Zero-hours Contracts

Jenny Willott Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jenny Willott)]

I thank the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) for securing this debate. It is a very important issue, which has been widely discussed in the media, online and in both Houses of Parliament. She raised some important points.

The term “zero-hours contract” encompasses many different forms of employment relationship, in which the employer does not guarantee any work and the individual does not have to accept it when offered. Such contracts can be direct contracts of employment or can cover people working for agencies and so on, so they include a wide variety of different models of employment. The Government, and indeed most people now, believe that zero-hours contracts have a place in today’s labour market, but we need to make sure that people get a fair deal when they are employed on such a contract. The Government have always been clear that we will crack down on any exploitation of individuals in the workplace and the zero-hours contract consultation that has just closed is an important part of the process.

As the hon. Lady highlighted, there has been some inconsistency in the statistics on zero-hours contracts. The picture has been very mixed. That is primarily because there is no legal definition of a zero-hours contract, so it has been difficult to gather good statistics. The labour force survey, as a survey of individuals, provides an estimate of the number of people who identify as being on zero-hours contracts. The greater media coverage in 2013 is likely to have increased awareness of zero-hours contracts. The Office for National Statistics believes that that has led to the estimate rising from 250,000 people in the final quarter of 2012 to more than 500,000 people in the final quarter of 2013; in other words, it more than doubled. We do need to gather information and analyse it sensibly if we are to know exactly what is going on and to achieve the right balance between the opportunities and the risks that zero-hours contracts provide. The hon. Member for Wirral South asked what is being done on that. The Office for National Statistics has been looking at the issue and will release the results of its new survey in April. That will, I hope, give us more clarity about the current figures and the number of people working in this way.

Let me put the issue in a little bit of context. Zero-hours contracts can give growing companies the opportunity to grow in a relatively safe way and can be used to increase flexibility in the range of services that businesses are able to give their customers or clients—for example, by employing people in specialist roles and in different geographical locations that a permanent staffing model could not provide for.

The contracts are sometimes portrayed as simply a way for businesses to try to reduce labour costs, to the detriment of the people who work for them, but we have also heard in evidence that we have received that the contracts sometimes offer positive work opportunities to people who would find it difficult to take regular work at fixed times. For example, one quarter of all zero-hours contracts are taken up by students, who cannot necessarily commit to a fixed working pattern, as their timetables change. The contracts can allow them, for example, to be more flexible around exams and so on. Zero-hours contracts offer them an opportunity to gain useful work experience and to progress on to other forms of employment when they wish to do so. That is also true of many other people with responsibilities outside work—in particular, caring responsibilities. The additional flexibility that zero-hours contracts can provide can be greatly valued.

Having said that, we must be clear that although zero-hours contracts suit some people, they do not suit everyone and there are people on zero-hours contracts who would prefer to be in full-time, permanent work. I am sure that, as constituency MPs, we have all seen people in that situation.

[Ian Lavery]

Does the Minister agree with the comments from Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer, who said:

“A zero-hours Britain is a zero-rights Britain in the workplace—Beecroft by the back door. Being at the boss’s beck and call is no way to build a skilled, committed, loyal labour force”?

[Jenny Willott]

As I said, zero-hours contracts can have a place in the labour market. They can suit some people—students, people with caring responsibilities and others—but clearly they are not appropriate for everyone. Anecdotal evidence, including that highlighted by the hon. Member for Wirral South and by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), suggests that some individuals are being pressured into working when it does not suit them and have the implied threat hanging over them of being denied future work, which removes the flexibility for those individuals.

[John McDonnell]

I will give hon. Members just one example. The bakers’ union convened a meeting of fast-food workers a month ago, and a Costa worker turned up. Because he had not smiled enough that day, he was not going to get any work for the following week. These contracts are used as an intimidatory tool by managers, and we all have to condemn that, do we not?

[Jenny Willott]

I completely agree. The behaviour that the hon. Gentleman describes is not right and is not appropriate for a responsible employer. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House completely agree with that.

