Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Paul Scully

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I will cover that as I continue with my remarks. I am not sure that we should equate child labour with fire and rehire, but I will develop that argument.

[Barry Gardiner]

The Minister referred to JDE at Banbury and the fact that, ultimately, an accommodation was reached about the least disagreeable way forward. He must know, however, if he has spoken to any of the 291 workers involved in that dispute, about the huge stress that was placed on their families and the complete disregard that they felt they were shown by that company for all the loyal service that they had given it for years. To hold it up as an example of a resolution of a dispute is beneath him.

[Paul Scully]

I raised it as an interesting point. I do not underestimate the stress, and I will cover that later when I talk about the solution we have come up with. It was a resolution, but none the less we want to get rid of the bully-boy tactics—the use of fire and rehire as a tactic of negotiation—because that should never be able to happen. As we have said, it has been exacerbated by the pandemic, but we want to make sure that we get our resolution and our approach correct so that it does what it says on the tin rather than have some of the unintended consequences that we have heard about today.

I was talking about the recovery. We have one of the fastest recoveries of any major economy in the world, thanks to this Government’s will to act and plan to deliver. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said at our conference that we were embarking on a change of direction for the UK economy, away from the broken model of low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity; away from a broken model underpinned by reliance on uncontrolled immigration to keep wages low. We want to build back better in a new direction towards a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy, which the people of this country—workers and employers—need and deserve.

A key part of the building of that economy will be to continue to champion a flexible and dynamic labour market, creating the conditions for new jobs, protecting existing ones and maintaining the UK’s excellent record on workers’ rights—one of the best records in the world.