Employment Rights Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Alex McIntyre and Nick Timothy

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Mr Stringer. I welcome the Bill, and this clause is a really important part of it. We are introducing the clause to improve the workplace treatment of individuals who suffer harassment. Before the lunch break, we heard an interesting interpretation of the legislation, but sadly, it was not correct in all places, and I would like to go through some points made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire. As part of that, I will reflect from the beginning that the Fawcett Society has found that 40% of women have experienced workplace harassment, and women who are marginalised for other reasons, such as race or disability, face an increased risk of and different forms of harassment, including sexual harassment in the workplace.

This clause is a vital part of the legislation, because we know—we heard this in evidence a few weeks ago—that harassment does not always come from a fellow employee or an employer. Quite often, it can come from third parties, particularly in some of the sectors that the Opposition seek to exclude with their amendment. We heard particularly from UKHospitality about the impact of third-party harassment in the hospitality sector, and I have shared my experience of being harassed in the workplace while working in the hospitality sector as a 15-year-old. This is really important. My example was only one—frankly, there will be thousands of examples—and I know that my experience as a young man will be very different from the experiences of women working in hospitality up and down the country.

As we enter the Christmas party season, we will see a massive increase in workplace harassment—not just sexual harassment, but other forms of harassment. This is perhaps where we got into some confusion this morning. There are different types of harassment, and the type that we talked about in particular this morning was harassment under the Equality Act 2010. That has a very specific definition, which will not be changed by the proposed legislation, despite what the shadow Minister said. A different test will be applied to that definition in terms of when it might come into play, but the definition of harassment will not change. Therefore, for something to be harassment, it must be unwanted conduct relating to somebody’s protected characteristic and create an offensive environment, or one that degrades, humiliates or embarrasses individuals.

The hon. Member for West Suffolk tried to introduce a few examples around the free speech argument, but those did not support the argument that he tried to make. The Independent Press Standards Organisation found that there was no harassment in the Gareth Roberts case. It found that there was a lower form of conduct in relation to clause 12(i) of the IPSO code of practice, but there was no harassment.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex McIntyre]

I will, if the hon. Gentleman wants to correct the record.

[Nick Timothy]

I have absolutely no intention of correcting the record, because the record will be correct. I think the hon. Member misunderstands my point, which was not to say that in that case the conduct was an example of harassment; I am fully aware that the IPSO ruling said that it was not harassment. My point was about the laws of unintended consequences. When IPSO was established, I do not think anybody thought that there would be cases such as this, where a journalist would be penalised by IPSO for saying something that IPSO acknowledges was a statement of fact on the grounds that it may be offensive.

[Alex McIntyre]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but the fact is that in these circumstances, the definition in the Equality Act is clear. There is already an abundance of case law on what constitutes harassment, particularly in relation to the Equality Act, the different types of protected characteristics and the actions required to reach that threshold. The threshold is not just that there is unwanted conduct or that it relates to a protected characteristic; it is about the environment that is created. There is an abundance of case law on that point.

The second example was about my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary, but again it missed the point entirely. We all enjoy comedy, which is a staple of our culture. Jokes are fine unless they start to become unwanted and are aimed at protected characteristics, such as someone’s gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. The other point that that example missed—we spoke at length about comedy clubs, and I hate to raise them again—is that the Bill is not about punters at a comedy club being offended by what they hear on stage; it is about protecting the employees. For somebody to trigger this legislation, the comedian would have to make a joke directed at one of the employee’s protected characteristics. If the club employs a member of bar staff who has a protected characteristic and the comedian on stage consistently and absolutely humiliates them because of it, one might expect the employer to take some reasonable steps, such as not booking that comedian again, so that the individual is not consistently humiliated on a regular basis because of one of their protected characteristics. That is what the Bill is intended to do.

We are not saying that employers are required to stop all harassment in the workplace; that would not be possible. As the shadow Minister rightly said, there will be cases when somebody comes into a bar during a Christmas party, inebriated, having enjoyed far too much free wine, and says something that is offensive and horrifically wrong, and with which we all across this House would disagree. The Bill requires employers to have policies in place to deal with that. We cannot legislate for the unknown. We cannot legislate for serious circumstances that we cannot predict or for every individual who walks into a bar, but we can have policies in place to deal with those things.

