Employment Rights Bill

Chris Vince Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Baggy Shanker]

Absolutely.

I welcome the measures in the Bill, which I know will make a real difference to the lives of working people and their families in Derby and across the UK. I will focus on how the Bill will, through Government amendment 163, transform employee access to trade unions, empowering more employees to act as a collective so that they can secure better pay and conditions. When I speak to business leaders in small and large employers, they all say that their biggest asset is their people. The Conservatives can harp on about trade unions as much as they want, but in practice the best solution is for employers to work with employees and trade union reps to create the best working conditions for businesses and individuals to succeed.

I know about the importance of union membership from first-hand experience. When I left school at the age of 16 and began work as an engineering apprentice, I joined the union on day two. I knew how important that would be in supporting me and my colleagues at work. Much later on, when campaigning to save Alstom in Derby last year, I saw how hard Unite and other trade unions fought to secure jobs at the Litchurch Lane facility. They stood up for working people in our local community when it mattered most.

However, employees cannot access the benefits that union membership can bring if they do not know about the support offered by trade unions in the first place.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his youthful appearance. Does he agree that, just as businesses are about the employees, trade unions are about their memberships and giving individual members their rights?

[Baggy Shanker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about individual members coming together to do what is right for themselves, for their trade unions, and for the companies and businesses that they work for.

I welcome the Bill’s introduction of a right of access for unions to meet with workers. Government amendment 163 expands union access agreements, so that unions can communicate with workers digitally as well as by entering the workplace. I urge meaningful implementation of those digital access rights to enable direct conversations between unions and workers, as would take place during in-person meetings in the workplace.

When we work together, we get more done. It is important that workers have access to union representatives and know how joining a union can support them in the workplace. I welcome the measures in the Bill to expand that access, which will further strengthen the rights of working people in Derby and beyond.

Employment Rights Bill

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

I am proud to declare my membership of Unite the union and the NASUWT, and I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Before I was elected, I was a teacher for 20 years. Today, as we welcome this transformative legislation, I think of my former students. Their lives will be significantly improved by better wages, stronger workers’ rights and a fairer economy.

I welcome the Bill, which will drastically limit the exploitative use of fire and rehire. Just outside my constituency, but affecting many of my constituents directly, more than 500 Oscar Meyer workers are striking against the company’s appalling use of the practice. By creating a new right to claim automatic unfair dismissal if someone is reemployed on varied terms to carry out the same duties, the Bill takes a vital step towards dignifying employees with security and autonomy.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is giving one of his trademark passionate speeches. Does he agree with me, as a former teacher myself, that removing fire and rehire will give the young people that he used to teach the confidence that when they go into the workplace, they will look at careers and not just jobs?

[Steve Witherden]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything my hon. Friend has said. I am also pleased to see Government new clause 34 encouraging greater employer compliance and increasing compensation for workers subjected to fire and rehire by raising the maximum period of the protective award from 90 to 180 days.

Amendment 329, tabled in my name, seeks to further protect against that harmful practice, ensuring that any clause in an employment contract that allows an employer to change the terms without the employee’s consent would be unenforceable, especially in cases of unfair dismissal related to a refusal to accept changes. That would further help redistribute the power imbalance between employers and employees, which currently allows low wages and poor working conditions to become commonplace. The Bill also takes crucial steps towards banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, ensuring that all workers have predictable hours and offering security for their day-to-day lives. I am pleased to see amendments extending such protections to agency workers.

We have all felt the effects of a system that has left so many behind: flatlined wages, insecure work and falling living standards. It is therefore not just my former pupils but millions across the country who will benefit from the biggest upgrade to rights at work in a generation. I am proud to support our Labour Government in this historic step towards better quality employment across the country, and I look forward to the full delivery of the plan to make work pay. Diolch yn fawr.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laurence Turner]

It is a particular pleasure to follow a former colleague of mine, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen). What she has said will have a special resonance with the many people who are following this debate in this Chamber and beyond. She has done a valuable public service, and we thank her for it.

As is customary, I draw attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my membership of the GMB and Unite trade unions.

Because time is limited, I will restrict my comments to Opposition amendment 290 on the School Support Staff Negotiating Body. This amendment seeks to disapply the SSSNB’s statutory remit from both academies and local authority maintained schools, which makes it substantially different from and more damaging than the similar amendment brought forward in Committee. If it was carried, it would reduce protection for many school support staff workers in employment.

