General Strike Centenary Commemorations

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to bring this Adjournment debate before the House to mark the centenary of the general strike of 1926. Twelve years after the general strike, the Welsh miners’ poet, Idris Davies, asked,

“Do you remember 1926? That summer of soups and speeches,”

which was a reference to the bitter months endured by the miners and their families after the general strike ended. He also referred to the strike itself, which he called

“The great dream and the swift disaster”.

I am really grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker for granting parliamentary time so that we can answer that question in this place and do so in the affirmative, just as it has been answered at events across the country during the past month.

The general strike remains the most extensive confrontation in our national history between organised labour on the one side and employers and Government on the other, and it remains contested history.

[Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important debate on the general strike before the House. Does he agree that when we remember the general strike as the national event that it was, we should also reflect on the countless local stories of solidarity, mutual support and sacrifice that defined so many communities, such as those in my constituency, home of the train wreckers? A local group of miners derailed the Flying Scotsman and suffered severe consequences as a result. It is such an important part of our labour movement and our national story that we remember those local actions as well.

[Laurence Turner]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for sending me a copy of the documentary on the Cramlington train wreckers ahead of this debate. It was moving to see those men in their later years. It is telling that the general strike tends to be remembered as local history, and there will be much to say throughout this debate about the general strike in Birmingham and elsewhere.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

Speaking of local history, Wolverhampton, Bilston and District trades unions council has prepared a book on the 1926 general strike. In my hon. Friend’s experience, has he found that workers usually go on strike only as a last resort? Does he agree that the right to protest and to withdraw labour are part of the important civil liberties that we enjoy against abuses of authority and power, and that they should therefore be protected?

[Laurence Turner]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and it is only right to say that he, through his role on the GMB executive and as one of the delegates to the national policy forum in opposition, was one of the people who helped draw up the reforms to employment rights that have been passed by this Parliament.

The general strike raised profound questions about the proper balance of state power and the rights of dissenters at times of civil contingency, and we should ask them again and with urgency in each generation. It is difficult to capture the essence of the world that created the strike: the depths of poverty in the older mining districts; the extreme social control exercised by employers in the villages put up around the more lucrative and newly exploited seams; and the critical dependence of the nation’s economy upon a coal industry that killed one in 1,000 of its workers each year and seriously wounded one in 10.

When working people rallied across occupational boundaries to defend the miners in 1926, they showed extraordinary solidarity, and their unions channelled national power to a degree perhaps unseen before, even if they were unsteady in exercising it and uncertain of its limits.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate forward. I spoke to him beforehand to ascertain his focus, and I will outline my focus and why I wished to be here. I remember when I went for my first job, which was at Henry Denny & Sons in Belfast. The manager brought me in and said, “Jim, here’s the job, but now you have to join the union.” When I heard that, I said, “Oh, but I don’t think I want to join the union.” He said, “No, you have to.” Here is the reason why that is important. I joined my union, and my union fought my corner when I was with Henry Denny’s. I realised then the impact and importance of being a union member. I was glad to be a member of that union, which helped me on many occasions.

The 1926 strike set the scene in stone for me when I joined Henry Denny’s, but the strike is more than that. Does the hon. Member agree that workers’ rights have evolved at pace and that the determination to ensure that people are paid a fair wage for a fair job is a foundational principle in every area of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Laurence Turner]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I truly welcome the cross-party support he has demonstrated for the principle of trade unionism and for workers’ rights. It is only fair to note that right now, additional enhanced employment rights are being considered in Northern Ireland, as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom.

In interpreting the general strike, it is important to note that union members were, as they remain, fiercely defensive of the independence of their individual organisations, and those factors militated against planning for the national confrontation that fell upon them. Ranged against the unions were a Government determined not to repeat the humiliation of the so-called red Friday a year before and whose preparations had been meticulous over the nine months that followed.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend not only for bringing this debate forward, but for the interesting speech he is giving. He will know that my passions include not just Harlow, but my interest in the 1924 Labour Government, and in particular the Prime Minister and leader of the Labour party at the time, James Ramsay MacDonald. My hon. Friend and I have had a conversation about this, and he will know that James Ramsay MacDonald wanted to speak on the BBC to provide an alternative narrative to the Government about the general strike, and he was blocked. Will my hon. Friend reflect on that?

[Laurence Turner]

My hon. Friend has displayed his customary ingenuity in mentioning Harlow. I believe that, as a new town, it did not exist at the time of the general strike—but I will come on to the points he made.

Ranged against Ramsay MacDonald was, of course, Stanley Baldwin, a Conservative party leader who convinced many of his natural critics of his sincere desire to bring about industrial reconciliation, summed up by his famous declaration in this Chamber a year earlier:

“Give peace in our time, O Lord.” —[Official Report, 6 March 1925; Vol. 181, c. 841.]

That apparently heartfelt plea masked a hidden ruthlessness, and an extraordinarily singular capacity for political calculation.

In 1926 the Government made, not altogether comfortably, common cause with the coal owners who, taken together, could have been the archetypes of Baldwin’s famous description of

“hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war.”

The British coal owners, unlike their counterparts in America and Europe, mostly represented small concerns that had failed to adapt, amalgamate and modernise, and they would go unmourned when Parliament obviated their role 20 years later.

Opponents of organised labour sometimes claimed that union leaders sought national confrontation, or that they wished to supplant the authority of Parliament with that of the TUC general council, but those wild words had foundation only in the imagination of their accusers. As Jonathan Schneer’s brilliant and evocative new history of the strike shows, they spent the weeks before the strike exhaustively, even desperately, trying to prevent the breakdown of talks and searching for some compromise, some new formula, and a negotiated path through. The way in which they convinced themselves that settlement was possible, as they masked their private doubts of the likelihood of victory and tried to balance what were probably irreconcilable internal and external forces—often in the small hours, and often in rooms not far from this Chamber—as the clock ran down, will feel familiar to many who have had the privilege and responsibility of trade union office.

But such doubts cannot have been at the forefront of the minds of the great majority of the nearly 3 million men and women who answered the stoppage call on 3 May. They did so at great personal risk to their livelihoods and pensions. In that hot spring, many of them wore their war medals as a conscious rebuke to those who charged them with a lack of patriotism, and even with falling under the influence of a foreign power. It is easy to see why so many strikers thought that victory was imminent and assured. In Birmingham—then, as now, inland transport’s great, interlocking heart—it was said that neither bus, tram nor train moved on that first day. “Every man in every union involved is out,” the city’s trades council enthusiastically, if somewhat improbably, reported to the TUC. That claim, incidentally, committed the sin of omission, because many women joined the strike. At the Joseph Lucas factory they were led by Jessie Eden, an imaginative version of whom was immortalised as a character in “Peaky Blinders”.

