Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I welcome our four new colleagues after their excellent speeches, and I look forward to their future contributions.

Obviously, I agree with everything my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle said earlier. Surprisingly enough, we support this Bill in its general purpose, because we like that it is making fairness at work a priority. Well done to the trade unions for making sure this never slipped off the public agenda.

At the moment, we have a divided and very unequal society, and the Bill will help to restore a bit of balance in the workspace. Without that balance in power, we will forever have working-class people going to food banks and claiming universal credit because their paid work does not give them a living wage or job security.

We have a two-tier economy. The rich have been getting richer much faster, while the rest of us are stuck or going backwards. These two facts are obviously linked. Last year, the collective wealth of the UK’s small band of billionaires increased by about £35 million a day. Meanwhile, according to the IFS, the past 15 years have been the worst for income growth in generations.

Like many, I was appalled by the Spring Statement. It means that the situation I just described will get much worse. We will support the changes that Labour are putting forward, but it is nowhere near enough to really change things and make the majority of people better off.

In your Lordships’ House, we all have the duty to fill the gaps in the Bill to make it work for everyone in society, but especially the poorest. To do that, we have to end the rip-off by privatised services, such as the water industry and energy suppliers. We need rent controls and more social housing. We need a wealth tax and a more equal society.

One of our amendments, for example, will be to introduce a maximum 10:1 pay ratio, so that no worker will see their CEO getting paid more in a day than they do in an entire year—the point being, you can pay your CEO whatever you like, as long as the cleaner gets 10% of that. Plus, if we want more productivity in this country then staff must be valued. If we want to lower the tax burden, we must end the corruption that comes with privatised procurement contracts and services. Of course, we have to protect whistleblowers and SMEs.

A surprising amount of this Bill could have been taken straight from the Green Party election manifesto—loads of very common-sense ideas. I congratulate the Labour Party on casting an eye over what we said—for example, a fair deal for those working in adult social care, enhanced rights from day one, quality auditing, and sick pay.

The Employment Rights Bill could turn the tide on the undermining of employment rights that has taken place since the 1980s. It is time to recognise that stronger collective bargaining rights and better working conditions can be good for workers and businesses. But the Bill is not complete. The Government clearly need some help in further drafting, and this House is the perfect place to do that.

Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

With Britain now an outlier—40th out of 43 OECD countries on paid parental leave—I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to Amendment 76. It simply calls for a proper review of the current situation, and for the Government to bring back proposals to Parliament to modernise Britain’s family leave policies, encourage and support the role of fathers in family life, encourage more career progression for women, and create more positive workplace cultures that support Britain’s long-term economic success.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 127, 128 and 139, which I have signed, but all the amendments in this group have real value.

In my relatively long life, in which I have argued endlessly for human rights, I think there can be only one or two times when I have stood up and argued for men’s rights, because I feel they have plenty of them and they do their own arguing. But, of course, this is a human rights issue. It is not just men’s rights; it is women’s rights as well, because the mothers will benefit if the fathers have parental leave.

Statutory paternity leave does not support families only in their first weeks; it helps rebalance society by moving away from a statutory parental leave system, which sends a strong message that parenting is a woman’s job and that men should keep working and stay out of the home. That idea is not just present in the legislation; it is embedded and deeply rooted in many people’s prejudices. Maternity leave is already a very hard-fought and essential right, but the imbalance between maternity and paternity leave is structurally embedding gender differences that do not benefit society.

This legislation can set young families up for a stronger start by ensuring that new fathers have plenty of paid time off work in those early weeks and months that are so crucial to a child’s development. I hope the Prime Minister was listening to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and that he will perhaps urge this House to adopt at least some of these amendments.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 76 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and Amendments 127 and 128 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn. I rise as one of, I think, only two fathers in this debate so far and, as it happens, a recent grandfather. I thought it would be helpful to have a little bit of balance in a discussion on a group of amendments which is about what appears to be an imbalance in the respective roles of fathers and mothers.

It seems to me that there are three key reasons to act, rather than to think and debate and dance on the head of an ever-smaller pin. The first is the early years argument. I, together with other noble Lords and noble Baronesses, will be arguing the case for early years being included and very deeply thought about in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Education yesterday said that early years was her number one priority. It is inarguable that changing our approach to paternity pay and giving fathers the opportunity to have a much greater presence in the lives of their children in the early years—and also, very importantly, in support of their partner or spouse, particularly if she is working or is attempting to work—is frankly a no-brainer. In that context, that is a very good first reason.

The second reason is that the economic arguments for this are also very strong. The report by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation, which came out only three weeks ago, and which was mentioned by, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is fairly convincing. It says:

“Building on the evidence from other countries on the impact of paternity leave, the”


Centre for Progressive Policy—one would imagine that His Majesty’s Government would be in favour of an institute with a name like that—

“has modelled the economic costs and benefits of more generous paternity leave options. This novel model was built to help policy-makers understand the labour market effects – and associated economic and tax costs – of varying paternity leave terms in the UK”.

Its conclusions were very simple:

“The modelling shows a positive economy-wide effect of £2.68 billion, driven by the gains achieved when more women move into work and work more hours”.


The second bullet point is particularly apposite to the Government’s aims and what they are trying to achieve with the Bill:

“The modelling also shows that the increase in labour market outputs for this policy option is mainly driven by those at the bottom and middle of the labour market”.


That is a policy outcome you would think was very close to the Government’s heart.

Turning to the third and final reason, for 31 years I was a professional headhunter and, as a headhunter, you become relatively expert in what I might call the psychology of attraction and repulsion—what attracts people to particular types of employment or employer, and what detracts from that degree of attraction. There is increasing evidence to show that companies that are thoughtful, progressive and transparent about the offering they are making to both fathers and mothers stand a much better chance in this labour market of attracting people of real talent who have many choices they could follow up on. Also, relating back to comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in a previous group, an important issue is that many individuals have a degree of trepidation about working for potential employers because they are uncertain of the working environment and how it might impact on their ability to play a full part in family life.

For those three key reasons, I support not only having a long hard look at paternity leave—as the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, said, frankly, we have been looking at it for longer than is either necessary or good for us—but, for the good of families and children, just getting on with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have had confirmation from my side that the usual channels have agreed.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for his explanation.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Stop groaning.

Normally, if today’s list says, “at a convenient time”, that means at the end of a group surely.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

As I said, I understand that this is unusual, but it is in no way unprecedented. We have broken in the middle of a group before. It is not ideal, but we are where we are. I think it is in the best interests of the Committee, especially as it has been agreed through the usual channels, to hear from both Front Benches and any other Back-Benchers on this group in good time, and to hear, in the meantime, a repeat of the Statement from the Minister, so that everybody gets the best of all worlds. I know this is not usual practice, and we will endeavour not to do it on future Committee days.