Employment Rights Bill

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he makes the case brilliantly against some of the nonsense arguments about productivity that we have heard from the Conservative Benches today. It is the right thing to do, but also it will lead to much improved productivity and a better, healthier, happier workforce, as well as being much better for the employer.

My amendment and new clause would ensure that every worker receives, at the very least, the same amount of sick pay that they would have done under the current system, and not a penny less. I urge the Government to support them, as they are very much in the spirit of this legislation.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his colleagues on advancing the Bill—eight months into their mandate, we are at the remaining stages. In Northern Ireland, 13 months after restoration, the proposed NI “good jobs” Bill has not even been introduced, and doubt is growing as to whether it will pass in this mandate. Once again, workers and businesses in Northern Ireland are paying the cost of dither and lack of ambition. Does he agree that those same barriers to people on sick pay also apply to women on maternity leave? Would he support in principle my new clause 23, which would raise statutory maternity pay for women in work to the living wage for the later parts of maternity leave?

[Imran Hussain]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the case brilliantly. I would support that in principle, because the challenges are exactly the same. I said at the beginning of my speech that many of the amendments, if not all—not the ones tabled by the Opposition, but the reasonable ones from the Government Benches—are constructive and designed to improve the Bill further.

My hon. Friend the Minister and I have had the great pleasure of working together for many months on the Bill, so he will know that I come from a position of sincerity to strengthen the Bill further. I fully understand that amendment 7 is a probing amendment, which will not be voted on in Lobbies. However, it does reflect the ambition that we should rightly have because it is shameful, frankly, that we are in the situation of offering among the lowest statutory sick pay. Our partners across Europe, quite rightly, are much better on this.

I ask the Minister to seriously consider new clause 102. Again, it does not ask for any immediate action today; it asks the Government to come back to the House in three months to report back that nobody will be worse off as a result of these measures. I do not think that is ever an intended consequence of the Government’s excellent measures, so I look forward to my hon. Friend engaging with me further on that.

Finally, I want to end by paying tribute to the millions of workers who are the backbone of our economy. It is my hope that, with the amendments and new clauses that we have proposed today, we can take significant steps towards a society that rewards workers instead of punishing them, that treats them with dignity instead of malice, and where no one must choose between their health and their livelihood.