Employment Rights: Government Plans

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]]

This Government, like all Tory Governments, have an obsession with the supposed need for deregulation. It is not just a reasonable concern with promoting what works, while respecting and protecting employees—were it just that, we would not be here tonight. Rather, it is an article of faith and impossible to disprove to the true believer. We have some sensible, proportionate, humane regulation of work, but it is not sufficient, and there is the possibility of an individual member state opting out. The UK, even while in the European Union, was the member state making the most use of that opt-out provision. Still, the true believers say it is not enough; Opposition Members are protesting too much, and the Government have no plans to reduce workers’ rights. But we must measure the value of this Government’s word against their dire real-world performance—the promises made, the reassurances given and the piffle deployed. By that measure, reality is already trumping bluster, so anyone but the true believer would be naive to take them at their word.

I would be happy enough to be proved wrong, of course. The review, now apparently abandoned, might have given my constituents in low-paid, insecure extensive and intensive jobs some relief. I share their concern for protecting the working time directive, the right to paid annual leave, proper breaks from work and all the rest of it, and protection from fire and rehire. If, however, this abandonment is in fact just a tactical pause, may I suggest a few topics for a future review? It might consider why the UK is not following the international trend towards lower working hours. It might look at how many low-paid workers in insecure, long-hours jobs are also doing another job, just to make ends meet. It might consider why parental leave is so insufficient, or it might assess the contribution of breaks, minimum rest periods and leave from work to promoting productivity and preventing employee burn-out.

It might consider those things among a host of other matters, so as to achieve the Secretary of State’s stated aim of a “really high standard” for workers, but I am not confident that a review by this Government would address those important matters. Rather, this looks like a side-step towards the real aim: that of creating a low-wage, low-regulation, free-for-all economy where the cats are truly fat and weakness is a licence to exploit.