Brexit: Employment Protection for Women

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for referring to that research, which of course I am aware of. We are also aware of the EU minimum standards and of where we are at the moment. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made clear, we will continue to meet those standards, but we will also be quite clear that we are ahead of European Union standards on a whole host of different areas, whether that is paternity leave or shared parental leave. We are doing our bit and will continue to do so; it is a matter for the UK Government to then decide in future.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that, when we have left the European Union, we will be able to enhance women’s rights in the workforce and not have to seek the agreement of 27 other member states and the Commission to do so? If the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, wishes to see improvements, it will be this Parliament that decides, and that is why we are leaving the European Union.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes a very good point. There was an intervention in the debate on Monday from the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, when she asked exactly this point about why we could not meet European standards and so on. She ended up by citing me and saying that I had replied,

“that the Government would take note of what the EU does in the future but that the whole point of Brexit was that we could make our own decisions”.

She went on to say:

“That is exactly what many of us are extremely concerned about”.—[Official Report, 5/3/18; col. 949.]


But as my noble friend has made clear, it is a matter for the United Kingdom Government and for the United Kingdom Parliament to decide these matters in the future.