Leaving the EU: Workers’ Rights
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if she will make a statement on the Government’s plans for workers’ rights after the UK leaves the EU.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)
The UK has a long and proud tradition of leading the way in workers’ rights and for setting the highest standards. The Government have been clear and consistent that the decision to leave the EU does not change that in any way whatever. The Government have absolutely no intention of lowering standards on workers’ rights. To suggest otherwise is scaremongering and is untrue.
The EU has traditionally set minimum standards for workers’ rights and, as all colleagues in this Chamber would expect, the UK already exceeds standards in a wide range of areas, such as maternity and paternity leave and pay. The UK offers 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay, compared with the 14 weeks of paid maternity leave required by the EU’s minimum standards. Because the Government believe in the importance of supporting families in every possible way, we have also given fathers and partners an additional statutory right to leave and pay, something that the EU is only now starting to consider. We are one of the few EU member states to have introduced shared parental leave and we are proud that in the UK we have given all employees with 26 weeks qualifying service a statutory right to request flexible working that enables so many to better balance work and life responsibilities. EU law only allows workers to make such a request if returning from parental leave.
Under the terms of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, all existing workers’ rights laws will be transferred into domestic law once we have left the EU, making sure there is no gap or lack of clarity in the minimum set of workers’ rights which, as I have already said, the UK exceeds in many areas. We are also including in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill a new requirement that every Bill brought before this place in the future that affects workers’ rights will include a statement by the Government of the day on how it impacts workers’ rights. This will ensure that Parliament always has its say. The Government have also published clauses that will require every Government, now and in the future, to monitor new EU legislation covering employment and workplace health and safety standards, and to report on those changes to Parliament so that Parliament can again have its say.
In direct answer to the hon. Lady’s question, I can absolutely assure her and this House that the Government will not lower standards on workers’ rights when we leave the EU. On the contrary, it is the ambition of this Government to make the United Kingdom the best place to work and to grow a business.
Laura Pidcock
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. I persisted.
The leaked memos reported in the Financial Times over the weekend are both worrying and, at the same time, utterly predictable. They shine a light on the true politics of this Conservative Government and how they are seeking to use the withdrawal agreement Bill, as with their whole Brexit strategy, to sell out workers. The Prime Minister may keep repeating that it is an excellent deal, and no doubt that will be the mantra come a general election, but I would like to get to the truth. I want to start by asking the Secretary of State about the status of the documents, and particularly which Government Departments they were distributed to and when. At what stage was the Secretary of State aware of their existence and their content? If she was not aware, why not?
This issue is critical given that last week the Government gave a number of assurances on this issue to Members in this House, while at the same time they were seemingly discussing the very opposite among themselves. They will use Brexit as a blueprint for rapid deregulation, which will see the vital floor on protections disappear. This Government have proposed a Brexit deal that benefits their pals—the millionaires, the speculators and hedge fund managers—over working people. [Interruption.] Government Members can shout at me all they want, but that is the truth. How can we trust a Prime Minister who stood up and said they would keep the “highest possible standards” on workers’ rights, when the leaks show that the Government view such commitments as “inappropriate” and that negotiators had “successfully resisted” them being included in the legally binding part of the agreement with the EU? These rights are not inappropriate; they include things such as maternity leave, working hours, paid holiday leave—things that make a difference in people’s lives.
The Secretary of State says that the Government do not intend to dilute rights after we leave the EU. May I then ask her very simply: why did they take level playing field obligations out of the legally binding part of their Brexit agreement? Crucially, has the Secretary of State’s Department or the Cabinet Office ever looked at deregulation? If so, why? We need to get to the bottom of this. The Government are relying on the complexity of the legislation to bury their true approach to workers’ rights. Once we expose exactly the consequences of their approach to leaving the EU and what it means for our communities, they know that the Government could never win support of this House and, more importantly, of working people. Rather than resisting workers’ rights, we need a fundamental shift in power from the owners of business to workers. It is only a Labour Government who will ever do that.
Andrea Leadsom
Well, Mr Speaker, that was incredibly disappointing. The hon. Lady obviously was not listening to a thing I said. If she will allow me, I will just repeat what I actually said, rather than what she asserts I said. It is this Government’s ambition to make the United Kingdom the best place in the world to work.
I find it extraordinary that the hon. Lady thinks that the only valid protector of UK workers’ rights can be the European Union. Why on earth does she think that her party, my party, the other Opposition parties and our strong trade union tradition in the UK are utterly incapable of building on the superb tradition we already have in the UK of exceeding workers’ rights in the EU in so many areas? Once we have left the European Union, the United Kingdom will not be represented in EU institutions and nor will we have any direct influence on future EU legislation on workers’ rights. Why then should the Government and this Parliament seek to engineer circumstances where we are required to implement legislation over which we have had no say?
As we leave the European Union, we have a unique opportunity to enhance protections for the workforce and tailor them to best support UK workers. It will be for the United Kingdom to create and enhance UK employment rights and to take advantage of the superb opportunities for new UK-wide skills, jobs and prosperity that await us after we have left the European Union.
Oral Answers to Questions
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Kelly Tolhurst
It will come as no surprise that I completely disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. The Prime Minister has been clear: not only will we maintain workers’ rights, but we will enhance them. Even in my role as a Minister over the past 12 years, everything has been focused on ensuring we are ahead of the European Union. We are committed. We have never, ever, not once ever put forward a position where we have shown we will row back on workers’ rights.
