Employment Rights: Government Plans

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) [V]]

For the Labour party to decide on our employment rights, it first needs to win a general election. The good news is that the British working classes will not allow that; they do not trust Labour.

The United Kingdom has one of the best records on workers’ rights anywhere in the world, but of course the Labour party is still bitter about us leaving the EU. It does not think that our elected MPs should have the power to decide what rules apply in the UK. It is the policies of the Labour party that threaten workers’ pay and conditions. It wants to keep people on benefits and flood the workplace with cheap labour, through free movement. How does that help the British worker? It does not.

Our new Business Secretary has been very clear: we are not going to lower the standards of workers’ rights. Why would we? It makes no sense at all. Even the Mayor of London, who gets most things wrong, got it when he said there was no evidence for Labour’s claims that workers’ rights would be eroded after Brexit.

However, I think we should always look at strengthening employment rights, especially when some workers are being exploited by people who, quite frankly, should know better. Let us start with the Labour party. During the 2015 election, I recall that security guards at Labour’s offices were being paid less than the living wage, despite the Labour party being an accredited living wage employer. I am not quite sure who the Labour party leader was at this time, but perhaps the Minister could remind the House when he sums up.

In 2018, four Labour Front Benchers advertised jobs in their offices for below their own £10 an hour living wage pledge. It is total hypocrisy: they say one thing and do another. They say they are against private schools, yet send their own kids to private schools. They say they want better workers’ rights, yet fail their own employees.

In a nutshell, we have some of the best protections in the world, and I am confident that this Government will go much further. Meanwhile, I predict that the Labour party will slide much further back, as the real workers in this country are sick to death of hearing them moaning all the time. Now, I have done my time, done my graft, done my shift down the pits, but what do they really know about workers’ rights? Absolutely nothing, because most of them have never done a proper day’s work in their lives. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; that’s me done.