Unpaid Work Trials
Debate between Chris Stephens and Philip Hollobone(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), on securing the debate. I emphasise my support for his private Member’s Bill.
I am one of the Scottish National party signatories to that Bill, alongside my hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), for Glasgow East (David Linden), for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) and for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) for their support. Indeed, the Bill is supported by Members from every single political party represented in the House. You look surprised, Mr Hollobone, but there are Conservative Members who support my hon. Friend’s Bill.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. As Chairman, I have neither a surprised face nor any other kind of face. Mine is a neutral face. I am just listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest.
Chris Stephens
Thank you, Chair. All I will say is that I will play you at poker for money any time. We will move on.
The Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South is supported by the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Trades Union Congress. As my hon. Friend outlined, he has been assisted by both “Better Than Zero” and Unite the Union’s hospitality section, and I thank Bryan Simpson, a constituent of my hon. Friend’s, for sending us an excellent briefing for the debate. It highlights several issues that hon. Members have addressed, including Mooboo, which I will come on to, and Aldi, which has had to change its practices.
The briefing also includes the testimony of individuals who have been through unpaid work trials. Rachel from Bearsden said:
“I did two unpaid trials of 5-6 hours each for a local restaurant who then strung me along for weeks with the promise of shifts before ending contact.”
Nicole from Renfrew said:
“I went to one of these and it is actually slave labour. They use you to get the shop ready for opening time and get annoyed if you make any mistakes (even though you haven’t been trained to do the job). They just abandon you and come back moaning that you’ve not finished the million tasks to do. They then emailed me the next day saying I was unsuccessful and that they can’t provide feedback because of the volume of applicants.”
Those are just some of the cases studies that Unite supplied.
Devolved Powers in Scotland
Debate between Chris Stephens and Philip Hollobone(6 years, 6 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Stephens
On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. In a sedentary intervention, the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) claimed that he was at the last debate about the public sector pay cap. I have checked Hansard for 13 September, and he is not listed as having made a contribution in that debate. As an experienced Member of this House, Mr Hollobone, can you advise me what steps an hon. Member who makes an inaccurate claim in a sedentary intervention can take to correct the record?
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As I understand it, Hansard is an almost verbatim record of verbal contributions in the House. It does not record attendance. Members may be in the Chamber without making a verbal contribution.