Some officials actually had to coax members who had not been called out to remain at their work, with mixed success. Most strikers could see neither the depth of their opponents’ preparation nor the lack of their unions’ own. In truth, most union leaders and the members of their executives expected the Government to resume negotiations swiftly, and extend the subsidy until the mining industry could be reorganised along the lines of the Sankey and Samuel commissions. They did not perceive, until it was too late, the Government’s hidden determination to force not settlement but surrender. While the TUC and the newly constituted local committees attempted to resolve profound logistical problems on the fly and to adapt sometimes confused central instructions to local circumstances, the well-resourced and carefully attuned Government machine sprang into action. In Birmingham—the city of a thousand trades, where general unionism and the centralising and organising tendencies that it represented had long struggled to prosper—the response to the strike was uneven from the start.

[Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being typically generous in taking interventions, and I congratulate him on securing a debate on such an important topic. Will he join me in recognising the tradition of the Red Clydesiders in Glasgow, who were a huge part of the trade union movement and its history in this country, and in particular Jimmy Maxton, whose nephew ended up becoming one of my predecessors as the Member of Parliament for what was then Glasgow Cathcart?

[Laurence Turner]

That was an important intervention, and it is absolutely right that we remember the role of the Red Clydesiders and the members of the Independent Labour party, among whom Jimmy Maxton was so prominent not just in responding to the strike but in shaping the course of Labour history.

In Birmingham, production continued throughout the strike at such employers as Fort Dunlop and the BSA, despite a strong response from members of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union. At Cadbury, more than 1,000 workers walked out. Although the firm’s Liberal owners were relatively sympathetic to the strikers’ cause, differences in turnout within the workforce were apparent from the beginning.

The position at the Austin Motor Company’s works in Longbridge in my constituency was instructive. Herbert Austin had been a Conservative Member of Parliament. He had lost the King’s Norton seat two years before, but the factory remained a bastion of what has been called “cloth-capped Chamberlainism”. The universities provided many middle-class volunteers, who tried their hand at skilled manual work—sometimes with comically inept consequences; sometimes resulting in tragedy—so the factory swelled the ranks of the strike’s opponents. It is likely that more workers did strike than the company claimed, but they were comfortably outnumbered by the 400 men who volunteered as special constables.

The politicisation of policing and the justice system during the strike left broken heads and bitter memories in many areas. For every account of friendly relations, which were real enough—in many districts, the police and strikers took pride in the fact that no violence occurred during the strike; the most famous example is probably the football match between strikers and the constabulary at Plymouth where the strikers won 2-1—there were more cases of police overreach and the denial of freedom of speech.

The chief legal weapon ranged against the strike was the set of regulations expedited under the Emergency Powers Act 1920, which were debated in Parliament only retrospectively. It is necessary to quote regulation 21 to bring home just how loosely some of those powers were worded. It was made an offence for a person to cause, or attempt to cause,

“disaffection among any of His Majesty’s Forces, or among the members of any police force…or among the civilian population”.

Further, it was made an offence to possess “any report or statement”, the publication of which would cause such disaffection. The term “disaffection” was never defined, however, and the police had the power to raid premises on the basis that they might contain such documents.

Although those powers were affirmed by Parliament mid-way through the strike, they were established by an Order in Council—that is, under the royal prerogative—and were in force before Parliament had a meaningful chance to debate or scrutinise them. It is no wonder that the then Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, could reflect that the powers practically “made the Government dictators”.

Many strikers were brought before magistrates simply for making statements of political opinion. As Miliband—Ralph, that is—put it:

“Large number of arrests were made…often on the flimsiest of pretexts, and sentences to short terms of imprisonment were freely handed down by magistrates little disposed to sympathy with those brought before them.”

To give one example, in Cumbria, a lead miner and branch secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers posted handbills that encouraged members to refrain from enlisting as special constables. He was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The headquarters of the Daily Herald, the only Labour-supporting newspaper of the day, were raided on the basis that seditious literature might be discovered. The Government attempted to prevent the publication of the TUC’s improvised news sheet, the British Worker, by commandeering paper stocks.

The nascent BBC preserved its technical independence, following consultation with Ministers, through the expedient of denying its platform to critical voices, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) noted. As John Reith put it in his diary:

“They”—

that is, Ministers—

“want to be able to say that they did not commandeer us, but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial.”

In Birmingham, after the local strike bulletin contained an erroneous—but, it seems, innocently arrived at—report that the Government had suffered a defeat in this House, the union’s entire emergency committee in the city was arrested, and the printing presses held at the Birmingham Labour party’s offices on Corporation Street were seized. One Labour councillor, Percy Shurmer, was dismissed and blacklisted by the Post Office on account of a speech made during the general strike, although he was later elected to this place as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Sparkbrook.

I can do no better than quote Dr David Torrance, who somehow manages to combine writing histories of this decade with his role as a subject specialist on the constitution in the House of Commons Library. In his excellent recent book on the politics of the strike, he put it this way:

“If anything, it was the…government rather than the TUC which came close to behaving ‘unconstitutionally’ during the general strike.”

The strike’s end and the final rift between the Miners’ Federation and the rest of the general council has been covered elsewhere, and I cannot do it justice in the time available tonight. It is sufficient to say, I hope, that the trade unions, having lacked a theory for winning the strike, also lacked a plan for ending it. At some firms, the unions were able to secure a return to work on the same terms as prevailed before and without victimisation, but other employers took the opportunity to reduce wages and settle scores. Some strikers never worked in their chosen occupation again. The Economic League, a professional blacklisting organisation, found new reach and strength, often in collusion with public bodies.

An even harder fate awaited the miners, as they struggled on during those hot and hungry summer months, until they too were eventually forced to concede. In the most hostile districts, principally south Wales and Nottinghamshire, their independent associations were all but broken by the so-called non-political miners’ industrial unions—better known as Spencerism—which owed their position to the coercive enforcement of the colliery companies and the quiet backing of a fund instituted by Baldwin. It left a legacy of division that I think is comparable with the aftermath of the 1984-85 strike, which has still not entirely faded. If the House will indulge me, I have in my pocket a token of the Nottinghamshire Miners’ Association. It was a small token that hung around the neck of miners, and it is stamped “1925”. They were never made again, because it was too dangerous for men to identify themselves as members of a free union.

In the months that followed the general strike, the defeated issued pamphlets and the victors issued commemorative truncheons. If the trade unions conducted inadequate soul searching before the strike, they made up for it later, asking themselves many inward questions. By contrast, the Government perhaps asked themselves too few.

At the time of the 80th anniversary, we could still meet women and men who stood in their youth on the picket lines. Now, the strike has all but passed out of the outermost limits of living memory. The collieries are gone, the Austin works are gone, and so is much of the world that they sustained.

It has sometimes been argued that the general strike had little long-term effect on industrial relations or political life, as great as the consequences for some individuals may have been; that the response of the Government was surprisingly restrained; and that the conflict, in its own peculiar way, represented a very British form of moderation. I think this is a misreading. The severity of the blows dealt to many of the strike’s participants disqualifies the last claim, and the strike fundamentally altered politics and industrial relations, too. It drove the unions closer to the Labour party, and it seems to have hastened Labour support in some working-class areas.

