current arrangements within the sector and on the viability of steps that universities have taken or are planning to take in order to stabilise their financial position. Many universities consider themselves as falling within the definition of contracting authorities and may therefore be inadvertently caught in this clause of the legislation.

As originally introduced, the public sector outsourcing provisions applied to contracting authorities in England only. However, Ministers introduced an amendment in Committee in another place, and provisions now apply to contracting authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. Again as my noble friend said, the major point on which clarification is essential is whether and in what circumstances universities will be considered to be contracting authorities for the purposes of this legislation.

There is also the question of whether the planned separate outsourcing rules for different UK nations will or even might create complex and prohibitive arrangements for universities. As an example, if an institution is working across the UK nations—a good example would be the Open University—that could mean it is subject to two or more sets of outsourcing rules, potentially providing a conflicting legislative framework for its operational practice. I hope my noble friend will be able to clarify how the Government envisage such separate outsourcing rules will operate, and that in doing so she will provide reassurance to many in the higher education sector who, as my noble friend Lady Warwick said, are very supportive of the Bill in general but fear that universities could become victims of unintended consequences.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their contributions, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, for her introduction to her Amendment 143B. We think it is important to recognise the unique position of higher education providers when considering worker protection in public sector outsourcing. Because universities and similar institutions operate outside the traditional public sector framework, they possess a level of autonomy that sets them apart from government bodies, so applying the same regulatory requirements to these institutions clearly risks imposing unnecessary burdens that could affect their ability to focus on their core missions of education and research.

The amendment seems to us to thoughtfully acknowledge that difference by excluding higher education providers from the scope of these specific worker protection provisions. Such an approach would allow the focus of these protections to remain on core public sector organisations, where procurement processes are more standardised and closely tied to government accountability. At the same time, it would respect the operational independence of universities.

The fair treatment of workers remains an essential principle across all sectors, including higher education. Encouraging good employment practices within universities should continue through other means, but the amendment recognises the practical realities faced by these institutions. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answer.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

145: After Clause 32, insert the following new Clause—
“Use of positive action in the workplace(1) In this section—(a) “P” is a public sector worker who reasonably thinks that the application by P’s employer, in relation to P’s employment or a working practice, of sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act 2010 has caused or risks causing detriment to P,(b) “R” is P’s public sector employee, and(c) P reasonably thinks that R is responsible for the detriment in subsection (1)(a).(2) A Minister of the Crown must by regulations make provision for—(a) forms through which P may anonymously question R on any matter relevant to subsection (1),(b) forms through which R may answer questions by P, and(c) such forms to be made publicly available.(3) Within six months of the passing of this Act and every three months thereafter, R must publish a report setting out―(a) the number of forms received under subsection (2), and(b) a summary of the nature of the complaints to which they relate.(4) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations require R to report on the use of sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act 2010.(5) This section does not apply to activities undertaken by R under paragraph 1 of Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment introduces a mechanism for public sector employees who believe they have been disadvantaged by their employer’s use of positive action under sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act 2010. It would require the Government to create a process allowing such employees to anonymously question their employer and requiring employers to respond.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 145 standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. This amendment introduces a mechanism for public sector workers who reasonably believe that they have been subjected to detriment as a result of their employers’ use of positive action under Sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act 2010. It does not seek to outlaw such action, nor does it obstruct efforts to promote fairness. Rather, it seeks to ensure that fairness extends to all employees, not only those whom the state or the employer happen to deem underrepresented.

We must confront the uncomfortable truth that some public bodies have begun to apply positive action in ways that no longer reflect the careful balance envisaged by Parliament when the Equality Act was passed. We have now entered territory where lawful positive action shades into unlawful positive discrimination —where the scales of justice have been not merely tipped but turned. For example, let us consider West Yorkshire Police, a force whose conduct in this area raises urgent and serious concerns. It has come to light through both media investigation and internal whistleblowers that recruitment processes have been operated in a manner which in practice delays, restricts or even excludes applications from white British candidates. Candidates from certain ethnic minority backgrounds were allowed to apply early and, in some cases, were mentored through the process by dedicated positive action teams. Meanwhile, white British applicants were told to wait until a general window opened, often for as little as 48 hours. This, we are assured, is not discrimination but rather the fair operation of the law. I do not agree. This is not the spirit nor, arguably, even the letter of the Equality Act. It is a distortion of the law, and it demands redress.

What makes this all the more troubling is that these actions are being taken not by private corporations but by the state, or at least by institutions that act in the name of the state and are funded by the public purse. The taxpayer in this case is being forced to subsidise policies that they might find discriminatory and from which they may be excluded. There seems to be something especially perverse, indeed, almost Orwellian, about that.

This is not merely an abstract concern. West Yorkshire Police, for example, reportedly spent over £1.4 million in recent years on equality, diversity and inclusion staff—more than any other force in the country. That is public money. It is money earned by ordinary citizens, some of whom now find themselves effectively barred from entry into public service not because they lack ability but because their ethnic background does not satisfy an internal diversity target. When questions are raised, when whistleblowers from within these forces speak up, what happens? We hear of them being silenced, reprimanded or warned not to interfere. We hear of secret job listings marked “hidden” in the system, visible only to certain candidates. We hear of candidates greeted with hugs and reassurances that their interviews are merely a formality. That is not recruitment, and it is not equality. It is institutional manipulation.

The amendment before your Lordships seeks to restore a measure of transparency and accountability. It proposes a system by which a public sector worker who reasonably believes that they have been harmed by the operation of positive action can submit a formal question anonymously to their employer. The employer, in turn, must respond. Moreover, employers will be required to publish data on such queries, allowing Parliament and the public to monitor the use and potential abuse of these provisions. This is not a punitive or burdensome requirement; it is the most basic form of procedural fairness.

Let us be clear. This amendment does not challenge the principle of inclusion; it does not deny that discrimination has existed; but it says unequivocally that the answer to past unfairness is not the imposition of new unfairness, that the pursuit of diversity must not come at the expense of justice, and that inclusion must include everybody. Equality before the law is not a suggestion or a secondary consideration to be weighed against modern ideological preferences. It is a constitutional principle that underpins this very Chamber. When we allow it to be weakened quietly and gradually by well-meaning policies that turn into arbitrary practices, we invite division, resentment and, ultimately, more injustice.

The Minister may say that everything that I have described—the delays, the exclusion of white British applicants, the unequal mentoring and the hidden vacancies—is perfectly lawful under existing legislation. He may say that this is precisely how the Government intend for positive action to operate in the public sector. However, I sincerely hope that is not the argument that is to be advanced. Alternatively, the Minister may offer reassurance to the Committee and to the public that existing law already contains sufficient safeguards, and that what we have heard from West Yorkshire Police, Thames Valley Police and others would not and should not be permitted under any reasonable interpretation of the Equality Act. If that is the case, I would welcome that clarification. I would also welcome assurance that there is already a functioning system of redress for individuals who believe that they have been mistreated on the basis of how positive action has been applied.

If the Minister agrees with the points that I have made—that West Yorkshire Police should not have discriminated against white applicants and that there is no mechanism to stop this—then I very much look forward to the Government accepting this amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I came into this debate by chance, but it seems to me that this is part of a very undesirable development: an attack on the principle of equality, diversity and inclusion policies. These principles are at the heart of my politics. I have fought for racial equality ever since I was a student, when I went on marches against Enoch Powell and what he stood for. I thought that the response of the Labour Government in the 1960s—to make racial discrimination illegal—was very important. In more modern times, when I was chair of Lancaster University and looking at the question of student admissions, I always thought that we should make allowance for the fact that some working-class people had not had the best chance in life and take this into account in admissions procedures Therefore, I rather regret what the Opposition Front Bench is trying to do, which is to undermine the political acceptability of these policies.

