Good Work Plan

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My right hon. Friend, who is Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, will be pleased to note that the package announced today is not the first or the only set of powers that will strengthen workers’ protections. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), will respond shortly and enthusiastically to the recommendations made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and I hope that she will welcome the further extension of protections for pregnant women.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement, which contained a couple of things to welcome. First, the Scottish National party has long called on the Government to repeal the Swedish derogation loophole and ensure that agency workers are protected and treated fairly. It is therefore welcome news that the Government are closing a loophole that has allowed unscrupulous employers to circumvent equal pay entitlements for far too long. Secondly, we are pleased to see an increase in fines for employers who breach workers’ rights, which has been long in the waiting.

However, there are measures that miss the mark or are missing completely from the statement. There is nothing to tackle zero-hours contracts, but perhaps the most disappointing of all is the absence of any meaningful action. It is extraordinary that this Government say that they have a good work plan and yet they utterly fail to tackle zero-hours contracts. The measures also do not address the damage done to workers’ rights by the regressive Trade Union Act 2016, which was designed to strike at the heart of trade unions’ abilities to organise and support workers. The SNP believes that a modern and progressive approach to industrial relations and trade unionism is at the heart of being able to achieve fair work.

The measures also do nothing to ensure that people are paid a real living wage. In addition to expecting people to work for less than a real living wage, this Government are presiding over a period of wage growth decline. Contrast that with the Scottish Government, who have got behind the real living wage accreditation scheme, which has led to over 1,000 employers now paying the real living wage, covering nearly 82% of workers in Scotland. The Secretary of State also failed to take any action to end the discrimination of young people in the labour market, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) has long called for.

The statement does nothing to tackle unpaid work trial shifts. The Government call this a good work plan, but they still refuse to end the practice of unpaid trials, and the Unpaid Trial Work Periods (Prohibition) Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) needs support. The measures also offer no protections for gig economy workers, but the Secretary of State could do that by supporting the progress of the Workers (Definition and Rights) Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), which would define the status of workers in the law. This Government should be doing much more work on workers’ rights, and they need to bring it forward.

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Scottish Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the future of working practices in Scotland was warm in its endorsement of the Taylor report’s key recommendations that we are implementing today. I therefore hope that he will continue to support it.

The hon. Gentleman mentions zero-hours contracts, which were the subject of one of Matthew Taylor’s central pieces of analysis. On the basis of rigorous and extensive research across all parts of the United Kingdom, he concluded:

“To ban zero hours contracts in their totality would negatively impact many more people than it helped.”

If we commission an independent report that has authority and depth of research and it makes such a clear recommendation, we ought to act on it. That is what we are doing in our response. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the national living wage, but he did not refer to the fact that 117,000 people in Scotland have gained over £2,750 since its introduction. However, I note of course that the Scottish Government’s decision to increase taxes on working people has meant that over a million Scots are actually receiving less in take-home pay than they otherwise might. If we are looking at the welfare of workers in Scotland, we need to look at what they pay in tax as well.

It gives me no pleasure to point out to the hon. Gentleman that Scotland under the SNP has had the slowest rate of job growth of all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. Indeed, if Scotland had matched the UK’s rate of job growth, nearly 200,000 more Scots would have a job. It is right to build on Matthew Taylor’s analysis of how to build on the success while extending protections. I look forward to working with Derek Mackay and the Scottish Government, because many aspects of the report, such as education policy, are relevant to people’s ability to earn more. Through our industrial strategy, we will work together, but a little more humility from the hon. Gentleman in his criticisms might be appropriate.