European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chuka Umunna and John Redwood

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

I am sure that it is an important protection for workers. I do not think that anybody is threatening the protections that are already incorporated into our law codes. We will have many productive debates in future about how we can raise those standards and where we should raise those standards, as we have done in the past.

The House should remember that much of this is already in British law and goes beyond the EU minimum standards; it would be very perverse to think that Parliament would then want to turn around and start taking away those standards when it had made this very conscious effort to go beyond the EU minimum standards. It also reminds us that this House has been quite capable of imposing good standards over and above the European ones and that we are not entirely dependent on the European Union to do that.

I would like to pursue the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset by pointing out that there are consequentials from taking the approach that the Solicitor General said that the Government are considering on clause 6(4)(a). Again, I echo what has been said, which is that it is very important that clarity is given to our Supreme Court. Like my right hon. Friend, I want the ultimate arbiter of these things to be Parliament. That is what taking back control is all about. If the Supreme Court feels that it needs more parliamentary guidance, then that is exactly what we must supply either through this or subsequent legislation.

We now come to the important set of issues that various Members have raised about what should be done by primary and secondary legislation. I suggest that, at the moment, we stick to our general rules for non-EU proposals. We know that important matters deserve primary legislation and that ancillary matters, usually arising out of primary legislation, can be done by statutory instruments, usually identified in the primary legislation itself. There needs to be primary legislation cover for the use of the SI principle. Again, Parliament has a way of deciding which ones are a bit more important and so need an affirmative resolution procedure and debate, and which ones are done by the negative resolution procedure. Where the Opposition want to call in one for negative resolution, they do get a debate and a vote, because that is part of the system that we should apply.

On the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), I say that we should not be asymmetric in our democracy. He suggested that major pieces of legislation coming from the EU that are in passage but will not be completed by the time we leave the EU should go through under some fast-track SI procedure. I think that those pieces of legislation should face exactly the same procedure that anything else faces in this House. If they are technical or relate to some major piece of legislation that has already gone through, then of course they can go through by statutory instrument if we wish to replicate the European law. If they are substantial and new, they will clearly need to go through the primary legislative process, because we have been arguing that we need more scrutiny and more debate about this important piece of legislation, which makes everything possible.

I see clauses 2 and 3, along with clause 1, as a platform. They are very much a piece of process legislation—the legislation that takes back control. In itself, it does not prevent this Parliament in future doing its job a lot better than it was able to do when quite a lot of our laws and regulations came from Court decisions over which we had no control, from regulations on which we might even have lost the vote, or in circumstances where we were not very happy about the compromise that we had to strike to avoid something worse.

This is a great time for Parliament. I hope that all Members will see that it enables them to follow their agendas and campaigns with more opportunity to get results if they are good at campaigning and at building support in Parliament. That is exactly what clauses 2 and 3 allow us to do. The legislation will allow us to go on to get rid of VAT on items or to have a fishing policy that we think works better for the United Kingdom, while, of course, protecting the many excellent protections in employment law and other fields that have been rightly identified by the Opposition. I recommend these two clauses, which I am sure will go through, and I look forward to hearing more comments from Ministers in due course about how Parliament can satisfy itself on any changes needed to make all those laws continue to work.

[Chuka Umunna]

I will speak about the new clauses tabled by Opposition Front Benchers, particularly those on employment law, and about the new clauses in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander).

First, I notice that the right hon. Members for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), the right hon. and learned Members for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and others are here. They have been accused of not doing right by the people simply because they have been seeking to do their job in Committee. They have been accused in different quarters of being mutineers and trying to sabotage a process, when all they have sought is to do right by this country, this House and—most importantly of all—their constituents.

We do not live in a police state. This is a not a dictatorship where the freedom of speech of individuals, both outside and in Parliament, is curtailed. The House needs to send a strong message to those outside that this democracy will not tolerate Members of Parliament being threatened in the way that was outlined by the right hon. Member for Broxtowe in her point of order earlier, because that is not in keeping with British values and how we do things in this country. There are Members who whip this up, suggesting that we are somehow running against the people when we try to do our job on this Bill. Those Members are grossly irresponsible and should think about what they are doing more carefully in the future, because we have seen the results in the national newspapers today.

