Post Office: Horizon Compensation Arrangements

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she does on protecting whistleblowers. As I say, I want to make sure we can get fair justice and compensation for everybody involved. That needs to go through a process and we need to get the balance right. That will be done by benchmarking people’s losses and how they have been affected. We have regular conversations both with postmasters and, importantly, their legal representatives to fully understand the harm done to them, so we can reflect that in any scheme we put forward.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) for securing this urgent question and I pay tribute to the Minister, because I know he cares passionately about this issue. He came before the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and expressed himself with great candour. May I press him on the issue of fair compensation? We have heard from many Members today, and we will hear more, that the correct way to address this situation is not by fair compensation, but by full compensation for all those past losses and expenses. They have paid money back to the Post Office and they need that money back. They need their future losses recovered, their pension losses recovered, and psychiatric injury and exemplary damages for their loss of liberty. That needs to be reflected in the system. We cannot have a compensation system on the cheap. These people have to be compensated in full. Will he commit to that?

[Paul Scully]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words at the beginning of his question. He outlines the complexity of what we need to do and what the Post Office needs to do to right this wrong. That will be reflected in conversations with legal representatives to ensure, without being able to restore the past 20 years to the people affected, we do everything we can to make sure they get full and fair compensation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is an outspoken advocate for the Cornish cluster, which is growing fast. In addition to our groundbreaking pledge to increase investment in R&D outside the golden triangle to 55%, we are specifically investing in the South West Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, the Newquay Spaceport and work with the University of Exeter and Virgin Orbit. This is an exciting time for the Cornish economy.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that workers in the UK should learn from Germany, where workers do not have a habit of going into work when not well. Will the Minister learn from the German Government and bring in statutory sick pay that covers 100% of workers’ salaries instead of the measly 90% that is covered in the UK, which leaves so many workers in the terrible position of having to do the responsible thing of isolating while being sick and not being able to put food on the table? On that point, will the Minister take this opportunity—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr McDonald, I gave you the privilege of getting in. Questions are meant to be brief. There are two other people who have to come in as well; it is not just about you.

Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this really important debate. As he said, it is important because this report was published back in 2017, because we must keep scrutiny strong on progress with employment and because there can be nothing more important to our country at the moment than having a strong economy. The role of workers within that is crucial.

The hon. Gentleman could perhaps forgive me for thinking that the Government have been quite busy since he was elected in 2017. I have the privilege of having been elected a number of years before that. The pandemic and leaving the EU have been quite time-consuming issues. Not only that, but they have changed the very nature of our employment market and economy. It is a strength that we are coming to this afresh, as the economy is recovering very fast from the pandemic, and that we should take a long, hard look at how we can not only bounce back to pre-pandemic levels of work and growth, but also—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman would like to intervene, I am happy to give way.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I am very happy to intervene. I am interested to hear the right hon. Member describe the Government as being “busy”. There is nothing more important than workers’ rights, and to think for one minute that they should somehow be relegated is quite frankly a staggering admission from her. Perhaps she would like to reflect upon it.

[Mrs Miller]

I am very glad to have had that intervention because many workers listening to this debate will remember how the Government furloughed many, many thousands of people—not just because it was the right thing to do to protect their jobs, but because it also protected their pay packets. Far from doing nothing, this Government have done more than any other Government in peacetime history to support the workers of this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for securing this debate. I, too, declare my interest as a private member of Unite the union. I note that Government Members on the Benches opposite are rather sparse—I do not know whether that betrays their attitude towards this issue or whether they are busy writing letters or taking part in Operation Big Dog Whistle.

As we all know very well, coronavirus has reshaped the landscape of the world of work quite considerably. While a number of the Taylor review’s recommendations are still very relevant, such as taking a more proactive approach to workplace health, others do not address the situation we find ourselves in today—for example, the suggestion that national regulation is not the route to achieve better work.

As we have endured the greatest health crisis in a century it has become clear that the strong role of Government is critical to creating good work, whether through tighter regulation of workplace health and safety or proper enforcement of workplace rights. If we are to learn anything from this pandemic, we must ensure that Government intervention to keep workers safe and free from exploitation is not seen as unnecessary red tape.

Last year I had the privilege of chairing a taskforce with the Labour party’s affiliate trade unions to produce a report of our own. That in turn led to our Green Paper on employment rights—which, in the best traditions of the Labour party, is red—setting out our plan for a new deal for working people, which would build on the good recommendations in the Taylor review. Our taskforce looked at how we could learn lessons from the pandemic and set out a raft of employment rights policies, from establishing fair pay agreements and reinstituting sectoral collective bargaining, to ending bogus self-employment and bringing in day one rights for all workers. That provided a vision of what truly good work could look like after the devastation of covid and more than a decade of failed Tory ideology.