For the ageing leaders of the new unionism, the strike marked the end of an era. It might be said that the spirit of 1889, already dampened by the war, was finally extinguished in 1926, giving way to a paternalistic and deferential internal style that dominated union politics and shaped the post-war consensus, until that too broke on the rocks of the prices and incomes policy 50 years later. Let us look at the official response. The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 imposed restrictions on the political levy, and consequently upon political funding, despite the issue being of no relevance to the strike. That was undone in 1946 and reimposed in 2016, but we repealed those provisions again in December. In that sense, we are still contesting the battle lines drawn up 100 years ago.

I think the best way we can remember the general strike’s participants—and I make no apology for placing the emphasis on the nearly 3 million coalminers, transport workers, printers, dockers and more who answered the TUC’s call—is by carrying forward some lessons from their times to our own. It seems to me that the strike raises questions for us that are immediate and vibrant. What should the roles and limits of the police and the courts be in the settlement of industrial disputes? What obligation does the state owe to its dissenters’ liberties in times of civil contingencies? Do our laws provide sufficient protection from the potential abuses by the Executive of prerogative powers? Those questions must be asked and answered another day. Tonight, it is enough to answer the question put at the start of this debate. In Idris Davies’s words:

“Ay, ay, we remember 1926…

And we shall remember 1926 until our blood is dry.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kate Dearden]

We absolutely want pubs and our hospitality sector to thrive. They are the backbone of our communities and often provide people’s first job. That is why they are so vital to our high streets, to the hon. Member’s constituency and to our local communities. As he will know, pubs in particular have been under huge pressure in recent years. Their numbers have fallen by nearly 7,000 since 2010—a roughly 15% reduction and among the highest across hospitality overall. That is why, since April, every pub and live music venue will have 15% off their new business rates bill, on top of the support announced at the Budget. We know that we continuously need to support our pubs and the wider industry. That is why I work really closely with the Hospitality Sector Council and with publicans and pubs all across the country, to understand how we can better support them, and I will continue to do so.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

6. What progress his Department has made on implementing the Employment Rights Act 2025.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)]

My hon. Friend was an advocate for such legislation long before it was introduced in the House last year. I know how passionate he is about our wider Make Work Pay agenda, as I am too. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is bringing employment rights legislation into the 21st century. We have already repealed burdensome trade union legislation, strengthened statutory sick pay, introduced day one rights to paternity leave and launched the Fair Work Agency. We are implementing the Act over a two-year period and consulting widely with business organisations, trade unions and civil society, to ensure we get the details right and provide the support people need.

[Laurence Turner]

I draw attention to my membership of the GMB and Unite trade unions, and I welcome and acknowledge the Minister’s firm commitment to this area. The Department recently published its response to the trade union right of access consultation. Capping fines at £500,000 equates to a potential liability of 0.02% of operating profits for Amazon’s warehousing operations, but up to 20% of the surplus of a medium- sized trade union. We must get this right. How does disproportionate liability achieve the Government’s aim of creating a workable right in the minority of cases involving very well-resourced and hostile employers?

[Kate Dearden]

The legal framework for the right of access in the Employment Rights Act 2025 provides an enforcement mechanism that applies to all parties involved in an access agreement. The Government are clear that the enforcement mechanism must be fair, proportionate and adaptable, and we have set out the factors that the Central Arbitration Committee must consider when setting the value of penalties, acknowledging that some breaches will have a greater impact than others. Those factors will include the gravity of the breach, the number of workers affected by it, and the size and resources of the liable party. The Government believe that the level of penalty fines that the CAC may impose must reflect the seriousness of the breach.

Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

We rely on Ofcom as the regulator of Royal Mail, which is exactly why we are having a meeting later today to discuss what more it can do to deal with the widespread concerns that exist across the House about the quality of service.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is clear that the NHS barcode prioritisation system broke down, but the problem is not limited to NHS letters. I want to highlight the Government’s Tell Us Once service following a bereavement. Many hon. Members will know the urgency and distressing nature of that correspondence, so will the Minister—who has been extremely active in dealing with constituency concerns—look at the issue of prioritisation of non-NHS letters?

[Blair McDougall]

In a previous life, I was very proud to have worked on the Tell Us Once service at its inception, and I know how important that service is to people at the worst possible time of their life. I will certainly raise the issue that my hon. Friend has highlighted.

Employment Rights Bill

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I hope somebody on the Labour Benches will address. We have seen no analysis and we have no idea of the cost of this measure. Not a single business—not a single person who employs people—has come out and endorsed the removal of the cap. It is beyond me, I am afraid.

Yet what is happening in our employment tribunals? On Friday, as I am sure the Minister knows, it was revealed that the delay and backlogs at the employment tribunal have reached their highest ever level. At the end of the most recent quarter, there were 515,000 open claims. Before anyone intervenes, let me say that I accept that much of that was inherited—[Interruption.] But before Labour Members laugh: the Government are making it worse. Merely since the Bill was introduced to this place, the claims backlog has increased by 65,000. They are doing nothing to address the backlog, which is going up every single month—I do not think they have even discussed it with their calamity of a Justice Secretary —and we know that they have carried out no impact assessment. It is extraordinary. The scrapping of the compensation cap for the highest paid will simply stoke the fire.

I make it a rule not to learn lessons in how to run an economy from France, but even France introduced a cap on tribunal payments to tackle unemployment and encourage labour market dynamism. Perhaps we should take advice from closer to home: today the Health Secretary seems to be no fan at all of giving more powers to unaccountable unions.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

Happily, if the hon. Member will talk about how he will fix our NHS.

[Laurence Turner]

The debate is on the Employment Rights Bill, although I struggle to follow the line of logic in the hon. Member’s speech. He said that the effect of the change would be to benefit the wealthiest employees, but chief executive officers and other senior executives rarely seek recourse to employment tribunals, for a number of reasons. Can he name a single CEO or equivalent who has pursued a case for an employment tribunal?

--- Later in debate ---

[Bradley Thomas]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who makes his point eloquently, as usual.

The Government must abandon the measure. If they are really on the side of workers, the best thing they can do is abandon this measure—and abandon the Bill in its entirety.

[Laurence Turner]

I am grateful to have been called to speak in this debate. I draw the House’s attention to my membership of the GMB and my chairship of its parliamentary group—an unremunerated role.

The Bill has been the subject of 14 months of debate and scrutiny, and it should have received Royal Assent months ago. Let us not beat around the bush about why we are here tonight: the Bill has been deliberately delayed by some Members of the other place who disagree with the principle of what it seeks to achieve and with the electoral mandate behind it. The amendment that came from the Lords last week represents the last gasp of that approach, testing the limits of the democratic decision-making process and the constitutional relationship that binds these two Houses. This is no longer solely about workers’ rights; it has become a challenge by unelected peers to the primacy of the Commons and the greater legitimacy that our constituents lend us temporarily.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Twelve months ago, the hon. Gentleman and I sat on the Bill Committee. This is the first time that the Commons has had the opportunity to debate this measure, courtesy of the House of Lords. The Lords have done us a favour, haven’t they?