There is a danger here. I have seen it from some people in my own party who say that, in response to the alleged great Reform upsurge, we should start abandoning EDI. That would be catastrophic for a social democrat like me, who has always believed in these things. I hope that the Members opposite will withdraw their amendment.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that comprehensive answer, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this quite lively debate. I have to say I was disappointed that the greatest lady of them all who did not need a helping hand did not get a mention, so I will mention her: Margaret Thatcher.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that we are not seeking to undermine anything in this; I was very clear about that. I want to make it clear that, as I said in my opening remarks, this amendment does not seek to outlaw such action, nor does it obstruct efforts to promote fairness. It just seeks to ensure that fairness extends to all employees, not only to those whom the state or the employer happens to deem underrepresented.

I am grateful to the Minister for his extended quote from the Yorkshire case, but I also mentioned the case in Thames Valley. A tribunal there ruled that the three white police officers who won a claim after they were passed over for promotion were overlooked by Thames Valley Police because of their race and an ethnic-minority sergeant was promoted—this is the killer line—

“without any competitive assessment process taking place”,

which is precisely not the spirit of the laws that we have just been discussing.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

And that is illegal.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That is why we were asking these questions and laying this amendment. It is good to have it out in the open. The amendment sought not litigation but clarity. It sought not courtroom battles but a simple mechanism for transparency and accountability. It would have been a route for asking questions and a structure for reporting. It would be a reminder that positive action must remain within the bounds of the law and fairness, and not become a euphemism for sanctioned discrimination. However, I have heard the arguments from the Minister and, not least because of the lateness of the hour, I am content to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 145 withdrawn.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak very, very briefly. It is heartening to hear support for the amendments in this group right across the House. I will speak in particular to those from the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Penn. I have already shared with the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, that, when I was at the TUC, I very, very vividly remember having conversations with young men who were working as riders and delivery drivers, and they really, really wanted to be good dads. They had young babies and children, and what was most important to them—and I hope others will reflect this in paying attention to how we make working families’ lives better—was predictability of shifts and guaranteed hours, so they would know how much money they could earn, but they also wanted paid paternity leave.

To keep this really, really brief, I have a couple of questions for my noble friend the Minister before she responds. First, can we accept that the starting point for a review would be to recognise that, compared with other countries, the UK is so ungenerous in its paid paternity leave? We do not need a huge review to know that; it is our starting point. If we are to move into the 21st century, we also need to recognise that new dads from all sorts of backgrounds want time to bond with their babies and be involved more equally in their care. Secondly, will this review focus specifically on paid paternity leave, working from the simple premise that, unless it is paid, there are whole swathes of new dads who simply cannot afford to take it?

I have been encouraged by the discussion around the House. I think there is a cross-party consensus that we all want to see new dads having that opportunity. We all know it will bring benefits for women—including closing the gender pay gap—and opportunities for children to have a better life, too.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Penn for her very thoughtful amendments in this group. I acknowledge the valuable contributions from all noble Lords, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for introducing her amendments, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for introducing his amendments and, perhaps more importantly, reminding the House of the Conservative-led coalition Government’s work in this area—although I note that he did not heap praise on the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith.

We fully recognise and support the intention behind these proposals, which is to strengthen support for families and in particular to enhance the role of paternity leave in allowing fathers to spend essential early time with their children. This is a laudable aim that clearly finds broad sympathy across the House.

However, while the objective is clear and commendable, we must also consider the practical implications of how such policies are implemented, particularly in relation to the impact on businesses. Many employers, large and small, continue to face significant challenges in the current economic climate, as we have discussed at length this evening. The introduction of new requirements, even when limited to large employers, must be approached with caution and care, and I acknowledge that my noble friend Lady Penn addressed many of those concerns directly in her speech.

As for the reporting obligations set out in Amendment 128, tabled by my noble friend, these would apply to businesses with 250 employees or more. While this threshold helps to focus the requirement on larger organisations, we should still be mindful of the potential administrative and financial burdens such reporting could entail. Even within that category, resources vary significantly, and not all may be equally equipped to take on new reporting functions—a point that was addressed by my noble friends Lord Bailey and Lord Ashcombe. That said, transparency and data collection can play a valuable role in shaping effective policy. If it can be clearly demonstrated that these measures would bring mutual benefits, improving employee well-being and retention, for example, without imposing disproportionate costs or complexity on employers, it is certainly something that we should be prepared to consider further.

Ultimately, we have to strike the right balance, ensuring meaningful support for families while safeguarding the viability and flexibility of the businesses that employ them. That is the lens through which we should view not just this amendment but the broader provisions of the Bill.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a wide-ranging, informative and very exciting debate. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. I take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, on his four month-old son. I begin by recognising the key role that parental leave plays in supporting families—I wish it had been available when I became a father, at a much older age, some 18 years ago. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, for sharing his story about the difficult time he had during the birth of his children.

This Government understand that the arrival of a child, whether through birth or adoption, is the most transformative time in a family’s life. We understand that the current parental leave system needs changing so that it better supports working families. We have committed to do this and we are taking action in a number of different ways. Through this Bill, the Government are making paternity leave and parental leave day-one rights, meaning that employees will be eligible to give notice of the intent to take leave from the first day of employment. I hope that many noble Lords will welcome this position. This brings such leave in line with maternity and adoption leave, so simplifying the system.

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[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, we could hardly have expected two more expert speakers to propose this amendment. This is another case where society is getting something on the cheap and, even though it is a different argument from the one about unpaid carers, it is another way where, in fact, we are not recognising the value that society is getting from these people who work as special police officers.

I really want to hear what the Government say on this and I hope it is not the sort of answer that my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, suggested it might be but is something rather more constructive that can come forward the next time this Bill comes up.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I would very much like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for his important amendment in this group and for the valuable context he gave in his opening remarks, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for speaking so eloquently to it as well.

They are both right. Special constables play a vital role in our communities and, as they pointed out, they serve alongside other police officers, offering their time and their skills to protect the public and contribute to the safety and well-being of society at large. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has just pointed out, society benefits from their work.

It is often overlooked, though. For many, being a special constable is something they do alongside other regular employment. These individuals are already balancing their professional lives with the demands of policing and, as has been pointed out, that can be both challenging and rewarding.

I could bore on for hours about how valuable special constables were when I was policing in Hong Kong—but I will not. I welcome this amendment and believe it represents a small but significant way to better support those who give their time to serve our communities by ensuring that special constables can fulfil their duties without facing conflicts with their employment obligations. We would be sending a strong message of support for public service generally, as well, of course, as for special constables. So we are very minded to support this amendment.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate—some might say “esoteric”, but not me— and indeed, thankfully, a slightly shorter one. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for tabling Amendment 82, co-signed by the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Evans of Rainow. I am also grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Paddick, for meeting me, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Leong, earlier today to discuss this amendment. It was really helpful to have the opportunity to, as we heard from both noble Lords this evening, hear the background context to the work of special constables, how they are regarded within the force and how they are integrated within the forces in which they serve.

Amendment 82 would give employees who are special constables a statutory right to time off from work to carry out their voluntary police duties. This Government recognise, as I think we all do across the House, and really value the important role that special constables play in our communities, and we are committed to ensuring that they are supported to navigate those responsibilities that they carry out as special constables alongside their working life.

Special constables, along with the full range of police volunteers, bring valuable and diverse skills, which complement the roles that full-time officers and staff play in delivering the best possible service to the public in protecting our streets and making sure that our communities are safe.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

18: Clause 1, page 8, leave out lines 41 to 44
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment removes the Secretary of State’s power to make regulations specifying additional circumstances in which the duty to offer a guaranteed hours contract does not apply, or an offer may be treated as withdrawn.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for his letter explaining certain matters that were left over from the last day of Committee. The fact that the algebraic question required a three-page, detailed answer for one worked-up example rather illustrates our point that this adds a huge and possibly unnecessary level of complexity for small businesses in particular. But I will let that lie for now.