The laissez-faire approach taken by the Government to the protection of workers during the pandemic, but also the years leading up to it, has shown itself to be fundamentally flawed. At each step of their handling of the crisis, Ministers have been too slow to act, particularly in their failures to protect workplace health and safety. The fact that the position of director of labour market enforcement was vacant for 10 months after Matthew Taylor stepped down last year, and that we are still to see an employment Bill more than two years after one was first promised, speaks volumes about how little the Government prioritise good work.

The failures over recent years have been compounded by the pre-pandemic austerity cuts that the Tories inflicted on our public bodies. For example, the Health and Safety Executive has been left with half the budget and two thirds the number of inspectors that it enjoyed under the last Labour Government. The £14 million in emergency funds that the HSE received at the beginning of the pandemic goes only a short distance towards making up for the more than £100 million in lost funding that it has endured over the past decade, and it still lacks the resources to fulfil its statutory role. Having been so stripped back after years of austerity, few prosecutions are ever brought, leaving workers at risk of unsafe conditions. Last year, only 185 convictions were secured—a drop of almost two thirds compared with 2016-17.

In Labour’s “Employment Rights Green Paper”, we set out the importance of giving the HSE the full funding that it needs to protect workers properly. Our new deal would also introduce an effective single enforcement body to bring health and safety prosecutions and civil proceedings on workers’ behalf and to end the underpayment of the national minimum wage, along with other exploitation and discriminatory practices.

Soon after the introduction of the first lockdown, in April 2020, an astounding 1.6 million workers were being paid less than the national minimum wage, according to the Low Pay Commission. The Taylor review was right to stress that a top concern of workers is the issue of unpaid wages. However, only through national regulation of workplaces and a single enforcement body can that be achieved. With only 18 employment agency standards inspectors responsible for inspecting 40,000 employment agencies, it is no wonder that the situation is so terrible.

Our new deal for working people differs from the Taylor review in one major respect, and that is on the issue of creating a single status of worker for all but the genuinely self-employed. Our policy is captured in Lord Hendy’s brilliant Status of Workers Bill, which awaits a final formal Third Reading in the other place, after which it will come to us. Rather than following Matthew Taylor’s proposal to maintain the present multiple categories, with different rights attaching to each, our plan to create the single status, with all workers gaining full rights from day one of employment, would have life-changing effects for so many.

For example, security guards at Great Ormond Street Hospital had to threaten industrial action to pursue their basic rights to sick pay, enhanced maternity leave and annual entitlement. More than 30 security guards at the hospital are all outsourced to Carlisle Support Services, owned by billionaire Tory donor Lord Ashcroft, and are denied the same rights as their co-workers who are employed directly by the NHS. Under the plans in our green paper, those key workers would not have their rights withheld at the whim of heartless and exploitative employers such as Lord Ashcroft.

We need to see a new deal for working people, one that speaks to their economic and social rights and that reinstitutes sectoral collective bargaining to bring about secure employment with fair pay agreements for all workers from day one of their employment. We simply have to make the change and to secure a better settlement and a better future.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing today’s important debate.

Despite what we have heard, the UK still has one of the best employment rights records in the world. We have one of the world’s highest minimum wages; it was increased on 1 April last year and will be increased again next year. The UK’s national living wage is one of the highest minimum wages in the world—larger than those in similar economies such as those of France, Germany and Japan. In the UK, we get over five weeks of annual leave, minimum, whereas the EU requires only four weeks. In the UK, people get a year of maternity leave; the EU minimum is just 14 weeks. The world of work is changing, and continues to do so.

[Andy McDonald]

How does our statutory sick pay compare with that of our European competitors?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend raises a very serious point. Clearly, HSBC’s dealings with China are of commercial interest to it, but those dealings also have a wider implication. He will know from his experience that the Treasury has direct ownership of that relationship; I am discussing it with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

T7. The Minister for Corporate Responsibility has spoken about the Horizon Post Office scandal and the need to compensate victims properly. He will agree that the object of the exercise is to put those victims in the position that they would have been in had the insult not occurred in the first place. Will he ensure that any such scheme adopts the common law principles of compensating for pain, suffering and loss of amenity; exemplary damages; and past and future pecuniary losses and costs to put those people in the position that they should have been in?

