Employment Rights Bill

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the case brilliantly. I would support that in principle, because the challenges are exactly the same. I said at the beginning of my speech that many of the amendments, if not all—not the ones tabled by the Opposition, but the reasonable ones from the Government Benches—are constructive and designed to improve the Bill further.

My hon. Friend the Minister and I have had the great pleasure of working together for many months on the Bill, so he will know that I come from a position of sincerity to strengthen the Bill further. I fully understand that amendment 7 is a probing amendment, which will not be voted on in Lobbies. However, it does reflect the ambition that we should rightly have because it is shameful, frankly, that we are in the situation of offering among the lowest statutory sick pay. Our partners across Europe, quite rightly, are much better on this.

I ask the Minister to seriously consider new clause 102. Again, it does not ask for any immediate action today; it asks the Government to come back to the House in three months to report back that nobody will be worse off as a result of these measures. I do not think that is ever an intended consequence of the Government’s excellent measures, so I look forward to my hon. Friend engaging with me further on that.

Finally, I want to end by paying tribute to the millions of workers who are the backbone of our economy. It is my hope that, with the amendments and new clauses that we have proposed today, we can take significant steps towards a society that rewards workers instead of punishing them, that treats them with dignity instead of malice, and where no one must choose between their health and their livelihood.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)]

I place proudly on the record that I am currently a member of Unite and GMB. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to my good friend Terry Jones, a brilliant Scouse trade unionist who sadly passed away this morning. He supported the Bill wholeheartedly.

Forty-five years after Margaret Thatcher began her war on trade unions, the Bill is hugely welcome and long overdue. It is a step to turn back the tide and strengthen the power of workers. In a former life as an industrial organiser for Unite the union, I saw how difficult it was to build industrial strength in workplaces because of the restrictive legislation supported by previous Governments of all colours. The Bill will hopefully begin at long last to turn back that tide.

Hon. Members have already discussed key measures in the Bill, and there is so much to welcome. I congratulate the Minister on his efforts in getting the Bill to this place, and I also congratulate him and his team on taking two points off Arsenal, which helped us no end on Sunday.

The Bill needs to be not the end, though, but the beginning of a renewal of trade union rights. If we want to tackle the injustices done to the working class from low pay and poverty to sordid inequality, we need to empower the institutions that were founded to fight for the working class. Be in no doubt about the scale of the problem: 60% of those who use the nine food pantries run across Liverpool are in work, including public sector workers from nurses to Department for Work and Pensions workers. Let that sink in: 60% of those relying on emergency food aid are in work. That tells us how broken the labour market is for so many people.

Economic growth goes hand in hand with fixing the broken economic settlement, hence the importance of the Bill. I will focus my comments on the amendments but, for the record, tomorrow we will debate two new clauses that I have tabled about upholding trade union rights and outsourcing. My amendments for debate today—amendments 326 and 327—are aimed at strengthening protections against unfair dismissals, but in my brief time I will focus on amendments tabled by colleagues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) has tabled a series of crucial amendments to strengthen the Bill. He deserves a huge amount of credit for getting the Bill to this place. His amendments include amendments 265 to 267, which would enhance the Bill’s provisions against zero-hours contracts. Those contracts leave workers with precious little control over their lives, allowing bosses to dictate shifts with little or no notice, with workers vulnerable to gross exploitation. It is no wonder that workers overwhelmingly prefer regular contracts. For example, when Wetherspoons introduced the option of guaranteed hours for its workforce, 99% of workers opted for that, with just 1% choosing the zero-hours contract model. The amendments would help ensure that when we say we are banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, we actually mean it.

My hon. Friend has also tabled new clauses 62 to 65, which would strengthen the Bill’s protections against the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire. I saw in my own family the devastating impact that this cruel practice can have in destroying livelihoods when my brother was a victim of fire and rehire at British Gas. This immoral practice should never again be able to be used by rogue employees as a weapon against the working classes of this country. I fully support those strengthening new clauses.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) has tabled amendment 7, which would raise statutory sick pay to the level of the national living wage, and new clause 102, which would guarantee that workers do not lose out under the new fair earnings replacement proposals. We should have learned from the pandemic that no one should be forced into work when they are ill. Those amendments and others would help to make that a reality. I really hope that the Minister and Front-Bench Members are listening.

The devastating consequences of Thatcherism’s assault on working-class communities and trade unions are seen in towns and cities across the country. Once vibrant industrial towns have been hollowed out and industries destroyed, with insecure work replacing well-paid, unionised jobs. The never-ending doom loop must be broken if we are to rebuild communities that at the moment feel forgotten, betrayed and abandoned by successive Governments since Thatcher. The Bill must be a decisive step in breaking away from a failed settlement and finally building a country that works for us all.

[Lola McEvoy]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a proud trade union member and in my career, I have campaigned for more rights for support staff and teaching assistants in schools, for better bargaining rights for care workers, for people to have contracts that affect the hours they work and for statutory sick pay from day one. I am proud that the Bill will deliver all those things—and much more—for working people up and down the country.

I rise to speak to the issue of parental leave, which has come up in relation to many amendments and in contributions from Members across the House. Since I was elected in July, I have spoken three times in the Chamber about the terrible inequality around dads’ rights and paternity pay, including in my maiden speech during the International Men’s Day debate and again in the debate on this Bill in last October. I therefore welcome the clauses that support dads’ rights and will encourage more men to take their paternity leave entitlements.