Royal Mail: Performance

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

The service provided by Royal Mail in my constituency is simply not good enough. Hundreds of residents have written to me over the past year with shocking, but unfortunately almost identical, stories. In the worst-affected areas of Abbeymead and Abbeydale, most residents I speak to do not get post for three to four weeks, only for a pile of letters to arrive at once. I know that to be true because I live there, and my post arrives monthly as well.

In Tuffley, Matson and Hempsted, they are experiencing similar issues: people are waiting on hospital appointments, new debit cards and other important post. I hope that most of the Mother’s Day cards have now arrived—I pray that all the Christmas cards have been delivered. Something has to change.

I want to be absolutely clear that this poor service is not down to our hard-working posties in Gloucester. I visited the Gloucester North delivery office last week and spoke with them, and they are working really hard in difficult conditions. The post arrives late from the Bristol sorting office; the posties are waiting later and later in the morning for that delivery from Bristol, which impacts how many hours they can deliver for. Parcels are being prioritised over post—that is what the posties tell me, but management are still denying it. The posties also told me in detail about the two-tier workforce system, which means that most staff now leave in six months.

To make matters worse, they are being undercut by other companies that pay their staff more. Amazon recently opened a large depot in Gloucester, and is paying £4 an hour more than Royal Mail offers. The Minister knows that I have been raising this repeatedly with the Department for Business and Trade. I have written to Ofcom, which still says that it is fining those companies and that will improve things. It will not; they are baking those fines into their business cases. Can we please give the regulator more teeth so that we can actually improve the service?

Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

I think the hon. Gentleman can tell from the comments around the House how much respect and affection there is for posties around the country, and I am disturbed by what he describes. Ultimately, the only sustainable future for Royal Mail is in bringing together a workforce who are really passionate about what they do and a management who are seeking to get the company into a financially sustainable position. That is why we are prioritising the talks going on at the moment.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

Gloucester residents have been let down by Royal Mail for years; it is prioritising parcels over post and profits over our posties. I have a visit to Gloucester North delivery office on Friday, and I was shocked to find out from the frontlines that it is offering overtime to clear the backlog before I get there. Ofcom has proven to be utterly toothless in this matter; it is not regulating properly, and Royal Mail is baking the fines into its business plans. What more can we do to give Ofcom the bite that it needs to improve service for Gloucester residents?

Horizon Redress and Post Office Update

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me; I have been very focused on the efforts to increase compensation for the victims of the Horizon scandal, which has been the immediate challenge facing the Government in this policy area. It was something we heard loud and clear in opposition and we wanted to see progress on it. As I alluded to earlier, I suspect that the recommendations in Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry will range quite widely, and if it touches on the particular issue that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, we will look at that extremely carefully. More generally, I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice will be interested in his question.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for the update on the redress scheme for victims of the Horizon scandal. I also thank him for listening to my campaign to save the Kings Square post office in Gloucester and for maintaining so many vital services for Gloucester residents with today’s announcement that they will be franchised and continued. Will he meet me to discuss the merits of the new franchise staying in its current location? Kings Square has a fantastic future, with the opening of the university’s new City campus later this year and the Forum, a new office, hotel and leisure facility, which will be fantastic. It would be great for the new franchise to be an important part of that future.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his continued representation of his constituents’ interests. He has made a number of very clear representations to me on the importance of the Gloucester post office, and I would be very happy to meet him to discuss its future as it transitions to a franchise-run operation. I should make it clear that the Post Office very much wants these franchises to be in key locations that are important for our communities, because that is obviously where the commercial income will come from, so it will be keen to meet with stakeholders such as Members of this House and other local stakeholders. If my hon. Friend would like to meet me to discuss this issue further, I would be very happy to do so.

Employment Rights Bill (Seventeenth sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I always bow to your advice, Mr Mundell. I will try to save the Minister the embarrassment of having that recorded in Hansard.

Let me try to return to my point. While I accept that advisory boards of Government Departments often follow this formula, we have a particular definitional problem with this one. The problem is whether, in the example I gave before the intervention of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles, the independence of a seemingly independent expert—most reasonable people would say a university academic, professor, doctor or whoever would normally fall into that category—would be influenced if they were a member of a trade union, and whether in that case their membership of the board would be compliant with the provision for an “equal number” of independent experts and those representing the trade union movement on the board.

