Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I was trying to encourage the Under-Secretary to provide clarity to the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I take your strictures.

If someone wants to take a job but finds that it is offered only on the basis that they give up their employment rights, that is not a choice. If that is all an employer offers to someone who is unemployed and wants to do the right thing and contribute to the economy, that is no choice whatsoever. As for shares, what if the company is not listed on the stock exchange? Who will assess the value of those shares? They could be worthless. Who will buy them? Will they carry voting rights? The Secretary of State said nothing about any those points this afternoon, and the House must ask why holding shares should mean that someone loses the right to protection against unfair dismissal. What is the argument for that?

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend can help me to understand this despicable proposal and explain where in the Nuttall report it is stated that someone has to sacrifice their employment rights and protections in order to extend share ownership? I have read that report in detail and cannot find it anywhere.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the Bill has nothing to do with that report at all and is about something else entirely. Why should holding shares mean that someone has to give up their right to redundancy payment? What is the argument for that? Why should they give up their right to apply to undertake study or training?

The Government rightly remind us how important it is to have the right skills for the future. Without a hint of irony, however, the background note published at the same time as the Bill tries to claim that this measure is particularly aimed at small and medium-sized companies

“that benefit from a flexible workforce”.

In clause 23 we find that one right workers will lose is the right to request flexible working. You could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker, except that that is exactly what the Government are doing.

The director general of the CBI described, in very polite terms, this provision as a “niche idea”—a pretty underwhelming endorsement. The clause will, however, be a lawyers’ paradise, because one of the consequences of it—if it passes into law—is that dismissed employees who find themselves in the position of being employee owners will try to shoehorn their unfair dismissal claims into the rights that are still left to them. That is exactly what will happen—the clause will not even work in the way the Government intend.

One might think that the Employee Ownership Association would sing the praises of the Bill, but, of the clause, it has stated:

“There is no need to dilute the rights of workers in order to grow employee ownership”.

The clause is Beecroft by the back door, and Labour Members oppose it. When the Minister winds up the debate, will he give me a very simple assurance on process? The Government are currently consulting on the employer-owner idea. Will he therefore promise the House that they will make any amendments to the clause either in Committee or in remaining stages in the Commons?

In conclusion, the Bill is not a growth Bill. It will not get the economy moving and will not build infrastructure. It is a “must be seen to be doing something” Bill. The tragedy is that the only thing it does is take power from local people and locally elected councillors and give it to developers and the Secretary of State. Today marks the halfway point of this Parliament, and all we have to mark the occasion is a shoddy, clumsily cobbled together, half-baked Bill. That really shows, and I urge the House to reject it.