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
Wow! What an answer. This is the situation for workers at Amazon: their bones are being broken; they are being knocked unconscious; and they are being taken away in ambulances. Where is the urgency to step in and stop what is happening to these workers? Are the Government going to demand an urgent inquiry, or do they wash their hands of these workers? At the heart of the issue at Amazon is a hostile environment for trade unions, which are often the only force that can resist exploitative practices. A Labour Government would legislate to enforce access rights for trade unions and a robust enforcement regime. Why are the Government sitting on their hands while the richest man in the world treats his workers so disgustingly on their watch?
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Lady makes allegations about a particular organisation. She is welcome to write to me further about those allegations, but I remind her that sufficient workplace laws are in place. We have the Health and Safety Executive, for example. If she has evidence of certain employers breaking the law, I would expect it to be passed on to the relevant agencies. As I outlined, our Prime Minister is committed to ensuring that we keep step with the European Union and go further. I believe the actions the Government have taken over recent months prove that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
Given my hon. Friend’s background, I know that he has a keen interest in the retail sector. In April, the increase in the national living wage meant that nearly 1.8 million workers received an above-inflation pay rise. The Government have stated our ambition to end low pay in the UK. The national living wage is on track to meet its target of 60% of median earnings by 2020, and we will announce its future target later this year. In setting a new target, we will work with the expert Low Pay Commission to carefully consider the impact on businesses and workers across all sectors.
Laura Pidcock
Given the reported use of food banks by staff in the Secretary of State’s Department, and given that the first ever indefinite strike action of outsourced workers in Whitehall is happening now, does the Secretary of State not see it as his duty at least to ensure that BEIS contractors are not breaking legislation? That includes potential breaches of regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, whereby an employment business may not supply a temporary worker to a hirer to replace an individual taking part in official strike action. Can the Secretary of State please explain to the House what action he has taken on the issue following the Public and Commercial Services Union’s referral of the matter to the Met police, and letters sent to him and his permanent secretary on 10 July?
Greg Clark
I value very highly everyone who works in my Department, whether they are directly employed or employed through contractors. Of course, we will always require our contractors to obey the law. What we have done, and what I have acted to do, is make sure that our contractor staff are paid at least the average level across London for their employment. I know that that has been welcomed. I take the issue very seriously and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it.
Whistleblowing
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
What an interesting debate this has been. I, too, would like to congratulate all those brave people who have come forward as whistleblowers. There has been so much agreement in this Chamber and that is not just because there are so few of us here; it is because this is a serious issue that we all have a willingness to try to redress.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on applying for and being successful in securing this debate. His speech went to the very heart of the question: where people have done a very brave thing in reporting abuse, they are then subject to serious detriment. This is what I have been amazed by in this debate: rather than us concentrating all our energies and efforts on how the process can work best and how swift investigation can take place, they have been spent thinking about whistleblowers using their energies to fight to save their job, their relationships, home and mental health. The important point is the corrosive, knock-on effect on how everybody else feels about the system and their willingness to come forward and blow the whistle.
The case of Dr Day and the numerous other whistleblowing cases are illuminating. Nearly 10 years into austerity, the huge cuts in the public sector and the long-term societal shift towards privatisation lead to a couple of conclusions. First, the cuts need to stop—as a Labour Member, I would say that—because they often create dangerous working conditions, with staffing and skills shortages, and the privatisation of care is inappropriate. Secondly, we need much more robust legislation in the face of these conditions. A crucial theme that has been repeated throughout many hon. Members’ speeches is the unequal distribution of power in the workplace; as with so many workplace issues, legislation must redress that inequality.
The right hon. Member for North Norfolk and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) mentioned the need for non-regression clauses in respect of EU directives that pertain to workers’ rights after our withdrawal from the European Union. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) highlighted an important trend that seems to occur when people whistleblow: rather than a thorough investigation being made of their claims, disciplinary procedures are used as a silencing mechanism. The hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) paid tribute to the whistleblowers and stressed their selflessness. I think that there is probably a burden that those people wish to relieve selfishly, seeing that harm, but he is absolutely right that they are doing it to put an end to the harm or misconduct that they see.
There have been so many important speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) spoke about the complex picture for constituents trying to understand who the prescribed person is. If as Members of Parliament we find it confusing, imagine what it is like for people with very busy lives who are not navigating these systems all the time—it shows that there is a failure in the system.
For many years, whistleblowers were not given the protection that they need and deserve, and were left at the mercy of unscrupulous employers and state organisations. There are many victims of that negligence, so it is right that the balance started to shift from 1996 onwards, first with the Employment Rights Act 1996 and then with the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and its revisions between 2013 and 2015. However, in this place, we must continuously ask whether our protections and support for whistleblowers are inadequate in an ever-changing work and political environment. I therefore welcome this debate and will shortly outline some of the principles behind my party’s approach.
There are currently three key protections for those who have made a protected disclosure: first, the right not to be subject to detriment as a result of whistleblowing; secondly, the fact that where the principal reason for dismissal is the fact that a worker has made a disclosure, that dismissal is automatically unfair; and, thirdly, the fact that where a provision in any other agreement seeks to prevent whistleblowing, that provision is void. However, while those protections are important, they do not address the current failures in the law—the gaps that allow many workers to fall outside the legislation’s scope. Nor do they address an issue that has been raised in all hon. Members’ contributions: the failure to encourage the cultural changes that will promote a culture of honesty and transparency in our workplaces, businesses and organisations—a culture where whistleblowers are celebrated as a public good that forces organisational change.
