Business of the House

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend raises a point that is raised by many right hon. and hon. Members from across the House, and planning is always a contentious local issue. The Government’s planning White Paper, published last summer, set out proposed reforms to increase community involvement in the preparation of local plans, including a simpler and digitalised plan-making process, with more opportunity for local people to influence the location and standard of new developments in their area. This is essential to planning for the homes the country needs, providing the clarity that communities and developers deserve about where new homes should be built and ensuring that development is planned, rather than the result of speculative applications. Plans should be produced in a way that respects crucial local assets, including open countryside and the green belt, but I should always remind hon. Members that new houses must be built. As they are built, we want to ensure that they are beautiful. If they are beautiful, local communities may be more inclined to accept them.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) [V]]

This week, many loyal British Gas staff were sacked for refusing to accept a new contract that made them work longer hours for less pay, in the latest iteration of the growing national scourge of fire and rehire. Companies such as British Gas trade off our country’s name but do not have our country’s interests at heart. The Government have repeatedly stated that they consider these practices to be unacceptable, but those words will mean little to those ex-British Gas workers today. So will the Leader of the House please outline when the Government will be bringing forward legislation to ban fire and rehire, once and for all?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government do take this issue extremely seriously, and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) has condemned the practice in the strongest terms on many occasions. The situation at the moment is that BEIS officials engaged ACAS in November 2020 to gather evidence on the prevalence and use of fire and rehire in workplaces. ACAS spoke to business and employee representatives in confidence, and has now concluded its work and shared its findings with BEIS. Officials are considering that evidence and the Government will communicate their next steps in due course, but it is right that a proper process is undertaken to see how prevalent this practice is. We would reiterate to businesses—I would say to my capitalist friends—that capitalism works when capitalists behave well and treat their employees well, and get the best motivation and success from their company and from those who work for them.