Employment Rights Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Alex McIntyre and Nick Timothy

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Nick Timothy]

Q I have three very quick questions, which I think you can answer very quickly. You are obviously very pleased with the Bill, and I know that countervailing power is important and matters. First, would you characterise this as a fundamental act of rebalancing between capital and organised labour? Secondly, as the Bill was prepared, how was the relationship with the Department? How welcoming was it? Did Ministers ensure that you had an open door? Thirdly, I know you hope that the Bill means a more collaborative relationship with employers in the way that you have described, but obviously the right to withdraw your labour is a very powerful thing. Do you think there is a possibility that we will ultimately see more strikes as a result of the Bill?

Paul Nowak: Perhaps I could have a quick go at those questions. I would not describe it as a fundamental rebalancing; I would describe it, as I said, as the biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in decades, and one that has been desperately needed for years. I hesitate to say this, but I think there has been a political consensus that this rebalancing, if you want to describe it as such, needs to take place. If you cast your mind back to 2016-17, Theresa May commissioned Matthew Taylor to undertake his review of modern employment practices. I think there were between 50 and 60 recommendations in his piece of work. The then Government promised 20 times or more in Parliament that they would bring forward an employment Bill and they did not. There was actually a recognition under successive Conservative Governments that the labour market was not working, that it was letting down far too many workers and that it was not working on its own terms, with low productivity and so on.

I hope that there is a political consensus that we do need to shift the balance. On the relationship with the Departments, I have been at the roundtables with union colleagues and also with representatives from the CBI and the other business organisations, and I think it genuinely has been a collaborative effort. What has been said to trade unions and what has been said to business has been exactly the same. The message has been consistent, and I think that is a good way of working.

I do not think you can draw a line between this legislation and an increase in industrial action. Indeed, I would flip that point. Previous Governments introduced the Trade Union Act 2016, which was designed to make it harder, effectively, for workers to take industrial action, and then last year they presided over the biggest strike wave in our recent history. I stood—not because I am some trade union anorak on these issues—on more picket lines last year than I have in the previous 20 years combined, despite the fact that it was made harder for workers to take industrial action. Actually, I think the focus of the previous Government, and I think the focus of this Government, is not on trying to legislate industrial problems out of existence, but on trying to resolve disputes and on finding ways of working together.

I was on the council of ACAS for 11 years. There will always be individual and collective disputes in workplaces; that is a fact of life in modern workplaces. How you manage those disputes and how you put in place the right, proper framework of law to give workers an effective voice is really important, and I think this legislation helps to do that.

Maggi Ferncombe: Good industrial relations will mean fewer strikes; it is as simple as that. If workers feel that they have been listened to through their trade union, and that we have been able to find a solution—hopefully—to any of the issues, the likelihood of workers feeling that they have no option but to take strike action will lessen.

Dave Moxham: I fully concur.

Hannah Reed: From Unite’s perspective, we would say that this is a step towards rebalancing power relations in the workplace. We think that at the moment there are too many gaps in the Bill and we have to include in that zero-hours contracts. We think it is too easy for the employer to game the measures, but we look forward to working with the Committee on tightening those provisions up.

I want to pay absolute tribute to the Department—the civil servants as well as the Ministers—for the work that it has done in recent weeks and months, and for genuinely engaging. I have been in employment rights policy work for generations, and I have never seen anything like this level of engagement in terms of civil servants and also Ministers giving their time to both sides of industry.

I want to reiterate the point that I think has been made by Unison: collaborative working relationships are dependent on both sides. Too often—we have experienced this in recent years—employers have resorted to hard strong-arm tactics such as fire and rehire, sacking workforces and driving up casualisation in the workplace. That increases insecurity and damages morale in the workplace. We would like to be in workplaces where employers come to the table, have genuine negotiations and recognise the importance of investing in the workforce, building security and offering a genuinely fair share of the outcomes from what workers do, not simply increasing the profit margin.

[Alex McIntyre]

Q We have heard a lot today from other witnesses about the benefits of the flexibility of zero-hours contracts to businesses. Could you tell us a little bit about the impact on your members of the uncertainty of zero-hours contracts?

Paul Nowak: It has a massive uncertainty in terms of people not being able to plan their lives and not knowing whether they are going to be working enough hours to pay the bills and to meet their rent or mortgage at the end of the month. Overwhelmingly, those on zero-hours contracts want guaranteed hours. The vast majority of the British public, regardless of who they voted for at the last election, want to see an end to zero-hours contracts. We polled 1,000 large, medium and small employers, and 70% of them believe that getting rid of zero-hours contracts will drive improvements in productivity.

I will make one final point. We hear a lot about the potential cost to employers, the potential impact on recruitment and so on, but some of those points were made during the introduction of the minimum wage.