[Paul Scully]

Consequential losses are included in the scheme, which is why we have an independent panel to add that expertise and ability to help those claimants to support their evidence for compensation.

Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak after the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). [Laughter.] At least we have a Yorkshire heritage in common, which is always a pleasure.

It is quite daunting to speak after the eloquent speeches by the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), and by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). They both made fantastic and constructive speeches. Prior to my being in this Chamber, my life was in business, and I feel like I am in some kind of mediation. We have heard the workers’ perspective, we have heard the lawyers’ perspective, and now, perhaps, we will listen to the business perspective, which is a very important part of the conversation.

It was great to hear the hon. Member for Brent North talk about the engagement that he has had with business, and about seeing the issue from their perspective. I can see why he has made sure that the Bill does not ban fire and rehire outright. I am not sure that all his colleagues would support that position, so he has taken a brave line on that. He said right at the start of his speech that he wants to make the UK the best place to work. I absolutely agree. We also want to make it the best place to start a business, because the relationship is symbiotic. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bradford East, said that workers create the wealth and the chief executives and shareholders hoard it. I do not see it like that. It is a much more interdependent relationship than that.

Let me talk about a personal experience of mine. I have been in business for 30 years. I know that the situation would not have been quite the same, because my business would not have come under the legislation contained in chapter 1, but there are other elements that would have been the same. We entered the crisis of 2008 with a workforce of 200 people, so we would have come under this legislation in scale, although the legislation that covered our business would probably have been slightly different.

We were in the property sector, and we were faced with a 70% reduction in turnover that year. The first thing that happened was that all the directors of the company—all the people who ran the company—took a 50% pay cut. That was the first thing we did, before we made any redundancies whatsoever. Then, of course, we sat down and talked to our workforce about how we were going to get through this period. That was a very difficult period, because we had been in business for 26 years and a lot of those people had worked for us for over 20 years. We had to reduce our workforce from 200 people to 65. It was a desperate time. We were not trying, as was described, to coerce them into a certain situation; we were simply trying to get our business through a very difficult situation. We were under pressure from all directions.

The key thing for us at that point was pace. The bank was putting us under huge pressure. We did go through consultations. As part of the section 188 requirements—the 30-day requirement—we went through consultation with our workforce. The workforce were very supportive of what we did, and I think in many cases they felt more sorry for us than we did for them, although, as I say, the conversations were very difficult. However, if we had had to go through endless consultations and reviews, challenges through the committee and challenges through the employment tribunal, our business would have gone under. That is the reality behind that delay.

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Member is making some excellent points. I do not think that anybody in the House is suggesting that the sort of practices that he engaged in, as a good and responsible employer, are the issues at play here. The issue that concerns us is employers that are making very significant profits using the cover of covid to deploy these dreadful tactics, not the sort of good practices that he is describing. He is making reasonable points about periods of consultation. If he finds that those are too onerous, we can address and debate those issues in Committee. We need to hear evidence directly from people, including his considerable experience.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I should have clarified this. I am not a lawyer, but I can read, and subsection (1) of proposed new section 187A covers not just fire and rehire but, as set out in clause 1,

“reasons other than conduct or capability”,

which could cover a situation where someone was making redundancies simply to cut their coat according to their cloth. Is it possible to amend in Committee a Bill that is potentially so flawed? I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury, who said that guidelines and sanctions would be the better approach. It is only fair that we look at that. As legislators, it is important that we tread carefully when we legislate at all. Bill Shankly, a great Liverpool manager, said to his players before he sent them out on to the pitch that, “The score is 0-0, don’t let it get any worse.” Before we move down a path of legislation, we legislators have to think about whether there are unintended consequences—we must not make things worse, particularly for business, which is looking for stability, frameworks and certainty. I will also come to the retrospective nature of the Bill, which I am uncomfortable with.

I am of course totally opposed to fire and rehire where a profitable business that does not need to restructure is taking advantage of a particular situation. Opposition Members are trying to cover those situations, and who would not want to do that? Such conduct is absolutely wrong and a stain on business, and every Minister I have heard at the Dispatch Box has criticised it.

There is only one thing worse than fire and rehire, and that is fire and not rehire. That would be a concern if the Bill went through, instead of companies taking the opportunity to restructure in a way that keeps their business going and gets it through a difficult time. If the provisions were not in the Bill, companies would just make redundancies or dismiss staff in other ways.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but in my view it is better to have no legislation than poor legislation. It is important that we look at the Bill and decide whether it should go into Committee.

As I was trying to say in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Brent North, it is about capacity. We would be giving the Central Arbitration Committee huge responsibility, not only for taking on lots more cases but for making lots more determinations about information.