Job Insecurity

Debate between Chuka Umunna and John Redwood

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is right. It is worth recalling that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition first talked about the cost of living crisis and the squeezed middle, Members on the Government Benches and their supporters ridiculed the very notion, but the existence of that living standards crisis is now undeniable. Indeed, since my right hon. Friend first talked about the squeezed middle, in 2011, I think, the people who compile the Oxford English Dictionary named it their word of the year, despite the fact that it is two words.

Words are one thing, but they are backed up by the reality of what we see in our communities. Ministers can do whatever jiggery-pokery they want with the figures, as the Chancellor did the other day when he claimed that the top decile of earners was the only decile that had lost out from his measures. In so doing, he miraculously forgot to take into account the huge tax cut he had given the top 1% at the same time as heaping a VAT rise on working families and taking away support from them.

The average employee is earning substantially less than when this Government came to office—over £1,600 less a year. It is important to remember that on Wednesday 13 February last year—almost a year ago—the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions in this House pledged that people would be better off in 2015 than in 2010, and we will hold him to that. The head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who is often cited in all parts of the House, thinks differently. He said last month:

“We will be able to say definitively—I’m pretty sure—that, come 2015, average household incomes will be lower than they were pre-recession and lower than they were in 2010.”

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that no one working for a trade union or a Labour council is on a zero-hours contract or is a part-timer who wants a full-time job?

[Mr Umunna]

I will come on to zero-hours contracts shortly, if there is some patience on the Government Benches.

This living standards crisis is not just one of rising costs and falling wages. It is one, too, of increasing insecurity at work. People in work today feel less secure and more pressurised at work than at any time in the past 20 years, according to the most recent UK skills and employment survey. Members on the Government Benches shake their heads. It was the Government’s own UK Commission for Employment and Skills, which co-funded that survey, that described what we now have as a “climate of fear”. More recent research carried out towards the end of last year found that the number of people feeling insecure at work had almost doubled since this Government came to office, with half the working population believing that the economic policies of this Government have made them less secure.

There is a constant worry about whether people will be able to hold on to their jobs. There is a constant worry about whether they will be able to provide for themselves and their families—a continuing squeeze, yes, and an increasing amount of insecurity. That is the reality of life in this country in 2014.

Zero-hours Contracts

Debate between Chuka Umunna and John Redwood

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the marked rise in the use of zero hours contracts with recent estimates that as many as a million employees are employed on them and that they are used in over a quarter of workplaces, contributing to growing insecurity for families across the UK; and therefore calls on the Government to initiate a full consultation and formal call for evidence on the use of zero hours contracts and on proposals to prevent abuses by employers of such contracts, for example, by stopping employees on zero hours contracts being required to work exclusively for one employer, stopping the use of contracts that require zero hour workers to be available on the off-chance they are needed but with no guarantee of work, banning the use of zero hours contracts where employees are in practice working regular hours and putting in place a code of practice on the use of zero hours contracts.

We are in the midst of the biggest living standards crisis in a generation, a crisis that is affecting every community in the country. We know that at its heart is the issue of pay. People are working harder than ever before but earning less: they have on average suffered a £1,500 pay cut since the Government came into office. We know that at the same time as wages have been falling, costs have been increasing, with prices rising faster than wages in 39 of the 40 months of this Government.

We also know that insecurity goes to the heart of this living standards crisis, too. Those in work now feel less secure and more pressurised at work than at any time in the past 20 years, according to the most recent UK skills and employment survey. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills, which co-funded the survey, says that what we have now is a climate of fear. Indeed, research shows that double the number of people feel insecure at work today compared with three years ago.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the biggest collapse in living standards occurred from 2008 to 2010 under the Labour Government, when they bankrupted the country and drove people out of work? We are trying to recover from that position.

[Mr Umunna]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about us bankrupting the country. He knows, because I have heard him talk about this many times before, that the problems we had in 2008-09 found their gestation in the banking sector, which is ultimately where responsibility lies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that what Southwark is doing is a good thing. I note that he is agreeing with me.

