Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Andrew Griffith and Antonia Bance

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

The concerns that we Conservatives have with the Bill have long been known, and I accept that we have debated them at length. I will not repeat them all today, because we are not here to debate the whole Bill, just the message sent to us from the other place.

There was a time when the Labour party would have cared about protecting jobs and those who wanted one. There was a time when Labour believed, as we do, in the dignity of work and what that meant for families and communities—a Christian socialism, if you like, rather than the state worship that seems to have replaced it. I cannot honestly think of a previous Government who would ever have passed this Bill—certainly not since the 1970s. The result, whether Labour likes it or not, is that day by day, week by week, month by month, people are losing their jobs.

This Christmas there will be 192,000 fewer people in private sector payrolled employment than last Christmas, and who knows what it will be like next Christmas. We have the worst ever graduate jobs market. Adzuna estimates that jobs for degree holders have fallen by 33%. Labour used to care about youth unemployment, but for those aged between 16 and 24 unemployment has now reached 15%, according to the Office for National Statistics. As has been the case every month so far under this Government, tomorrow morning we are likely to hear that the rate of unemployment is higher.

This Bill could have been on the statute book today, but for one simple reason: a gross betrayal of trust. The small group of business groups that Ministers invited in for tea and sandwiches took this Government at their word.

[Antonia Bance]

I wonder if the hon. Gentleman would like to tell the House which of these business groups he disagrees with and that he thinks we should not listen to today, because these are the groups telling us and peers in the other place that we should be voting for the Bill. Does he disagree with the British Chambers of Commerce or the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development? Does he disagree with the Confederation of British Industry, with the Federation of Small Businesses, with the Recruitment and Employment Confederation or with Small Business Britain?

[Andrew Griffith]

The hon. Lady would have been wise to contain her excitement, because I agree with all of those groups in their letter today, which the Minister selectively quoted; she did not quote them saying that they are not in favour of removing the cap. I have spoken to each and every organisation that was in the room, and they are crystal clear, with one group saying:

“That was not a concession discussed with us or agreed by us in the negotiations”.

I invite the Minister to intervene on me if she thinks that a word of what I say is wrong. She is misquoting, and it is misrepresenting those business groups that do not support the cap.

Why would any sane Government scrap the cap entirely? Indeed, this Government themselves did not for 13 and a half of the 14 months that we have been debating this Bill. It was not in the manifesto or the Bill or the impact assessment. It was not considered by the Regulatory Policy Committee, and it was never discussed in this House until Ministers threw it in at the last moment in a breach of trust of the business groups with which they negotiated.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Andrew Griffith and Antonia Bance

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I am trying to be generous to the hon. Member, as this Bill was part of his legacy before he was so rudely fired by a bad boss without any notice.

It is not unreasonable to say that a strike must be supported by a mere quarter of workers in order to be valid. I do not think the Labour party would claim the mandate that the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) was talking about on the votes of merely a quarter.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is not being very clear. Does he like the pre-2016 trade union regime, which is the one this Bill takes us back to, or does he like the post-2016 trade union regime, which is the one he seems to be advocating except when he talks about the 30 years of settled consensus? Which is it, because it cannot be both?

[Andrew Griffith]

We on the Conservative Benches seek to respect the role of trade unions, but in a flexible workplace where we see growth in the economy and—unlike what we see today—more people in jobs, rather than fewer people in jobs. That does not help anybody at all, least of all a Government who claim that their No. 1 obsession is growth. That is not an unreasonable position.

Not for the first time, I think Ministers have got themselves in a bind. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade is going around telling business groups that he is listening, but every one of them is against this Bill. From what the Health Secretary has been saying privately, it is clear that he is no fan of giving more power to militant unions to call low turnout strikes. The welfare Secretary has commissioned reports on getting people from welfare into work, and those reports talk about not disincentivising employers from hiring. Are Treasury Ministers really looking forward to the Office for Budget Responsibility next week scoring the impact of this Bill, given the independent estimates that it could shave up to 2.8% off GDP? The Chancellor likes to blame everyone from the dinosaurs onwards for her failure, but this one will definitely be on her.

The looming disaster of this Bill is the truth that dare not speak its name. It may be a triumph for the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), but it is a disaster for Britain. It is bad for business, bad for growth, and bad for jobs. Far from furthering workers’ rights, it punishes those who want a job. We do not protect workers by bankrupting their employers. Even the Government’s allies are warning them against this Bill.

Government Members have a choice. They can stand by and watch as their Government bring into law decades-worth of economic stagnation, or they can be on the side of the young, the vulnerable and the enterprising. History will remember this moment, because when unemployment skyrockets, businesses shut their doors, and young people stop believing and stop hoping, no one on the Government Benches will be able to say that they were not warned.