The vast majority of school support staff are already covered by collective bargaining, almost 80% directly and the rest indirectly. However, the existing agreement, through the National Joint Council, does not serve support staff or employers well. Last year, teaching assistants were paid just £17,400 on average, and 90% of those workers are women. I have spoken to some who have relied on food banks and payday loans to make ends meet. There are 1,800 school support staff workers in my constituency of Birmingham Northfield, and they deserve better. Most schools struggle to recruit for those roles, according to research by the National Foundation for Educational Research, and at one point during the pandemic the role of teaching assistants was the second hardest to recruit for after that of HGV drivers.

This is not just about pay. As the Harpur v. Brazel case showed, substantial liabilities also exist for employers because of unclear and outdated terms and conditions. As the Confederation of School Trusts, representing academy employers, has said, the time has come to move school support staff out from under the local government negotiating umbrella. Indeed, the request from school employers was for the Bill to establish a floor, not a ceiling.

That point was addressed in Committee, so we might ask why this amendment has been brought forward. It is in contradiction to the amendment that the Opposition tabled in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee. After all, it was the Conservatives who put the School Teachers Review Body on a statutory footing back in the early 1990s, so why will they not support the same step for school support staff? Similarly, they are not seeking to amend the Bill in respect of the adult social care negotiating body, despite the similarities between the two occupations.

I fear that the answer is that school support staff—the majority of people who work in schools—are suffering from the soft prejudice of unequal knowledge and interests that divide the workforce into professionals and ancillaries. This outdated attitude should be confined to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. It was rejected in this place almost 20 years ago, when the process that led to the SSSNB began. This is not a measure whose time has come; it is long overdue.

I wish to say a little about the importance of the measure for special educational needs and disabilities. Classroom-based support staff spend the majority of their time supporting SEND learners. They are essential to schools’ models of inclusion.

[Chris Vince]

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech and referring to a really important group of people. As a former teacher—I mention it quite often— I recognise the huge importance of what school support staff provide to the classroom. Does he agree that they support not just learners but teachers too, and have a wider influence on the school community?

[Laurence Turner]

I agree. My hon. Friend makes a very important point. When we look back at the national agreement in the early 2000s which led to the expansion of school support staff roles, the justification was that they would alleviate pressure on teachers and add to the quality of teaching in classrooms. That is exactly what school support staff workers in my constituency and his do every day.

School support staff roles are essential for SEND support, but the contracts those staff are employed under are so squeezed that no paid time is available for professional development or training. In other words, we cannot resolve the SEND crisis without contract reform, and we cannot achieve that contract reform if the drift and delay, which is the legacy of the 2010 decision to abolish the SSSNB, continues. I urge the Opposition, even now, to think again and not press their amendment to a vote.

In the time remaining, I wish to say a few words about the provisions on hospitality workers and their right not to be subject to third-party harassment. When the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who was formerly in her place, brought forward her private Member’s Bill in the last Parliament, it contained the same provisions that are being advanced now. At the start of the debates in the House of Lords, the extension of the protection to “all reasonable steps” was supported by the Government of the day. Baroness Scott, leading for the Conservative party, said that the measures would not infringe on freedom of speech; in fact, they would strengthen it. The Conservative Front Benchers were right then and they are wrong today.

The Bill is incredibly important. Employment law in the United Kingdom has tended to advance by increments; the Bill measures progress in strides. I am proud to have had some association with it through the Public Bill Committee. I thank the departmental team who were part of the process and the other members of the Committee. I will be proud to vote in favour of the extensions to rights in the Bill when they are brought forward to a vote tonight.

Department for Business and Trade

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)]

I put on the record my profound thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this debate, and to the Liaison Committee for some of the arrangements that have made today possible.

The Prime Minister has underlined time and again that growth is the No. 1 priority, so I am grateful that the House has agreed to put the Department for growth, together with its accounts, under the microscope today. In readiness for today’s debate, my Business and Trade Committee has taken the precaution of talking to hundreds and hundreds of businesses up and down the country, to trade unionists and to consumer groups, and has laid in the House a report on what we heard from literally thousands of voices. In a way, that is what these accounts and estimates, and the Minister, should be judged against when we consider this matter today.

Let me make three points quickly to get the debate started. I start with the point that struck me hardest when we were listening to business voices up and down the country: for all that divides us in this House, there is a terrific unity of purpose in the business community in this country—unity not only about the possibility of becoming the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but on what we need to do to hit that target. The overwhelming majority of businesses want Ministers do more to grow the markets into which they sell. They want to see an ambitious reset with the European Union, fast-tracking of the free trade deals with Switzerland, the Gulf Co-operation Council and India, and for us to do absolutely everything possible to avoid the peril of tariffs from the United States. However, they also want to see a complete transformation in the way in which we use public procurement to support businesses in this country. Minister after Minister has said from the Dispatch Box, “We will do more to buy British.” Well, it is time to actually deliver on that promise.

