Seasonal Work

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

I am going to confine my remarks to the criticisms of the Employment Rights Bill, because it is where my experience sits and because I tried—in no small part thanks to the efforts of yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker—to get into Monday’s debate on the Bill, but sadly I was not able to speak.

Having said that, I do also want to make the point that it is imperative that all hon. Members listen to small businesses, as I did this Saturday as I helped out Falkirk Delivers and the Falkirk business improvement district team, disentangling the Christmas lights and carrying ladders about Falkirk High Street as they set up the inaugural Falkirk festival of trees. I encourage any hon. Member to visit the vastly brilliant hospitality venues in Falkirk. With that out of the way, I will now focus my contribution on the impact of the Employment Rights Bill.

We have heard from the Opposition that small businesses are looking for more solutions, although I would point out that very few of them say that we should either cut welfare substantially in a way that would push children into poverty or rejoin the European Union as the immediate solution. It is imperative, though, that we talk about seasonal workers and not just the businesses that hire them; that is, of course, an important perspective, but it can often be a parochial view that involves talking to one side of the labour market—the employer—and failing to grasp the incentive system that we need to change in order to get people into work, as I believe the Employment Rights Bill will do. After years of hearing the Conservative Government using the stick—tough language about benefit sanctions, often kicking down at a workless generation that they directly caused and also directly failed to address when in government—the Conservatives now repeatedly slam the carrot: the Employment Rights Bill and this Government’s broader agenda to make work pay again.

So in lieu, I will provide my own relatively recent experience to the House. With the exception of the pandemic—when I lost my insecure hospitality job as one of the workers who was not provided with furlough assistance because of the nature of my contract, and I had to move back in with my parents for the first time since I was 17—I have not gone one week unemployed since I was a teenager. After long days at school and, later, long days of studying law, I spent my weekends working behind the bar at weddings and various functions in the hospitality industry and the retail industry. I did this because of the ethos my family instilled in me as a 16-year-old, when I got my first seasonal job at Argos, that nothing is better for your self-esteem, your progression, your social skills, your life, your independence and, ultimately, your wallet than to get yourself in, and keep yourself in, work.

I still remember hitting 1,000 orders on Christmas eve 2016 in that first job, only to be told on Boxing day, alongside many of my generation who worked hard in that seasonal job and made sure that the business was running, that I was not going to be kept on. We have to remind ourselves that the workers who work over Christmas in hospitality, in retail and in gift shops are the economy that we are talking about here. They are the ones who consistently keep the lights on in our high streets. In my experience, working on the minimum wage, insecure and low pay, high turnover and insecure hours are major characteristics of the sectors I have worked in. Until I moved out of the hospitality sector in June 2022, my income was sometimes enough to pay the rent on my digs and for my bills, food and the occasional trip to the pub or a Falkirk match—but, sadly, sometimes it was not.

This is still the reality for far too many who work in hospitality, retail, social care and many other sectors, and it is ultimately the reason I got into politics: to improve the lot of those who, despite grafting and seeing little result for themselves or their families and sometimes working in quite deep poverty, still went in each day and got on with it. That same spirit lives on today in the young hospitality workers who are currently in dispute with their employer at the Village Hotel and at Vue in Glasgow. The hard-working generation that I am a part of are down there once again, organising and demanding better, because they are contributing and keeping our economy going, and they deserve fair pay and conditions over Christmas.

More than anything, this was the reason I ran for election: I saw in my generation the corrosive social sickness that the previous Government neglectfully allowed this country, and especially my generation, to be infected with. After 14 long years, many in my generation looked at the workplace with no prospect of being able to build a better life than the one their parents had. I believe that the last Parliament was the first in history in which living standards went down. Off the back of that, too many in my generation saw that they could either work hard and see little reward or sit about and see little reward as well.

Something had to radically change. This country had to make work pay again. That was the message in the manifesto that Labour stood on and promised the country that we would deliver if we had the privilege of winning office. This is what the Employment Rights Bill is designed to do, with day one rights to statutory sick pay, allowing workers who fall ill to bounce back into the workplace quicker and healthier, and day one rights to paternity leave—those were secured this week; I am grateful to the Minister—meaning that fathers can spend those precious first few days at home with their newly-born bairns, which I imagine will be crucial for many families this Christmas.

