Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Andrew Griffith and Desmond Swayne

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

Of course not all dismissals are unfair, but if it was not a process that ended up in court or in a tribunal, we would not be facing a backlog of 491,000 individuals with current open cases—by the Government’s own figures—and business organisations would not be citing legal fees in that order of magnitude.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

One reason that so many of those cases do not end up in a tribunal is that businesses, cognisant of the loss of management time and £15,000 to £20,000 in fees, simply pay up rather than contest.

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend, with his experience, is exactly right. Just think about the impact on a small business of a fee of that magnitude and the length of time it takes to get justice.

What is going to happen? This is a really important point. Those on the Government Benches will be living this reality over the remainder of their term, and they will have to account for it. Businesses will be discouraged from hiring anybody without a perfect CV and a proven track record of work. Who are we talking about? We are talking about young people, people with dyslexia and related conditions, and people with a period of inactivity on their CVs—such as former prisoners seeking a second chance to go straight. Those will be the victims of that particular measure.

Labour Ministers should realise that they will be the first victims of disagreeing with Lords amendment 62. The long-standing principle here is a simple one: we should not be allowing strikes to be called when a majority of union members have not even voted, let alone voted in favour. A strike could still proceed with just over a quarter of those eligible. Opposing this amendment will guarantee that unions are held hostage by a militant minority who force strikes even when the union’s own members do not support one. We can ill afford more strikes that crush growth, prevent workers from getting to work and endanger lives, and the public will not forget the change that this Government seek to make.

Amendment 61 is a Cross-Bench Lords amendment that would maintain a consensus arrived at by the Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding Committee—that only those who actively choose to contribute to a political fund opt in to do so. This is a basic principle that the Government have applied to services everywhere else in the economy, from beauty boxes, gyms and meditation apps to Netflix and newspaper subscriptions. Why should Britain’s workers not enjoy the same right? The only conceivable reason—it brings shame on anyone who votes against the amendment—is to swell the coffers of one political party.

Lords amendment 47, on the right to be accompanied, tries to finally level the playing field for the 80% of workers who are not in a union, but should have the same rights as trade union members to be supported in a disciplinary or grievance hearing. By voting against this modest but important reform, Labour is preserving what is essentially a closed shop that unions use to push people who do not want to join into doing so. We scrapped the closed shop decades ago, and no one should be bringing it back as a means of pressuring vulnerable workers into paying into union coffers.

Business and the Economy

Debate between Andrew Griffith and Desmond Swayne

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

One has to celebrate small mercies, and I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the cause of free trade. Free trade is what has lifted billions of people in the world out of poverty. It has made us the great country that we are today. The business in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency that has formed such a clear view has obviously benefited from considerably more detail than the House, so perhaps he will share its name. We would be very happy to hear about the details of the trade agreement that has been reached.

Perhaps, in having that conversation with his local business, the hon. Gentleman would like to engage in a discussion about its views on the Employment Rights Bill. Despite legion opportunities that I, and others, have given Ministers to name a single business that is in favour of all the measures in the Bill, answer still comes there none.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

May I tell my hon. Friend why I think the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) is wrong? Since the very inception of our negotiations to join what was then the common market—now the European Union—it has attached huge importance to fishing. We have just handed over the enormous leverage of an annual negotiation, and for what? Absolutely nothing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Andrew Griffith, match that passion!