EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, even given that the Prime Minister has a propensity for colourful and sometimes distinctly inappropriate turns of phrase, his assertion that, post Brexit, we will not be sending children up chimneys or pouring raw sewage on to beaches does not give confidence to those of us who are concerned about the future of environmental protections and workers’ rights. It is of course the case that, over the years, trade unions have struggled long and hard to achieve decent terms and conditions for their members. Even so, many of those workers whom the Covid crisis has shown to be central to the effective functioning of our society—care workers, shop workers, delivery drivers and cleaners—find themselves in insecure and very poorly paid work, notwithstanding their absolute necessity to society.

EU workers’ rights are by no means comprehensive, but they are significant on health and safety, equality and discrimination, paid holidays and working time. It is clear that, in the Brexit negotiations, the UK Government insisted on wording which could, and will in all likelihood, facilitate the dilution of workers’ rights deriving from the EU. Why was this done? Were it the Government’s intention to diverge from these rights by improving them, no wording would have been necessary. Perhaps the Minister can give a guarantee that the Government’s much-vaunted levelling-up agenda will see post-Brexit rights sustained and enhanced for all workers, rather than diluted.