Amendments 18 and 19 standing in my name would remove the broad delegated power in new Section 27BD. This Bill continues the concerning trend of the steady transfer of legislative authority from Parliament to Ministers. As I noted at Second Reading, it contains no fewer than 173 delegated powers. The Government may, and probably will, argue that this is justified by ongoing consultation, but that is in effect an admission that this Bill is not yet complete or ready for full and proper scrutiny by this House.

Time and again, we have seen ill-defined powers handed to the Executive allowing for significant policy changes to be made by regulation without meaningful parliamentary oversight. Clause 1 exemplifies this problem. It inserts new sections into the Employment Rights Act 1996, establishing a framework for a new statutory right relating to guaranteed hours. However, through new Section 27BD(6), it grants the Secretary of State a remarkably wide power to make regulations specifying circumstances in which the duty to offer guaranteed hours does not apply or where an offer may be treated as withdrawn. There are no limitations, no criteria and no guiding principles. There is no requirement for a consultation or justification. In effect, the Secretary of State is given a blank cheque.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has been very clear that the power is “inappropriately broad” and should be

“restated with a greater degree of precision”.

While the Government’s memorandum refers to

“maintaining the original policy intent while allowing reasonable exemptions”,

the committee rightly points out that nothing in the Bill legally constrains the Secretary of State’s discretion in that regard. Moreover, as we raised on the first day of Committee, businesses need clarity on the operation of guaranteed hours. If there are to be sector-specific exemptions—and there may very well be a case for them—they should appear in the Bill, not be left to future ministerial discretion. Uncertainty benefits no one—not workers, not employers and not enforcement bodies. Allowing such fundamental aspects of the regime to be decided later by regulation undermines the transparency and stability of the framework that the Government are seeking to establish.

I remind the Minister that, during the passage of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, she rightly accepted similar concerns and tabled amendments which directly reflected the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. At the time, she said:

“I hope the Minister is able to commit to taking on board the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee in this respect”.—[Official Report, 27/3/24; col. GC 198.]


Why should that principle not apply here? If it is truly the Government’s intention that this power will be used only in limited and specific cases, then the legislation should make that clear. As it stands, any future Secretary of State could by regulation significantly weaken or disapply this statutory regime without the involvement of Parliament.

Regardless of one’s views on the underlying policy, that is not an acceptable way to legislate. When Parliament creates new rights in statute, they should not be left vulnerable to being hollowed out at the stroke of a ministerial pen. This amendment removes that overly broad delegated power and ensures that any substantive changes to the scope of the duty must be brought back to Parliament through primary legislation. Will the Minister now commit, as she has done before, to taking seriously the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and amending the Bill accordingly?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is very good to return to the subject of zero-hours contracts as we start day 2 of Committee. As we debated last week, the Government are committed to ending one-sided flexibility and exploitative zero-hours contracts, ensuring that all jobs provide a baseline of security and predictability so that workers can better plan their lives and their finances.

Employers who already provide this security and predictability for their workers will benefit from a level playing field, but these measures will help drive up standards and eliminate undercutting across the board. Meanwhile, employees who enjoy the flexibility of their current zero-hours arrangements will not be pressurised into accepting a guaranteed-hour contract.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for tabling Amendments 18 and 19, which would remove the power to make regulations specifying circumstances in which the duty to offer guaranteed hours does not apply, or an offer may be treated as withdrawn. This power would allow the Secretary of State to react dynamically to changing employment practices that may arise, allowing for updates to maintain the original policy intent of providing a baseline of security and predictability so workers can better plan their lives. It could provide the required economic flexibility that businesses have been asking for, to ensure that the policy is working as intended while adapting to changing circumstances.

This power is separate to the power in the Bill to exclude categories of workers. Regulations made under the excluded workers power would allow specified workers to be taken out of scope of the right to guaranteed hours. Since the right to guaranteed hours is a new, novel right, it could be necessary to exclude certain workers in order to respond to the changing employment environment.

The power at issue here relates to specified circumstances where the right to guaranteed hours would otherwise apply but limited and specified circumstances justified an exception to the duty to make a guaranteed-hour offer. We envisage that any exceptions to the duty to offer guaranteed hours will be narrow and be applied in specified circumstances; for instance, where the measures would otherwise have significant adverse impacts, even when the employers and the workers act with good intentions and there is no other accepted way to mitigate the risk. Examples could include unforeseen circumstances such as a pandemic or a state of emergency.

Consultation is required to further determine which specific circumstances may justify a potential exemption. I assure the Committee that we will give full consideration to any representations made in this House and by respondents to that consultation. Gathering the views from those who will be impacted by the policy via consultation remains of the utmost importance to this Government. By removing the power, we would become unable to make such exceptions and to provide flexibility in those specific circumstances. The power will also be subject to the affirmative procedure, meaning that both Houses will have the opportunity to debate this matter.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, I am, as ever, grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its careful consideration of the Bill, including in relation to the power with which we are here concerned. The committee continues to serve your Lordships’ House well by providing a thoughtful analysis of the Government’s legislative programme, and I thank it for that.

As acknowledged by that committee, the need to respond to changing circumstances is an appropriate basis for such a power, but in the committee’s view, that power should be narrowed—whereas the amendment goes much further than what has been proposed by it. On that basis, I hope I have been able to set out more information on how the Government intend to use this power, and I of course look forward to responding more fully to the Delegated Powers Committee report in due course. I hope that reassures the noble Lord so that he feels able not to press his Amendments 18 and 19.

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[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response to these amendments, but I have to confess that I am disappointed, not simply that the amendment is being rejected but that the Minister has chosen not to uphold the principle of parliamentary scrutiny which she championed herself only last year. At that time, she said

“the limits on effective scrutiny of secondary legislation are manifest”.—[Official Report, 27/3/24; col. GC 197.]


That is spot on; I could not agree more, so I have to ask: does the Minister still stand by those words, or does she now disagree with her own assessment—and indeed that of the Attorney-General? I will refrain from quoting again from the Bingham lecture that he gave last November, but we may have to return to that in due course.

Today, the Government are defending a delegated power that is not just broad but boundless. It is a power that allows a future Secretary of State to undo or dilute a statutory right without reference to Parliament and without any of the safeguards the Minister has previously endorsed. I am disappointed, and I regret that the Minister has chosen not to accept these amendments or to listen to the Committee, but it seems that she does not listen even to her own warnings. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 18 withdrawn.

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In the end, this is a further case of prematurely tabling the Bill. We do not have a sense of what the Government mean by this—so it is important for the Minister to set out how we will find out. If this is still in the process of consultation, we are back at exactly the same point that we were in previous groups. In general, we have passed the point of trying to demonstrate that work is lumpy, because the Minister has agreed that work is lumpy; this is about how that lumpiness is accommodated, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, set out. What is reasonable for employers to do, what is reasonable for employees to accept, and what is the Government’s view on that? That is what we need to know before we get to Report so that we can take this forward.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for introducing this group with his Amendment 21A. I could not agree with him more that flexibility is a key part of an efficient economy. That deserves to be written in stone. I am also grateful to my noble friends Lady Lawlor and Lady Noakes for their support for various amendments in this group and to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his positive comments.

I shall speak to Amendments 22, 24 and 28 in my name. There are many circumstances in which an employer has no choice but to make a request or cancel a shift on short notice—my noble friend Lady Lawlor gave us some very useful examples of that. But to go on a bit, for example, if a colleague calls in sick, which is something that is likely to increase in frequency with changes to statutory sick pay governed in other areas of this Bill, or if events beyond the employer’s control intervene, such as local flooding or public disturbances, payment for unworked cancelled shifts becomes an additional financial burden at precisely the time when a business is already experiencing a downturn. It is not simply about inconvenience; it is actually about viability.