The failure to cover all workers, because of the definition of “worker” that is used, is a major flaw in the current legislation; it means that many self-employed workers are not covered, for instance. As we know, self-employment is a much abused and contested category. It cannot be right that, just because someone is employed on a contract that tries in the first place to absolve their real employer of responsibility for them, they are also denied protections with regard to whistleblowing. Also excluded are most job applicants, which means that whistleblowers can routinely suffer detriment through the recruitment process, without any redress, because they are known to be whistleblowers. Surely that is an anomaly, given that job applicants have the right to protection under the Equality Act 2010 from discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
The Government’s approach to whistleblowing makes little attempt to encourage a proactive culture that not only supports whistleblowers, but creates conditions in which the issues that they disclose are taken seriously in a timely manner and remedies are sought. Where is the requirement to investigate, and where are the mandatory and, importantly, enforceable methods of supporting good practice and cultural change? UK law needs to be much more proactive, and early intervention should be prioritised to protect both the whistleblower and the public.
It is clear that, in recent years, we have fallen well behind other countries on this issue, which is hardly surprising, given the Government’s anti-worker stance on most issues. That was thrown into sharp relief by a recent EU directive that provides protection for the self-employed, and requires organisations with over 50 employees to establish reporting channels.
I would like to say a few words on the principles that will guide a future Labour Government, which hopefully is not too far off, when it comes to whistleblowing. Our key objectives in government will be to encourage people to raise concerns about wrongdoing; to ensure that concerns are investigated in a timely fashion and appropriately; to ensure that wrongdoing is rectified; to protect whistleblowers and others affected by whistleblowing; and, importantly, to require employers to maintain procedures that facilitate whistleblowing.
A Labour Government would like it to be the legal duty of employers to protect whistleblowers, and would like that to be enforced. That would apply to all workers, irrespective of the nature of their position and whether they are paid; for example, it would include interns and volunteers. Protections would apply to those making the disclosure, whether they were a worker, a former worker, or were seeking work or undergoing training. I think I am right in saying that there is quite a consensus on that.
I want to talk about the patterns. As shadow Minister, I have been thinking about the themes in the experience of the whistleblower. The feedback is that the typical journey of a whistleblower looks like this: if the worker is inexperienced at whistleblowing, there is uncertainty about what to do and who to tell, as has been said. They often go to their immediate manager. The system response may be poor, and include ignoring or minimising the issues, deliberate delays, hostility and intimidation. It may include reluctant, ineffective or biased, tokenistic investigations, and deliberate attempts to exhaust and discourage the whistleblower through excessively lengthy and complex processes.
Intimidation may increase in severity; there may be counter-allegations, formal disciplinary proceedings against the whistleblower, suspension and dismissal. This is not even the full journey; we have to remind ourselves that all the whistleblower has done so far is report wrongdoing, misconduct or harm, yet their employment prospects are in serious danger by this point.
The whistleblower then escalates concerns externally to regulators. The system response is likely to be a full attack by this stage. If the whistleblower has not yet been dismissed, dismissal is almost certain, perhaps on trumped-up grounds, but probably on the lawful grounds of breakdown of employment relationship under the “some other substantial reason” route. At this point, the whistleblower’s employment prospects are likely to be damaged beyond repair. They are unlikely to obtain equivalent employment in the same field again. Regulators, oversight bodies and Government Departments are often part of the problem, and may turn a blind eye to the whistleblower’s disclosure and the fact that they have been suppressed and victimised. Sometimes they will even, outrageously, orchestrate the harm and suppression.
The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 kicks in only after the whistleblower has been harmed and, as has been mentioned, it allows the whistleblower to sue only for limited compensation, long after the event, and long after the public interest matters have been buried.
The Government continue to say that a review of whistleblowing legislation would be premature. Quite the opposite—it is well overdue. That is what those who have been affected by the failures of the legislation tell us, and it surprises me that some Members, on the Opposition and Government Benches, think that we know better than them. Whistleblowing legislation is about preventing disaster—preventing death or wrongdoing —so the legislation should be equally serious, and should provide appropriate pre-detriment protections for those who blow the whistle, and appropriate sanctions for those who are determined to punish and discount the voice of the whistleblower.
I end with a question. The motion refers to
“protection for a broader range of people”,
and widening the scope of the legislation. Job applicants, volunteers, interns, non-executive directors, public appointees, priests and ministers of religion, foster carers and members of the armed forces are not afforded protections for whistleblowing under the current regime. Have the Government any plans to extend the definition of “worker” to include people in those categories?
Trade Union Access to Workplaces
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) on securing this debate, on introducing his ten-minute rule Bill, and on bringing trade union issues to the House of Commons. With some exceptions, it is only Labour Members who press these issues continuously and bring the worker’s voice into this space.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on an important issue for workers everywhere. I declare my interest as a member of Unite the union. We know from information provided by a number of unions, including the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, GMB, Unite and Unison, that union officials are routinely denied access to workers by many employers. There are examples of trade union officials being locked out of workplaces, prevented from speaking to workers or forced to meet members in car parks—some horrifying stories have been outlined by comrades in this room today.
What is this debate really about? In my mind, it is simply about trade unions and workers exercising their fundamental right to meet, discuss and organise on issues that workers face. That right is being systematically denied in this country; for most workers, it does not exist and has not existed for some time because of the serious restrictions placed on unions, because of employers’ anti-union practices and because of the fear that is whipped up in workplaces and that often prevents workers from having the confidence to exercise their rights.