The Office for National Statistics suggests that the numbers under the previous Government were around 140,000 across all sectors, although I acknowledge that the way it has collected those data has been somewhat faulty, in part because it relies heavily on people understanding what their contractual situation is. It is fair to say, however, that there has been a significant proliferation of zero-hours contracts over the past few years. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the care sector. The use of these contracts in that sector might have been a niche arrangement before, but it is certainly now becoming the rule. That is what we need to act on.

I do not believe that there is consensus on advocating an outright ban on these arrangements. There are people who want them, and there are employers who use them responsibly, but, as I said to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), the key is to outlaw them where they are exploiting people. In doing that, we need to acknowledge the people who are doing the right thing as well as draw attention to those who are doing the wrong thing.

We should also acknowledge the need for this House to get its own house in order in respect of the use of zero-hours contracts. We know that there are people who look after us here and help us to do our jobs here who are engaged on those contracts. That is unacceptable. We should be setting an example. I know that this is being looked into at the moment, but we have not yet had a clear commitment from the House authorities not to use such contracts. I think that everyone would agree that we want to see their use in the House stamped out.

[Mr Redwood]

I want my constituents to have well paid, decent jobs, and I have a lot of sympathy with those who do not wish to see exploitative contracts. Will the shadow Secretary of State say a little more about how he would define an exploitative contract, and whether there is more we could do by way of leadership? He is an influential and talented man. Surely there is more that he could do with Labour councils and trade unions, just as those on the Government Benches can do more with the Government.

[Mr Umunna]

One of my colleagues has just said to me that being praised by the right hon. Gentleman will spell the end of my career. People will point to examples of Labour-controlled local authorities, but we do not care who is using these contracts. We simply do not want them to be used exploitatively, and I will explain how we can stop that happening.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Chuka Umunna and John Redwood

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I am proud to be associated with a party that was responsible for setting up many of the predecessor bodies of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Let me be absolutely clear: we thoroughly support this organisation. It is incredibly important, not only in taking an anti-discrimination stance towards some of the things that unfortunately happen in our society, but in being proactive in promoting that. I have just returned from a visit to Israel, where I learned more about the situation there. I met the Israeli and Palestinian Governments, and one of the things that I felt so proud of was the fact that an equalities commission was recently created in Israel. We know that society there has major challenges in that respect, but that commission is being modelled on ours. I think that says something about the body we have in this country.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I would be grateful if the Opposition addressed the proposals that we are meant to be debating. The Government are not saying, “Just strip it all away”; they are proposing equal pay audits and other mechanisms. It would be useful to know what the Opposition think about them.

[Mr Umunna]

I have just addressed each point about the commission that the Minister raised in her speech. I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s impatience; I shall turn to the other points now.

Let me turn to the Government’s new clauses. Last week the Government tabled new clause 12, which provides for the repeal of the provisions in the Equality Act 2010 relating to employer’s liability for third-party harassment of employees. That, of course, was a key recommendation in the infamous report of the Prime Minister’s employment law adviser Adrian Beecroft. To find the reason for the original introduction of those measures—I am basing my remarks on my legal practice and study: I was an employment lawyer before being elected—we have to return to the mid-1990s. In 1994, there was a well-known case in which two black hotel waitresses were made to serve drinks in Manchester during a performance by the notorious late comedian Bernard Manning. They were subjected to racially and sexually abusive remarks by Manning, and they took their employers to a tribunal. They should never have been put in that situation, and they issued proceedings and won the tribunal. After that case, however, case law was uncertain—I can say that, having dealt with the case law that existed before the Equality Act 2010 came into force. Through section 40 of that Act, which the Government are partly repealing, we legislated to put protection against such third-party harassment on to a firm footing and cover all types of unlawful discrimination.

Business and the Economy

Debate between Chuka Umunna and John Redwood

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

In case the hon. Gentleman has not noticed, we are in a double-dip recession. That says something about his party’s policies, given that, as I have just said, it inherited an economy that was growing, unemployment that was falling and a recovery that was setting in.

Before the Queen’s Speech, there was, of course, the Budget. Let us remember what people said about it. The general secretary of the TUC said:

“We needed a Budget that looked to the future and made jobs - particularly for young people - the national priority… Instead we have got a Budget by the rich for the rich.”