To give another particular example, we have heard from the hospitality industry that the proposed rights around notice and cancellation of shifts could severely undermine existing staffing practices. For instance, in the case of pubs, which as we know are under pressure anyway, those with outdoor garden spaces in particular operate in a highly unpredictable environment. One representative of the sector made it very clear to us when he said:

“The new right to notice of shift allocation and cancellation could undermine a pub’s ability to offer voluntary overtime”.


During the course of the discussion, the examples were magnified to some extent—and to some extent the example that I am about to give is the flipside of the one that my noble friend Lady Coffey highlighted with regard to restaurants in a previous group, and the fact that they are pre-charging for tables. The representative of the industry pointed out to us that in many cases, for example, offering food in a pub Monday to Wednesday is a highly marginal business, and they often let their staff go early, and so on. He is of the opinion that, as a result of the Bill, much of that work will simply disappear; they will not bother to open, because it will be too complicated to administer. Not the least of it is that it is not just the administration but the costs of offering the compensation that is governed by this clause. That would obviously not be very good for consumer choice, plus of course there are implications for tax receipts and a whole host of other areas as well.

In practice, these businesses rely heavily on flexibility, which includes voluntary shift swaps and short-notice availability. As we have discussed on numerous occasions, if the weather turns—and in Britain, let us be honest, that is not a small variable—a pub expecting a busy day may suddenly find itself very overstaffed. Under the Bill, cancelling those shifts could result in mandatory compensation.

I turn to Amendment 24. Another flaw identified in the Bill is that it presumes that, in every instance, a cancelled, moved or curtailed shift entitles the employee to compensation. This rigidity, however, does not account for the unforeseen events which, as noble Lords across the House will know, are a common occurrence throughout the working world. We have heard many examples of those. The assumption that the employer is always somehow at fault does not reflect the realities of working life. Our amendment therefore seeks to clarify and incorporate a degree of flexibility into the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, pointed out, we are proposing that the conditions that govern this entitlement to compensation should be subject to regulation in this case. There is a strong case to be made for this exception to our general principled dislike of the amount of regulation on which the Bill relies. As defined by the Secretary of State, this could be nuanced to ensure greater parity in the employer/employee relationship.

It is vital that we remember throughout these debates that we are discussing a piece of legislation that will profoundly affect workers and employers across the country. I am concerned that, in certain elements of this Bill, an ideological assumption is made about the relationship between the worker and the employer, which leads to absolute positions—another point that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, raised in a previous group. We all have a duty to ensure that the Bill meets the practical demands of the real workplace and does not just speak to such assumptions. This amendment would balance the relationship between the employer and the employee and would make sure that those who provide the work are protected, alongside those who undertake it. There is an essential symbiosis that needs to be maintained in order for us to have a thriving economy, with good jobs available for workers. We cannot fall prey to inflexible, absolute stances that upset this relationship. Our amendment seeks to correct this mistake in the text of the Bill.

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Noakes in particular for her support for Amendment 28, because she raised unarguable points. The reasonable belief test outlined in the Bill raises several concerns. One of the most substantial is that the term “reasonable” is incredibly broad and creates a great deal of uncertainty for both workers and employers. As noble Lords across the House will know, this part of the Bill is designed to make working entitlements clearer and provide greater clarity and certainty to workers about the shifts they are working and the sort of income they can therefore expect to receive. However, the text in its current form is wide open to a massive range of interpretations and fails to provide clarity or protection for either workers or employers. How is either party to know what constitutes a reasonable expectation? Redefining this element of the Bill so that a formal confirmation of a shift is required for entitlement to compensation will provide clarity for both parties and will create a mutual responsibility between the worker and the employer to make expectations and duties clear.

It is my understanding that the Government intend this section of the Bill to place an obligation on the employer to clearly communicate shift assignments to workers in order to avoid misunderstanding. We agree that this should be the case, although the current text of the Bill uses language that is far too vague. If the Government want to promote the clear communication of shift assignments, surely providing for a formal commitment of work, rather than the belief of being needed, is the way to make sure that that obligation is met. Our proposal of a formal confirmation requirement would mean that both employer and employee know where they stand and what is expected of them and would address the shortcoming in the text as it stands.

I will say just a few brief words on Amendment 27, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. Forty-eight hours seems to us a perfectly reasonable notice period regarding the time before a shift is due to start. A survey from the Association of Convenience Stores found that 90% of colleagues in the convenience sector report that they have never had a shift cancelled with less than 48 hours’ notice. Unless a reasonable notice period is reflected in the new requirements, it is likely to lead to a cautious approach to staffing by many hospitality and retail businesses. This would mean restricting operating hours and/or staff numbers during periods of uncertain footfall, rather than offering shifts that may ultimately be surplus to operational needs on the day, thus incurring compensation costs for late cancellations.

Moreover, there is a notable asymmetry in the Bill as drafted, because there are no reciprocal requirements for employees to provide notice when they are unable to work at a scheduled shift. That gap will have significant implications. One of the biggest challenges for employers, particularly in retail, is managing last-minute cancellations by employees due to illness, childcare needs or other issues. When employers must find cover at short notice, how are they to meet the same reasonable notice requirements that they themselves are held to?

We need common sense in this legislation, so I urge the Government to accept my and other amendments, or to be honest about why they will not.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

My Lords, before I address the amendments in this group, I take this opportunity to refer to the letter I wrote regarding the algebraic formula. There are existing formulae in employment rights legislation—for instance, in relation to the calculation of the amount payable to an agency worker as calculated in Section 57ZH of the Employment Rights Act 1996, so this is not something new. We will, however, publish full and comprehensive guidance in due course, which I am sure many noble Lords will find fascinating.

This has been a very useful debate, and I am very grateful for the contributions of all noble Lords. We have covered several areas in this debate related to the amendments tabled. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in his Amendment 21A, is seeking to make changes to the period of notice deemed reasonable for cancellation of or change to a shift for agency workers. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, in Amendment 22, is seeking to make changes to the right to reasonable notice of shifts for directly engaged workers. The noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, Lord Fox and Lord Goddard of Stockport, are seeking to make changes to the right to payment for short-notice shift cancellations, movements and curtailments in Amendments 24, 27, 28 and 29.

Before I address each of these amendments in turn, let me share some analysis that the Living Wage Foundation did in 2023. It suggested that 59% of workers whose hours vary from week to week, which includes zero-hours and low-hour workers, receive less than a week’s notice of shifts, with 13% receiving less than 24 hours’ notice. The vast majority of respondents—90%—stated that they do not receive full payment when their shifts are cancelled unexpectedly, 74% receive less than half, 51% receive less than a quarter and 26% receive no payment. Further analysis, from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, suggests that approximately 33% of UK employers who use zero-hour contracts compensate workers for shifts that are cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice, with 48% of employers responding that they do not.

I turn first to Amendment 21A. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, says in his explanatory statement that this amendment

“seeks to define a reasonable maximum period of temporary work for agency workers in primary legislation”,

which

“will help remove any uncertainty for businesses worried about genuine temp work being caught in the new zero-hours regulations”.

The noble Lord seeks to achieve this by providing that the period of what is presumed to be reasonable notice for agency workers must be no greater than 24 hours. This would mean that it would be presumed reasonable if an agency worker receives 24 hours’ notice, but unreasonable if they receive less, so only in those latter situations would the agency or hirer have to prove that the period of notice was still reasonable in the circumstances.

I am not clear how this amendment would achieve this. The amendment would be made to Clause 2, concerning rights to reasonable notice for directly engaged workers, and appears to prevent workers being given more than 24 hours’ notice of cancellation or change to a shift. I reassure the noble Lord that the Bill provides for periods of notice “presumed reasonable” to be set in regulations for directly engaged workers and agency workers, as well as the factors that should be taken into consideration in individual cases.