Here are just a few examples, from across the UK, of what happens when workers take part in union activity, want to meet their trade unions or talk to fellow workers. As has been mentioned, a young worker from Watford was enthused by winning positive change in his workplace through the union, but was then banned from going into any McDonald’s in the area. He was told that he was not allowed to talk to other workers. Managers are being trained to notice the signs and language of a union and report them to senior management. Managers are telling workers that they can be sacked for joining a trade union. Portuguese workers in McDonald’s in Cambridge were told that they could be sent to jail for taking strike action.
Tim Martin, chair and founder of Wetherspoon, has refused even to speak to the general secretary of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, which has many members in Wetherspoon. What kind of disregard is that? The general secretary of PCS had to address his civil servant members in a blizzard in a car park in January. What kind of respect did that show to all his members, or to him as general secretary? Union organisers are routinely banned from workplaces.
If we want to open workplaces up, the law needs to be changed so that workers can realise their rights. The Labour party has been clear that to improve dramatically the rates of pay—and therefore wages and terms and conditions—of workers, a system of collective bargaining needs to be restored. If the balance of power in the workplace is to be redressed, workers need to be able to negotiate; that is a fundamental principle. I am sure that every Conservative Member has read “For the Many, Not the Few”, the Labour party’s 2017 manifesto, which many Opposition Members were elected on. It promised that a Labour Government would
“roll out sectoral collective bargaining…Guarantee trade unions a right to access workplaces—so that unions can speak to members and potential members.”
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights established 11 years ago that the right to bargain collectively is a fundamental human right that is protected by the European convention on human rights, yet the latest statistics show that the percentage of workers in the UK covered by collective bargaining has fallen from 82% in 1979 to 26% today, and the figure is even lower in the private sector. Of course it has been political ideology that has forced that percentage downwards, yet the International Labour Organisation, the OECD and even the International Monetary Fund have shown that extensive collective bargaining is essential to a successful economy, as colleagues have outlined so eloquently today. Crucially, it is also essential to reducing inequality.
Trade union access to members and workers is essential for the restoration of collective bargaining. With that in mind—this has been mentioned, but I will say it again—many trade unionists have looked with envy at legislation in New Zealand, where union representatives have a right to access workplaces to
“discuss union business with union members…seek to recruit employees as union members”
and
“provide information…to any employee on the premises.”
The Minister might want to take note of those very simple asks. Does he agree that workers who are not trade union members should have a fundamental right of access to information that allows them to consider membership?
The New Zealand legislation also allows union representatives to bargain with the employer for a collective agreement; deal with health and safety issues for members; check that the employer is complying with the collective agreement and with employment law; help individuals to implement employment agreements; and ask the employer to comply with any relevant requirements if non-compliance has been detected. So many of those things are crucial to helping workers to access their basic rights, yet there is no comparable right of access in this country. It is true that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has a code of practice that gives unions access to the workplace during recognition ballots, but Labour must, and will, build on that to provide a general right of access to the workplace for trade union officials for the lawful purposes of the union.
Under Labour’s plans, trade unions will, on giving reasonable notice to the employer, have a right of access to a workplace for the purposes of organising, meeting and representing workers on any matter relating to their employment. The employer will be under a duty to provide an opportunity for meetings to be held on the premises, in conditions that are reasonable and appropriate and that respect the confidentiality of the workers and the union.
I stress two points. First, “access” must mean both physical access and access by email, where email is provided or controlled by the employer. In both cases, access should be free from employer surveillance, and the fear of intimidation should not prevent workers from speaking to a union. Secondly, we have to deal with employers who refuse to provide access despite the law; access delayed is access denied, as the saying goes. We may need to look again to New Zealand, where denial of access can lead to financial penalties on the employer. We will look at all ways of ensuring that the denial of trade union access rights and of other trade union rights is dealt with effectively and appropriately by enforcement.
Any effective right of access introduced by a Labour Government along those lines will go a long way towards helping to restore the balance of power in the workplace. It will enable trade unions to speak to workers about the benefits of trade union recognition and expand the coverage of collective bargaining, and it will enable trade unions to speak for workers, ensure that they are effectively represented and address the abuses that we know are taking place. Colleagues have talked about workers being scared to go to the toilet, or having to go to the toilet in really degrading circumstances, and about heavily pregnant women not being given a seat. It is clearly men, who have never been heavily pregnant, who have designed those rules. The Government just refuse to address those abuses through serious legislation. They think, “Just leave it to the free market. Leave it to the employers to do whatever they want to do.”
I am mindful that rights of access can only be the very beginning of a programme to restore trade union presence in the workplace; it is only the start of giving workers a voice, and of ensuring that high standards and a good quality of work are a reality for everyone. We need to look again at trade union recognition legislation to remove obstacles that make it difficult for trade unions to secure recognition for collective bargaining. We also need to look again at legislation for dealing with trade union facilities, so that trade union representatives in the workplace have the time, space, resources and powers to carry out their duties. We also need to look at legislation dealing with the right of workers to be accompanied by a trade union representative, to ensure that all workers have the right to full trade union representation at work.
We are under no illusions; trade union access to the workplace is just one of several crucial steps in strengthening workers’ rights. It is, however, an essential step in our plan to roll out sectoral collective bargaining. The reintroduction of that bargaining, so that sector by sector, workers can negotiate on and determine pay, terms and conditions, hinges on workplaces being opened up. This is critical.