[Laurence Turner]

I enjoyed many hours in proximity to the hon. Member. He will know that the only reason we are considering the measure in such a short time is that the Bill has been delayed, so close to the April implementation period, because of the Conservative party.

The final proof of the implications of the constitutional limits of what we are now being asked to consider can be found in the fact that the Opposition’s amendment was carried last week thanks to the votes of Conservative hereditary peers, who owe their positions to an accident of birth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. We are not having a debate on hereditary Members of the House of Lords. We are debating the Lords message on amendments to the Employment Rights Bill.

[Laurence Turner]

If the Lords amendment were not rejected, it would have two immediate effects. First, it would collapse the agreement between employers and union representatives. It is not some reasonable call for a review; it strikes out the changes to the compensation cap, which was a key component of that agreement. The Conservatives know that it is a nonsense to call for a review if the legislation that would give it effect is not carried—[Interruption.] Secondly, the amendment would so delay the Bill that April’s extension of statutory sick pay and parental leave for millions of people—some on the very lowest incomes—falls into doubt.

[Dr Luke Evans]

I was listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but he tailed off when he was talking about a problem, and it did not quite go through. I think that he was talking about the fact that there would be a delay because of the consultation. In 1999 and 2015 there were consultations on the very issue of a cap. Why have the Government not done that?

[Laurence Turner]

If the hon. Gentleman had been listening carefully, he would know that I was referring to the review called for in the Lords amendment. That is not all that the amendment contains; it seeks to strike out the powers to change the compensation cap. It is a nonsense to say on the one hand that the Bill must be halted in its track while there is a review, when the powers in question have been removed.

The delays to the April implementation of fundamental rights cannot be suffered. As the employers’ representatives have said, we are out of time. The opposition to the Bill is exhausted, and the Commons mandate must be respected. Parliament must pass the Bill.

Employment Rights Bill

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I will not revise my remarks. We have been speaking to many business groups that were in the room with the Minister, and they have told us that it was not part of the agreement. That is why the fact that it is in this motion has taken everyone by surprise, and why we will not be supporting it today.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady just said that she has been informed by business groups that were in the negotiations that this measure was not agreed. Will she name them?

Employment Rights Bill

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Act in haste, repent at leisure: never has that been wiser advice than in respect of this Bill. It is a rushed Bill that was half-baked when it was introduced, and has got worse since. It has failed every test of scrutiny, from the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to the Constitution Committee, to its low-balled impact assessment.

On the day that the Mayfield report outlines the scale of the challenge that we face on worklessness, it will create generation jobless. Every family in the country will know a son, daughter, niece or nephew who cannot get work as a result. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) reminds us, every Labour Government leaves unemployment higher than when they started, but only this Government have actually legislated for that.

The Minister asks us to disagree with all the main compromise amendments from the other place. If she wished to listen to stakeholders, now would be a fantastic moment to start. Her motions to disagree reject sensible compromises on qualifying periods, seasonal working, guaranteed hours, strike thresholds and opting in to political funds. Who will be the victims if the motions are carried today? Young people, the neurodiverse, those with a disability, female returners to work, the over 50s and former prisoners—some of the most vulnerable groups in society who deserve their chance in life, their shot at employment and a job.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the hon. Gentleman said the Conservatives

“will repeal those most damaging elements of the Employment Rights Bill”.—[Official Report, 4 November 2025; Vol. 774, c. 776.]

Could he inform us which elements of the Bill they will retain?

[Andrew Griffith]

We will have our work cut out, with its 330 pages and 122,000 words—[Interruption.] Labour Members seek to hide behind measures that we support, such as enhanced maternity rights. But will the hon. Member tell me how many times the word “maternity” appears in the Bill, and how many times the word “union”—his paymasters—appears in it?

[Laurence Turner]

I did not realise that was a genuine offer. I do not have the ctrl+F function in front of me to do a word count, but, again, I would be interested in hearing an answer to the question I posed to the hon. Gentleman. All I will say is that, as his colleague the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) said in Committee, trade union-associated MPs have been assiduous at declaring donations. I think only one Member on the Conservative side has declared an interest throughout all these proceedings; I find that utterly incredible.

[Andrew Griffith]

I trust that you will want all Members this afternoon to declare any relevant interests, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have none. To answer the question that the hon. Gentleman did not manage to answer, the word “maternity” appears in this Bill three times; the word “union” appears in this Bill 478 times. Follow the money, Madam Deputy Speaker.

With unemployment higher every month—[Interruption.] Listen and learn. This will be Labour’s legacy: with unemployment higher every month of this Government, it is a bleak time for those trying to find work. The independent Office for National Statistics estimates that vacancies are down by 115,000 since this Government came into office. Some 41% of those graduating in 2023 were not in full-time work 15 months later, and it is estimated that almost half the top 100 UK employers have reduced their graduate intake. In fact, graduates are competing for so few jobs that getting a job is as improbable as spotting a Labour Member who has not received a union donation.

But it is not just graduates: for many, seasonal work is the first opportunity to get a foot on the career ladder yet this Bill in its current form forces hospitality businesses or anyone who relies on seasonal workers into an impossible position. That is why we are supportive of the Lords’ compromise amendment that would allow employers who need flexibility across the calendar year to continue to have it; what could be so objectionable about that?

--- Later in debate ---

I accept that it then goes on to argue against day one rights, but the only statistical evidence it put up in respect of that is a chart comparing us to other countries, and said that we currently have some of the weakest protections against dismissal and that this Bill will give us some of the strongest. Well, that is the actual point of this Bill, and I do not think it is a compelling argument to say that it is something we do not want to see delivered.

[Laurence Turner]

Is it not also the case that, within that graph, a number of the nations that the Resolution Foundation says have weaker protections actually have higher unemployment rates than our own? There is clearly not the relationship between the two that some in the Opposition have tried to suggest.

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, that is something that the Resolution Foundation said when giving evidence to the Bill Committee. I will quote that directly:

“Internationally, we can draw scatter plots of the employment level in a country and the extent of employment regulation, and basically those lines come out flat. You have some countries with very high employment and very high levels of regulation, and some countries with lower employment and high regulation”––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 28 November 2024; c. 116, Q119.]

So there is no clear relationship with the employment levels across countries. That is confirmed by the OECD, which has done lots of detailed work. That is what the Resolution Foundation said in its evidence to the Bill Committee last year.

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[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Given that time is short, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will endeavour to keep my remarks brief. I intend to speak to specific amendments today, but I feel compelled to start with a general comment in respect of financial interests. Throughout the stages of the Bill, and again today, it has been suggested by the Opposition that a number of Government Members speak not from genuine and sincere belief, but because of arrangements involving donations to their constituency Labour parties. I say to those on the Opposition Benches that that argument and line of thought betrays a laziness towards this issue that is reflected in their lack of effective scrutiny of the Bill, with the Opposition resorting instead to hackneyed and ancestral stereotypes and lazy assumptions that reflect nothing about the world of unions and the world of work.

[James Wild]

Members of the public who are watching this debate will not necessarily have ready access to the records of the thousands of pounds that have been taken by each Member referring simply to their financial interests. In the interest of transparency, will the hon. Gentleman therefore say how many thousands of pounds he took from trade unions, if any, to support this Bill?