Following consultation, it may be that the “presumed reasonable” periods of notice and the factors that should be taken into consideration will be different for agency workers and directly engaged workers. We intend to consult on what period is presumed reasonable, because it varies from case to case. Setting a period of reasonable notice in primary legislation would thus pre-empt consultation and not allow us to take into account stakeholders’ views.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I am not sure about that. Basically, we do not want to be too prescriptive and define what reasonableness is, because it varies from case to case and company to company. There needs to be that flexibility there.

Amendment 29 is a probing amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, which seeks to add a power into the Bill to make regulations setting out factors that determine whether a worker reasonably believed they would be needed to work the shift. The Government tabled an amendment during Commons Report stage to ensure that a worker will not be entitled to a payment for a short-notice cancellation, movement or curtailment of a shift unless at some point prior to that they reasonably believed they would be needed to work the shift. This is considered appropriate because it is only where a person reasonably believes that they will work a shift that it is reasonable for them to prepare to work and incur costs as a result.

This amendment was necessary to eliminate the risk of workers taking cases to tribunals and making claims for shifts they did not reasonably believe they needed to work. This is particularly important in situations where an employer offers a shift out to multiple people, for example if they organise shifts through a large WhatsApp group. In cases like this, we want to be clear that people should receive cancellation payments when they are told they are not needed at short notice only if they reasonably believed they would work the shift in the first place.

For example, as set out in the Explanatory Notes, if there is an established practice of “first come, first served”, and an individual says they will work a shift after they have seen that another individual has already done so, they should probably not expect to work that shift. Even where a shift is offered only to one worker, they should still reasonably believe they will work it in order to be eligible for a short-notice payment. For example, if an employer offered a shift four weeks in advance, and the worker accepted the shift only two hours before the shift, it seems less likely they should expect actually to work that shift.

These are the kind of scenarios the Government considered when making the amendment; however, there are other scenarios where issues about this may arise. The Government wish to avoid being overly prescriptive by setting out factors in regulations, given the range of scenarios where this may be relevant. Instead, the Government consider it more appropriate to leave it to tribunals to determine on a case-by-case basis and we want to ensure that tribunals maintain flexibility to do so as they consider appropriate.

Before I conclude, I will answer the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, about reasons outside of employers’ control. With better planning, employers need not cancel as many shifts, but it is not right that, when there is uncertainty, the entire financial risk rests with the workers. We really need to have a fair balance, and the Bill offers exemptions as a possibility for that. We will consult on that; however, any exemptions are likely to be narrow, as we do not believe that workers should take the whole financial hit.

I hope that I have been able to persuade all noble Lords and provide assurances on the Government’s wider commitment to consult with stakeholders and businesses. I therefore respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Is the Minister really saying that the points that we were making are related only to employers’ bad planning? How on earth are they supposed to plan for natural disasters, floods and so on? Secondly, I apologise for using the wrong reference to the Bill, as the Minister helpfully pointed out. He also helpfully pointed out that much of the Bill is being written on the hoof, so I would be very grateful if he would commit to stop producing new iterations of the Bill, which are ever expanding.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Lord will be happy to hear that I will consult with everybody as widely as possible, including him. We can have further conversations to explain the purpose of the Bill and why we are doing it. We are not doing this in isolation. I believe that the Bill is pro-business and pro-worker, and we need to get that message across to him and other noble Lords.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

42: Clause 5, page 30, line 35, leave out from “independence,” to end of line 36 and insert “or
(ii) an employee representative body or staff association that—(A) has been formally established for the purpose of consultation or negotiation with the employer,(B) represents a defined group of the employer’s workers or the workforce generally, and(C) operates independently of the employer in its decision-making, andthe worker’s employer.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment expands the definition of an appropriate representative to include employee representative bodies or staff associations that are formally established, represent the workforce or defined groups of workers, and operate independently in decision-making. It ensures that workers can be represented by legitimate and independent collective structures beyond traditional trade unions.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 42, 43 and 44, which address a crucial gap in the Employment Rights Bill as currently drafted. The Bill, in its present form, assumes that collective agreements and the important rights that attach to them can be made only through trade unions. The assumption is problematic, as it fails to reflect the diverse and evolving landscape of employee representation in the United Kingdom.

Across a wide range of sectors, there are effective forms of employee representation that operate independently of trade unions. For example, many large employers across the UK have implemented formal employee forums, staff councils and other representative bodies that play a critical role in negotiating terms, improving working conditions and ensuring that workers have a voice. These bodies operate with transparency and independence; they often work closely with management but are not subject to the control of the employer. In sectors such as retail, hospitality and technology, companies have established these independent bodies to provide workers with a platform to express concerns, suggest improvements and engage with senior leadership on workplace issues. These bodies, although not unions, are trusted and valued by workers as genuine vehicles for consultation and negotiation.

Likewise, in industries such as financial services, employee representation often takes place through staff associations and other internal bodies that focus on consultation, transparency and communication between employers and employees. These bodies are instrumental in maintaining a constructive dialogue between workers and management, and they often handle issues such as pay, conditions and workplace policies without the need for union recognition.

The current draft of the Bill fails to accommodate these vital forms of representation. It risks excluding workers who are represented by such independent bodies from accessing the protections associated with collective agreements, including important provisions on guaranteed hours. This approach undermines existing employee engagement practices that have proven to be effective in fostering good relations between workers and employers. The Government have spoken repeatedly about the need to modernise our economy and bring employment rights into the 21st century. A key part of that modernisation must be acknowledging that trade unions are not the only legitimate means through which workers can be represented. Properly constituted employee forums and staff bodies can and do play a vital role in today’s diverse and evolving workplaces. By recognising this, the Government have an opportunity to align this legislation with the modern realities of work and deliver on their commitment to updating our employment framework.

Moreover, the Bill raises serious concerns about freedom of association. The principle of freedom of association is about not just the right to join a union but the right not to be compelled into union membership as a condition for accessing fair treatment at work.

If we want to strengthen the relationship between employers and employees, we must ensure that the Bill is inclusive of all legitimate and independent forms of worker representation. These amendments are designed to achieve that. They would extend the recognition of collective agreements to properly constituted employee representative bodies, such as staff forums or associations that operate independently from the employer in their decision-making. They would ensure that these bodies meet clear governance standards, including transparency, accountability and independence.

The Government’s aim is to promote better workplace relations, and these amendments support that aim. They would recognise the wide range of ways in which workers and employers engage with each other constructively. By recognising diverse forms of representation, we can build trust, enhance co-operation and create workplaces where both workers and employers can thrive. I urge the Government to support these amendments, which would reflect the realities of modern employee representation and strengthen the protections available to all workers, regardless of whether they belong to a traditional trade union. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I totally oppose these amendments. This is the first time I have spoken in the progress of this Bill. I have amendments coming up later. I think the noble Lord’s amendments illustrate the complete difference in mental framework between those who support and work with the trade union movement and those who do not. I should be clear that, although I do not have any formal interest to declare, I have spent most of my working life working in or for the trade union movement. The trade union movement and what it has achieved is based on 150 years of struggle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

Phew—I do not know whether I want to join in this philosophical debate because, clearly, we have heard strong views on both sides, and they have strayed way beyond the amendments we are trying to moderate today. But I would say that the Bill overall seeks to find the right balance between workers, unions and businesses, recognising that each has an important role to play. Our aim in the Bill is to modernise those arrangements for the 21st century so that we are not playing “Yah-boo, you did that back in 1953” but are actually looking to the future. We hope that is what the Bill will deliver.

These amendments aim to broaden the provisions in the Bill to allow employee representative bodies or staff associations to collectively agree to modify or opt out of the zero-hours measures. The Bill already allows these collective agreements to be made, but only by trade unions. As we are allowing for modification of statutory employment rights, it is vital that the appropriate safeguards are in place. This includes that only trade unions that have a certificate of independence, and are therefore free from employer control, can agree with employers to modify or opt out of rights, and that rights are guaranteed in exchange and incorporated into a worker’s contract.