I finish with a political point, because this is a political Chamber, is it not? So often we look at the technical details of all these issues, but what do they actually mean for workers? Throughout our history, has there not been constant tension between workers and the state, with the state often removing the rights that workers have fought for, or ignoring and resisting the rights that workers demand? Trade unions’ access to the workplace goes to the very heart of how our society is set up, the cultural norms established, and who they benefit. Often, those cultural norms are not established by working-class people.
In the current climate, workers are scared to talk about the issues that affect them. Our culture makes them petrified of losing their job; it says that that should be their No. 1 fear, and it should dictate how they act and what they say in the workplace. The system and the norms that we live by support this climate of fear, so that the worker defers to the employer all the time, worried that they could be replaced at any time. As was mentioned, the system is rigged against workers, to enable those who own the capital or the business to extract as much value as possible from the worker for the smallest reward—and, it seems, with the least comfort for workers.
The consequence of all this is that power is concentrated in very few hands, which is really unhealthy. It means that entire workforces are stressed, tired, underpaid, undervalued and—let us be honest—deeply dissatisfied with life, with little to look forward to.
In the Labour and trade union movement, we have a totally different way of viewing the world of work. We believe that it is workers who create the wealth, and that they deserve the right to negotiate freely their rate of pay; and that it is a fundamental right of workers to assemble, associate with one another, organise and bargain with the employer with one voice. It is therefore common sense that trade unions should have access to the workplace; it is their space, and it is their right to meet the people they represent, or wish to represent. That should not be a difficult concept to grasp. If policies were won on the strength of argument alone, the Labour side would clearly have won this argument, and not just because nobody from the Government side has spoken. Our argument is not that weak; it is a powerful and common-sense one, even though Government Members did not turn up today. To my mind, those on the other side of this argument do grasp the simplicity of enacting those rights, but I think they are deeply scared of and worried about its transformative potential for working-class people.
Oral Answers to Questions
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(4 years, 12 months ago)
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Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
There are many warm words from the Government on workers’ rights, but to say that the Conservatives are the party of workers is a joke, because their actions in government tell a different story. Strong economies are almost always underpinned by strong trade union rights. Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark all have extensive sectoral collective bargaining coverage, which has been used to reduce income inequality and drive up wages. The hostility towards trade unions and the dismissal of collective bargaining here is not just bad for workers but bad for the economy, creating a vicious cycle of lower wages, reducing tax revenues and lowering spending. The obsession with undermining union rights is self-defeating. What is the Secretary of State doing to break the cycle?
Greg Clark
If you want to be the party of workers, you need to be the party that creates work. There are 1.5 million more people employed in work as a result of this Government’s policies, and of course we want to make sure they are in good jobs. The effort of our industrial strategy is to drive up productivity, which is necessary if pay rates are to increase over time. The hon. Lady should acknowledge the reforms, brought in partly as a result of the Matthew Taylor report, that have closed the Swedish derogation, which her party failed to close over 13 years in office.
Oral Answers to Questions
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
I do indeed expect this to continue. Many of the rights that we have introduced—including, for example, the right to request a stable contract—were pioneered in this country, and are only now being taken up by other European countries.
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
A couple of weeks ago, Labour colleagues and I crossed the road to Parliament Square to talk to outsourced Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy workers from the Public and Commercial Services Union and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, who were demanding equal terms and conditions with directly employed staff. They were disappointed that no Minister from the Department came to talk to them. If anyone had, they would have heard how people’s status as contracted-out workers is a fundamental cause of their insecurity.
We have heard fine words from the Secretary of State about workers’ rights recently, yet here is an example of workers being forced into precarious contracts under his very nose. Will he outline what he is doing to put his own house in order to help resolve this dispute? In the process, will he learn the lesson that outsourcing is the cause of insecurity and poverty pay?
Greg Clark
I value very highly the work of all the staff in my Department. I met some of the staff she has mentioned, who were affected. I asked my officials to review the comparable levels of pay that such staff receive, and those pay rates have been increased as a result. It was a good and constructive discussion with my much valued colleagues.
FTSE 100 Company Pay Ratios
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for securing this important and timely debate. Such debates expose our politics and the difference between political parties. It is vital that we discuss not only pay ratios, but solutions to extortionate pay, such as an excessive pay levy, and improved collective bargaining for workers through strong trade unions as a way to uplift the pay of millions of workers. It is also crucial that we are able to place the extortionately high pay of FTSE 100 chief executives in the context of low pay and the crisis of work in this country, where millions struggle to make ends meet, and where work is certainly no longer the preventer of poverty, which is a reality for millions of people.
Despite this state of affairs, as was mentioned, by lunchtime on 4 January, the top chief executives in the UK had been paid more than their average employee is paid in an entire year—an extraordinary fact. Every single year, that date and time comes sooner in the year. Unless action is taken, it will be one minute past midnight on 1 January when those people will have been paid much more than their employees. Every year, the Government take no action on that extraordinary fact. Those at the top are increasing their wealth.
I agree with my hon. Friend: perhaps this place should relax a little, because “fat cats” is exactly the right title for those executives who now get 133 times more than the average worker, which means that the salary of the average FTSE chief executive is the same as that of 386 workers on the minimum wage. It is politically poignant to note that some people are not outraged by that statistic. They are quite comfortable with the inordinate, huge salaries of executives who are paid grossly more than those who work for them.