Having said that, as Ministers are aware, I was desperately disappointed earlier this week when the concession was made to the Tories and Lib Dems in the other place on day one rights against unfair dismissal. Those same peers have, throughout the passage of the Employment Rights Bill, fought to bargain on behalf of the bad bosses to weaken the sick pay and paternity leave of millions of ordinary people. The obstructions of the other place to delivering that core manifesto commitment, which will benefit so many in my generation—those who are seasonal workers, to boot—must be addressed by the Government at another time and, from my perspective, with far more radical intent in regard to the other place. I cannot and I will not forget the workers I have pulled pints alongside.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. An 18 to 20-year-old this Christmas who is serving a pint will be earning £1.40 an hour more. Does he agree that this demonstrates Labour’s commitment to young people?

[Euan Stainbank]

Yes, absolutely. I also find it disgraceful that the Leader of the Opposition suggested this week that we should freeze the minimum wage. That would mean that, in later years, the workers who are going to keep the lights on this Christmas in the gift shops, the pubs and the restaurants would be entitled to less as inflation went up—[Interruption.] Well, they are part of the economy. If we did not have the workforce keeping the lights on in the first place, there would be no restaurants, no pubs and, sadly, no Christmas custom. That is the experience of far too many people in hospitality.

This is the fourth Christmas in my working life that I am going to be able to spend with my family instead of working in the hospitality industry. If any of those on the Opposition Benches can share their experiences, I would be very interested to hear them, considering how much experience in business they utilised earlier in the debate. Throughout the progress of my career in this place and the votes that we make, I am not going to forget the workers I pulled pints beside and served tables with. I have heard too many stories about kids being bullied, belittled and booted out of the workplace by bad bosses during the first two years of their working lives. I do worry—and I have shared my concern with Ministers—that, especially in the seasonal work sector, this will now simply happen before the six-month mark. We should return to and address that later in the Parliament.

I expect nothing from Opposition Members but an apology to the 1.5 million people who were put into in-work poverty during the shambolic 14-year tenure of the Conservatives. They built a low-wage, insecure, low-productivity economy, all while practising austerity, and now they have come back to this House with essentially the same ideas but with 200 less MPs.

[Bradley Thomas]

What would the hon. Gentleman say to the 89,000 people who have lost their hospitality jobs over the last 12 months?

--- Later in debate ---

[Euan Stainbank]

An extensive amount of hospitality jobs were lost over the previous five years as well. I speak to small businesses in my constituency every week, and I do not deny that they have been hard pressed for a number of years. I know, because I was there—I was working in the industry.

[Bradley Thomas]

Would the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Euan Stainbank]

It is important that we back our hospitality sector, and I said earlier that I think there should be more to come. Small businesses in the hospitality sector have talked to me about their energy prices.

[Bradley Thomas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way a second time?

[Euan Stainbank]

I will give way, given the hon. Gentleman’s insistence. Maybe he will mention some experience of hospitality workers as well.

[Bradley Thomas]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way to me a second time. Some 89,000 hospitality jobs have been lost during the past 12 months. Youth unemployment is up, with 12% of 16 to 24-year-olds currently unemployed. There are an estimated 40% fewer seasonal jobs this year—the biggest decline in 15 years. Energy costs are up. Business rates are up. Confidence is down. Regulation is up. Does he acknowledge that it is not a coincidence that all that is happening at the same time, and that it must, at least in part, be related to the really poor choices made by this Government?

[Euan Stainbank]

Although I do not accept the premise, I think it is important to recognise that hospitality has struggled over a number of years. I am not in any way denying that. However, I do not know why the Employment Rights Bill is mentioned in the Opposition Day motion, given that its provisions have not yet come into place.

It is important that we listen to hospitality and give feedback, but it is also important not to discourage young people from seeking job opportunities in the first place. That has happened for far too long—for the past 14 years under the hon. Gentleman’s Government.

[Alison Griffiths]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Euan Stainbank]

As I am going to draw to a close, I will not take any more interventions.

Moaning about the rates of maternity pay or proposing to freeze the minimum wage is not likely to incentivise more young people to grasp their first opportunity. It is not likely to encourage the people we are talking about here—the NEETs of my generation—into the workplace. This Government are delivering a fair wage and fair working conditions, but we do need to go further and faster, both on employment rights—instead of stepping back at the first sign of opposition from the Tories and the Lib Dems—and on support for the hospitality industry in my constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) pointed out something quite important: because of what this Government have done, the younger workers in our constituencies are going to be £1.40 an hour better off in their workplace. I only wish that, back when I got my first seasonal job, we had a Government who saw the value of my labour over the Christmas period.