Business of the House

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this incredibly important point. DCMS and the Department of Health and Social Care are looking at options to minimise the harmful effects of social media on children’s and young people’s mental health as part of the forthcoming online strategy White Paper. The Government remain committed to ensuring that pornography is not accessible to children online, as is already the case offline. I can confirm that we are working hard to table the secondary legislation, and we intend to conclude the parliamentary proceedings as soon as possible.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I second the call for a debate on the gig economy. Of course it is welcome that this sector of the economy employs thousands of people across the UK, but what the archbishop was referring to, apart from the fact that these companies are not paying enough tax, is the poor working conditions in these companies.

The GMB trade union made a freedom of information request of Amazon, which showed that 600 ambulances were called to Amazon warehouses across the UK over a three-year period. Workers complain that they are being penalised for taking toilet breaks and that pregnant women are forced to stand for 10 hours during their shifts. Surely companies like Amazon can afford to treat their workers correctly and to treat them like humans, not robots.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree with the hon. Lady. It is vital that businesses treat their workers with decency and respect. She will be aware of the Matthew Taylor review, and the Government are looking at part-legislation and part-changing the rules on how workers are treated.

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I recently met young women from the Young Women’s Trust who told me their stories about how zero-hours contracts can be abused and how working conditions can be completely unacceptable. I encourage her, with the support of Members on both sides of the House, to seek a Backbench Business Committee debate so that Ministers can be made aware of some of the further stories we will want to address.