I am sure that nobody would argue—my hon. Friend touched on this—that a FTSE 100 chief executive works 133 times harder than a hospital porter, a cleaner or a caterer. I went on a solidarity protest yesterday with strikers at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Let us think about the caterer on exactly £8 an hour fighting for the London living wage. That works out at about £1,280 a month if they work a 40-hour week every single week of the month. If we think of rent, transport, bills and food, that person has a tiny amount to live on every month. I am sure nobody would argue that a FTSE 100 chief executive works 133 times harder than a teacher or a nurse in our NHS, or that they somehow have a combined worth of 386 workers.
Kirsty Blackman
The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful point. Does it annoy her as much as it annoys me that the Tories talk about hard-working families, but they do not mean hospital porters? They mean people who are much higher up the tree. Hospital porters, cleaners, chefs and the people she talks about work incredibly hard every day just to make £8 an hour.
Laura Pidcock
And that work should be valued. It is no coincidence that those people who work really hard, but very often still cannot survive and do not have enough money to pay the bills, get into debt to pay for everyday items—not for luxury holidays, or any luxuries at all. Those people should be at the heart of our concerns in this place. I am mindful never to use the word “earn” when we talk about the pay of the very few at the top. What could they possibly do to earn such large amounts of money?
It is crucial to recognise the context in which FTSE 100 pay ratios are widening. In a stark contrast to the stockpiling of wealth by a few, years of austerity and wage stagnation mean that millions of workers across the country struggle to make ends meet, as I say. In-work poverty is rising and household debt is at its highest rate. Many people rely on borrowing, and one in five workers—more than 5 million people—are paid less than a living wage. That is a huge increase from 3.4 million in 2009. Insecure work has without a doubt become the norm, with nearly 4 million people—one in nine workers—facing uncertainty and worry. They are trapped. To illustrate the low-pay trap, one in four employees earning the minimum wage for five years has been unable to move out of that low-pay trap. Some people do two or three jobs to try to pay the bills, but it has not always been like that.
In 1980, as was mentioned, the median pay of directors in FTSE 100 companies was £63,000, and median pay across the country was £5,400. The ratio of executive pay to the average wage then, less than 40 years ago, was 11:1. In 2002, the pay of a FTSE 100 CEO had shot up to 79 times that of their average employee, and last year it had reached 150 times. This place is doing nothing to stop that runaway train of inequality. I seriously hope that those ratios are unacceptable and completely unjustifiable to anyone. It is particularly obscene that this escalation has come at a time when millions of people are struggling. There is a stark contrast between those two sets of people.
No doubt the Minister will refer to the Government’s reforms to tackle excessive pay in her speech shortly, but I want to make it absolutely clear that under this Government, not only has pay inequality continued to rise, but so has the speed at which it increases. I am proud that Opposition MPs are committed to taking action, because doing nothing is not good enough. When I have been out campaigning, loads of times I have heard people say, “The rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer. There is nothing we can do about it,” but I fundamentally disagree. Yes, the rich are getting richer, but we can definitely do something about it.
In contrast to the Tories, a Labour Government would ensure pay ratios of no more than 20:1 in the public sector, for example, and we would introduce an excessive pay levy that would charge a 2.5% levy on earnings above £330,000 a year, which is a huge amount, and 5% on those above £500,000. It is estimated that that alone would raise £1.3 billion a year.
I am sure that the Minister will mention that from 1 July the Government will ensure that companies with more than 250 employees will be obliged to reveal and justify their pay ratios. However, there is no obligation on those companies to take any meaningful action beyond the act of publishing those facts. It is yet more empty rhetoric. How is it helpful just to have the injustice out there, without any action to remedy it?
We need practical, political solutions to curb undeserved excessive pay, and to create mechanisms for better income distribution. That is why we commissioned a report by Prem Sikka, published last year, suggesting a range of measures that would apply to the more than 7,000 companies in the UK that have more than 250 employees, accounting for more than 10 million workers. Needless to say, we are looking at the report’s recommendations closely, including proposals requiring executive remuneration packages of all large companies to be subject to a binding vote.
That is just one solution to excessive executive pay. Trade unions are the collective voice of workers, and they have to be central to the debate. They are a huge player in reducing inequality in the workplace, but, after years of anti-union policies, the vast majority of workers have absolutely no say over their pay, conditions or hours of work. Protections that existed before under collective bargaining agreements have been completely lost.
Workers deserve a lot more. Pay ratios are just one aspect of tacking pay inequality. That is why a Labour Government would set up a new Department to roll out sectoral collective bargaining—protecting the interests of workers, strengthening trade unions, and introducing new rights and freedoms so that every worker gets the support, security and pay at work that they deserve.
Surely it is time to end the excessive greed. People are feasting on the backs of workers who are struggling to make ends meet, and who have the gut-wrenching feeling that they cannot afford nappies for their children, even though they work more than 40 hours a week. Surely that cannot be right. The Government must act to end that injustice.
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying her point, but I have to say that it is this Government who have increased the threshold year on year. As a working-class Conservative MP, I am proud to say that I am standing up for hard-working people—and when I talk about hard-working people, I mean people who go out every day to earn a living, no matter what sector they are in or what job they are doing.
