Employment Rights Bill (Twenty First sitting)

Chris Murray Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

I am sure that the Secretary of State fully supports everyone having the protection of employment rights. This new clause does not ask for much: it simply states that the Government must commission a report. I urge the Minister to consider that to ensure that migrant workers on temporary visas are explicitly taken into consideration in the Bill, and to ensure that the Government take all measures to protect their rights.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I draw the Committee’s attention to my declaration of interests and my membership of the trade unions Community and Unison.

I will note a couple of useful points in response to the important arguments of the hon. Member for Dundee Central about migrant workers and the conditionality of visas. I have worked on migration issues for a long time, so I sympathise with the objectives and the direction that he puts forward.

The new clause essentially proposes an investigation or information-gathering exercise. The new Government have commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee, which is a body of experts that is independent of the Government or the Home Office, to look into issues around the conditionality of visas and the different types of worker visa to which he referred. The MAC is doing a lot of important work, and I think it is the appropriate location for that research. I am a member of the Home Affairs Committee, which is also looking into some of the changes that are happening. I reassure the hon. Member that a lot of the work and thinking on this issue is already getting under way.

The hon. Member raised some substantive points. First, on seasonal or temporary workers who find themselves at risk of exploitation, he referred to the distinction between those whose immigration status is permanent or secure and those whose status is conditional on their employer. I think the point he is driving at with that distinction goes to the heart of the immigration system overall. We have a system in which conditionalities are applied to visa status, whether that is for someone who has come to do a job, for someone who has applied to do a university course or for someone who is in a relationship. He is driving at a philosophical problem in the immigration system, rather than a technical one.

Where employers abuse the system, there are two points to address. First, it is a breach of immigration law and not necessarily of employment law. The hon. Member drew attention to the fact that they lose their sponsorship capacity. When that situation occurs, it is appropriate that we look at it through Home Office immigration regulations. That can be much more effective than trying to crowbar quite a specific point into the UK-wide labour market.

[Chris Law]

The hon. Member’s last point is an important one. When I approached this area of work to decide whether it fitted this Committee or whether it should be considered in immigration legislation, I took some advice. I appreciate, from a home affairs point of view, that this might not be the place for that point. However, it is the place for talking about it, and that is why the new clause has been accepted by the Clerks for debate today. I appreciate that this might also be an issue for the Home Office, but it is clearly an issue for the Minister in charge of employment rights, because at the end of the day it is not immigration rules that need to be changed. This is about making sure that employment rights are fit for everyone, regardless of whether they are here on a temporary or a permanent visa.

[Chris Murray]

That is a very helpful intervention, because it draws me on to my final point. There is a distinction between what rights there are and what rights are enforced. We have seen from the discussion around the fair work agency and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority that the issue is that rights are not enforced. The good part of this Bill is that it sets up a fair work agency that will look at enforcement.

Not supporting the new clause does not mean not recognising the objective that it puts forward. The argument is that this point should and could be dealt with more effectively through other legislative avenues, such as the modern slavery legislation brought in by the previous Government, which they then completely gutted. Looking at how the labour exploitation components of that legislation could be strengthened would deal more effectively with the issues that the hon. Member is raising via his new clause.

[Greg Smith]

His Majesty’s loyal Opposition cannot support new clause 51. The horrible practices outlined by the hon. Member for Dundee Central need to be tackled, but the Bill will already do that. I actually find myself in agreement with parts of what the hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh said. There are other routes within immigration law where such things can and should be tackled. No matter how much we disagree with parts of the Bill, if we take the view that the law must apply equally to everybody whether or not they are a British citizen, it is unnecessarily to carve out a particular section of people through new clause 51, when there is other legislation to deal with the abuses that no one on the Committee or in the House wants to see.