This is an important problem for the Minister to acknowledge. He must be very clear to the Committee whether the word “independent” in paragraph (c) would disallow anyone who is a member of a trade union from being a member of the board under paragraph (c), for fear of contradicting paragraph (a).

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I refer the Committee to my membership of the GMB and Community unions. The shadow Minister is keen for us all to stress our trade union membership, and we do so at the start of every sitting. He makes the point about trade union membership potentially impacting independent experts, but he will be aware that many university professors are funded by private limited companies to support their research, just as some Opposition Members are supported by private limited companies and employers for campaign purposes, none of which is declared in this Committee. Would he not say that might impact those professors’ independence too? Would that not need to be declared to ensure that the numbers are balanced?

[Greg Smith]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I believe in freedom; I have no problem with any hon. or right hon. Government Member being a member of a trade union. The point here is clarity and transparency. We have a Bill in black and white in front of us that refers to equal numbers but fails to define whether a member of a trade union could sit as an independent expert or would have to be categorised under subsection (4)(a) as representing the interests of trade unions. This is a matter of information on which the Committee and the general public deserve to have clarity before we allow this clause to become part of primary legislation in our country. As in all walks of life, there will be points of debate on that. I want to hear from the Minister’s own mouth whether he deems it to contradict the “equal number” provision. We could dance on the head of a pin all day, but when we are seeking to pass legislation, clarity is very important, and I look to the Minister to give it.

Employment Rights Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I come back to this point of principle: either we have autonomous bodies that can make their own decisions or we do not. If the Government’s answer is that we do not, I certainly understand why they do not want this amendment, but I do not understand why they persist with their support for that which they created in the first place—the academisation of so many schools—and resist making the more straightforward argument for a one-size-fits-all education policy. I hope they do not adopt such a policy, because of the progress that the Labour party made through academisation in the first place. However, that is the natural conclusion of what the Minister is saying.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I refer to my membership of the Community and GMB unions. In the break, the shadow Minister challenged me, saying that I had been very quiet this morning—I was feeling festive, but perhaps I am feeling less festive now. Let us take the analogy about choice that he is trying to set out and put it in a slightly different context. Private limited companies are often seen as the drivers of growth, and we have heard lots about that from the Opposition. Those companies have lots of freedoms to make decisions and to invest where they want, but they are all subject to the national minimum wage. Is the shadow Minister suggesting that a national set of terms and conditions will remove academies’ freedom to make entrepreneurial decisions? I am interested to hear whether the Conservative party’s position is now that the national minimum wage should also be abolished.

[Greg Smith]

No. I did challenge the hon. Gentleman on his quietness in the morning sitting, and he has not disappointed this afternoon, but of course that is not the position of the official Opposition. The last Labour Government brought in the national minimum wage, but the last Conservative Government brought in the national living wage. We are absolutely committed to that, but it is a rule that applies equally and evenly across every sector in the economy. In schedule 3 and amendment 168, we are talking about a specific carve-out of an existing position for one specific sector.

Employment Rights Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 12th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 127, in clause 22, page 33, line 12, leave out from “that” to end of line 21 and insert—

“the reason for the variation was to provide for improved employment practices and to update and reform outdated working practices, in order to allow for the more effective running of a business or organisation.”

This amendment would provide an exemption to unfair dismissal for failure to agree to a variation of contract.

It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair for the afternoon sitting, Ms Vaz. The amendment, in my name and those of my hon. Friends, is a probing one—I want to be clear about that from the outset—that would provide an exception to unfair dismissal for failure to agree a variation of contract.

The premise underpinning the Bill’s provisions on fire and rehire is that the only reason for an employer to want to re-engage employees on varied terms is to exploit them by giving them worse terms and conditions. I am in no way, shape or form suggesting that that does not occasionally happen, but I come at this debate from the other direction, presuming that most employers are good employers who care about their workforce and want to see a happy staff getting on, being productive and doing the things they do to make the business a success, be that making things, giving advice or providing a service.

The Bill basically says that a business needs to be going bust for the process of varying a contract to be justified. Again, I am not certain that that is the right starting point. What if there were a legitimate reason for wanting to vary certain terms and conditions? We touched on this in our debate on SNP amendments 160 and 161 before the break, and I gave some examples thinking about the pace of change in a business. Let us say a manufacturing business moves from a very manual process for putting a product together—be it a car, a piece of furniture or some smaller product—to invest in robotics or something.