The Government have responded to the challenging world of work with plans for the biggest upgrade of workers’ rights in 20 years. In December we published the good work plan, which sets out how we will implement the recommendations of the Taylor review. The plan commits us to introducing a right to request a more predictable and stable contract for all workers and to bringing forward proposals for a single workers’ rights enforcement body in early 2019.
Laura Pidcock
The right to request a contract is often signalled as some kind of big victory, but have not workers always had that right? This is nothing new.
Kelly Tolhurst
We will be making the options for employees clearer. For example, we have already laid statutory instruments to ensure that on their first day, employees are able to get a written statement of their rights. It is about making sure that workers are able to know what rights they have, and that they know that they can ask for that ability.
The Government have also laid legislation that will repeal the so-called Swedish derogation and guarantee agency workers their right to equal pay. After April 2020, agency workers will no longer be able to opt out of their right to equal pay after 12 weeks in the same assignment. In short, we are shining a light on pay at the top and taking action to improve the pay and employment rights of ordinary workers.
I want to touch on a few points made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. She rightly raised the issue of diversity on boards and gender balance, which the Government are very concerned about. We have started to see results from work on the gender pay gap: we are now at 17.9%, the lowest figure on record. We are working to improve gender diversity on boards, and we have made great progress. The next target and challenge is black and minority ethnic representation—not just on boards, but in the pipeline and among executives in general. That is one of the policy areas in my portfolio, and I take a lot of interest in it.
The hon. Lady asked whether it is right that those in large companies—I think she was referring to companies that are private, but not necessarily listed—are taking large salaries but have not signed up their employees to the living wage. I quite agree that that is not a satisfactory situation, but what is massively important is the highlighting of the issue by the media and wider public, and the transparency that we have enabled so that those companies are held under a tougher spotlight. Customers and suppliers out there who know that information about those companies will need to decide whether they want to deal with them. Things are moving, and it helps that the issue is on the agenda more widely and that more people are aware of what the big bosses are being paid.
The hon. Lady also raised long-term incentive schemes. The data show that long-term incentive schemes linked to valuation and share prices have increased over time, which has contributed to the rise in CEO pay. I absolutely accept her point, but one of the reasons for bringing in pay ratios and specifying in our rules that companies must give an illustration of the breakdown of executive pay is to enable shareholders to take a view. It will also provide real information about how that narrative relates to wider pay structures across organisations. We are hoping that the reforms will give shareholders the tools and powers to hold boards to account, and that they will exercise that right further as the legislation and the changes work their way through.
The hon. Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) raised the issue of pay caps and suggested a 20:1 pay ratio. As I have outlined, the Government do not feel that it is our responsibility, or that we are in a position, to limit what companies can pay their employees. Our role is to ensure that shareholders and stakeholders have the tools to make judgments and hold boards and remuneration committees to account. We believe that the reforms that we have made over time are going some way towards achieving that.
Laura Pidcock
For information, my point about the 20:1 ratio was about the public sector.
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification. However, I point out that a pay ratio of 20:1 could extend to foreign companies bidding for Government contracts, which would raise state aid and World Trade Organisation issues. There are issues with some of the policies and the refining that she may want to clarify further.
I thank again the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, who has taken the opportunity to bring this debate about company pay ratios to Westminster Hall. They are an important means of shedding light on pay distribution within companies and how that is changing over time. Their publication will spur companies and their remuneration committees to give greater thought and show more sensitivity to how pay in the boardroom aligns with employee pay. Along with other reforms implemented by the Government, they will ensure that the UK remains a world leader in corporate governance and an excellent place in which to work, invest and do business.
I have had many conversations with the hon. Lady, and I thank her for the way in which she approaches these matters. As I said yesterday in the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, these issues will always be under review and we will always be looking at what can be done to improve transparency and clarity so that the spotlight can be shone on organisations. I look forward to working with the hon. Lady constructively on the number of issues that I know she is interested in in this area over the coming months.
Oral Answers to Questions
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Kelly Tolhurst
We continue to work closely with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that the needs of high street retailers are understood. In the 2018 Budget we announced a reduction in business rates worth £900 million over two years for small businesses. The digital services tax, a 2% tax on revenues specific to digital businesses, will ensure that they pay tax reflecting the value that they derive from UK users. We have also established the Retail Sector Council, which has now decided on its future work programme, as part of which business costs and taxation are one topic being considered.
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
New research from the TUC shows that household debt is at its highest ever level, with average debt per household now at over £15,000. It is blatantly obvious that the cause is years of austerity and wage stagnation. Millions of workers are now reliant on borrowing, making up for low wages by increasing their debt—not for holiday or luxuries, but through using credit cards for everyday essential such as nappies and food. That is so stressful. Will the Minister please explain what the Government are doing to address this crisis, and why Conservative Members refuse to join the Labour party in advocating a real minimum wage of at least £10 an hour and a return to serious collective bargaining for workers in the UK?
Claire Perry
I heard the news reports of this particular analysis, but I also heard that the analysis had been entirely discredited because it included student debt, which does not accrue to every household. If we were to strip that out, the rate of accrual—[Interruption.] Would the hon. Lady like to listen, rather than chunter? I will carry on. If we strip out student debt, which does not accrue to every household, we see that the growth of consumer credit has actually slowed. Once again, I am proud to stand here and represent the Government who finally did what the hon. Lady’s Government had 13 years and did not do—introduce a national minimum wage and ensure that it goes up well ahead of inflation. [Interruption.] A living wage.