I make it clear that staff associations and employee representative bodies, some of which we have heard described this afternoon, can do really good work, and we welcome engagement between employers and workers in all forms. However, we do not think it is appropriate for these associations and bodies to be able to modify statutory employment rights. This is not least because they may not have sufficient independence from the employers—a point well made by my noble friend Lady O’Grady—unlike independent trade unions, which do have that independence and which offer high levels of protection to workers. Furthermore, there is a well-established framework for trade unions, including recognition, independence and incorporation of terms, and the provisions build off these provisions.

I can see that the noble Lord’s amendments suggest a framework of requirements that staff associations and employee representative bodies would need to meet in order to modify or exclude zero-hours rights. These include requirements around independence, recognition, elections and record-keeping.

However, as my noble friends Lord Hendy and Lord Davies have said, the more you incorporate those requirements, the more you add to a staff association or employee representative body, the more similar it appears to be to an independent trade union. Given that the trade union framework is well established, historically and legally, it is not clear to me that it makes sense to establish a similar but different structure just for the purposes of the zero-hours measures. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Davies, Lady O’Grady and others for reminding us of the hard-won rights that we have achieved through organisations within the trade union movement. Trade unions already serve to protect and advance the interests of workers.

I felt that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, presented a caricature of the unions. For every criticism he has, we could come back with all the advantages that trade unions have delivered for working people over the years in pay and conditions and in some of the fantastic campaigns—for example, around the environment, women’s rights, and so on. They have already contributed enormously to modernising workplace rights, so I do not feel that it would be appropriate or proportionate to try to recreate them. The trade unions already provide the constructive dialogue with employers to which the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, refers, and membership of trade unions remains voluntary for employees.

I say, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, that there is a technical issue around all this. If his amendment was accepted as drafted, it would not achieve the aims that he intends. Collective agreements have a specific definition in the Employment Rights Act 1996, which the zero-hours provisions are being inserted into. The definition, referring to the definition in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, provides that collective agreements are ones between independent and certified trade unions and employers’ or employees’ associations, so there would not be scope in the way that the noble Lord has worded his amendment for a wider definition of employee representatives.

We have had a debate which I have a feeling we are going to return to on some of the other trade union issues, but, for the time being, with this set of amendments in mind, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, will consider withdrawing his amendment.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That was a short but most interesting debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who participated. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for their comments. No one on this side is denying that trade unions often have a proud history. As my noble friend Lord Deben pointed out, they have a very strong history in securing workers’ rights which has been constructive for our country over many years—no one is denying that. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, pointed out, not all modern trade unions support that history. I am sure that noble Lords would accept that.

The fact is that the world has evolved, and these amendments simply respect that evolution. My noble friend Lord Moynihan points out that only 22% of workers are currently unionised. The latest figure that I can find for the private sector is 12.3%. The other 88% have not been prevented from joining a trade union; they have exercised a choice not to, a democratic choice, so trying to argue that this proposal is somehow undemocratic makes no sense in the context of the rest of the Bill. Why, for example, does the Bill later on scrap the 40% turnout requirement for statutory recognition? That seems profoundly undemocratic.

Having said all that, I am obviously very grateful to the Minister for her response, and I accept that there are probably technical issues with my amendment. With that helpful hint, I shall improve them for the next time that we debate these measures. However, on the first day in Committee, we heard the Government argue that, in relation to guaranteed hours:

“Unions can make these deals based on their knowledge of the industry and with a holistic view on what is best for their workers”.—[Official Report, 29/4/25; col. 1203.]


If the Government are willing to accept that logic for trade unions, surely the same reasoning must be extended to independent staff bodies and employment forums, many of which are embedded deeply within the day-to-day life of a company and have even greater practical knowledge of their specific industries and workplaces. In some cases, those bodies are closer to the operational realities of individual businesses than remote union structures, and they are more trusted by the employees themselves.

The debate should ultimately be about respecting individual workers and their choices. The Government’s stance suggests a lack of trust in individual workers and the belief that, unless a worker is represented through a traditional trade union, their voice is somehow less valid or less informed. Fundamentally, it appears that the Government do not believe in the individual and do not trust workers to know what works best in their own context; instead, they insist on a one-size-fits-all approach, even when that model may be entirely foreign to a smaller business or industries where union involvement has never been the norm.

What about the many employees who are content with their current representation? Will they now be told that their structures are not good enough and that they have to change, bring in new frameworks, hire experts and prepare for union-led negotiations, whether they want them or not? Will industries that have long enjoyed stable relations be pushed into more adversarial models, creating the very tensions that this Bill should be seeking to avoid? Can the Minister perhaps enlighten us as to how smaller businesses and those that have never operated within a unionised environment will adapt to rigid models such as this, which assume that union involvement is the only valid route to collective agreement?

These amendments do not challenge the value of trade unions—very far from it. They simply recognise that unions are not the only route to fair and effective representation. If the Government are truly serious about modernising employment rights, we must begin by acknowledging the diversity of how workers organise today. For now, I am of course content to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 42 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I join the general praise and congratulations for my noble friend Lady Penn for her Amendment 64. There is not much more for me to say, other than that I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I hope the Government are listening and will address the issue raised by my noble friend as we get to the next stage. If they do not, I would be more than happy to support my noble friend in her future endeavours.

Amendment 66 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, was expertly spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady. I was going to echo very much the same points about the employment tribunals. An awful lot will be expected of them but, as we know, the simple fact is that the backlog is increasing, there is a shortage of funds and the waiting times are increasing—they are up to two years. It does not seem very plausible to expect that employment tribunals will be able to cope with the amount of work that is coming their way—I am afraid that will probably include work with regard to that amendment. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness’s comments.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am afraid the noble Lord will not; he will hear from me. I thank my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie in absentia for tabling Amendment 66 and my noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway for so ably speaking to it. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for tabling Amendment 64. This has been a broadly helpful debate, if somewhat spicier than expected, on flexible working.

This group and the next deal with flexible working. I agree with many of the comments that noble Lords across the Committee made in highlighting how important flexible working is in helping people to balance work with responsibilities in their personal lives, particularly caring responsibilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, pointed out, flexibility can lead to happier, healthier and more productive employees. He is absolutely right on this point. It is good for employees, good for businesses and, in turn, good for the economy.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, outlined in some detail, along with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, a primary benefit of flexible working for families is that being able to work part-time, or having flexible start and finish times, can make it easier for parents to balance work and childcare needs. Similarly, for those caring for a vulnerable adult or a child with a disability, flexible working can help people to manage their caring responsibilities while remaining in work.

I echo some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about how we regard flexible working. To be clear, flexible working is not solely about working from home—something on which, post pandemic, we have become somewhat focused. Indeed, the ACAS guidance sets out eight examples of flexible working, and working from home is only one of those eight. It talks about compressed hours, staggered hours, remote working, job sharing and part-time hours as well as working from home.

According to the 2023 flexible jobs index, although nine in 10 want to work flexibly, only six in 10 employees are currently working flexibly and only three in 10 jobs are advertised with flexible working. Equally, the Government recognise that business needs vary and that not all flexible working arrangements are possible in all circumstances. That is why the Government are increasing access to flexible working by making it the default, except where not reasonably feasible. I concur with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fox: this is not a soft policy but an important economic and human management tool, and we should regard it as such.

Amendment 66 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson would require the Secretary of State to review and publish a statement on the adequacy of the maximum compensation that an employment tribunal may award to an employee with a successful claim related to flexible working. The maximum compensation award is currently set at eight weeks’ pay for an employee bringing a claim to a tribunal.

