Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

If you have a spent conviction, you do not have to disclose it, so I do not understand the point that the noble Lord is making. I challenge noble Lords on their experience. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, sitting opposite me— I am sorry to name her in person—worked with me in relation to Tesco, the biggest private sector employer in the country. It has very positive employment policies, including very positive policies for flexible working, and also proper disciplinary and grievance procedures.

The simple fact that needs to be understood is that probationary periods provide the opportunity for an employer, who has spent a lot of money recruiting someone, to properly assess their ability to do the job. It is not an excuse to dismiss unfairly.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I think we need to consider the position of SMEs, as well as big employers such as Tesco. I cannot speak for Tesco any more, but it contributed to a letter that was sent to us all, and everybody was concerned on this point. Some of this probationary stuff has to be written into the Bill, or at least published before the Bill is passed: when I was a civil servant, you did the SIs at the same time as the Bill. We really need clarity here before we pass the Bill, because we cannot go into reverse once it is passed.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Well, I wish I had heard the noble Baroness say that when she was a Minister and many other Bills were being pushed through in recent years and we did not have statutory instruments. A classic case that noble Lords here will remember was the minimum service level Bill that was pushed through the last Parliament. There was no indication of statutory instruments there. I repeat that the important point is about the opportunity to properly consult and agree a proper process to introduce the necessary secondary legislation.