Secondly, businesses want the right workers for the roles that are available. Pretty much everywhere we went, the challenges of getting the right workforce were the No. 1 priority of the people we heard from. It is true that we heard a lot of concern about the rising costs of business. People are worried about the impact of the Employment Rights Bill, the national minimum wage changes and the national insurance increases all coming at the same time. However, I heard businesses say that they could live with that if they saw the rapid development and publication of a growth plan, along with the comprehensive spending review. I regret the fact that that has kind of moved sideways, because given what this extremely hard-working Minister is doing with the Employment Rights Bill, it would have been in his political interests for his colleagues to table that industrial strategy and growth plan sooner rather than later.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate a fellow Harlowian giving way to me. Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of employment is about skills, and one way the Government can support businesses is by ensuring that young people have the skills to succeed in business and in all workplaces?

[Liam Byrne]

My hon. Friend is 100% right. We heard businesses say to us loud and clear that they wanted radical and bold changes in the way that the skills levy was organised. The Government have moved to introduce flexibilities, and business want them to go further, faster.

We also heard business say that there is a good environment when it comes to start-up finance, but a terrible environment in this country for scale-up finance—I will return to that in a moment. People want much stronger relationships between universities and businesses, and we in this country still do not have something like the Fraunhofer institutes in Germany, which have as their slogan that they are the research and development departments for the Mittelstand. Where those knowledge transfer partnerships work, they are good, but they need to be far more prevalent. Finally, we heard businesses say loud and clear that the planning system needs a complete overhaul. The infrastructure in this country is terrible, and we must drive down energy prices; right now, many businesses are being priced out of doing business because our energy prices are sky high.

For all our differences, there are important points on which we can agree. We on the Business and Trade Committee will continue to judge Ministers against many of the things that we heard from the business community as we travelled up and down the country, and I will flag up two or three points that we want to zero in on.

Terms and Conditions of Employment

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

I am delighted to move regulations under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which originated as a private Member’s Bill in the previous Parliament. I therefore pay tribute to Stuart McDonald, the former Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, and Baroness Wyld for successfully steering the legislation through both Houses, so that it could secure Royal Assent in 2023.

The Act established new statutory entitlements to neonatal care leave and neonatal care pay for employed parents if their child starts to receive neonatal care within 28 days of birth and goes on to spend seven or more continuous days in care. These regulations are another step towards implementing neonatal care leave and pay in April 2025, and they are the first to be brought before the House under the Act.

There is currently no statutory entitlement to such rights for parents of children who require neonatal care. Parents in this difficult situation have had to rely on existing rights, such as maternity leave or annual leave, to be there to care for their baby and to support their partner. This approach has understandably caused additional stress for parents. Some mothers report that they had to leave work because they were not ready to return at the end of their maternity leave. As paternity leave is limited to two weeks, some fathers and partners have had to rely on statutory unpaid parental leave or the compassion of their employers to take time off work.

Around 40,000 babies a year spend more than a week in neonatal care. Once provisions on neonatal care leave and pay come into force in April, we estimate that around 60,000 parents will be eligible, and that around 34,000 parents will take up paid leave each year. Neonatal care leave will enable eligible parents to take a minimum of one week’s leave and a maximum of 12 weeks’ leave, depending on how long their baby receives neonatal care, on top of their other parental leave entitlements. It will be a day one right for employees.

Statutory neonatal care pay, like other family-related pay rights, will be available to employees who also meet continuity of service and minimum earnings tests. Eligible employees must have worked for their employer for at least 26 weeks, ending with the relevant week, and earn on average at least £125 a week before tax. If eligible, a parent will be able to claim a flat rate of £187.18 a week in 2025-26, or 90% of their average earnings, whichever amount is lower.

Employers will administer the statutory payments on behalf of the Government. Small employers will be able to recover 103% of the statutory payment from the Exchequer, while larger employers can recover 92% of payments and will therefore incur wage-like costs equivalent to 8% of the statutory payments they make. This is a similar arrangement to that in place for other parental payments.

Together, these regulations will provide protection and support for parents at an incredibly challenging time. These entitlements provide a floor, and employers can and should go further if they are able.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister agree that these changes will not only support parents who are going through a really difficult time but will also be good for employers? By showing that they are supporting their employees to return to work with these additional rights, this will be good for employers in the long term, too.

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend is right. The impact assessment refers to evidence showing that family-friendly policies are good for employers as well as for individuals. That is certainly the Government’s approach towards employment rights.