[Laurence Turner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for proving my point exactly. I will happily tell him that since becoming a Member of this House, I have not received a penny in political donations from trade unions. My constituency Labour party received a donation before the election, but that is an entirely different matter. I have only one matter to draw attention to in my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which is my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group, which is an unpaid role.

We are asked today to consider a number of amendments that directly contradict our manifesto commitments. Lords amendments 61 and 72 on political funds are a case in point. In the other place, the noble Lord Burns gently questioned whether this was a manifesto issue, but the Make Work Pay document, which our manifesto said would be implemented in full, clearly said that the Trade Union Act 2016 would be repealed. That must include this provision.

The amendments before us seek to preserve the punitive restrictions that were originally imposed as retribution in 1927 and repealed in 1946, after which we had 70 years during which arrangements worked effectively. The actual impact of these amendments, were they passed, would be the same as any arrangement that moves from opt-out to opt-in, which is a reduction in the ability of working people to speak with a collective voice.

Let us not forget that trade union political funds do not exclusively fund donations to parties. Look at the campaigns that have been run and the cross-party support they have won, such as GMB and Unison’s “Protect the Protectors” and GMB’s campaigns on domestic defence manufacturing—two campaigns that the Conservatives came to support—as well as USDAW’s “Freedom from Fear”, and the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, the result of Unite’s campaign in the aftermath of the Morecambe Bay disaster, in which so many cockle pickers tragically and disgracefully lost their lives. Even today, in this place, trade union funding helps to address the abuse that has occurred within the confines of the estate, and which there is a risk will continue in the future.

Trade unions are democratic bodies. Any member of a trade union can demand to see the receipts of political expenditure, and decisions on party donations are taken on a collective basis. When that provision was originally repealed, the Attlee Government’s Attorney General of the day said—I think this bears repeating today—that the Conservatives relied on the

“old delusion that the Labour party was being built upon the hard-earned pennies of honest Conservatives who were too timid to declare their true political colours and were being bullied by horrid, nasty trade unionists into supporting the political funds of a party to which they were so much opposed.”

Anyone who has worked with trade union members will recognise that to be a delusion indeed, and we have heard much of that delusion from the Opposition through the passage of the Bill.

I was going to make similar comments to those my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)—who is both honourable and a friend—made in respect of Lords amendment 62, but she covered it expertly. I will finish by talking about Lords amendment 121B on the school support staff negotiating body, which has not been discussed so far today. I recognise that this amendment is substantially different from other amendments that have been sent to us on this matter, but I still believe that it is unnecessary.

First of all, the overwhelming majority of academy employers do subscribe to the National Joint Council terms and conditions for school support staff—terms and conditions which, as has been widely recognised for more than 20 years, are out of date in respect of school support staff. The effect of Lords amendment 121B would to be to create a two-tier arrangement between school support staff in local authority maintained schools and academies. It states that employers could introduce terms and conditions. I am concerned about the potential contradiction with the provisions in the Education (Schools) Act 1992, which that require such changes to be made on a collective and not a unilateral basis. Furthermore, it states that terms and conditions that could be changed should be “in aggregate” an improvement. That clearly leaves room for employers to introduce a weakening to some areas to the detriment of the 1,700 school support staff in my constituency.

I am proud to have had an association with this Bill, and I look forward to rejecting those specific amendments tonight.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I proudly refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my involvement in the trade union movement throughout my professional career.

The Employment Rights Bill is long overdue, and although others continually seek to wreck it with worker-unfriendly amendments, we will not allow it. We on the Government Benches know that this Bill is about economic growth and security for all workers. It is about banning unfair dismissals, strengthening statutory sick pay, outlawing fire and rehire, and gaining new maternity and paternity leave rights and rights to bereavement leave.

There are so many fantastic measures in this Bill, and as the Minister noted, we are today again presented with a number of amendments that we do not support. I want to speak to just one. Lords amendment 1B is about the Employment Rights Bill’s most vital protection—a manifesto commitment on which I proudly stood in my city to deliver: the statutory entitlement to fixed hours. This is not an abstract legal reform; it is a common-sense protection for people who are often invisible in our labour market and for whom insecurity is the norm, not the exception.

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My hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) and for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) made brilliant points. I am forever grateful for their support. They are strong advocates for working people across the country. It has been wonderful to work with them over a number of years, and to be in this House today with lots of friends who have contributed to this agenda and this vital work. I hope that we have the chance to celebrate it at some point.

[Laurence Turner]

May I invite the Minister to respond to two things? First, I was asked earlier how many times the word “maternity” appears in the Bill. The word “pregnancy” appears 16 times, “parental” 27 times, and “bereavement” 34 times, but we cannot restrict the debate to individual phrases. Secondly, this is not some abacus exercise; the real impact of the Bill is the change and improvement it will make for millions of working families thanks to day one rights.

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent and well-made point. I am glad that he has managed to find the ctrl+F function with such speed. I always rely on him to provide such efficiency and clarity. The Bill will benefit more than 15 million workers. That is an incredibly powerful statistic to give at the Dispatch Box. More than 2 million people on zero-hours contracts could benefit, as well as the many workers he mentions who will benefit from further protections and rights at work.

Trade Union Workplace Access

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I draw attention to my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group. I am glad that he mentioned GMB’s frustrations with Amazon. Another sector in which that union and other unions have been frustrated is social care, which has been fragmented for three decades now. Does he agree that having a strong general statutory right of access must be complemented with an enhanced right of access under the forthcoming fair pay agreement in social care?

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The fair pay agreement architecture gives us a real opportunity to enhance the provisions.

Employment Rights Bill

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

If the hon. Lady supported Lords amendment 1, the catering worker would have a right to request, and could get the certainty she requires. The amendment would very much offer that right, which she currently does not have, but it would also mean there was no requirement on the employer to maintain records, and the employer would not have the administrative burden of being forced to offer those hours to workers in the industry who did not require such flexibility. That is why we think the amendment strikes the right balance.

We strongly support the principle of enabling workers to obtain fixed-hours contracts, but we have concerns about the implementation method proposed in the Bill. Small businesses have highlighted that having to offer employees fixed-hours contracts on a rolling basis could impose significant administrative burdens. Many small employers lack human resource or legal departments, and the change could be a significant cost for those with limited resources. That would compound other challenges, such as the recent increase in employers’ national insurance contributions and the fallout from the previous Government’s damaging Brexit deal. In the retail and hospitality sector, part-time and entry-level roles are often taken up by young people looking for flexible hours, people with caring responsibilities, and others who may not want to make long-term work commitments. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) offered a compelling example of a zero-hours contract giving someone what they required from work. For all those groups, flexibility is key.

The amendment is in line with our long-standing manifesto commitment to give zero-hours and agency workers the right to request fixed-hours contracts—a right that employers could not refuse unreasonably. The measure would maintain a flexibility that benefits both parties, whereas an obligation to offer guaranteed hours imposes a significant burden, which does not benefit either party.