I can think of a farm in my constituency that was a traditional dairy farm but, thanks to a not insubstantial grant from the previous Government, has built a robotic dairy. That means that the people who work on that farm are doing a fundamentally different job. They no longer have to get up at 4 am to manually hook the cows up to the milking machines; believe it or not, the cows now form an orderly queue for the milking robots. I am not joking, Ms Vaz. I invite anyone to come and see it with their own eyes. There is a vending machine where people can buy the milk direct. The point at which staff intervention is needed is if an alarm indicates that a machine has clogged or broken, the pasteurisation room has hit the wrong temperature, or whatever. It is a fundamentally different job. Sometimes, that happens in a workplace where the employer wants to keep the staff—they do not want to let anyone go and they do not want the robots to replace them—but it involves different terms, different conditions and a different physical thing to do on a daily basis. I offer that as a practical example of how businesses change.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I refer the Committee to my membership of the GMB and Community unions. I have two short questions for the shadow Minister. First, if the changes are so positive for employees, can they not simply accept a change to their terms and conditions? Secondly, let us take the scenario that he describes, where there is a change in processes, and put that in a business-to-business context. Say a business moves from wooden cogs and to metal cogs, and it has a contract with the wooden cog supplier. Is he aware of any circumstances in which that business would be able simply to break that contract without any notice or legal recompense to the other business?

[Greg Smith]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. He is right that the businesses in the situation he describes would have to go through a legal process, probably involving very expensive contract lawyers, to alter such a contract. I do not think it is helpful to directly compare those supply chain contracts with employment contracts, because on one level we are dealing with human beings and on the other we are dealing with the flow of parts, services or whatever.

The hon. Gentleman is also right that a change in terms and conditions can sometimes be very positive for the employee. Perhaps it involves fewer hours for more money—that sometimes happens—or longer holidays. Of course, if something better is being offered, employees should have the flexibility to accept that, having exercised due diligence and looked it over properly—dotted the i’s, crossed the t’s and all that. What I am trying to get at is where the business model, and the day-to-day operation of the job, has fundamentally changed, through robotics or whatever.

Fireworks: Sale and Use

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for presenting this important debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I also thank the 285 Gloucester residents who signed the petitions, and the scores more who have emailed me about the issue. Fireworks are a hallmark of celebrations in my constituency and around the world. From Eid, Chinese new year and Diwali, to bonfire night and new year’s eve, for many they symbolise moments of unity, happiness and cultural expression. However, I understand that for many others, the sight and sound of fireworks is not so warmly received.

Like many Members in the Chamber, I have received dozens of emails from constituents expressing their concerns about the use of fireworks. Some have written to me to highlight the risks they pose to the wellbeing and safety of pets and wild animals. Others have expressed concern about the effects that they may have on those with PTSD or respiratory conditions, and on people with autism and Down’s syndrome, who may be more sensitive to loud noises. Additionally, many of my constituents have raised concerns regarding the use of fireworks to commit crime. I share all of those concerns, and I am not alone in that, as demonstrated by today’s debate.

From the several public petitions that I have seen, I know that the concerns that I hear in Gloucester are echoed across the country. The issue is not confined to my constituency, but resonates nationwide. Sadly, in Gloucester there have been a number of crimes involving the use of fireworks, including fireworks being posted through letterboxes and set off in people’s front gardens. That is incredibly dangerous, as the cases of those present in the Public Gallery show us. We need to tackle that surge in antisocial behaviour, and I am pleased that the Government have set out their commitment to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour in all our communities.

I am also concerned about the pressure we place on our emergency services. Last year on bonfire night weekend, people sought advice on burn injuries from the NHS every 21 seconds. The fire service is under immense pressure too, responding to frequent call-outs regarding fireworks. That is particularly concerning, as we lost almost a fifth of the fire service workforce under the last Government, further exacerbating the strain.

I am saddened to hear of the effects fireworks have on our wildlife and pets, which suffer as a result. As a father of a rather sleepless one-year-old, I also highlight the struggle of parents with young children who just want a few peaceful hours of sleep. We must find a balance one that allows people to enjoy fireworks while ensuring that their enjoyment does not negatively impact others.

We need thoughtful and considerate legislation and we as individuals must be mindful of the impact of our actions on those around us. It is clear from the debate that the current regulations and enforcement do not work. I am particularly persuaded by the articulate arguments made by hon. Members from across the House for lowering the decibel limit to 90 dB, in accordance with international comparators.

I am pleased that the Government will work with businesses and charities to inform any future fireworks policy. We must ensure that legislation on the use and sale of fireworks keeps the public safe, prevents the misuse of fireworks and protects our pets and wildlife.

