Brexit: Protection for Workers

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, I first thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in the other place and especially for his kind words about Lord Bhattacharyya.

The crux of the Government’s announcement is the two amendments they will table to the implementation Bill. We are told that these seek to ensure there is no regression of workers’ rights, and that Parliament will be given an opportunity to consider how rights in the UK tally with those in the EU. These are noble aims which I am sure this House can get behind. However, I am afraid that on this side of the House we have considerable concerns over whether these amendments will achieve and deliver this.

I remind the Minister of the comments that Frances O’Grady of the TUC made yesterday in response to the announcement:

“In the face of a government determined to reduce rights, these measures would in no meaningful way compensate for the loss of the protections that currently exist”.


The TUC and various unions have been clear in their response to the proposals, saying that they are not good enough and fail to protect workers after we leave the EU. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I agree with those statements.

I turn to specifics. I am interested in the Government’s process of getting to this announcement. Can the Minister detail his department’s process of consultation with the different unions and the TUC? The issue at the heart of this announcement is that, even if a Statement by the Government notes that legislation would in fact lead to a regression of rights, there is no power to stop the Government proceeding with their intended course of action. Can he explain how these amendments would stop a Government reducing workers’ rights if they wanted to? If he thinks I am being a bit unfair, I remind him of the working time directive. It was a Conservative Government who sued the European Commission, claiming that there was no legislative basis for the directive since working time had nothing to do with health and safety at work. Luckily for workers in the UK, the Government lost.

On the process of adopting future improvements in EU legislation, the proposal is equally lacking. The only means of challenge is through Parliament, not the courts, and thus subject to any Government’s majority—not material facts that could be legally tested. Furthermore, these proposals apply only to changes to primary legislation. Any other forms of legislative change would not be covered. Given that the bulk of UK legislation to implement EU law is secondary legislation—the Working Time Regulations, TUPE and health and safety regulations, to name but a few—would the examples given above be covered under the new proposals? As we have seen recently, Commons procedures may not permit sufficient amendments to actually deal with all the problems at hand.

The Statement uses the words “standards” and “reduction of standards” and I seek clarification from the Minister on this. In speaking against Amendment 3 on the Trade Bill last night, the Minister said:

“First … The term ‘standards’ does not have a single legal definition which can easily be called upon … Secondly, on the notion of ‘reducing’ standards, how the Government would prove that they were or were not reducing them would be problematic”.—[Official Report, 6/3/19; col. 631.]


The Government cannot have it both ways. Either the use of the terminology “standards” and “‘reducing’ standards” is correct and proper or it is not.

The Statement provided today is not good enough. The comments made at its beginning suggesting that the Minister’s party has suddenly assumed the role and mantle as a champion of workers and working people is baffling. Annual earnings are more than 3% lower than they were in 2008 and nearly 4 million people are now in insecure work. If the Government are serious about workers’ rights in the UK, they have a long way to go to prove it.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

I agree with the Minister that we have a proud record of protecting workers’ rights. As he said, in many cases they are stronger than in European law.

I welcome the enforcement measures announced by the Secretary of State yesterday on existing rights. We all know that it is pointless introducing legislation unless someone intends to enforce it, and enforcement costs money. We on these Benches will look closely at the forthcoming spending review to check that the Secretary of State has been as good as his word.

What we see in the Statement yesterday and the Opposition’s response is a playing out of the traditional distrust between the two parties. The Government seek to assure the Opposition that they will not dilute workers’ rights post Brexit. However, I agree with Labour that the Statement does not provide all the protections that would guarantee that workers’ rights will not fall behind those enjoyed by workers in the European Union.

In the Commons yesterday Opposition spokesperson Rebecca Long Bailey, and the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, this afternoon, made the telling point that the promise given by the Government does not apply to secondary legislation, which could allow each existing EU-derived right to be watered down with ease. This latest move has been described as a cynical attempt to buy off wavering Labour MPs from leave constituencies so that they can justify voting with the Government on the EU withdrawal and implementation Bill. We on these Benches will not fall for it and the Government have a long way to go yet to satisfy a distrustful Labour Party.

The arithmetic does not yet stack up in the Government’s favour and, as things stand, they are destined for another whopping defeat in the Commons next week. The only way to guarantee that British workers’ rights keep parity with those of European workers is for Britain to remain within the EU. Why do not Labour and the Government realise that it is in the interests of all the people they represent to give them a say and back a referendum on the deal?

[Lord Henley]

I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, that we have had a referendum which quite clearly stated that the people of this country wished to leave the EU, and there is no point in trying to readdress that question.

My right honourable friend made an announcement about how we will continue to protect workers’ rights in the future, and I am grateful that the noble Baroness took, to start with, a reasonably positive approach to this, agreed that we had a proud record in this area and welcomed his announcement about enforcement. I note what she said about examining carefully any future announcements about the level of resources. No doubt we will come to that in future business.

I am afraid the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, took—probably under orders—a less positive approach to my right honourable friend’s announcement. I do not accept a lot of what he said or the somewhat negative remarks that I also heard the general secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady, make on the radio yesterday morning. I think she and the noble Lord are being very negative. I give an assurance that there have been considerable discussions with MPs on his side of the House and with trade unions, as the noble Lord knows. He will know that my right honourable friend has regular meetings with individual unions and the TUC. He has committed to bring forward legislation to hold the Government to account for non-regression on these rights.

The noble Lord thinks there is no guarantee of no reduction in rights. He seems to have very little faith in Parliament being able to achieve those things. He might prefer to leave these matters to the European Court of Justice or to what is going on in the EU. I stressed that our rights here go well beyond anything that has ever emerged from the Commission. We will continue that, and we have set in place a process that will allow Parliament to provide proper scrutiny of the processes and the rights of workers, taking into account the needs of employers and of those who are not working but are seeking work to make sure that the labour market works for them and provides them with jobs.

The noble Lord also wanted to know a little more about the scope of these measures and what will be included. I assure him that TUPE will be covered and make clear that the equality framework directive and other equalities directives, where they relate to non-discrimination, equality and work, will also be covered. Working time and holidays, including the working time directive, will be covered. Directions providing protections for part-time, fixed-term and young workers will be covered, and I could go on. My right honourable friend has made it clear that we want to cover all employees and provide protection for them, and to allow Parliament appropriate scrutiny of these matters.