Employment Rights Bill

Lord Ashcombe Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I expect the bigger employers, if they know about this legislation—although we are hearing from a lot of the employers’ representatives that a lot of their members had not even heard about the day one rights until very recently—will probably put their HR departments and lawyers on it. I am concerned about the smaller ones, which is why I am sympathetic to the amendments in this group on micro employers and small employers. Otherwise, this could start to become a very expensive business. It is yet another reason why the Government generally do not seem to understand the chilling effect that not only their economic policies but legislation such as this will have on the recruitment of people to jobs.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I had no intention of coming here today to speak until I had dinner last night. Having put in a day’s work, I thought it was time to come here and express an opinion.

I would like to describe that situation last night. It follows on from a lot of what my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley said and the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor. This friend of mine, whom I have known for 30 or 40 years, is a small businessman in Bath, down in the West Country. He said to me, “Mark, we have a major problem coming. I have friends in similar places who run small businesses”—he runs a business of some six or seven people. “We are all talking together, because that is how we transfer knowledge, and the number of us beginning to think about throwing in the towel is significant. I want you to know about it”.

If this change were to happen, it would affect the poor employees of these businesses. There is nothing inherently wrong with these businesses but there is, as we have heard, more and more legislation coming upon them. It is the employees who are going. The domino effect through local economies is too much for these businesses. These small guys have to employ lawyers, HR experts and so on. I work for a company where we have those in house. They are just getting to the end of their tether. They do not want to stop, but I hope that Amendments 205 and 207 will help prevent that sort of thing happening and another nail in the coffin for these small businesses, which are really struggling as they think about the hassle of going on.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments concerns the provision of employment rights. The essence of the group is about requiring employers to provide workers with a written statement of their trade union rights. Even after seven hours, I enjoyed listening to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, describe a romp through the 1970s and the bad old days of the Labour Party bringing the country to its knees and almost losing the car industry. He failed to skip into the 1980s, when the Government did destroy an industry—the coal industry—and did immeasurable damage to the trade union movement, which it has taken decades to recover from and is at the heart of the Bill. It is a direct result of actions taken by a certain Government in a previous life. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, I have been here since the start of the debate and listening. As the Companion says, it is courtesy to be here at the start of the debate to listen to the opening speeches and then the winding up speeches. There seems to be real departure from that by Members, who just wander in, make contributions and wander out.