Employment Rights: Government Plans

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

As a former industrial policy officer for the trade union the GMB, an employee of USDAW prior to entering this place and a proud member of the GMB and Unite the union, employment rights are a subject incredibly close to my heart. The twin vulnerabilities created by the post-covid economic landscape and the removal of safeguards in European law following the transition period are incredibly troubling.

One such entitlement under threat is the right to holiday pay based on someone’s average hours of work, rather than their contractual hours, within the working-time directive. In Warrington, staff employed by care provider Lifeways are routinely being underpaid when they take holiday—something all of us can agree is a basic working entitlement, and of especially vital importance to care workers who look after our communities’ most vulnerable. One hundred and fifty staff have come together with their trade union, Unison, to lodge a formal grievance to resolve the issue. I stand behind them in this and in their right to escalated action if they do not receive what is rightfully theirs.

But employment rights are of little value if they cannot be enforced, and the 45% increase in the already problematic backlog of employment tribunal single claims since March last year is alarming. This is especially concerning given that, when I raised with the Government the lack of a legal, immediate and enforceable right to request flexible furlough for parents—with 71% of mothers who have asked for furlough for childcare reasons having been denied it by employers, according to research by the TUC—the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), suggested that those who have been victimised should contact ACAS—not remotely good enough.

Similarly, contractual rights accrued by workers with long service are shown to be worth naught if the Government do not address the growing scourge of fire and rehire—something that, shamefully, is being threatened by Centrica to key workers in British Gas. This sets an awful precedent for workers everywhere and must be outlawed by the Government.

Finally, this Government’s failure to get a handle on this virus and the procedures of this House during the pandemic have meant that the vital private Member’s Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), the National Minimum Wage Bill, has ended up on the chopping block. The Government must commit to bringing forward this legislation to end the legal loophole that stops care workers from earning at least the national minimum wage as a result of sleep-out shifts. They need this protection more than any claps or other token gestures of support from this Government.

I am fed up of hearing from those on the Government Benches about this country’s record on employment rights while these issues, and many more that cannot be touched on within the time limit for this debate, remain unresolved.