Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I must first apologise: I need to honour a long-standing commitment, which might oblige me to miss the winding-up speeches. I declare that I am a lifetime member of the First Division Association. I warmly congratulate noble Lords on the three maiden speeches so far, and I anticipate with interest the next.

It is a pleasure to return to the intricacies of employment law, which I spent much time on a while ago, and to welcome this Bill, which puts right so many injustices. I will not rehearse the range of provisions, which will give back much of the security, the deterioration of which has so adversely affected the well-being of so many working people. They are widely welcomed.

I would like, drawing also on my experience as a former member of employment tribunals, to ask my noble friend the Minister questions in two areas. First, can she set out in a bit more detail how the new arrangements for the protection of seafarers—their charter—will be devised? Quite a few seafarers on British ships do not speak English, so how will they and their representatives be consulted? Ships are very dangerous places. In container ships, for instance—so important to our trading economy—seafarers have a higher rate of mortality, and of injuries and ill health, than workers on land, significantly so among the lower ranks but, until now, they have had much less legal protection against exploitation, dangerously long hours, and less access to medical care. It is a matter of pride that we can right these wrongs after so long, so clarification would be welcome.

My other point is about what is not in the Bill. On employment tribunals, many cases of sexual harassment or sackings while pregnant were settled after the first hearing and never proceeded to a full hearing and a decision. I heard of court cases with similar outcomes. There was a non-disclosure agreement instead. In some instances, an immediate settlement sum was so important to the victim that she preferred this, even though the sums might have been paltry. In some, the outlay for carrying on was, in any case, prohibitive, and quite severe allegations of behaviour that was very damaging to the woman concerned—and I only ever saw women in these cases—went unacknowledged and the perpetrators were never brought to book. That is injustice. I was heartened to see that the Minister in the other place, my honourable friend Justin Madders, said that

“we will continue to look at the issues”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/25; col. 950.]

Can my noble friend the Minister tell us when we can expect this injustice to be addressed, with a provision to override or nullify a non-disclosure agreement if the victim chooses?