Some individuals have been working regular hours for long periods only to find that they are “zeroed-down”—their hours are brought down—when demand falls, perhaps due to the loss of an order. Clearly, that dramatic change in working hours and the resultant income loss will have a significant impact on the individual, especially if they are the only person working in the household. When individuals have their income supplemented by benefits, an increase or decrease in hours and income can have quite a significant impact on their benefits, which can be very difficult to manage in terms of household income.

Hon. Members raised issues about the link between jobseeker’s allowance and zero-hours contracts. Clearly, the Government’s priority is to help people on benefits to move off them and into work as soon as possible. However, as the hon. Member for Wirral South highlighted, some media reports suggest that people claiming jobseeker’s allowance are being told that they must apply for vacancies that are advertised as zero-hours contracts. I must stress that that is not the case. In such cases, someone’s benefit would not be sanctioned. DWP decision makers cannot mandate claimants to apply for zero-hours contracts, although they are obviously free to apply for such a job if it would suit them. The uncertainty about the hours of work offered by the employer and about the amount earned and so on can present difficulties for individuals, so someone would not be sanctioned for not applying for one of those jobs.

It is very important that individuals make informed choices when applying for or accepting work, and employers must ensure that both job adverts and employment contracts are transparent. People have the right to know up front that a contract does not guarantee work, if it is a zero-hours contract, so that they know what they are signing up to. The evidence that we have received in the Department is that that certainly is not the case for everyone on a zero-hours contract, and that needs to be resolved.

Hon. Members have also raised issues about the care sector and the entitlement to payment for the time spent travelling between jobs. I want to be clear that employers must ensure that their workers are paid at least the national minimum wage for the hours that they work. Time spent travelling on business, including between house calls, counts as time worked for minimum wage purposes. Where the travelling time is time for which the minimum wage should be paid, any associated expenditure incurred by the worker in respect of that travelling is classified as being in connection with the employment. A worker who is paid at minimum wage rates would therefore need to be reimbursed the expenses for the travelling in order for the employer to be in compliance with minimum wage legislation.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

What will the Government do to ensure that HMRC’s enforcement unit steps up enforcement in this area of the minimum wage, because it is being abused?

[Jenny Willott]

I was about to come to exactly that point. We are aware that low pay is an issue for workers, particularly in the care sector, as hon. Members have highlighted. As the right hon. Gentleman just pointed out, HMRC enforces the minimum wage on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and it has been conducting enforcement activity in that sector. In November, it published a social care evaluation, which highlighted a very worrying level of non-compliance. In 51% of the cases that it inquired into, the minimum wage was not complied with, and it identified more than £400,000 of pay arrears.

The Government are trying to improve compliance partly by significantly increasing the penalties so that they act as a more effective deterrent, and HMRC is currently targeting enforcement activity on the care sector in particular. We have also revised the naming-and-shaming scheme—the most recent batch of names was published a couple of weeks ago—and it is now much simpler to name and shame employers that break national minimum wage law. We are trying to ensure that we are taking more targeted action, but also that the penalties are greater, both financially and in terms of naming and shaming, so that they will act as a more effective deterrent.

The hon. Member for Wirral South asked about working across Government on the issue of zero-hours contracts and procurement. Officials have spoken with the Cabinet Office in relation to Government contracts, procurement and zero-hours contracts. We are also working with the Department of Health regarding the use of zero-hours contracts in social care. The discussions are ongoing, and the information gathered during them is also being fed into our consultation response. This is a very complicated issue and, as hon. Members have highlighted, it is of great importance to tens of thousands of people throughout the country. We had more than 36,000 responses to the zero-hours contracts consultation, which closed last week, so people clearly feel very strongly about the issue. We are looking at the responses to the consultation and will publish our response very shortly. I hope that that will respond more broadly to some of the issues highlighted by hon. Members today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South on securing the debate, because it is a very important issue. We all have constituents who have it right at the top of their agenda, and the Government are working on it.