Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, this Bill is very welcome, especially the provisions aimed at tackling poor job security. Recent research underlines the importance of job security to workers and the effects insecurity can have on the well-being of low-paid workers.

One way in which this Bill enhances security is through the welcome improvement to statutory sick pay. However, there is an unintended consequence: a loss for some of the lowest paid employees, especially women and disabled people, who are sick too long to be compensated by payment of SSP from day one of sickness. Although it is true, as the Minister told the Commons, that most employees will not be worse off, surely the aim of such a change should be to leave no low-paid employee worse off. I cannot believe that the Government intended this.

It is also disappointing that there is no indication of any future increase in the SSP rate. The continued payment of such a low rate, which came into sharp relief during the pandemic, will blunt the impact that the positive changes will have.

In her letter to Peers, my noble friend the Minister emphasised that the Bill places the family at its heart, by increasing the baseline set of rights for employees with parental or other caring responsibilities. As it is still largely women who bear the main burden of balancing paid work and caring responsibilities, it is women who will benefit most. However, there are some holes here that I hope it may be possible to fill—and perhaps here I stand as Olivia Twist.

The first concerns carer’s leave. Carers are now entitled to five days’ leave a year, but, as we have heard, it is unpaid, so many carers simply cannot afford to take it. The case for paid leave rests not simply on the huge difference it would make to the lives, health and well-being of carers—the social and moral case—but on the strong economic and business case made by employers, such as TSB.

The Government’s estimate of the economic cost of caring through lost production puts it at a massive £37 billion a year. Just a couple of years ago, a Front-Bench spokesman told the Commons that the next Labour Government would be committed to introducing a right to paid carer’s leave, but recently on Report the Minister could say only that, because the right to unpaid leave was enacted recently,

“we are reviewing this measure and considering whether further support is required”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/25; col. 952.]

I accept that the Government have to consider how paid leave should be designed, not least because we can learn from other countries, but what is there to consider with regard to the need for further support, given that we already have ample evidence? Surely we can show our commitment to unpaid carers by writing into the Bill an in-principle provision to introduce paid leave. This would be in line with its spirit and with the Government’s missions, not least the pursuit of economic growth, while demonstrating support for a group at considerable risk of poverty.

The other main hole concerns parental and paternity leave, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Penn. The Women’s Budget Group, of which I am a member, in welcoming the Bill as potentially an important contribution to a more gender-equal economy, warns that it needs to tackle the unequal distribution of unpaid care work and structural inequalities, because unpaid care is the root cause of women’s economic inequality.

I have long argued that parental leave with a period restricted to fathers on a use-it-or-lose-it basis is a key social policy lever here—good for mothers, fathers and children. Instead, the current shared parental leave scheme is a joke, with only about 4% of fathers having used it at the last count. In the Commons, the Minister confirmed the promised review of parental leave, but said that it would be separate from the Bill. Why is it separate? A firm declaration of intent in the Bill to reform parental leave, with the aim of strengthening the rights for fathers, would send a message to men and boys in the face of concern that they feel undervalued.

A final hole concerns stronger workplace rights for domestic abuse survivors. The APPG on Domestic Violence and Abuse, of which I am an officer, called for an obligation to be placed on employers to take reasonable steps to support employees affected by domestic abuse in place of the much weaker existing advisory statutory provision, which it would seem many employers ignore.

In conclusion, I strongly support this Bill, but I hope we can fill the holes I have identified, in line with the Government’s missions, without affecting its basic architecture.