We are clear that employees should be supported to exercise this right—and all employment rights—without fear of any negative consequences in their workplace, and we are pleased that the Government have taken steps to set up a unified Fair Work Agency. We hope that the Government will look into our other proposals—for example, the proposal to give zero-hours workers a 20% higher minimum wage to compensate them for the uncertainty of fluctuating hours.

The amendment strikes a balance between security for workers and flexibility for employers. Much of the contention about the Bill relates to the lack of detail and clarity around key definitions, which makes it hard for businesses and employers to plan. That is why I also wish to speak in favour of Lords amendment 8, which would define a short-notice cancellation as a cancellation with 48 hours’ notice. That provides a workable balance. It gives employers clarity, while ensuring that workers are compensated when shifts are cancelled late.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Member agree that fair notice may be relative to the industry we are talking about? What is fair notice in, say, the retail sector may be completely different from what is fair notice for someone working on an offshore oil rig.

[Sarah Olney]

No, I do not think so. Forty-eight hours is a reasonable amount of notice in any sector. That is the kind of notice that enables, for example, parents to rearrange childcare, or other members of the family to rearrange their shifts. The 48 hours is a proper definition of reasonable notice, and 48 hours is 48 hours, whether you work on an oil rig or in a shop. I disagree that it is context-dependent.

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[Laurence Turner]

I am grateful for being able to contribute to this debate. It is a privilege to follow so many powerful speeches, and the speech delivered by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) was the most powerful I have heard in this place. Her words rose to the moment; mine are inadequate by comparison. I can only thank her for speaking so powerfully about an issue that affects so many of us.

I welcome the new Secretary of State to his place, and thank him for the way in which he opened this debate.

At the outset, I draw the House’s attention to my background as an officer of the GMB union and my current unpaid role as chair of the GMB parliamentary group. In that capacity, I thank the hon. Member for Dundee Central (Chris Law), as he leaves the Chamber, for what he said about Members’ staff in this place. GMB is the union that represents the majority of people who work in support of us as Members of this House. I am sad to say that they are perhaps uniquely vulnerable to some of the abusive practices that have shamed our democracy for too long, and I am at a loss to understand how the relevant Lords amendments were ever brought forward from the other place.

I wish to speak specifically against Lords amendments 121, 11 and 1, and in support of the Government amendments that seek to strike them out. Before doing so, I want to say a few words about my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), who is not in his place at the moment. As a former shadow Minister and latterly as the sponsoring Minister for this Bill, he unfailingly and characteristically brought graft, industry and good humour to the brief. This will be a weaker and lesser Bill without him, and those of us who support the Bill and its principles owe him a debt of thanks. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), who brings a real depth of knowledge and understanding to the role of Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, is now guarding the Bill’s passage to Royal Assent. I know that she will be both pro-worker and pro-business in her approach.

I believe that Lords amendment 121 contains significant drafting weaknesses and would fundamentally alter the nature of the proposed and restored school support staff negotiating body. First, the amendment states that employers may introduce new terms and conditions of employment that

“meet or exceed any minimum standards set by the SSSNB.”

In legal terms, however, the SSSNB will not set or determine those standards; it is a statutory forum for negotiation. The actual conditions of employment will be set through regulations drafted by the Secretary of State and approved by Parliament.

Secondly, the actual parameters of a future pay and grading structure will be negotiated by the relevant parties: the representatives of employers, and the representatives of employees. That was the spirit of the original 2008 Act and the actual operation of the SSSNB in its original incarnation. Given my experience as a former trade union officer representing school support staff, I know the contractual issues that need to be addressed are so complicated that they cannot be satisfactorily resolved on the Floor of the House. That complexity is a result of 14 years of drift, dither and political disinterest in the 800,000 support staff workers in England who keep our schools going, and it is a damning indictment of the decision to cancel the original SSSNB.

Finally, Lords amendment 121 risks creating confusion at a local level. The amendment states that employers must not be restricted from introducing “improved terms and conditions”, but changes to contracts are not merely introduced; they are consulted on and agreed, either individually or collectively, under existing statutes. The effect of the somewhat loose wording in the amendment may be to encourage local attempts to make unilateral variations to contracts and terms and conditions. Members who support this amendment might say that only improvements could be made under it, but both “improvement” and “detriment” are subjective terms. They are in the eye of the beholder, and I believe that if the amendment were to be carried through, the actual effect may be to increase the number of court cases concerning school support staff.

I urge the Opposition not to push a point, and to reconsider their wider opposition to the school support staff negotiating body. School support staff undertake essential roles, and they deserve the same professional standards and professional respect that is afforded to teachers. That is what the restoration of the school support staff negotiating body will achieve.

We have debated the official Opposition’s amendments many times at various stages, but I want to comment on some of the Lords amendments that stand in the names of Liberal Democrat peers, either in whole or in part. When I entered this Chamber at the start of the debate, I did not presume that those amendments necessarily enjoyed the support of the Liberal Democrat Front Benchers in the Commons, but I am afraid that impression was dispelled by the contribution from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney).

I am at a loss to understand how the radical change in approach has come about among the Liberal Democrats in this House between Committee stage, Report, Third Reading and the debate that we are holding today. In fact, listening to the hon. Lady, I felt an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu: it was like watching the Rose Garden press conference all over again. After all, her Front-Bench colleagues—the hon. Members for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) and for Torbay (Steve Darling)—were at all times appropriately critical in Committee, but they were essentially supportive of the principle of enhancing workers’ rights. Lords amendment 11, which was originally a Conservative amendment in the Commons but now stands in the name of a Liberal Democrat peer, was not supported by the Liberal Democrats in Committee.

Lords amendment 1, which stands in the names of both Liberal Democrat and Conservative peers, seeks to amend clause 1. However, the Liberal Democrats supported that clause in Committee and only voiced concern, which was reasonable, that timely guidance to employers must be issued to accompany it; indeed, they voted with Labour Members when it was put to a vote in Committee. I fear that this amendment, too, could have serious unintended consequences.

The clause that it seeks to amend puts a duty on employers to offer regular-hours contracts to “workers”—that is the language used in the legislation as it stands at the moment—but the amendment seeks to convert that duty into a right to request by employees. “Employees” is, of course, a more restrictive category than “workers”; indeed, clause 148 of the Bill as drafted makes it clear that for the purpose of the interpretation of this Bill, “workers” and “employees” mean two different things. Many of the people who are classed only as “workers” are precisely those who may benefit the most from these protections. Some 5 million people who are nominally casual workers in sectors such as social care, construction, hospitality, security and retail could be excluded from these protections if the amendment, which stands in the names of Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers, were to be carried. I hope it is not the intention of those on the Conservative Benches to exclude those 5 million people. At the start of this debate, I could not believe that that was the intention of the Liberal Democrats, but now I am not so sure.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

The Women and Equalities Committee heard compelling evidence earlier this year about misogyny in the music industry. That is exactly one of the areas where people who are classed as “workers” need protection, so I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue.

