Employment Rights Bill (First sitting)

Alison Hume Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I also refer to my declaration of interests. I am member of Unite and GMB.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

I also refer to my declaration of interests and my membership of Unison and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

[Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)]

I also refer to my declaration of interests. I am a member of GMB.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Wheeler]

Q I want to drill down into something Ben talked about earlier: how can the Bill best meet its aims while supporting smaller businesses that might not have dedicated HR support? Carly, the Happy Business School describes itself as being

“on a mission to help organisations build people-centric workplace cultures, where happy people can thrive.”

Which measures in the Bill will be most transformative and help you in that mission?

Carly Cannings: Not to labour the point further, but this is about setting minimum standards, and creating happy, thriving workplace cultures is far broader than employment legislation. On the stuff around flexibility, some of which has already come in through previous legislation, a common theme with organisations I work with is that having good, flexible working policies generally goes down very well with employers. As with everything, there is a balance to be struck, but some of the firming up of the flexibility rights is good. But as I said, lots of the businesses I work with are already doing good things in that space. It is more about bringing up the standards for the others. This is just a small part in that bigger picture, but a move in the right direction. I suppose it is raising the profile of those rights and broadening them.

[Alison Hume]

Q Carly, you have experience in supporting businesses, including SMEs, to transform their processes and culture to become happy workplaces. How do you see the measures in the Bill making happier workplaces for people with disabilities and health conditions?

Carly Cannings: That is a good point. Arguably, from my reading of the Bill, there is not a lot of specific focus on those rights. It is about standards across the board. There are already some protections, particularly unfair dismissal rules. Even though the qualifying period is likely to change, there are still the protected characteristic rights—the day one rights that already exist.

I have to say that, from my reading, the Bill does not scream out that there is lots in there that will help specifically those with disabilities and long-term health conditions. Flexible working is definitely part of that picture, but the big change was making it a day one right, which has already been done. The legislation is just tightening that up further. Being able to have flexibility is a big issue for people in terms of accessing work, so that is probably the biggest one. But as I say, a lot of that work has been done in making it a day one right.

[Uma Kumaran]

Q Carly, this question is to you as well. The number of questions coming to you reflects the fact that we need your mission to help us to be a happy, healthy, thriving workforce in Parliament. How can we use the Bill to communicate the measures available to businesses? We heard from a previous panel that businesses may not be aware of what is coming in. How can we use some of the transformative measures in the Bill to promote happy, healthy workplace cultures?

Carly Cannings: I have reached out to businesses to try to get a sense of what is going on. At the moment, because there are lots of gaps in the detail, employers probably are not focusing their minds so much on the detail of the Bill. I suppose it comes off the back of the Budget and the NI changes. There is probably a lot for employers to get their heads around at the moment.

The consultation and engagement should be kept going so that businesses understand what is coming. Back to Cathryn’s point about seeing the greater good of this, if you get through what might be some initial pain in making some changes to your policy and implementing those changes, it is for the greater good. I suppose a lot of what I talk about is joining the dots between having happy, thriving workplaces and having more productive, successful businesses. It is about understanding that raising these standards and making working environments better for people is better for not just the people in them but the businesses themselves.

Ben Willmott: I think we need to look at how the system as a whole will work, particularly on that point about labour market enforcement. We have to look at not only national enforcement efforts but how efforts to support small firms work at a regional level, such as with combined authority areas, and the interface and being joined up at that level is really important.

One of the things that we are doing currently is the Government-funded HR support pilots through which we provide a limited amount of pump-priming HR consultancy support. We are working with Angus council in Scotland, as well as the Tees Valley combined authority and the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. They have a number of our CIPD-qualified HR consultants who provide up to two days of pump-priming HR consultancy support to small firms. That is being evaluated by the behavioural insights team to understand what good-quality business support on the people side looks like, and what a cost-effective system of providing that would look like as well. Some of those areas also need to be thought about if we are looking at creating a system where there can be a step change in people management capability and employment standards.

Cathryn Moses-Stone: Just to add one more thing, we need to streamline the enforcement processes and provide really clear guidance and support. It is all about those comms coming from Government, not just the scaremongering legal side. A small business should be able to log on and ask, “What support can I get? Can I get short modular courses on management training to help me figure out the legalities of this?” What resources will be available to support and not just regulate? You cannot regulate positive workplace culture into existence.