Jobs Market

Lord Woodley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I have enjoyed debating with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, over too many days to recall, the merits of the Government’s Employment Rights Bill. To be clear, the plan to make work pay is a once-in-a-generation transformation of our labour market to make it fairer and more inclusive, and to deliver the day one rights the country needs. It will introduce ground-breaking reforms such as bereavement leave for those who suffer miscarriages, ensure fair pay for the social care sector, and ban the use of NDAs in cases of sexual discrimination and worse. Let us be clear: we are also repealing the previous Government’s failed trade union legislation, which delivered for this economy record levels of days lost to strikes in 2022 and 2023—a record they cannot be proud of. We are fixing their mess by introducing the Employment Rights Bill.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, concerning changes to the jobs market, changes to the skilled worker visa mean that public sector workers, including prison officers, can now face deportation because the salary threshold has jumped over their wages—which ignores why we wanted them here in the first place. Therefore, will the Minister make the case to the Home Office that prison officers should be exempted from this arbitrary limit and that their employers should also help to pay their legal costs?