We have extensively consulted stakeholders, including charities and business representative organisations, to ensure that these regulations balance the needs of parents and businesses. These groups agree that the proposed reforms will provide substantial benefits to businesses, including the retention of their employees’ skills and knowledge, as my hon. Friend has just said. I will explain in detail a few points in the regulations, which have been developed through consultation with relevant Departments, including the Department of Health and Social Care.

We have a definition of neonatal care that encapsulates the different ways in which babies receive it, including beyond the walls of a hospital and through outreach care. This could include care that takes place in the family home, provided it meets the relevant criteria. We have included outreach care in the eligibility criteria to capture the many ways in which babies receive care, and to prevent a postcode lottery in which parents of children who receive the same clinical treatment may qualify in one area because they receive their treatment in hospital, but not in another area because they receive their treatment at home through an outreach care programme.

To ensure that as many parents as possible are eligible, the definition of “parent” in the regulations encompasses adoptive parents, foster-to-adopt parents and intended parents in surrogacy arrangements. Those who meet this definition will also be required to have caring responsibility for the child.

Having a baby in neonatal care is a difficult experience for any parent, whether the baby is admitted for one day or for many months. However, this entitlement will focus on parents of babies who experience prolonged stays in neonatal care as they will be in most need of additional support. A qualifying period of neonatal care will therefore be a minimum of seven continuous days, beginning on the day after the one on which the care starts. Starting the clock at one minute past midnight of the day after the child is admitted creates a consistent approach that does not vary from baby to baby.

The total amount of statutory neonatal care leave and pay available to parents will be capped at a maximum of 12 weeks, which balances the needs of businesses with the needs of parents. It is also worth noting that the entitlement will be in addition to other entitlements to parental leave and pay that parents may also be eligible for.

The leave and pay can be taken in two tiers. Tier 1 leave can be taken when the baby is receiving neonatal care and for one week after they stop receiving care. That leave can be taken at short notice, allowing parents to act flexibly in an emergency. Tier 2 leave can be taken after the baby has left neonatal care and therefore requires more prescription to ensure the needs of employers are balanced against the needs of employees. That approach provides flexibility for parents and crucially allows them to work around existing leave entitlements, such as maternity or paternity leave.

Employees will need to give notice to take leave and pay, and provide their employer with the information set out in the regulations. The method depends on which tier of leave they take and, as Members will expect, the stipulations in tier 1 are less stringent than those in tier 2. When the employee wants to take leave in tier 1, they will need to notify their employer before they start work on the first day of absence or as soon as possible thereafter. For pay, notice must be given within 28 days, beginning with the first day of the week in which pay is being claimed. When the employee wants to take leave in tier 2, they will need to give notice 15 days in advance for one week of leave and 28 days in advance for two or more weeks of leave. That is because leave in tier 2 can be more easily planned. The same notice requirements will also apply for pay. Furthermore, parents are not required to provide proof of their child receiving neonatal care. To make a claim in respect of pay, the employee may need to provide a signed self-declaration.

Parents who are out of the workforce on family leave for extended periods may be at more risk from redundancy when they first return to work. We have therefore ensured that parents on neonatal care leave will be protected from redundancy, and those who have taken six continuous weeks of neonatal care leave will also be protected until their child turns 18 months.

We anticipate that there will be some impact on businesses regarding familiarisation with the policy and managing the impact of employee absences. Like other family-related pay entitlements, employers will be responsible for administering the statutory payment on behalf of the Government. Overall, we estimate that the net annual recurring cost to businesses will be around £22.5 million. We also anticipate there will be a one-off familiarisation cost to businesses, which we estimate to be £4.7 million.

Despite those costs, we anticipate that there will be further benefits to businesses, as there is evidence that shows, as has already been mentioned, that workplaces offering a range of extensive family-related policies are more likely to have above-average performance relative to workplaces without such practices. My officials are working with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to ensure there is clear guidance on gov.uk to support employers in implementing this policy, and with Bliss, to which I pay tribute for its work in this area, to ensure that parents can access the information they need to understand their entitlement as easily as possible.

I thank all those who have been involved in the development of neonatal care leave, including the premature and sick babies charities, for their tireless campaigns and support. I hope they are proud that we have got this on the statute book and that the regulation will be introduced today. It will make a real difference to hard-working families, who need the support at such a critical time. I commend the regulations to the House.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, and I welcome the introduction of these two statutory instruments, which have been a long time coming. In 2019, the Conservatives made a manifesto commitment to introduce neonatal care leave. It was a shame that in that election, and in the most recent, no such commitment was made by the Labour party, now in government. That is no surprise, however; just like with all their good ideas, it usually turns out that they were ours.

