Employment Rights Bill

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

Our Government created 4 million new jobs. This Government have lost jobs every single month they have been in office.

The points that the right hon. Lady makes are not those we are debating. There is one issue in front of us, which is Labour’s desire to defend and remove a cap of £118,000. That has nothing to do with ordinary workers. What does it say about today’s modern Labour party that its focus, and the whole reason why we are back here and the compromise was not accepted, is its desire to remove a cap of £118,000, which will only ever benefit the better off?

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Does the shadow Minister recall that in 1999 when the Blair Government increased the cap, they held a consultation beforehand, and that in 2015 when the coalition Government introduced a cap, they held a consultation beforehand? Why are this Government behaving differently?

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I hope somebody on the Labour Benches will address. We have seen no analysis and we have no idea of the cost of this measure. Not a single business—not a single person who employs people—has come out and endorsed the removal of the cap. It is beyond me, I am afraid.

Yet what is happening in our employment tribunals? On Friday, as I am sure the Minister knows, it was revealed that the delay and backlogs at the employment tribunal have reached their highest ever level. At the end of the most recent quarter, there were 515,000 open claims. Before anyone intervenes, let me say that I accept that much of that was inherited—[Interruption.] But before Labour Members laugh: the Government are making it worse. Merely since the Bill was introduced to this place, the claims backlog has increased by 65,000. They are doing nothing to address the backlog, which is going up every single month—I do not think they have even discussed it with their calamity of a Justice Secretary —and we know that they have carried out no impact assessment. It is extraordinary. The scrapping of the compensation cap for the highest paid will simply stoke the fire.

I make it a rule not to learn lessons in how to run an economy from France, but even France introduced a cap on tribunal payments to tackle unemployment and encourage labour market dynamism. Perhaps we should take advice from closer to home: today the Health Secretary seems to be no fan at all of giving more powers to unaccountable unions.

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[Laurence Turner]

I am grateful to have been called to speak in this debate. I draw the House’s attention to my membership of the GMB and my chairship of its parliamentary group—an unremunerated role.

The Bill has been the subject of 14 months of debate and scrutiny, and it should have received Royal Assent months ago. Let us not beat around the bush about why we are here tonight: the Bill has been deliberately delayed by some Members of the other place who disagree with the principle of what it seeks to achieve and with the electoral mandate behind it. The amendment that came from the Lords last week represents the last gasp of that approach, testing the limits of the democratic decision-making process and the constitutional relationship that binds these two Houses. This is no longer solely about workers’ rights; it has become a challenge by unelected peers to the primacy of the Commons and the greater legitimacy that our constituents lend us temporarily.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Twelve months ago, the hon. Gentleman and I sat on the Bill Committee. This is the first time that the Commons has had the opportunity to debate this measure, courtesy of the House of Lords. The Lords have done us a favour, haven’t they?

[Laurence Turner]

I enjoyed many hours in proximity to the hon. Member. He will know that the only reason we are considering the measure in such a short time is that the Bill has been delayed, so close to the April implementation period, because of the Conservative party.

The final proof of the implications of the constitutional limits of what we are now being asked to consider can be found in the fact that the Opposition’s amendment was carried last week thanks to the votes of Conservative hereditary peers, who owe their positions to an accident of birth.