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[Laurence Turner]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising a very powerful and relevant point. She is absolutely right that those are the groups of workers who would enjoy greater protection as a result of this legislation being carried.

I want to respond to a couple of points that have been made in this debate. It was a shame that the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who is not currently in his place, did not have the self-confidence in his arguments to take interventions on his points. He referred repeatedly to the validity of estimates of the number of workers employed on zero-hours contracts, but there are good reasons for not having confidence in these estimates. After all, they are derived from the Office for National Statistics labour force survey, which has had well-advertised and well-understood problems with response rates that have wider implications for both the current Government and the previous Government. It is well known that the number of people who identify as being on a zero-hours contract corresponds to changes in the wording of that particular question. In addition, the labour force survey has well-understood limitations when it comes to reaching people who are employed in what might be called the most marginalised parts of the economy. I therefore urge Conservative Members not to have too much confidence in those estimates, but to look instead at the surveys of workers undertaken by many organisations, such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and trade unions.

It was a shame to hear during the debate the number of references to trade union political funds only in the context of party funding. Of course, the great majority of trade union political funds are operated by trade unions that are not affiliated to any political party. Furthermore, the political funds even of Labour-affiliated unions in practice often support meaningful and consequential campaigns that are supported by Members across the House. One example to which I would draw Members’ attention is the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018—sometimes called the protect the protectors legislation—which began as a result of trade union campaigning that was not party political in its nature, and that legislation has since been broadened. I pay tribute to USDAW’s “Freedom From Fear” campaign and the work that has been done to extend the same protections to retail workers. These are exactly the sort of valuable campaigns that, sadly, Members from both the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats are looking to restrict.

Finally on points raised, I had not intended at the start of the debate to talk about heritage railways. Indeed, it must be said that during those long years in opposition, when we were looking closely as trade union officials at the potential future issues that would be covered by trade union legislation, I think it is fair to say that that issue never once came up, but perhaps we were guilty of tunnel vision. [Interruption.] Sorry, I will not do that again. Throughout all the debates on this matter in the other place and here, it has been discussed purely in theoretical terms. The contention has been that the 1920 Act has had a chilling effect on the of operation heritage railways across the country. I do not think, but I would be glad to be corrected, that any actual examples have been brought forward of either court cases being taken or legal advice being received from those organisations, but it certainly feels like an issue that the Transport Committee may wish to consider.

I have tried to limit my comments only to the details of the Lords amendments, but if I may, I will make two general comments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough said, the Labour manifesto committed to

“implementing ‘Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay…’ in full…and introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal.”

Yet in front of us are Lords amendments that would either obviate many of those commitments or reduce their potency to homeopathic levels. As he also rightly said, there can be no question of nodding through amendments that contradict the clear mandate we first received a year ago, and which commands broad support among voters of all parties.

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[Sam Rushworth]

It will, absolutely. We should not have people working in those kinds of conditions and that sort of poverty in 2025.

[Laurence Turner]

My hon. Friend speaks about care workers. Does he agree that one issue so brutally exposed during the pandemic was the fact that many thousands of care workers were classed as workers, not employees? As a consequence, they could not get full access to sick pay. One consequence of that was that the fatality rates among both residents and workers were much higher in the care homes that did not make that provision available. If the provisions in the Bill were in place then, many thousands of lives could have been saved.

[Sam Rushworth]

My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. Another great provision in the Bill is that right to sick pay, which is so important and would have been so important for many care workers during the pandemic.

In my mind’s eye are those women sitting at that bus stop in the cold. Two other people I met who were also care workers—one lives in High Etherley and the other in Etherley Dene—told me similar stories. They did not vote for me. They did not vote for anybody, because they did not believe that anybody could fix their problems. They just told me that their lives were tough. They had to pay for their own uniforms. They were not really getting the minimum wage for their work. They felt disrespected by everybody. They felt vulnerable and left behind. But I made them a promise that if I came to this place, I would speak up for them. I am doing that today and I am voting for them today.

Finally, the Employment Rights Bill is not just good for workers; it is also good for businesses. So many family businesses in Bishop Auckland, Shildon, Crook and Barnard Castle all tell me the same thing. They tell me how much they enjoy contributing to our local economy and how important it is to them that they are a responsible, decent employer. But they tell me how tough it is when there is a race to the bottom. They want employment rights strengthened. They do not want the watered-down version coming to us from the Lords. They want the full-fat version of this Bill, because they know it is good for their workers and good for their businesses.

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[Euan Stainbank]

I fully agree that the economic benefit of security in the workplace is evident. I have worked in some of the most insecure industries in hospitality, and people trying to rush themselves back into work was a severe issue, especially just after the pandemic, because they did not have another source of income. If they had to isolate, there was financial support, luckily, which was just about enough to cover wages for a period, administered by local authorities. However, there were still a lot more people who tried to drive themselves back into the workplace. I remember coming back after a 10-day isolation period after having covid, and I could tell that I was not prepared physically or mentally to re-enter the workplace. It did make me think that I wanted to call in sick. It is then substantially more difficult for someone to re-enter work, especially in high-intensity industries. We often forget how physically intensive hospitality and retail workplaces, where people are working on zero-hours contracts, can be.

[Laurence Turner]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. I rise merely to support what he is saying. About a decade ago, the University of Manchester published research that found that being in forms of insecure employment may be more damaging to health than being unemployed.

[Euan Stainbank]

That is substantially clear. I would add the concern that long-term sickness translates into long-term unemployment, which is often seen in the most insecure workplaces. We often think of people burning out in a very high-stress, high-income job, but it happens right through our labour market. In my experience, it has led to devastating consequences, but those are personal stories that I do not have the permission or time to go into.

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[Peter Kyle]

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and your colleagues for conducting this debate so efficiently and effectively. I am grateful to Members from across the House for the contributions they have made to the debate today and throughout the development of this legislation. It has been exhaustively debated—in Committee and in both Chambers—and now it has come back again to be exhaustively voted on this evening.

The Employment Rights Bill will benefit millions of people across the country, raising the floor for workers and strengthening protections in the modern workplace. It will help unlock higher productivity, drive innovation and create the right conditions for long-term, sustainable and secure economic growth. This has been a constructive debate, and I thank Members from across the House for their varied and valuable views. I will now turn to individual contributions. Many Members spoke about their broad views on the Bill without asking specific questions, but I would like to unpick as many as I can, because it was a good, high-quality debate.

I start with the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), whose contribution I enjoyed very much, particularly because we are both Sussex MPs. He referred to many places in his constituency and asked whether I had visited some of them. I grew up in Bognor Regis just down the road and at weekends would often walk to places that he now represents in Parliament. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the Sussex Downs.

The shadow Secretary of State said that the Bill was a bad day for democracy. He is not unknown for overstatement, but given that the Bill was in the manifesto that won the trust of the public, I would say that today is a good day for democracy. It is a day when the Government elected by the people deliver on a promise made to the people, when a Bill that was introduced in the House of Commons, debated here in Committee, and debated extensively in House of Lords, has come back. This is democracy at its very best. I hope he will reflect on that.