Employment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly sensible point. We will come on to that issue shortly. The central point that I ask the Government to reflect on, before any consultation—post-legislation or during the passage of legislation—goes live, is that it is reasonable that those who are expected to put in meaningful and thoughtful contributions to that consultation on how the measures will affect them, will be applied in the real world and will need to be complied with, have as much notice as possible, so that they can put their thinking caps on and, if necessary, bring in professional advice where that is practicable or affordable.

In that way, when the Minister ultimately has the opportunity to read through every single consultation response with, I am sure, great attention to detail, before coming to a recommendation and drafting the necessary statutory instrument to bring about the exact regulations, the detail will be there. This should not be a rush job, but something to which the people out there in our country who actually run businesses, risk their capital and fundamentally create jobs and employ people are able to give as much thought as possible, so that the Government can come to a proper conclusion.

While I am glad that remuneration will be capped, I am still worried that the provisions in the Bill are not necessarily as proportionate as they could be for businesses. Sometimes an employer will have to cancel or curtail shifts through no fault of their own. We went through that issue at length on Tuesday, on a different point. I will not repeat the arguments now, other than to remind the Committee of force majeure. Events outside any employer’s control can happen; that is a reality of life.

It seems unfair in those instances that employers should have to bear the costs of not being able to complete the work on time, as well as having to remunerate employees for hours not worked. I stress, as I said on Tuesday, that that will be a minority of cases. It will be the exception, not the norm, but it is vital, when looking at this amendment and clause that there is an acceptance that those rare cases can and unfortunately will happen in the real world.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I refer the Committee to my membership of the GMB and Community unions. We had a lot of back and forth on this point on Tuesday. I want to clarify what the shadow Minister said on Tuesday. In the extreme circumstances where employers are not able to continue with their work, the shadow Minister made the point that it was not fair on the employer to bear the cost. He also said that it was not necessarily fair for the employee to bear the cost, and that the cost should be shared. If the cost is not being borne by the employer, who does the shadow Minister expect to share that cost, other than it being placed solely on the employee?

[Greg Smith]

I do not want to repeat the whole debate that we had the other day as we might not hit the clause that the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues are trying to get to today. I fully accept his point that the situation is not fair on the employee, but equally it is not fair on the employer, given that those circumstances, events or eventualities are quite literally outside anybody’s control.

I urge the hon. Gentleman and his Front-Bench colleagues to reflect on how to put in place a better and more proportionate system to share the burden. I accept that nobody wants or plans for those eventualities. I refuse to believe that any employer ever wants to have to turn somebody away at the door as they turn up for work. They actually want to make those products, provide those services, ensure people have a good night out or whatever it might be. That is the core of their business. That is how they make money. That is how they grow and create more jobs in the first place. I refuse to believe that any business wants to turn someone away and say, “Sorry, that shift isn’t available,” or, “Only half that shift is available today.”

Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I want to refer to a couple of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield. I appreciate that this is a probing amendment and that, as the MP for Gloucester, I perhaps have a vested interest, given that a number of my constituents work over the constituency border in Cheltenham.

Flexible working will not be available in every role, for some of the reasons listed in the Bill, but for many roles there would be the ability to start half an hour later and finish half an hour earlier, perhaps, or to work different hours over the course of a week. Those are results of flexible working requests. I think that, sometimes, there is a haste from the Conservative party to equate flexible working with working from home—and to put little notes on people’s desks saying that they are not working hard enough. It is really important that we look at flexible working as a whole.

In my experience as an employment solicitor, the Bill is welcome, because the “reasonable” test is important in making sure that we are encouraging employers to think properly about flexible working requests. This measure is also very business friendly, because there is a long list of exemptions that will allow an employer to say, “Because of x, y and z, flexible working is not appropriate.” There is no requirement to accept a request; there is only a requirement to think about it, and to think about those exemptions reasonably. In the context of what we are trying to do, and that balancing act between rights for employees and rights for businesses, I think this lands in about the right place.

The shadow Minister is right that this change will not apply evenly in every sector; it cannot in every business, because of the reasons listed in the exemptions. Each business will have different requirements regarding customer demands, performance and quality. It would be quite difficult for a dentist to work from home, I suggest, but it might be quite easy for them to come in at half-past 9 two days a week. Again, that is a flexible working request. The reasonableness test deals with the purpose of the shadow Minister’s amendment, which is to look at how different sectors might approach the change rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach.

[Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I refer Members to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and my membership of GMB.

I will apologise now if I have an out-of-date amendment paper; the one that I have is dated Tuesday 3 December. Very early on in our discussions, we had the strange definition of a small or medium-sized businesses as one employing 500 people or more. I just want to check whether the proposed amendment is indeed accurate, because it refers to

“the test of reasonableness in subsection (2)(b)(ii)”.

I do not think that any such subsection exists—I think it should be (3)(b)(ii)—but I appreciate that that might be my misunderstanding.

--- Later in debate ---

As these are probing amendments, we will not push them to a vote, but the Opposition’s message is to ensure that everything is thought through, so that the Bill does not create some huge problems down the line. I do not believe that this is a ridiculous amendment, but I will bring up a ridiculous example. Imagine one of the authors who try to emulate the writings of Ian Fleming having to write in future about M asking where Bond is, and Moneypenny coming into the room and saying, “I’m sorry M—he’s flexibly working today. The nuclear warhead has reached its destination.” I appreciate that is an absurd example, but I make it to properly push—

[Alex McIntyre]

Will the shadow Minister give way on that point?

[Greg Smith]

I will finish the line, and then I will. I make that point just to highlight that there are sometimes circumstances in which the flexibilities that the Minister spoke of may not fully apply. I am sure a witticism is coming.

[Alex McIntyre]

Sadly, I am not very funny. Would M’s HR adviser not say, “That might have a detrimental impact on your performance, Mr Bond”? That flexible working request could therefore be reasonably denied.

[Justin Madders]

I am sure that was in “GoldenEye”!

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

I will take on the chin the hon. Gentleman’s point about the 2011 dataset, which was published under the coalition Government, led by my noble friend Lord Cameron. The current Government is seeking to make this legislation, however, so the onus is on them—right here, right now—to provide the datasets, evidence, proper analysis and impact assessments for the legislation that they are putting before the House of Commons and, later, the House of Lords in this Session of this Parliament. I hope the hon. Gentleman accepts the good will with which that comment is made—it is not a political attack. It is the duty of any Government at any time, as they seek to legislate on any matter, to provide the impact assessments, the real data and the real-world evidence of why it is necessary to put that legislation in place.

As I said earlier, it is simply a case of asking the Government to do their homework properly, and to provide, not just to Parliament but to businesses and employees up and down the land, the basis for which they are seeking to change our statute book.

[Alex McIntyre]

I will return briefly to a couple of the shadow Minister’s comments. I take some quantum of solace in the fact that he now seems to be accepting the principle of consultation. Over the past couple of weeks, we have often heard that he would prefer there to be certainty for business in some of the provisions, and now there is some certainty.

[Greg Smith]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but my argument throughout our debates on the amendments has been that it is normal practice to consult first, legislate second, but in many parts of the Bill the practice is to legislate first, consult second. That, I gently suggest to him, is probably the wrong way round.

[Alex McIntyre]

The “cake and eat it” argument is the point I was trying to make. I advised on flexible working requests regularly when in private practice, where individuals and, in particular, employers were asking what their rights were in respect of a request.

The hon. Gentleman raised two points, the first of which was about costs. Again, I point to the exemptions. The burden of additional costs is one of the exemptions by which an employer can say that it is not reasonable to accept a flexible working request. The balance between having rights for employees and making sure that they are not too much of a burden on business is important. The burden of additional costs is already explicitly covered in the legislation.

Secondly, in relation to tribunals, one of the issues with the current system is the lack of explanation provided. Employees often believe the worst, even if that is not always the case. They might make their request, with valid reasons, and if their employer tells them a flat no, with no further explanation, they often believe the worst and bring a tribunal claim.

Providing that explanation at the beginning requires the employer to think about the request. Not every employer is an excellent, flexible employer; some employers think that by offering flexible working, they will somehow lose productivity, whereas lots of studies have shown the opposite. Through that provision, employers will think about the request, engage with the process and the exemptions, think about what that means for their business, and provide a reasoned explanation.

That will not take as long as we might think, because there are only eight exemptions and people know their business very well. When they give that written explanation, it can be relatively short. It does not have to be “War and Peace”—I should have mentioned another James Bond novel—because it is just to give some background. We will then have an explanation that can be used in a tribunal. That will really assist tribunals in dealing with these cases, because there will be a written explanation of why the decision has been taken.

