Employment Rights

Lord Fox Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lennie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, workers face a real crisis of insecurity and a lack of protections, but the proposals announced in this Statement will do little to turn around the record of inaction from the Government. Whether it is dropping the employment Bill, allowing 2 million people to be paid below the minimum wage or indeed leaving the post of Director of Labour Market Enforcement vacant for months, the Government’s rhetoric on workers’ rights simply fails to match reality. We see this again today.

There is no plan for when the legislation for the single enforcement body will come to Parliament, despite three-quarters of respondents in the consultation stating that the current enforcement system is ineffective. As the Government said that the new body will

“significantly improve the Government’s ability to protect vulnerable workers and ensure they receive their employment rights”,

can the Minister confirm that the Bill is a priority and will at least be published this year?

There is no new money to merge three existing bodies into a single organisation with a significantly expanded remit. The consultation response states that the current funding will be “used more effectively”, but more funding for its new responsibilities, such as

“enforcement of holiday pay for vulnerable workers”,

is yet to be considered. So can the Minister explain how effective the body will be across all its responsibilities without additional support?

The most glaring omission in this plan is that many of the most exploitative employment practices will remain perfectly legal. Bogus self-employment denies millions of workers in the gig economy basic protections and rights. On fire and rehire, the Minister said:

“This Government have always been clear that we do not accept fire and rehire as a negotiation tactic.”


But the weak promise of further guidance only kicks the can further down the road.

Almost three million people—one in 10—have been subjected to fire and rehire since last March. This will not stop until this morally wrong and economically illiterate practice is outlawed. So will the Minister commit to giving workers full employment rights to ensure that everybody has dignity and security at work?

The Statement also reconfirms that the Government are determined to hobble trade unions, which are the best mechanism for protecting workers’ rights. The proposal to give the certification officer powers to commission investigations and fine trade unions even when there has been no complaint from a member—funded by a levy on trade unions—is an attack on working people and seeks to solve a problem that simply does not exist. Why are the Government not following President Biden’s proposals—he is here in the country—to empower trade unions to rejuvenate the American economy and raise living standards? If Ministers really want to do whatever they can to protect and enhance workers’ rights, they need to stop overpromising and start delivering for working people.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. This is a relatively small, long-overdue step towards upholding workers’ rights, and to that extent it is welcome. However, it comes with no parliamentary time allocated for legislation and no new funding.

There was a glaring hole in the Queen’s Speech. After a pandemic that has made life extremely hard for many people, it is disappointing that the Government are yet to announce an employment Bill to strengthen workers’ rights and to make the rules fit for modern working practice.

A single enforcement agency is welcome but, unless we look again at people’s working conditions and the rules in place, this agency—when it eventually emerges—will not be able to deliver the change that people need in their lives. To do that, it needs proper funding. For example, the International Labour Organization recommends that Governments have one inspector per 10,000 workers. In the UK the current funding is for 0.4, so can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House if and when the new agency will be funded to deliver ILO levels of inspection?

When an illusionist is practising their art, the key skill is misdirection. In this case, our attention is in danger of being distracted by decent and welcome words condemning the practice of fire and rehire. Meanwhile, the Government have conflated employment abuses with measures to crack down on trade unions. While there may be some issues in a small number of unions, they are not the cause of the problems faced by so many families. It is sharp employment practice that is taking UK families to the edge, not trade unions, so my next question to the Minister is: how do the Parliamentary Under-Secretary’s words in this Statement help people who right now are being fired and taken back on downgraded working contracts? This Statement condemns the practice, but now the Government have asked for a further report on the subject. This is kicking it into the long grass. When will the Government actually do something to help workers?

More broadly, in October 2016 the Government commissioned Matthew Taylor to carry out an independent review of the UK employment framework. The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices found that the labour market was changing due to the emergence of new business models and different forms of gig economy working; the Minister knows about this very well. It proposed many important measures to help support people’s jobs in those sectors. These measures received a broad welcome, and indeed warm words flowed from the Benches opposite. In their last manifesto, the Conservatives undertook to implement many of the report’s findings—yet it still gathers dust. Mr Taylor became interim Director of Labour Market Enforcement in August 2019, but then in January this year he announced that he was leaving and the role was not refilled. So have the Government abandoned their pledge to implement the Taylor review?

With or without Taylor, things need to change—and quickly. When will we see an end to the toxic practice of delivery workers being required to drive illegally so that they can meet their quotas? When will we see an end to people being forced to skip bathroom breaks? When will nearly two in five workers get more than a week’s notice of their working hours? When will gig economy workers get the wages they deserve—for example, the 20% higher minimum wage for people on zero-hours contracts? Because this is the real world of work that is facing many people right now.

Speaking in the Commons, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary said:

“Nothing is off the table.”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/6/21; col. 849.]


Actually, for the poorest, most exploited workers there is nothing on the table. These are words. When will we see some action?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lennie and Lord Fox, for their comments. To pick up the final question from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the Taylor review and workers’ rights, we have made good progress in bringing forward legislation to protect workers’ rights. We have closed the loophole that sees agency workers employed on cheaper rates than permanent workers, we have quadrupled the maximum fine for employers who treat their workers badly and we have given all workers the right to receive a statement of their rights from day one.

We are committed to protecting and enhancing workers’ rights. The noble Lord pointed to the Uber Supreme Court judgment. It was clear that those who qualify as workers under existing employment law are entitled to rights such as the minimum wage, and all gig economy businesses should ensure that they are fulfilling their legal responsibilities.

On the employment Bill, which both noble Lords asked me about, I can tell them, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, who said that the Bill had been dropped, that he is not correct. We are committed to bringing forward an employment Bill to protect and enhance workers’ rights as we build back better. We want a high-productivity, high-wage economy that delivers on our ambition, and we want to see workers protected.

With regard to firing and rehiring, the Government have set out a clear and proportionate course of action to address fire and rehire. It is a complex area of law so we have asked ACAS to produce better, more comprehensive and clearer guidance to help employers explore all the options before considering fire and rehire and to encourage good employment relations practice. We are looking closely at the ACAS report. While we are not legislating at this stage, we will continue to monitor the evidence on the use and prevalence of fire and rehire.

Both noble Lords asked me about the funding for the single enforcement body. As with all government funding, that will be considered during the spending review later this year. On the questions about the Certification Officer, it is important to point out that the principle of this in the legislation was passed and agreed in the Trade Union Act 2016. This is merely the enactment of those provisions, and it does no more than give powers to the Certification Officer similar to those that many other regulators already possess in these sorts of areas.