Employment Rights

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes some good points. I agree with her that some of the appalling treatment in places such as Leicester that was highlighted in press articles is unacceptable. Our response to the consultation sets out the high-level proposals for the single enforcement body. We will be developing more detailed plans for the body’s operation and structure in partnership with the existing enforcement bodies. The noble Baroness will be aware that creating the new body will require primary legislation, and timing will depend on the legislative timescale. However, we are committed to ensuring that it has adequate funding for enforcement; we will do that through the spending review, as I mentioned.

The Government have a good record on protecting employment rights enforcement. We have more than doubled the budget for minimum wage enforcement and compliance, which is now over £27 million per year.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, a number of noble Lords have mentioned the warm words in this Statement. The one-third of active trade unionists who vote Conservative will welcome those warm words from this Government.

I have two specific questions. First, when will the proposed changes in the power of the Certification Officer be made public and put in the public domain for us to discuss? Secondly, does the Minister agree that it is important to balance flexibility with effective protection for workers?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. The legislation will be introduced shortly, and it is important that we balance flexibility with protections. My noble friend feels very strongly about this issue. It is a dynamic, flexible economy that makes the UK such a fantastic place to work and gives us such relatively low levels of unemployment compared to many other European countries. We are the envy of the world in terms of not only our protection for workers’ rights but our flexible economy. The steps that we are taking on enforcement will help the country to build back better by taking a smarter approach to the enforcement of employment law, and will make it easier for the vast majority of responsible businesses to comply with the rules.