There are loads of cases in which people bring claims of discrimination because their flexible working requests have been rejected. Those can take up lots of time, when there has been just a misunderstanding between the employer and the employee. By introducing the requirement to provide an explanation, and for the employer to think through the reasonableness of it, there might hopefully be fewer claims in the employment tribunal.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Let me make a couple of quick points to sum up. The Opposition are trying to say that most businesses already do this, but this is not about the principle of introducing flexible working; it is about making the process straightforward, clear and consistent across businesses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester said, by ensuring that clarity, it may well reduce the number of cases that get taken to tribunal.

If most businesses are already doing this, why do we want to legislate? Well, we do not want those businesses to be penalised for doing the right thing. We want everybody to be offered the opportunity of flexible working within the reasonableness of their working situation, and with the opportunity for employers to refuse on the eight specified grounds. That will spread best practice not only in it being offered in all places of employment, but in the way that any request for flexible working is dealt with. That is an explanation of the context.

As we have clearly said, our impact assessment has provided an initial analysis of the impacts that can follow, but we will update and define them as we further develop the policy. In fact, part of the clause is specifically about the Secretary of State having the power to provide further detail. We are confident that as most businesses already participate in this process, make the appropriate responses to their employees and understand the system, it will be not a huge new burden to them in any way. I remind Committee members yet again that dealing appropriately with requests for flexible working can considerably help recruitment and retention for businesses. On that note, we reject the amendments tabled by the Opposition.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Statutory sick pay: removal of waiting period

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, but the Opposition’s concern is that the burdens that the Bill’s provisions—including this one—place on many businesses will actually result in fewer jobs in the overall labour market in the United Kingdom. I cannot for one second accept that anybody in this House wants there to be fewer jobs in the economy as a whole. If small businesses are placed under the burdens that are addressed by the amendments, and do not make additional hires or take the risk on individuals for jobs, we will be in a very bad place. If small businesses—the backbone of our economy—are not hiring, not growing and not going on to become medium-sized and large businesses, the people who pay for that are workers and people looking for a job or to progress their careers.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I refer the Committee to my membership of GMB and Community, and to my former membership of the Employment Lawyers Association.

I am somewhat confused by the shadow Minister’s comments. On the one hand, he says that every business in his constituency offers flexible working already and therefore there is no requirement for this legislation; on the other hand, he says it is such a burden to businesses that it will stop them employing people. If everyone is doing it already and we are still employing people, what is the problem?

[Greg Smith]

I did not say that every business is offering flexible working. I said that, having visited businesses in my constituency, I am yet to find a problem around any business’s offering flexible working, or any employee or constituent with a complaint about an inability to get flexible working—quite the opposite, in fact.

If we consider the cumulative impact of all the measures in the Bill, they will certainly place a burden on business. The Opposition are trying to ensure that we take only those measures that will work—only those that will have a direct positive impact and will not be a burden on the HR department. Well, most small businesses do not have an HR department; often, it is the director or another member of the team who has to take on that additional job and understand the burden of regulation, on top of whatever their main contract has them doing. If we get rid of the measures that are simply not necessary, that will mean less of a burden on businesses, notwithstanding the point, which the hon. Member for Gloucester rightly highlighted, that the majority of businesses that I speak to do not have a problem offering flexible working—perhaps some businesses in other Members’ constituencies do.

The point of going through the Bill line by line in Committee is to metaphorically kick the tyres to ensure that its provisions are not a burden on business and will not have unintended consequences. As I said earlier, I cannot for one second believe that anybody in this House wants to see fewer jobs in the overall economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend is right. The cumulative impact of other measures should be considered in the round. I might gently push back by saying that some of those matters are perhaps not fully in scope of the amendments that we are discussing. However, he is absolutely right that the Bill has to be considered in the light of other factors relating to other decisions in Government, be that fiscal events or other legislation. That goes to the nub of this set of amendments. This is about whether some of the measures are proportionate given the Government’s original intent in the Bill, and whether some of the original intent in the Bill, from which these amendments seek to exclude SMEs, will be the metaphorical straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Amendment 140 excludes employers with fewer than 500 employees from the Bill’s provisions on dismissal for failing to agree a variation of contact—this is also part of our set of amendments. We have questions about the wisdom of clause 22, or at least we seek reassurance from the Minister that it will not prevent employers from improving working conditions or working practices. I would like to remove yet another burden on small and medium-sized business unless and until the Government can prove that that measure is needed and proportionate, and that, critically, the benefits will outweigh the costs.