Greg Clark
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s advice and his advocacy for a solution to the difficulties that Cammell Laird faces. We are meeting the trade unions and others on Thursday, and I hope he will be able to come to that meeting.
Mr Speaker
I will take the point of order, and I would appreciate it if the ministerial team waited to hear it because it relates to Question Time.
Laura Pidcock
Under her breath, the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth mentioned the living wage, but of course in practice there is no such thing. The Minister could correct the record in that it was indeed the Labour party that in 1998 introduced the minimum wage, which her party strongly opposed.
Claire Perry
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Sorry; I am blaming the excitement. Of course I am happy to correct the record. The hon. Lady is absolutely correct: the Labour party introduced the national minimum wage. It was quite clear that that was inadequate for many people on the lowest incomes, particularly women who were underpaid, which is why we introduced the national living wage—something I wish she would support.
Insecure Work and the Gig Economy
Laura Pidcock Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) on securing this important debate, and on the thoughtful, passionate contributions made by colleagues today—all but one of them from the Opposition. It seems that the Government’s ruthless whipping ended with the last vote to happen in the Chamber.
My hon. Friend eloquently captured the fear and precariousness associated with modern workforce practices in the gig economy. She made the crucial point at the heart of the issue: there is a fundamental power inequality between the employee and the employer, and we cannot reply to that inherent difficulty in the gig economy with consultations. To remedy it, there must be recognition in law that the power imbalance exists. A pattern that has emerged as a feature of the gig economy is the process of outsourcing and of apps as managers. Those who reap inordinate profits from workers’ labour are distant from accountability for them and from their welfare. They have relinquished that responsibility.
Hon. Members have told us about people who have had long, loyal relationships with a company but have been refused employment contracts and have been left languishing with few or no workplace rights. Members are, rightly, deeply disappointed with the Government’s response to the Taylor review. It was a consultation, and for the Government to conduct a consultation on a consultation seems a weak response.
I really need the toilet right now, probably because I am eight and a half months pregnant, and my lasting memory from the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) is of people being too scared to go to the toilet because they are worried about what will happen to their jobs, which is an absolute disgrace. That people are too scared to go to the toilet in this century, never mind any other century, is absolutely terrible.
The Conservatives and the Government boast about the recovery of employment and lower employment figures, but, sadly, for millions of people work means rising insecurity and low pay. Average real pay has still not returned to the level it was before the financial crisis, and the Resolution Foundation predicts that this is likely to be the weakest decade of real pay growth in almost two centuries. We might have high employment, but we also have record poverty among those in work, so a celebration of employment figures alone is completely disingenuous. What are the Government actually celebrating? More than 8 million working people live in poverty. In 2018, that is an absolute disgrace. The Minister celebrates low unemployment but fails to recognise the poor quality of those jobs.
Wes Streeting
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that it is utterly perverse that many of the people in low-paid insecure work are forced to rely on tax credits? In other words, all of us as taxpayers are funding the exploitative business models of their employers who do not pay their staff proper wages.
Laura Pidcock
It is absolutely nonsensical that the state should subsidise inordinate profits on the one hand and very poor pay on the other. The reality of modern work for millions of people, particularly in the north and in places such as North West Durham, is short-termism, insecurity, low pay and fear. Fixed-term contracts, enforced self-employment and agency work signal a move towards a more casualised and fragmented world of work. The use of zero-hours contracts increased rapidly in the wake of the financial crisis, increasing two and a half times between 2012 and 2016. The latest figures available show that that is not abating. We have had an increase from 1.4 million to 1.8 million in just six months.
When Conservative Members celebrate the flexibility—this has been mentioned many times—of zero-hours contracts, they have a romanticised vision of a student who perhaps wants summer work, but the reality is very different. One in three people on a zero-hours contract wants more hours.
Laura Pidcock
I have very little time; I am sorry.
A whole industry has exploded to formalise and professionalise insecurity at work, including through the use and abuse of new technology. It is absolutely right that we view that as the challenge of our generation. How we meet the challenges of technology replacing management structures with apps essentially being the employer is one of the most pressing issues. We need to take robust legislative action against that.
Despite the Government’s shameful resistance to protecting workers, we saw two landmark cases in the gig economy last week. First, a decision by the Supreme Court in favour of Gary Smith against Pimlico Plumbers, as has been mentioned, established that he was a worker and not self-employed. There must be an immediate end to exploitative employment practices. Last Friday, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain won its right to pursue its case against Deliveroo, and I wish it luck.
I will end by saying that all the evidence shows that the best way to guarantee fair pay and protections at work is by strengthening the voices of workers through our trade unions—I am a member of Unite, so I register that interest—and by enabling the unions to organise and bargain collectively. That is why an incoming Labour Government would bring about a workplace rights revolution and create a new ministry of labour, which is not currently a Department, to give workers and trade unions long overdue rights and protections in law. We will of course repeal the shameless Trade Union Act 2016 and introduce new legislation to roll out sectoral collective bargaining.
Laura Pidcock
I am so sorry; I cannot. I have gone over my time already, and I want to ensure that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East manages to sum up.
Hon. Members have given the Minister many solutions for zero-hours contracts, such as the Swedish derogation, equal rights for agency workers and, crucially, enforcement —things will not improve without enforcement. It is only with workers and trade unions at the heart of workplace decision-making processes that we will tame and eventually eradicate the abuses in the gig economy. I look forward to hearing the Minister set out what I am sure will be exciting and groundbreaking announcements to end the inherent exploitation at the heart of the gig economy.