[Andy McDonald]

That’s its job.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Yes, but it would require a huge scaling up of the role and there are no money resolutions attached to the Bill. [Interruption.] If I or any other person does not want to see this Bill passed, we have a perfect right to stand in this Chamber and express that opinion. That is exactly what I am doing. As I say, it is better to have no legislation than poor legislation.

The capacity of employment tribunals is another big issue. The ACAS document says that employment tribunals are under enormous strain today. The Bill would likely significantly increase the workload of employment tribunals. Additionally, it would require them to make all kinds of interpretations. The ACAS document observes that tribunals are not economists. Tribunals would consider the situation between businesses and workers and would have to make decisions that, in my view, they may not be capable of making. This might introduce undesired complexity, for example. There are all kinds of questions, not just about capacity but about the competence of employment tribunals.

I am also concerned about duplication, as it seems to me that there are provisions in the Bill about situations covered by redundancy.

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[Mark Pawsey]

I, and the majority of Conservative Members, are in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. We want those discussions to take place at an earlier stage. Centrica believed that it was a requirement to issue a section 188 notice at an early stage, because redundancies might be necessary. That was a matter of the interpretation of law.

[Andy McDonald]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his wonderful news. We are discussing Centrica. Have he and his colleagues on the Committee committed the calamitous acquisitions by British Gas Centrica in America, which brought on it the financial pressures that it had to deal with? Its choice was to instigate section 188 notices and start the process, rather than to begin consultation, which is what Labour Members are trying to achieve with the Bill.

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I think we are in agreement—we want that to happen. The legal advice that a substantial UK corporation received was that that was necessary, and he and I will need to look again at the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), which sets out an alternative way of dealing with such issues. From the Centrica evidence I also got the need to modernise terms and conditions. This long-established organisation had gone through many iterations. It employed a number of businesses, there were 7,000 variations in its terms and conditions, and it needed to bring those together. I think the matter is now resolved, with 98% of engineers at Centrica having signed a new contract by May 2021. We all understand the need to add to existing protections, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury has set out a clear alternative for the way forward. She spoke authoritatively about the dangers of unintended consequences from the Bill, and for those reasons I shall be later joining my colleagues in the Lobby to oppose it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

We published the “Good work plan”, in which we accepted many of Matthew Taylor’s reviews, but we did not have to wait for an employment Bill to begin progress on this. We have closed the loophole which saw agency workers employed on cheaper rates than permanent workers, we have quadrupled the maximum fine for employers who treat their workers badly, and we have given all workers the right to receive a statement of their rights from day one. We do not have to always reach for primary legislation first when we can be doing other things to make sure that we can stand up for workers across the UK.

[Andy McDonald]

The Minister says that he does not have to reach for primary legislation, but when is he going to do anything at all? He has stood at that Dispatch Box for years, wrung his hands over the pernicious practice of fire and rehire, and done diddly squat. If we are going to have to wait for some other document from a new Member of Parliament, where is it and when are we going to get it? The only message that is going out from this place is that this Government will do nothing about fire and rehire, and bad bosses can carry on as before, continue these practices and cut people’s wages—it is either that or they will lose their jobs. That is the message that leaves this place today.

[Paul Scully]

I am sorry if the hon. Member feels that I have been here for years. I think I have been here for only 18 or 19 months, but it does seem like years, so perhaps I am boring for Britain in talking about workers’ rights and standing up for those rights. None the less, we are acting on this, and I will develop my speech to show exactly how we are doing so.

Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The comments that I made in relation to Cornwall earlier probably also apply to parts of north Norfolk. Of course I will commit to making sure that households that are in fuel poverty and that have poor insulation, including those in remote areas, will get the support that they need and deserve.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Many of us on the Labour Benches, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), have been articulating the case for carbon capture, usage and storage for many years. Despite the shortcomings of the statement, including any clarity on whether the net zero strategy will meet the 2035 sixth carbon budget, the east coast cluster announcement is most welcome. Will the Minister ensure that the collective voice of working people, through their trade unions, is heard, and that all stakeholders, including Ben Houchen, the mayor, part company with the anti-trade union rhetoric and work in an inclusive and co-operative manner to ensure that the economic and employment opportunities are fully delivered for working people in my Middlesbrough constituency and across Teesside?