[Alex McIntyre]

My experience in business goes way back. My parents ran a small business and, although I would not say I was a worker at it, I helped out from the age of nine. I got my first job at a small business when I was 12, and I worked in the hospitality trade throughout my school and university years, all at small and medium-sized enterprises. I spoke last week about the fact that I was on a zero-hours contract for the most part while I was there. I then became an employment lawyer advising businesses, from start-ups to FTSE 100 companies and global conglomerates. So I have some experience in these matters, and I am very grateful to be on the Committee.

Let me go back to my experience on a zero-hours contract. We are talking about amendments that would take out SMEs from many of these provisions, and I want to draw on two of my experiences and say why I think this issue is important. I mentioned the first last week: when I was on a zero-hours contract at the hotel that I worked at in my later teens, everybody in that business was on a zero-hours contract. As a 15-year-old, I was quite happy to be on a zero-hours contract. I had to balance it with playing rugby and my studies, but in the summer I could flex up and work longer hours. However, for many of my colleagues, that was their full-time job; it was the job that paid their rent or mortgage—if they had been lucky enough to buy a house—looked after their kids and provided the heating each winter. But when it came to it, it was open to abuse, and the manager I had would vary hours based not on demand, but on whether she liked the individual or not.

I remember vividly that one week a colleague refused—quite rightly, I would say—to take the manager’s personal shopping up to her fourth-floor flat, because he was really busy behind the bar; he was the only barman on shift. He usually worked between 50 and 60 hours a week; for the next month, he was given five hours a week. He had two children, and rent to pay. I just do not agree with the amendment suggesting that that is fine and that that abuse of someone’s rights could continue indefinitely.

[Mr Bedford]

The example the hon. Gentleman has just given would be covered anyway by employment law. If an individual is being discriminated against, they could take that to a tribunal under current employment law. The amendment would not in any way dilute the rights that currently exist in that respect.

[Alex McIntyre]

Well, the individual would be able to raise a grievance, but discrimination requires it to be related to a protected characteristic, and there is no protected characteristic saying that just because someone disagrees with a manager, he would be able to bring a claim under the Equality Act 2010 for discrimination. He might be able to raise a grievance about that, but that requires an employer to have a fair grievance process and to actually follow through. Is that individual, who is already on very low pay and struggling to pay his rent and feed his kids, going to take that grievance through a tribunal system that the previous Government allowed to really suffer? Eighteen to 24 months is the standard waiting time to get any form of justice, so I do not think it is appropriate to say that he would be able just to go to a tribunal. What he really needed was guaranteed hours and small businesses being prevented from abusing people by saying that they can continue to work 60 hours but not offering them a regular-hours contract.

My second point is on sexual harassment or harassment by third parties. When I was 15 years old, I worked at a Christmas party for midwives at that same hotel, and during that party I was sexually assaulted in the workplace. I was groped by the midwives and told that because I was only 15, they would be able to teach me a thing or two. When I approached my manager about it, he said I should enjoy that kind of attention because I was a man. I am really conscious that female colleagues suffered way worse than I did. Just because businesses are smaller, that does not mean that the impact on victims and people working there is any less.

However, the wording of the Bill is “all reasonable steps”, and the “reasonable” test is taken into account when tribunals consider such matters and what reasonable steps need to be taken by businesses. The size of a business is often something that tribunals will take into account when they look at what “all reasonable steps” would mean. In my example, there were reasonable steps that could have been taken, but I was told that I had to get back in there and carry on working with that party. Excluding small businesses would prevent them from having the duty to look after their employees when they are suffering harassment in the workplace.

To come back to the point made by the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire about competing evenly, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield has already talked about some of the perverse outcomes that the amendment might lead to. Unscrupulous employers who want to get around the legislation in whatever way they can might end up setting up umbrella companies in order to do that if this amendment were passed. A two-tier employment system would be a barrier to growth for companies, because it would say, “If you grow your company and continue to do well, you are going to put additional regulation on to the company.” There would be a perverse incentive for businesses to grow to 499 employees and stop there.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about employers wanting to set up separate entities to keep below a limit, he will be aware that in the Budget the Chancellor increased the employment allowance, to protect small businesses from her otherwise devastating increase in national insurance charges, and there is no indication that the Exchequer is incapable of managing that. Equally, with small business rate relief, there is no indication that local councils cannot distinguish between employers that are setting up different business and those that are taking advantage of that. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that employers would be able to exploit what he describes as a loophole—but what we would say is there to protect small businesses—and yet the Government are perfectly happy to have similar allowances for national insurance and through rate relief?

