Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I would like to start with last year’s Humble Address, which promised a right for workers to request a more predictable contract, presumably aimed at the many people on zero-hours and flexible contracts. However, it was never introduced—so here we are, another year on and another opportunity missed to deal with those parasitic, unfair contracts, which are more befitting to the 19th century than the 21st. Until we begin to challenge the very existence of zero-hours contracts, we will only ever be tinkering at the edges of an unfair and fundamentally unbalanced labour market. Levelling up will just be a fantasy until we put in place the building blocks that people need for a better life. That means permanent, secure, well-paid jobs. Too few new jobs at the moment offer none of those.

The Taylor review is nearly four years old, and the vast majority of its recommendations are still gathering dust on the shelf. The truth is that this Government have no intention of improving workers’ rights, but they should, because the security of a job should be valued as much as the creation of that job. Why is it that whenever a multinational is looking to cut its workforce, we always seem to be at the head of the queue? Why are we seen as a soft touch? Why are British workers seen as easier and cheaper to get rid of than just about everyone else in western Europe? We need to end the culture of weak employment rights, avaricious corporations and a Government who are indifferent to the importance of job security. Without job security, people have no security.

Nowhere is that indifference more apparent than in the Government’s failure to address the scandal of fire and rehire. Ministers repeatedly tell us that they do not agree with it, yet they do absolutely nothing to tackle it. ACAS sent them its findings on the options several months ago, but since then we have had radio silence. In a vain attempt to find out what was happening, I sent freedom of information requests to both ACAS and the Department. ACAS told me that it was not in the public interest to release the report and the Department said that, if the report were made public, “we believe the nature of such frank discussion and debates on key public policy issues would be inhibited and the Department would be prevented from taking decisions based on the fullest understanding of the issues. We take the view that, on balance, the public interest is better served by withholding this information.”

What utter nonsense! Thousands of people are having their livelihoods ripped away from them and it is apparently not in the public’s interest to even reveal what options the Government are considering to deal with it. Not in the public interest? I think what they meant to say is that it is not in the interests of the greedy employers who are boosting their profits by cutting people’s pay. Those of us on this side of the Chamber think it is in the public interest to support working people. The clue is in the name: the Labour party.

We do need more housing, but tinkering with the planning system will lead to more of the same. The problem is not developers being able to get planning permission; the problem is that there is a big cartel at the top. We get the wrong types of houses built in the wrong types of places, because that is where the money is made.

I thought we were going to take back control, but I see precious little of that. Instead, there is legislation to stop people and councillors having a say on the future of their areas. The Government are denying people a voice. That is a fundamental threat to democracy, but the biggest threat is of course the plan to stop millions of people from voting in the future. Why do that? There were 32 million votes cast at the last election and only six cases of voter fraud. This is all about moving the goalposts for party political advantage, and it is part of a wider pattern to suppress and reduce accountability. We also see proposals to restrict the right to protest, the continued use of emergency powers when they are not justified, and an increasingly distant relationship between the Government and the truth. We see the lining of mates’ pockets with public money while kids go hungry, and there is plenty of talk, too, about simplifying procurement. Just who is going to benefit from that?

The Government are deliberately embarking on a course of action that will damage our democracy. While I welcome the announcement of a public inquiry into the pandemic, it is clear that it will be delayed until after the next election; again, party political advantage is being sought. If there is one thing that sums up the Government more than anything else, it is their complete failure to take responsibility for absolutely anything.