Employment Rights

Lord Hendy Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister in the other place said yesterday:

“It is unacceptable and, frankly, immoral to use the threat of fire and rehire as a negotiating tactic to force through changes to people’s employment contracts”,—[Official Report, Commons, 8/6/21; col. 841.]


yet in only seven months of last year just short of 3 million workers were subjected to it. There is nothing in the ACAS report to justify not legislating. Can the Minister not accept that these millions of workers merit legislation, not just guidance, to protect them?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

This is a complicated area of employment law. We want to give employers flexibility to manage their business without producing undue effects on workers. Sometimes, sadly, it is necessary for employers to introduce changes; the alternative is that they go bust and no one has a job at all. We want to get this right and we want to introduce proportionate responses, but it is a complex area and we will be looking closely at it.