Section 80I of the Employment Rights Act 1996 already means that the Government may review the maximum number of weeks’ pay that can be awarded to an employee. If they consider it appropriate to do so, they can then use this power to change the specified number of weeks’ pay by which the maximum amount of an award of compensation is set. It is therefore not necessary to include anything further in the Bill. It is worth pointing out to noble Lords that the maximum has risen every year since its introduction, from £250 in 2002 to £719 now—so this is not something that is caught in aspic. Therefore, we would argue that a statutory review on the maximum compensation award within six months of Royal Assent could create uncertainty across the board and detract from some of the other important reforms that employees, employers, trade unions and the wider economic and business community will need to prepare for.

Before leaving this, it might be helpful to speak to the wider points from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, on tribunals. I cannot speak in any great detail on this issue, but I understand that the Ministry of Justice is undertaking a review of the employment tribunal system. I would hazard that it has not been sufficiently invested in in recent years, and the slowness of that system is certainly something that we should seek to address.

Before leaving Amendment 66, it is worth pointing out that there is a risk in creating uncertainty for both businesses and workers alike by creating the possibility of differing awards for different types of claims. As things stand, a number of types of claims—for example, relating to redundancy and unfair dismissal—face the same maximum award as those relating to flexible working. It might be undesirable to create confusion and undue complexity through in effect having a two-tier system.

I turn to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, Amendment 64, which would extend the right to request flexible working to candidates with a job offer. In practice, the Government believe that this is already the case. The right to request flexible working, which is being strengthened in this Bill, is already a day one right. This means that employees can request flexible working from their first day in a role. We know that, in practice, many employers and employees will begin discussions about working arrangements before the candidate starts work.

As the noble Baroness said, before joining an organisation, informal and constructive discussions can offer a more effective way in which to identify working arrangements that work for employees and employers than a one-off formalised request and response might otherwise achieve. Mandating through legislation a right to request flexible working prior to appointment would not account for the fact that not all job offers come to fruition, for a number of reasons. However, candidates with a job offer have some limited rights. Discrimination and contractual rights are among those. The hypothetical example that the noble Baroness cited in her contribution would indeed be taken care of; discrimination based on protected characteristics is currently outlawed during the recruitment process. However, we would contend that it is not a status that we would want to overformalise at this point.

Additionally, under this proposal, employers would still have up to two months to consider and respond to a request. If the intention of this amendment is to significantly bring forward in time people’s ability to have a flexible working request accepted, it would not succeed in this respect. While the Government encourage employers to start conversations about flexible working with new starters at an early stage, it would not be appropriate to extend the legal framework for flexible working to all candidates under offer.

Lastly, to respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on sex discrimination, I contend that this form of discrimination would actually carry a higher risk of penalty and payout than unreasonable refusal of flexible working, so it is probably a little out of place in the debate on this amendment.

To close, I therefore seek that noble Lords do not press their amendments in this group.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

65: Clause 9, page 36, line 9, at end insert—
“(1AZA) But where the employer is— (a) the Security Service,(b) the Secret Intelligence Service, or(c) the Government Communication Headquarters,subsection (2)(b) does not apply, and the notification under subsection (1)(aa) need not explain why the employer considers that it is reasonable to refuse the application on the ground or those grounds.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would exclude the security services from the Bill’s provisions on flexible working.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 65 I shall speak also to Amendments 65A and 67. Amendment 65 is necessary because it lies at the very heart of the nature of the work that is performed by these agencies. The Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters, collectively known as the intelligence agencies, are at the heart of the United Kingdom’s national security apparatus. Their roles involve highly sensitive operations, often conducted in real time and under exceptionally stringent conditions. They work to protect the nation from terrorism, espionage and cyberattacks, among other threats. The national security landscape is dynamic and fast-moving, and it requires the utmost flexibility, discretion and responsiveness from their employees.

In this context, the introduction of provisions for flexible working could unintentionally create significant risks to national security. The need for immediate action, tight schedules and often secretive operations simply cannot be fully compatible with the predictability that flexible working arrangements might demand. We think it is essential that we avoid the unintended consequences of applying the Bill’s flexible working provisions to the intelligence services. Arguably, this list of services could be expanded, of course, to other operations that have implications for national security. As I said, these services operate in highly confidential environments and their work often involves time-sensitive operations that demand secrecy and agility.

This is obviously a probing amendment: I want to ask the Minister what conversations the Government have had with the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters regarding the potential impact of the flexible working provisions on their operations.

On Amendment 67, again I join in the broad support for flexible working that we have just heard in the last group, but this amendment presents an important opportunity to better understand the implications of introducing such a right. We think we ought to approach it with a slightly critical eye: specifically, we need to consider the Regulatory Policy Committee’s feedback on the clause, which has raised several concerns that cannot be overlooked. The RPC rating for this clause was red across all three core areas of rationale for intervention, identification of options, and justification of preferred way forward.

The RPC has stated that there is a lack of sufficient evidence presented to justify the need for this intervention. In particular, it highlighted that there is little evidence to suggest that employers are rejecting flexible working requests unreasonably. This is a key point that must be addressed. The committee’s wider concerns suggest that, without strong evidence of a widespread issue with employers rejecting requests, the Government are introducing a policy that is based on assumptions rather than concrete data. What problem are the Government trying to solve by introducing the right to request flexible working if the case is as the committee has described? Do they in effect believe that the RPC’s assessment is incorrect? What data or evidence do they have to demonstrate that employers are systematically denying such requests in a way that harms workers?

One of the most important questions that this clause raises is whether the intervention is justified. The RPC has pointed out that the rationale for introducing the right to request flexible working has not been sufficiently established, so the purpose of tabling this amendment is to find out what the Government have done in this area and to suggest that the overall environment around this debate would be enhanced by a broader understanding of the situation under consideration.

Amendment 65A seeks to provide clarity and fairness regarding the refusal of flexible working applications in roles where such flexibility would fundamentally alter the nature of the job or undermine critical operational needs. Clause 9, as drafted, is obviously well intentioned but is ultimately a blunt instrument. New subsection (1ZA) sets out a list of what are deemed reasonable grounds to refuse a flexible working request, but they are largely subjective and difficult to quantify in practice. For example, how can an editor reasonably be expected to prove that a journalist’s writing has deteriorated because they are working from home? How does one assess the decline in creative spontaneity that often arises when collaboration in the newsroom is replaced by isolated remote working? This ambiguity could create a climate of uncertainty for employers. Rather than making legally risky judgments, many may simply acquiesce to requests even where remote work may compromise essential aspects of the role. I go back to the example of journalism: this could disrupt the delicate balance of the newsroom and undermine quality, editorial cohesion and the development of junior reporters through in-person mentoring, and so on.

This is precisely why we think that sector-specific exemptions are needed. A one-size-fits-all approach, as is implied in the current drafting, is simply not adequate. This amendment provides a clearer and more realistic framework, recognising that in certain sectors and occupations physical presence is not optional but essential. To expect employers in some of these sectors to navigate the current subjective standards is both unfair and, we think, unworkable. This amendment seeks to offer a constructive alternative by allowing a reasonable refusal where the core nature of the role would be compromised, and by specifying sectors where that risk is most acute.

As I have said, we support flexible working in principle, but flexibility must be implemented with common sense and a clear-eyed understanding of operational realities. We do not believe that the current drafting provides that assurance. We urge the Government to take serious note of these amendments, because we may have to return to them on Report. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, is reassured and feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who participated in this very interesting debate and I thank the Minister for his detailed answer. I accept and am somewhat reassured by his answer on Amendment 65; it is good to know that the security services employers have been properly consulted and are content with this legislation. That is to be welcomed, and I thank the noble Lord for it.