[Alex McIntyre]

If we are looking at the numbers, I am glad that somebody on the Opposition Benches is finally acknowledging that we have massively increased employment allowance, taking many small businesses out of paying national insurance contributions altogether. It is nice to finally have some recognition of some of the good stuff this Government are doing for small businesses.

To return to the point, though, there is a big difference between having four employees, which would allow somebody to employ people on the national living wage, and having 500 employees. It would be much easier for a large business to exploit the kind of loopholes that are being suggested by reorganising itself into blocks of 499 employees than it would be for a business of a couple of thousand employees to be split into organisations of four employees or fewer, so I think that that is what is much more likely to happen.

I will not name names, but I have been in the trade for a long time, and whenever there is employment legislation, businesses will be considering how best to deal with it, and some are more aggressive than others. In this case, aggressive employers would potentially exploit that loophole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield suggested. We are creating a level playing field, which is an important part of this Bill. We heard in evidence last week that many employers are already doing so many of the good things in this Bill. This is a levelling of the playing field, to stop people undercutting good employers with what are, quite frankly, shoddy employment practices.

To sum up, I fully support the Bill, and I do not support the amendment. We should not create a two-tier employment system, where instances such as those that I and my colleagues suffered, like others working on zero-hours contracts in small and medium-sized enterprises, are allowed to go unchecked. We should continue to create a level playing field, as the Minister has suggested. It is important that we encourage all small and medium-sized enterprises to be good employers because, as the hon. Member for Chippenham said, staff retention in small and medium-sized enterprise is difficult. Being good employers—offering flexible working and ensuring that people have regular hours, if that is what they are working—can only benefit small and medium-sized enterprises, as they grow and expand their businesses.

[Sarah Gibson]

As I have stated, I am concerned for small businesses and have spoken to many across my constituency of Chippenham that are extremely concerned about the cumulative effects of these measures on businesses without an HR department and about the huge cost they will impose. However, although I welcome the amendment, I am seriously concerned that if we create a system in which the rights of those who work for small businesses are curtailed, that will affect their ability to take on extra staff.

I feel as though I could have supported the amendment if it had been drafted for seriously small businesses, rather than SMEs of up to 500 employees. I struggle to think of a firm in my constituency with that many employees that does not have an HR department, because they would be struggling as a single employer—I used to struggle as the HR department of my own business with 15 employees. If the number of employees in the amendment could be brought down to around 20, it would be much more acceptable to those kinds of small businesses, but as it is, I would find it difficult to support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I want to talk about the reference period in relation to the hospitality and tourism industry, which is particularly important to my constituency of Bridgwater and to many other constituencies in the south-west of England. Clearly a lot of seasonal workers are employed, and although I would prefer there to be no reference period, the Government have a mandate to introduce one. Any reference period of less than 26 weeks will cause great difficulty for businesses that may start engaging people just before Easter and are looking for employment to end in September or October, according to their business need. The fact that that detail is left to secondary legislation causes concern to those businesses.

[Alex McIntyre]

Does the hon. Member not agree that most businesses in hospitality know their seasons very well? They come every year and they tend to operate on a relatively regular basis—that is how seasons work. As has been highlighted, businesses could use fixed-term contracts to ensure that they have appropriate staffing for the season. Those contracts would end at the appropriate time, negating the need for a longer reference period.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that point, but in Burnham-on-Sea in my constituency there are many very small businesses, with perhaps two or three employees, that take on an extra person or two during the summer season. This summer has been particularly bad because there has been an awful lot of rain. Business needs change. The danger is that if there were a short reference period and we were fortunate enough to have a very hot and sunny April, May and June but a very wet July, August and September, businesses would be employing more staff because they had to, rather than because it was justified by the business conditions.

This is just not necessary. It is Government regulation for the sake of it, and it will make life more difficult for small business owners. Every time Government Members have risen to speak, they have declared that they are a member of one union or another, but very few have actually run a small business. I did run a small business. I was self-employed before I came to this place. It is challenging, because you are on your own: you take the decision whether to employ someone or not. Dare I say it, there are too few Government Members who have set up small businesses and who have actually employed people and experienced that challenge. That is part of why they do not understand how difficult this regulation would make life for some very small businesses.