Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I very often find myself in disagreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, as she knows very well, but on this occasion I strongly support her powerful and very moving speech. We are talking about a disadvantaged section of the workforce. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, has just said, the wording of the regulations is a matter for the Government of the day, who could therefore keep regulations in such a way as to allow the maximum flexibility. However, I felt that he was not thinking about the single mother or the examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, such as the woman who gets somebody to look after her child on Friday, then finds that she has not got the job on that day but has still had to pay for care. She is then expected to turn up on Saturday and cannot afford the care for the child or to go to work. She is therefore penalised the following week. That cannot be what the noble Lord thinks that we should be cautious about.

I absolutely recognise that in a time of austerity—a time when the GDP is at long last rising and we want the utmost flexibility in business—we should not generally be putting curbs on business. However, speaking as a woman, we have to look at this. As a mother and grandmother who had to play my job as a barrister, and then as a judge, against the care arrangements when the nanny did not come in or the au pair was sick, I just said, “What do I do? How do I get to court?”. I was very lucky—I was very privileged—but these women are not. To suggest that we should keep the flexibility at their expense is something that I feel very concerned about. I am speaking rather passionately about this because of what the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said.

For goodness’ sake, the CBI, which cares about improving the GDP and having flexibility in business, supports some form of compensation. That is very significant support for what, to me, is a modest amendment. I hope that the House agrees.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I must confess that I find myself in a very difficult position. Your Lordships will know that I usually have views on things and people will know pretty clearly which side I am on. I find this one of the most difficult things to come to terms with because, for example, having some experience of employment in France I am perfectly clear that the unemployment rates there are very strongly affected by the stupidity of French employment laws. We in this country have had a much more open way of dealing with employment and, although we may think that zero-hours employment is not the ideal form of employment, it has certainly provided people who would otherwise not have a job with one.

As an employer who does not use this employment in any circumstance, I can honestly say that that is because I am privileged to run businesses which have been able to hold their head well above water during this depressing time. Businesses which have not been able to do that would not have been employing anybody if they could not have managed their way through recession in the way that they have done, through the use of employment practices of this kind. My concern is that this House should be very careful about making decisions that replace a form of employment with these disadvantages with no employment at all. I am sorry, but that is the issue. We are, I think, in danger if we say to ourselves, “This is what we would like to see, and we don’t see why we shouldn’t see it, and therefore we must see it”. I have a problem with that.

On the other hand, I accept very strongly that there is a difficulty for the single parent who has to make all sorts of arrangements in advance if they are to do a job at all. This Government have been absolutely right in trying to find ways in which we could encourage such women back to work. They do that not only because it contributes to society but because it also contributes to the women themselves. There is nothing as depressing as trying to live on a very small income and not being able to get out of that very closed-in situation. Those of us who have been lucky enough to bring up children in relative comfort and with two parents know how important it is for one or other of you—usually your wife—to hand the child to the other and say, “Look after it, I just have to have a moment”. That is the nature of bringing up children, and I have every sympathy with that.

I wonder, though, whether we should be careful and mindful of what the amendment says and whether the Minister will think on this: we do not want to do something that replaces less than good employment with no employment at all. The issue that the noble Baroness raised is very important. I am not sure that the amendment is right, but it is not an issue which we can just leave and let it go on. We really do have to see whether we can find proper evidence for a way of doing this that is not going to have the downside that I suggested. Is it possible for the Minister to give us some suggestions as to what she might do to meet the gravamen of the case in a way that does not have the downside that my noble friend Lord Stoneham has put forward? Is there a way in which we could get better evidence and find a more precise way of helping people, particularly the women concerned?

I think that it is very difficult for young people. But, in the end, young people are normally resilient enough to overcome those difficulties and I am not sure that I would risk anything to remove that. However, there is a specific case here for a specific group of people. I wonder whether the Minister can find a way through that, because otherwise I, along with my noble friend Lord Stoneham, think that the balance is just too dangerous for us to step over. But I would still like us to do better than that. Perhaps the Minister will find a way of helping me, for a rare time, find a clear answer to what seems a very difficult problem.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

Does the noble Lord recognise that all that this amendment does is force the Government to make regulations? In making those regulations, they can find a way of doing precisely what he is asking the Minister to do—to meet this problem in those areas where it needs to be met without damaging the principle of zero-hours contracts.

[Lord Deben]

I think that I am being tempted to answer in an uncharacteristically charming way. The people who are going to make these decisions are, if I may say so to an old friend and civil servant of mine, civil servants. I want this House to be a little bit careful about that, because very few civil servants have ever run any business in their life. It is one of our biggest problems that we have a system in which business is not understood by those who make most of the decisions. I want to know much more about what this regulation would be. If we agree to an open-ended provision that regulations shall be made, I am not sure that I would be happy to trust such regulations without a closer understanding of what they would be.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who seems to have got to the nub of this issue: the amendment is not about abolishing anything; it is about abolishing exploitation at the lower end of this employment policy. I could not disagree more with what the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said, which seemed to be a hagiography of the system. He seemed not to recognise that vulnerable people are regularly and deliberately exploited by it. I believe that the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hollis is aimed at correcting that exploitation and nothing more. It is not about abolishing the system, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, seemed to imply—I apologise if I have misinterpreted his comments. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, has got this absolutely right. That is why I urge the House to support my noble friend’s amendment.