Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we had the Northern Ireland investment summit a few months ago. We met lots of businesses and investors who talked about how they want to take advantage of these markets. In fact, we have had one of the first big investors into a factory in Belfast. What I can do is help him with some of the materials we have around the export academy and the export support service, which he can hand out to businesses in his constituency who want to find out more.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

For UK businesses to benefit from agreements like the CPTPP, we must have a clear plan to boost small business exports. Labour has a plan to remove export barriers, with clear information and support. That is in stark contrast to the Government’s approach, which has been a catalogue of failures, including the recent fiasco with the Government’s export website, which was so deficient that firms were forced to seek essential information from foreign Government websites. What immediate steps will the Department take to provide some stability and ensure UK businesses can excel in exporting?

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

I was delighted to give the Select Committee evidence on Wilko. The administration report on Wilko is continuing and clearly we need to see the findings, but investigations so far have not shown that director misconduct played an instrumental part in Wilko’s failure, although I think it is clear to all concerned that there were failures in management that led to the company’s demise.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokes- person.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

How strange the change from minor to major in that response. Financial transparency and accountability are essential components of economic stability. For three years now, the Government have been promising legislation and improved checks on company finances, but they have repeatedly failed to deliver. How can the Minister justify leaving the audit and governance Bill out of the King’s Speech, when it is supported by businesses, regulators and auditors alike?

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is not the case at all. We take these matters very seriously, but we do not think that completely banning fire and rehire is the right thing to do because there are some situations in which companies need to restructure quickly. We think that employees’ proper consultation rights should be observed. Where they are not observed and where an employer does not follow the statutory code of practice, employment tribunals can impose a significant uplift on redundancy payments. We think that is the best way to deal with this, by striking a balance between companies and their workers.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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

Fire and rehire is rife in this country. Research published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that, between March 2020 and July 2021, 43,000 employers changed their employees’ contracts through fire and rehire techniques. The Government promised in March 2022 that they would take action following the P&O scandal, and we now learn that it will be a full two years since that time before anything actually changes. Given the propensity for using fire and rehire tactics, can the Minister tell us how many employees he estimates will have had their contract changed through fire and rehire in that two-year period?