Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. She will not be surprised to know that I am afraid I did not buy any of those arguments.

I am extremely grateful to my noble friends Lady Coffey, Lady Lawlor, Lord Jackson, Lord Ashcombe and Lady Verma for their interventions; they all made extremely good points. I will return to the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Carter of Haslemere and Lord Murray of Blidworth, in a second.

We have just heard this clause described variously as “beyond belief”, “especially bonkers”, “an utter mess”, “quite extraordinary” and “perverse and unheard of”. Do you know what? It is all of those things. This has been an extraordinary debate, and so many interesting points have been made that it is hard to sum up. However, there is one point that was brought to my attention by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who was sitting next to me at the time. He pointed out that this clause might be in contravention of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: the right to respect for private and family life. This needs to be explored, and it is important for the Minister to take account of, because, under Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998, she has to sign on the front of this Bill that it is compatible with the rights under that convention.

I will read the relevant article, so it is on the record:

“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence … There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.


I do not expect the Minister to answer this now, but I would be very grateful if she could at least allude to the legal advice that she was given before she signed the Bill to confirm that it did not contravene Article 8.

I appreciate that government legal advice is rarely published, but, having had some experience of government lawyers and their risk-averse nature, I would be very surprised if they had considered this in its entirety. I would be grateful if the Minister would come back to that issue, perhaps in the letter to my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth. This is clearly one of the subjects to which we will have to return, because, as both the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and my noble friend Lord Murray have explained, this is extraordinary and positively Kafkaesque.

I will leave the last words to my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, who pointed out that we could end up in a state where we have litigation about litigation on behalf of someone who does not want to litigate. That is frankly absurd. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Before I sit down, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, on her 55 years of public service. I believe that she was first elected on 18 June 1970 to represent Merton and Morden—many congratulations.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

That is most kind, but we must not be diverted from the business in hand. Is it your Lordships’ pleasure that this amendment be withdrawn?

Amendment 271D withdrawn.