[Greg Hands]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on working with workforces. The commitment to net zero is a huge, country-wide endeavour and we must carry everybody with us. May I perhaps suggest that he has a word with the trade unions, because they have been extremely critical of Labour’s official policy, which is to get to net zero by 2030? As I have mentioned, the GMB has said that nobody thinks that 2030 is a “remotely achievable deadline”. Another said that it would be a huge upheaval, leading to job losses in the industry. I agree with what he has to say, but perhaps he might have a word with those on his Front Bench as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I appreciate the work that the hon. Gentleman and his all-party parliamentary group on premature and sick babies are doing in this area. The Government are committed to ensuring that all workers can participate and progress in the labour market and that we build back better as we recover from covid-19. We will bring forward the employment Bill when the time is right. In the meantime, we will continue to take the necessary action to support businesses and protect jobs.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Millions of workers are denied maternity pay and parental leave, as well as other basic rights and protections, because the Government allow only some workers to have full rights, and only after two years in the job. Is it not the case that working people are paying the price for the Government’s broken promise to bring in an employment Bill? Does the Minister not agree that all workers should have full rights from day one on the job?

[Paul Scully]

As I say, we are expanding workers’ rights and delivering based on qualitative and quantitative evidence. That will be seen when the employment Bill comes through, when parliamentary time allows. What we cannot do, though, is work on a whim. Last week, the Labour party announced that it wanted a £10 minimum wage, yet this week it is reportedly recruiting stewards for its conference at £9.75 an hour. We say what we mean and we will deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I have said repeatedly that bully-boy tactics are absolutely unacceptable, but if it is a matter of a choice over protecting jobs in the first place, that is the flexibility that we need to check, based on the evidence, and ACAS has gone a long way to providing that evidence.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Why is it that fire and rehire has spread like wildfire across our country? Trade unions are shackled to prevent them from defending their members; employers have free rein to terminate workers’ contracts; and protections for workers are woefully weak. Opposition Members know how to outlaw fire and rehire, and I am more than happy to meet the Minister and show him how, but is not the truth that this Government are content with millions of workers being bullied into accepting low wages and worse terms and conditions or facing the sack, because it is in the Tories’ DNA to side with bad employers rather than to protect working people?

[Paul Scully]

It is in the Tories’ DNA to create jobs and opportunities. After the previous recession, we were creating more jobs than the whole of Europe put together, and we will continue to do so as we build back better after this pandemic. ACAS has provided the evidence for us to consider; we are doing that in due course, and I look forward to coming back to this place. The TUC reported back in January on a survey of its members, but it has not shared its methodology; we cannot use that as substantial evidence unless the TUC shares that with us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s question. He will know that I take my relations and my conversations with the TUC extremely seriously. I have met a number of TUC leaders since taking up the post two months ago, and I am very conscious that fire and rehire as a negotiating tactic is completely unacceptable.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that he does not take lessons from Labour—this is from the man who described the British as

“the worst idlers in the world.”

The Supreme Court ruling that Uber drivers are workers, rejecting the company’s claim that its drivers are self-employed, sets a precedent for all gig economy workers, who will also be entitled to the minimum wage, holiday pay and sick pay, but it took Uber drivers six long years of legal action to have their rights recognised. The Government must not abandon the 3 million adults in the UK working in the gig economy to spend years fighting in the courts. So will the Secretary of State commit to introducing legislation in this Session of Parliament to ensure that all gig economy workers receive basic employment rights?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As I said in response to an earlier question, we are going to introduce an employment Bill not in this Session but when parliamentary time allows. We are also of course considering the effects of this extremely important Supreme Court ruling and we are considering options to improve clarity around employment status.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I regularly speak to the Secretary of State about such issues. In the event of a workplace outbreak, businesses should follow the advice outlined in their action card guidance, and that includes departments such as the DVLA. The guidance is designed by the Department of Health and Social Care for specific out- break situations, and businesses should contact their local PHE health protection team if necessary.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab) [V]]

“The effects are non-permanent or reversible, non-progressive and disability is temporary”.

Those are the words of the Minister for Employment in justifying why covid-19 has not been categorised as a “serious” workplace risk. Some 112,000 British citizens are dead, tens of thousands are experiencing long covid, and many more have permanent damage to vital organs, but only 0.1% of complaints result in an enforcement notice. This is serious, and re-categorisation is urgently needed. The UK continues to suffer the highest covid death toll in the world, but with such a disregard for workplace safety, is it any wonder?

[Paul Scully]

We work with Public Health England and with the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that we have the best safer workplace guidance, and if there are specific examples where that is not working, I would be happy to take that on board, but with 12.3 million first-dose vaccinations undertaken to date, hopefully we can get through this period and have even safer workplaces as the economy comes back to normal.