I was most interested in the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted. I believe she said—I apologise if I am misquoting—that employers have a poor understanding of what flexible working involves in education. I am sure they do, and that a lot of parents and people who are involved in education do. It rather makes the case for why Amendment 67 is necessary. The RPC’s opinion may not have related to the policy, but it still remains red: the fact is that the impact assessment was not good enough.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe raised a very good point about what flexible working is. We agree that flexibility is to be encouraged, but I noticed that the noble Lord has now relied twice on the eight types of flexible working identified by ACAS. I suspect that that is not widely understood in the public domain. The proposed impact assessment would go a long way to make it much clearer what people could and should be asking for, what employers should be thinking about, the likely economic impacts and the more societal impacts from the right to request flexible working.

This would help the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, as well, because people would have a much broader understanding of what it means in teaching. Obviously, 100% of teachers cannot work from home—that goes without saying—so what does this actually mean in practice? I do not think that anybody has much clarity about that, including, by the sounds of it, employees and many teachers themselves.

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

I am chairing a commission that will be very clear about what it means and how it can be employed in schools. I hope that will enlighten lots of people.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I look forward to being enlightened.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, again made some very good points about the need to describe the job; I accept that that was an imperfect way of tabling that amendment. However, I leap into the defence of my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth from his attacks by the Fox. As I heard it, my noble friend was not saying that employment tribunals are no good; he was saying that there is a backlog, that they are probably underresourced and underfunded and that, because of their structural nature, they do not necessarily resolve things. An increasing reliance on them to resolve things will not necessarily have the desired effect. That is an incredibly important point that we should return to in the discussion that the Minister offered the Committee because, as I said in my last summary, we are placing an increasing reliance on employment tribunals to resolve an awful lot of the unanswered questions that are being discussed as a result of the Bill. For things not to be resolved even after they have got to an employment tribunal, after a long delay, seems a little short-sighted.

For now, as I say, I am somewhat reassured on Amendment 65, and I am grateful to the Minister for his answers. We should return to the idea of Amendment 67 and a much broader impact assessment, but for now I am content to withdraw Amendment 65.

Amendment 65 withdrawn.

Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. As we know, the UK has certain accounting standards, such as GAAP and the international financial reporting standards. These standards are non-mandatory. However, the Companies Act is very clear that a true and fair view of the accounts must be stated. That is a very high standard, but it is up to the individual or the committee of the company as to what should be reported in the accounts. This new Bill will set much higher standards for companies to abide by.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, can the Government provide assurances that the powers granted to ARGA will not create an overly burdensome regulatory environment that discourages investment in the UK?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. At the end of the day, we would like any regulator to perform the work but not to overburden SMEs or, for that matter, to stifle growth, which is the Government’s number one priority.

Overseas Companies: UK-registered Subsidiaries

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they provide support or advice to companies domiciled overseas who have set up a UK-registered subsidiary through which to bid for public sector work.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

My Lords, before answering the noble Lord’s Question, I wish everyone celebrating a happy St Valentine’s day—

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

Wrong day. I wish everyone a happy St Patrick’s day.

The Government provide guidance on GOV.UK to companies seeking to engage in public sector work, including those domiciled overseas which establish a UK-registered company. Additionally, the Government encourage open and fair competition in public procurement, and UK-registered subsidiaries of foreign companies are treated in the same manner as domestic businesses.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his Answer. I agree that it is essential that transparency is key to all of this, especially in the defence and security sectors, where I am sure the Minister would agree that a level playing field is absolutely necessary. However, are the Government aware that some non-UK enterprises with only a token presence in the UK seek defence and security work here, and that some of those firms are domiciled in foreign states which actively exclude British companies from competing for contracts under that state’s control? What assurances can the Minister give that British contractors are not the victims of such unacceptable commercial discrimination?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. The UK’s international obligations require us to treat suppliers from other countries on an equal footing with UK suppliers in procurements which are covered by trade agreements with those countries and under WTO arrangements. The requirement for fair and open competition is a two-way street, as it gives UK suppliers access to public procurement opportunities overseas, which is worth close to £1.3 trillion. If the noble Lord has a particular case in mind, perhaps he could speak to me, and I will refer it to officials in the department.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill will preserve the UK’s status as a global leader in product regulation. It creates a level playing field between the high street and online marketplaces, supporting businesses and protecting consumers. It grants necessary powers to adapt to modern-day safety issues and technological innovation, and to safeguard businesses and consumers from emerging risks.

This Bill is not the same one that entered this House. We have listened carefully to the concerns of all Peers and have proactively made changes in relation to consultation and the use of the affirmative procedure and Henry VIII powers. We have also provided further clarity on definitions in the Bill. Furthermore, the Government have published a code of conduct that sets out the statutory and non-statutory controls in place to ensure that regulation made under this legislation is proportionate and evidence based.

It is fair to say that the Bill has given rise to some interesting debates, passionately and expertly argued by noble Lords across the House. Particularly, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, whose support during these debates has been invaluable; the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his forthright scrutiny of the Bill, made with his customary charm and good humour; and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his extensive engagement on the Bill. He, along with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, have been crucial in getting the Bill to where it is today. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his engagement on the Bill, particularly on standard essential patents. I am glad I have been able to reassure him.

I thank the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, past and present, for their reporting on the Bill, as well as the thorough grilling they gave me and Minister Justin Madders in October last year. I extend my gratitude to the Bill team and the officials supporting the passage of the Bill, as well as the parliamentary staff and those in my private office, who are instrumental in the continued smooth running of this House.

As we send the Bill to the other place, I believe we do so having fulfilled our role as a scrutinising Chamber with diligence and care. I beg to move.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lord Hunt, Lord Sandhurst, Lord Frost, Lady Lawlor, Lord Jackson and Lord Lansley for all their contributions and for raising very important issues throughout the discussions on the Bill. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Leong and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for their openness, collaborative approach and humour—it was very much appreciated.

On these Benches, we take pride in having pushed not only the Government but even the Liberal Democrats —yes, even them—to acknowledge the importance of protecting the pint. Although they were initially resistant, they eventually recognised its value, and we have ensured that the pint will remain untouched.

As the noble Lord, Lord Leong, noted, the Government made some welcome concessions on this Bill, such as the introduction of a requirement for consultation—a very welcome step. However, as highlighted by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee, this remains a skeleton Bill. We think it grants excessive power to the Executive with insufficient parliamentary scrutiny. Whether it is the affirmative procedure or, as once proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, the super-affirmative procedure, we will still advocate for greater parliamentary oversight.

The question of dynamic alignment with the EU remains unanswered yet ever more topical. When my noble friend Lord Frost raised the issue, the Government could not rule out as a fact that the Bill could lead to dynamic alignment with the EU.

We still do not think this is a good Bill, but it is much improved. It not only allows for alignment with the EU but risks overregulation, and we confidently suspect that the lawyers will be busy for a while. But it would be churlish to finish on that note, so I once again thank noble Lords opposite for their incredible work on the Bill. I also thank their officials, who often go unremarked in these matters, and our research team led by Henry Mitson, and in particular the indefatigable Abid Hussain, for their enthusiastic and extensive help.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, the speeches on this Bill have probably been exhaustive. I make just one observation: it appears that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, has had one pint too many as far as this debate is concerned.

This Bill turned out to be more exciting than its name promised. It has been an interesting process going through it. I thank the Ministers, the noble Lords, Lord Leong and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for their good humour—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, on that—their levels of engagement and the engagement from the Bill team and the political office, which helped us fashion this Bill. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt, and their Back-Bench posse, for making the debates on this Bill so interesting. I also thank Cross-Benchers for their support, who made some important interventions.

Special thanks go to my noble friends Lady Brinton, Lord Foster and Lord Redesdale, and a big thank you to Adam Bull, who was our legislative support officer and supported us ably. Your Lordships have shown great interest during this debate in the affirmative process and legislative scrutiny, so I look forward to seeing all of you in Grand Committee when the statutory instruments arrive.