Employment Rights Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 12th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

Amendment 155 would make the initial period of employment six months, to align with a standard probationary period. The Government have admitted that they do not have robust data on instances of dismissal for those under two years of employment; in other words, we do not know if there is even a problem with unfair dismissal that the Bill is seeking to solve. Without knowing the problem, how can the Government identify a solution or even know that one is necessary? This is a flimsy basis for enacting a measure that the Government estimate will cost businesses in excess of £40 million a year overall.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I draw attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my membership of the GMB and Unite trade unions.

Before we move past the hon. Gentleman’s point about information, which we have talked about a lot, is the core problem not that there is a wider issue with UK labour market statistics? We heard during the evidence sessions from the Resolution Foundation, which said:

“The Office for National Statistics’ labour force survey is in the doldrums”.––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 28 November 2024; c. 119, Q125.]

This is not a party political point. The ONS’s collection methods, which broadly worked until the pandemic, have not worked subsequently. The statistics body is going through a period of transforming the labour force survey, but the criticisms that the hon. Gentleman makes of the information available to this Government would have held true for the Government between 2020 and 2024. This is a much wider issue. We could look at that problem and say, “We didn’t even really know what the UK unemployment rate was for some time,” and if that was an absolute barrier, all employment legislation would be on hold. It is important that those practical challenges are acknowledged.

[Greg Smith]

I do not disagree with what the hon. Gentleman says, but where we do disagree is on the conclusions that we draw from that. I would strongly argue that to introduce primary legislation without an adequate evidence base is foolish, whereas he seems to be arguing that it is fine to do that.

I fundamentally agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is often a problem with data collection, particularly on complex things such as overall employment numbers, the number of people in multiple jobs or whatever. He certainly hit the nail on the head about the post-pandemic understanding of the labour market. The pandemic brought about almost a fundamental reset in a lot of working patterns; nobody seems to work quite in the same way as they did before the pandemic. I acknowledge his point, but I suggest that this was actually the time to take a bit of a pause and a step back to think through new measures more carefully, rather than to rush ahead with a Bill in order to publish it within 100 days of the Government’s taking office.

I return to my questions to the Minister. What estimate has he made of the additional cost to business, including salary costs during performance management or disputes, retention costs from tribunal risk aversion, and increased settlements offered to avoid legal claims? Are those costs worth it for a problem that, as we have just discussed, nobody can actually prove exists in the UK market right now?

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[Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)]

As ever, it is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. As usual, I draw the Committee’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and particularly to my membership of the USDAW and GMB trade unions.

I am sure it will not surprise the hon. Member for Dundee Central to hear that I share some of his concerns about the practice of fire and rehire, and I welcome the significant steps taken in the Bill to outlaw the practice. However, I disagree with his amendment 160. What might be seen by some as a loophole is actually an important safeguard against the perverse potential for the law to mandate redundancy when there might have been other options on the table. I am sure that none of us would want to be party to including that in the Bill.

As I said, I share some of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and I hope the Minister will look closely at proposed new section 104I(4) of the 1996 Act, because the words

“likely in the immediate future”

are doing some precariously heavy lifting. However, if the amendment were accepted, the focus on a business being a going concern, which is the most important part of that subsection, would be removed completely. When we are passing legislation that protects jobs and promotes good employment, we absolutely cannot allow the unintended consequence of mandating redundancy when there are other options.

I look forward to the Minister’s comments. I understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Dundee Central, but this is a sledgehammer of an amendment to crack a nut of a possible loophole, with significant potential consequences.

[Laurence Turner]

Like my hon. Friend, I have intense sympathy with many of the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Dundee Central, but the “Make Work Pay” document published earlier this year, which was subsequently endorsed in the Labour manifesto, stated:

“It is important that businesses can restructure to remain viable, to preserve their workforce and the company when there is genuinely no alternative, but this must follow a proper process based on dialogue and common understanding between employers and workers.”

We all want to see both parts of that carried through, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that. If amendment 160 were accepted, would it not have the effect of invalidating that part of the Government’s manifesto commitment?