Our commitment to introducing neonatal care leave led to our support of the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which was stewarded by the former Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, Stuart C McDonald and Baroness Wyld. That Act is the reason why the Government are introducing these statutory instruments today.

I am pleased that, with reservations, we will support the measures, so that we can continue to build on the sensible improvements to workers’ rights that we, as Conservatives, introduced in government. We introduced shared parental leave, giving more choice and flexibility to families, and carers leave, giving employees more time off to give or arrange care for their families. We supported flexible working, giving employers and employees more flexibility over working practices, and we achieved all that while increasing employment and wages, a thing that the Government are now realising is no easy feat.

The result of our reforms to workers’ rights is that Britain has some of the most generous maternity and paternity leave globally, meaning families are able to spend more time with their newborns. Those achievements were reached by working with businesses and employees. We worked with businesses not just out of courtesy, but because we know that without consulting businesses and taking on board their concerns, no progress will be made, no matter how good the intention. That is not something this Government have done, which is why their Employment Rights Bill is driving up unemployment before it has even been passed.

In the plan to make work pay, the Government committed to rights from an employee’s first day, but for neonatal care pay, that is not the case. Will the Minister confirm whether this is the first step in rolling back on day one rights? Under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, the right to neonatal care leave and pay will come into force in less than two months. Why have the Government waited to introduce the instruments until now, leaving businesses less than eight weeks to prepare and plan? We have heard that the Prime Minister has requested a growth test on all policies. Has the Minister conducted a growth test on this policy? If not, why not?

More generally, this Government’s record on health, in particular women’s health, has been disappointing. At the end of last month, the Health Secretary dropped women’s health targets and those for women’s health hubs. That decision will impact 600,000 women on waiting lists, lead to preventable disease progression and lead to more women attending A&E, unable to work, care or live a fulfilled life. The Labour manifesto made a commitment to prioritise women’s health, but this Government are making a habit of taking with one hand to give with the other. Will the Minister confirm whether he raised his concerns over the cancellation of health targets, which have an impact on these measures, with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care?

[Chris Vince]

The shadow Minister talks about targets, but was it not his own Government that got rid of the targets for A&E waiting times, and then failed to meet their lowered targets?

[Greg Smith]

It is a brave Labour politician who talks about health targets when, for so long, the NHS in Wales was performing, and continues to perform, worse than in England when it was run by the Conservatives.

To conclude, we will support these statutory instruments because they will support the 40,000 families who faced the incredibly difficult and worrisome experience of having a child in neonatal care. The instruments will build on our achievements that made the UK one of the best places in the world to be the parents of a newborn, and I hope the Government can continue to make progress.

I end by again thanking the former Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and Baroness Wyld. I also thank Bliss and the Smallest Things for their consistent work that has kept neonatal care pay and leave at the top of all of our agendas.

Royal Mail Takeover

Chris Vince Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

The hon. Member must be busy at Christmas time if he has eight offices to visit. He makes an important point about the Royal Mail’s vital role in rural constituencies. We have got commitments to improve standards, and hopefully the deal will deliver on that through the increased investment that has been agreed.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Postmen and postwomen in my constituency were shaken to the core a couple of months ago when one of our postmen was brutally attacked and hospitalised while doing his rounds. I am sure the Minister will join me in sending my sympathies to him and his family for that terrible incident. When I visited the depot in my constituency—fortunately, I only have one—the postmen were concerned about the long-term future of Royal Mail. What assurances can he give me and postmen in Harlow that he has done all he can to protect Royal Mail and ensure that any future takeover does not lead to a running down of services?

[Justin Madders]

First, I extend my sympathies to my hon. Friend’s constituent who was attacked. We all feel abhorrence when public servants are attacked doing their job.

My hon. Friend can be assured that services will be protected. This is an opportunity to get investment. We have commitments that were not in place previously post privatisation, so we are in a better place than before.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Vince Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I can give the hon. Lady that reassurance. The aviation sector often complains about the lack of recognition, particularly relating to pilots. There is mutual interest in this area, and it could be a solid basis for negotiation. We can never promise the outcome of negotiations, but I can promise her that it is a priority for us.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place. Before the election I met fruit growers in Nazeing and more recently farmers in Hatfield Broad Oak, both in my constituency, who raised concerns about hiring seasonal workers caused by Britain’s exit from the EU. What can his Department do to address that issue?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I recognise the point that my hon. Friend raises. Our reforms to zero-hours contracts will not affect seasonal labour—we recognise that it is an important part of the labour market. Additional burdens have been placed on businesses because of Brexit, as he outlined. We do not want to relitigate the arguments of the past, but we believe that we can make tangible improvements for businesses in his area and for everyone.