There are a lot of issues with voting percentage thresholds, which the shadow Secretary of State also raised. I point out that he was elected to this place on 28% of the vote of the community that he represents. If we apply his logic, he is advocating one rule for him and another for every other worker in the country. To the Labour party, that simply does not stand.

I also point out that during the Conservatives’ period in government from 2010 onwards, employment tribunal delays increased by 60%. We therefore take no lectures from those who criticise some of the costs that may or may not be incurred as a result of the Bill, because they inflicted enormous measures and costs on businesses around the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) made a passionate, detailed and personal speech about the Bill. It is clear that the Bill is the culmination of his career before coming into politics and in politics, both in opposition and in government. I cannot thank him enough for his work and for how he has engaged with me since I was appointed to this job just over a week ago. I hope that he sees in the debate and the approach of this Front-Bench team the legacy he left being represented loud and clear.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne) spoke passionately about the cause of seasonal workers. He spoke for the consultation that we have pledged to have to ensure that we get this right. Several hon. Members from across the House spoke about seasonal workers; it was good to see them represented. As a Member of Parliament for Sussex—my hon. Friend is a Member of Parliament for Kent—we care deeply about these issues, and we will strive to ensure that we get it right.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) raised an important point on non-disclosure arrangements, which she has campaigned so hard for. I thank her not only for speaking with passion but for standing on a record of delivery on this matter. She is an advocate for whom we should all be proud, because she has used her parliamentary prowess to deliver the real change needed on NDA reform. I thank Zelda Perkins —I believe she is not in the Gallery now, but she was here—who has shown extraordinary bravery through her advocacy for victims of harassment and discrimination. I have stood by in admiration of the work she has undertaken.

My right hon. Friend asked what the consultation will cover. We will consult on the regulations that expand the types of individuals and measures that apply beyond those who were within the definition of “employee” and “worker”, and on the conditions for excepted NDAs. To give an example, where a victim requests one and workers are covered by an excepted NDA, they can speak about the relevant harassment and discrimination to, for example, a lawyer or a medical professional.

My right hon. Friend also asked about the timings. Unfortunately, I cannot provide a timetable tonight, but I want to be clear that this is a personal priority for me. I reassure her that we will be moving as fast as possible to consult on the related secondary legislation and commence the measure. I will stay in touch with her so that she is fully informed along the way.

I am grateful to hon. Members across the House for their contributions today and for their hard work in getting the Bill where it is. It is of paramount importance that we get the Bill on to the statute book and start delivering for businesses and workers as soon as possible.

[Laurence Turner]

My right hon. Friend is rightly talking about the contributions made in the debate by hon. Members of various parties. I am always reluctant to criticise individual Members who may not attend a debate, because they often have good reasons, but there has now become a pattern: at no point in the Bill’s passage has any Reform Member spoken to justify their stance of scrapping thousands of laws, including employment laws. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a democratic deficit in not one Reform Member ever having spoken to defend their stance?

[Peter Kyle]

Yes, indeed. When we talk about seasonal workers, we do not mean Reform Members. Of course, Members have lots of duties elsewhere, but it is not surprising to me that a party led by somebody who goes to another country and invites that country to punish this country would be absent from a debate all about giving rights to workers right across the country. Reform wants to strip our workers of their rights, their dignity and, through its actions, the pay in their pockets. The absence of Reform Members today suggests nothing else.

I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to consider carefully the amendments I have proposed in lieu of those made in the other place. One of my predecessors as President of the Board of Trade once argued that workers need protection because, without it,

“the good employer is undercut by the bad, and the bad employer is undercut by the worst”.—[Official Report, 28 April 1909; Vol. 4, c. 388.]

That predecessor was Winston Churchill. He knew that the best employers need protecting from unfair competition by companies who trade at the expense of rights at work. The Bill protects workers from exploitation and protects businesses from unfair competition. That is why the Bill is pro-worker and pro-business.

Government amendment (a) made to Lords amendment 22.

Government amendment (b) made to Lords amendment 22.

Lords amendment 22, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 1

Right to guaranteed hours

Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.—(Peter Kyle.)

Jaguar Land Rover Cyber-attack

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am tempted to say that it is too early to say, as the hon. Gentleman gave me that get-out clause at the end. The main thing I want to ensure is that all MPs have the information they need on a secure basis, so that they can provide reassurance to their constituents. I am sure that there will be all sorts of rumours spreading around, some of which may be very wide of the mark, and I want to ensure that JLR is able to provide information to everybody. We are going into recess next Tuesday; otherwise, I would have been more than happy to gather MPs to have these discussions in a private setting. It is probably best if we see how we go on Friday. I do not think that half an hour will suffice for a Zoom call with JLR; I will make that point to the chief executive.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes and Halewood (Derek Twigg) for securing this urgent question, and welcome the Minister to his new role. JLR employs hundreds of people directly in my constituency, and many more indirectly. This is an extremely concerning time for them, and I hope that the Department will consider providing information directly to local MPs, in addition to engaging with the company. As has been said, this attack follows attacks on Marks & Spencer, the NHS, the British Library and other public institutions. I understand why the Minister has set out that the Government’s focus is on ensuring that companies are better protected and report these kinds of incidents, but can he assure the House that all steps are being taken to identify areas of critical national vulnerability in both the public and private sectors, so that we can try to avoid these attacks in the first place?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I can assure my hon. Friend that we do that. Of course, I fully understand that this issue comes on top of other issues for JLR this year, not least tariffs in the United States of America. As my hon. Friend knows, the Prime Minister was very personally engaged in making sure that we got a better deal with the United States, and was able to announce that in a JLR factory. I know that some voluntary redundancies are going through the normal business process at JLR at the moment; that has nothing to do with this cyber-attack. However, I can give my hon. Friend the assurance he asks for.

Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 4th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This Bill will help to preserve the United Kingdom’s position as a global leader in product regulation, supporting businesses, protecting consumers and ensuring a fair and level playing field across our economy, whether on the high street or on online marketplaces. It is designed to future-proof our approach to product regulation and metrology, ensuring that we can respond effectively to emerging technologies, tackle modern-day safety challenges and create the conditions for safe innovation and sustainable economic growth. By strengthening the system that underpins confidence in our goods market, we are reinforcing one of the core pillars of a productive and competitive economy.

As hon. Members will know, the majority of the UK’s product safety and metrology laws have their roots in EU legislation developed over the past 40 years. That framework served us well in many respects, but, of course, we have left the European Union, so we have a responsibility and an opportunity to tailor our rules to the UK’s own needs, circumstances and ambitions.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

We have heard arguments today, as we did in Committee, that this measured Bill is some mysterious route back into the EU. Does the Minister agree that, far from discovering a Trojan horse, the Opposition are trying to flog a dead one and that their arguments have been made up on the hoof?

[Justin Madders]

I give my hon. Friend 10 out of 10 for ingenuity. I have heard so many references to horses during the passage of the Bill that at times I felt I was at the Aintree racecourse. We can be clear that the Bill will not lead to dynamic alignment by default.