The chief executive of the Forum of Private Business said:

“what small businesses and the economy need are confident strides forward now. Largely, that has not happened in this Budget.”

People were looking in the Queen’s Speech for signs that Ministers understood what people were telling them—to change course and to put in place policies that will deliver an economy that works for working people and businesses, and the building blocks upon which a new economy can be built.

Did the Queen’s Speech deliver the change that people and businesses signalled they wanted to see? There are things that we welcome, subject to the small print being worked through. I have given the Business Secretary credit for ensuring that the Government established the Independent Commission on Banking. We are playing our part, in a cross-party spirit as far as possible, to implement its recommendations, and will look at the detail when it is published. The Government, by their own admission, said that they were bequeathed one of the best competition regimes in the world by this party. The Business Secretary will need to demonstrate that the creation of the single competition and markets authority—which he has just spoken about—will improve on that legacy, not squander it.

Our 2010 manifesto included plans to create a supermarkets ombudsman to protect farmers and food suppliers from unfair and uncompetitive practices by major retailers. The Government are taking that forward through the grocery adjudicator, which the Secretary of State has mentioned. We will work to ensure that the grocery adjudicator is given powers to ensure fair access across the supply chain. In office we set up the primary authority scheme—which he also mentioned—to help reduce the local regulatory burden on firms. The enterprise Bill will extend that to include more businesses, which is welcome. The Secretary of State also referred to the changes to parental leave. Again, we will look at the details, but on the whole, that does not sound like a bad measure.

We were told that the enterprise Bill would contain measures on executive remuneration—something the Secretary of State has just repeated. In order to build a more productive and responsible capitalism, it is important to ensure that we bring an end to rewards for failure and the excessive pay we have seen, which is bad for our economy and our businesses. On both sides of the House we agree that change and reform must be led by shareholders and investors with Government support. In office, we were the ones who introduced the advisory shareholder votes on remuneration reports, which have been causing a lot of news recently.

[Mr Redwood]

What approach would the shadow Minister recommend to the remuneration of senior executives and directors in banks with state shareholdings?

[Mr Umunna]

I would say that their pay should be linked to performance against criteria and specified objectives. Our argument in relation to RBS is that the Government are the biggest shareholder. They have lectured others about the need for greater shareholder activism, but it would be good to see it from those on the Government Front Bench.

However, despite all the things I have welcomed, in sum, it is business as usual for this Government. This Queen’s Speech signals little change in approach. For the person looking for work, this Queen’s Speech offered no hope; for individuals, families and firms faced with increasing energy and water bills, and rising transport costs, it offered no hope; and for sound and successful small businesses struggling to get by in this recession of the Government’s making, it offered no hope. However, listening to the Business Secretary, one would think that the Queen’s Speech had been positively received. I do not know who he has been listening to, but this is what our business leaders have said about his Government’s Queen’s Speech. On Friday, Justin King, the CEO of Sainsbury’s and a member of the Prime Minister’s business advisory group, which is meeting as I speak, said:

“Consistency is what gives confidence. Unfortunately, what we have seen over the past couple of years is something that could not be described as a consistent pursuit of a clear policy”.

In other words, uncertainty—created by the Business Secretary’s Department and all across Whitehall—is reducing businesses’ confidence to invest for the long term. On Saturday, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said:

“there is a big black hole when it comes to aiding businesses to create enterprise, generate wealth and grow”.

Business people are clear: what they want is a Government who will step up and work in partnership with them to create the conditions for private sector growth. What they have got is a Government who step aside and leave business to struggle on alone.

What was the Government’s response to those comments by business people? Step forward the Foreign Secretary. Yesterday—in what the Business Secretary described as “commercial diplomacy”—he said:

“I think they should be getting on with the task of creating more of those jobs and more of those exports, rather than complaining about it. There’s only one growth strategy: work hard”.

What on earth does the Foreign Secretary think this country’s business owners do all day? His message is clear. He is saying that the fact the economy is not growing has nothing to do with the Government’s failed economic policies. He is saying that it is not growing because the people in all our businesses out there are not working hard enough. How out of touch can the Foreign Secretary be?