Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Chris Vince and Laurence Turner

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[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 As the Harpur v. Brazel case showed, substantial liabilities also exist for employers because of unclear and outdated terms and conditions.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.

Family Businesses

Debate between Chris Vince and Laurence Turner

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Laurence Turner]

One of the pleasures of the Committee is that we have 970 pages of transcript where those matters were discussed at length, and the Government are indeed bringing forward further impact assessments on those points.

Looking at my constituency and, indeed, the constituencies of all Members of the House, the economic record that we have inherited is one of pallid economic and wage growth. After 15 years, average real wages in Birmingham Northfield are £300 lower a month than they were in 2010. The costs of delayed and cancelled NHS appointments, crime that goes without investigation and shortages in key teaching posts are borne not just by our constituents, but by businesses. We should say this clearly: public services create value. Businesses and the people who work for them need strong public services to sustain themselves and grow.

When I recently met small businesses on Northfield high street, we had—as you would expect, Madam Deputy Speaker—a serious and robust discussion about a whole range of Government policies and policies enacted by the previous Government, but the first issue raised was crime and antisocial behaviour. Anyone who has been a victim of crime can attest to the devastating impacts that it can have on a person or business.

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

My hon. Friend makes an eloquent point about the issues of antisocial behaviour and crime on the economy and particularly on small businesses. Does he recognise that small businesses like mine in Harlow have been massively affected by the increase in crime and antisocial behaviour? I am thinking particularly of tool theft and thefts of vehicles.

[Laurence Turner]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible point, and the issues that he raises are reflected in my constituency. That is one of the major barriers to getting jobs and spending into our high streets.

If the Budget last year had failed to raise money for investment in public services, it would have been like changing the colour of the shovel before continuing to dig a hole in the same old ditch. We could not prolong the failed approach of the past 14 years. We can add to that the disgraceful situation that awaited the incoming Labour Government. For all the sound and fury that we have heard from the Conservatives, there is little mystery about that now. Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR, told the Treasury Committee:

“When we had a high-trust relationship with the Treasury those things were being well managed, and managed within the total. That system very clearly broke down.”

He said that

“there was about £9.5 billion-worth of net pressure on Departments’ budgets, which they did not disclose to us…which under the law and under the Act they should have done.”

The decisions that awaited the incoming Government on public sector pay, which is the other element of the £22 billion, had been ducked and delayed until after the election. [Interruption.] We need to be clear on that. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) indicates from a sedentary position. He will know about the situation with the School Teachers Review Body. Conservative Ministers already knew about the STRB’s recommendations and that the recommendations of the other review bodies tend to be similar.

Given that the pay year starts not in July or even at the beginning of the election period but in April, why were those recommendations delayed? Because Conservative Ministers and their Departments were late to submit the remit letters and evidence. The Office for Manpower Economics has been clear on that point:

“The work of the PRBs is demand led and essentially non-negotiable—departments set the remits and timetables.”

That is the truth of the matter. The additional costs were always coming, and the only reason they came seven months into an election year is that Conservative Ministers were content for them to be so delayed.

Conservative Members claim that they would not have accepted those recommendations, but they have not said at any point what their offer to public sector workers would have been. I wonder whether any Conservative Member wants to tell us today what their offer would have been, if not 5.5%, had they won the election. It should not be a hard question to answer. What would the difference be in the pay packets of nurses, teachers and members of the armed forces? I would be very happy to take an intervention on that point. [Interruption.] They cannot answer the question.