Employment Rights

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I can indeed tell the noble Baroness that Ministers and officials from both my department and from the Department for Work and Pensions, hold regular meetings with counterparts in the devolved Administrations to discuss various employment-related issues, including regular reviews of the legislative framework.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab) [V]]

The Statement upholding employment rights gives and takes away at the same time. Its praise for ACAS is right. I remind the House that I am a former chair and in receipt of an ACAS pension. As the Minister knows, the Certification Officer is part of the ACAS family, and the proposals in the Trade Union Act 2016 were of such concern that my party raised it at Report. They are not technical measures, as the Statement claims, and third-party claims are an invitation to anti-union newspapers to make mischief. Will the Minister be willing to discuss these points, particularly about the future of the Certification Office, to ensure that this really is about upholding employment rights, not about feeding red meat to his less enlightened colleagues?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

This is not about feeding red meat to anybody. Some people may be vegetarian and not enjoy red meat. The noble Baroness may not like it, but the principle of the reforms was introduced in the Trade Union Act. We debated it at the time in this House, and the principle was passed then. This is merely the enactment of those provisions, which have previously been agreed.