Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

As an amendment to Motion A, at end insert—

25K: Page 35, line 28, at end insert—
“( ) For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this section shall create a category of job vacancy which is solely an “employee shareholder job vacancy”.”

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, the reason for this Motion is because there is one point which has been made repeatedly the last four or five times in which this matter has been discussed in the Lords and the Commons. It relates to the category of job vacancy which is solely for employee shareholders.

Those of us who are versed in industrial relations have been very puzzled by this from the word go. What is this category of job vacancy which is offered by employers solely to employee shareholders? The Minister cannot possibly stick to what he has expressed once or twice that there is always an option. There is no option in this Bill unless the guidance is radically rewritten.

On 22 April, the Minister said that the guidance possibly did need rewriting but that that was not too difficult. I would invite him to do so but, given the time, perhaps all he needs to do is to acknowledge that, at the moment, the guidance is not perfect and needs to be rationalised in the light of much of what has been said in both Houses of Parliament.

Of course, it is true that employers may want some of these jobs to be for employee shareholders. However, if they then say that the only jobs available for that warehouse, or that factory, are employee shareholder jobs, that is saying that those prospective employees can either have a job and give up their rights against unfair dismissal or redundancy, or not have a job at all. That is not offering options.

The Minister needs to respond to this Motion in some way tonight but, more importantly, how is Parliament going to scrutinise all the various introductory procedures before this can become operational in Loughborough, for example, and elsewhere?

In conclusion, would the Minister now concede for the first time that there is in the Government’s mind—as is stated in the guidance—a category of job vacancy called an employee shareholder job vacancy? I beg to move.

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, I support the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall. My support is based on two principles which I want to clarify. First, it is important that the intention of Parliament is clear and my noble friend’s Motion does that. Secondly, there is the issue of equality of opportunity in the recruitment process.

Given the extent of the Government’s effort to secure the passage of this Bill, employers at every stage of the recruitment process will assume that having shareholder employees is the preferred option. For the avoidance of doubt, it is therefore imperative that the legislation is clear and that what Parliament means is recorded on the face of the Bill. The Motion does that: it removes any inadvertent preference for shareholder employees.

My second point concerns the avoidance of discrimination at the point of recruitment. Here is a very simple example. A job is advertised by an employer who is currently operating an employee shareholder scheme. It is my view that, without this Motion, there is no duty, no guidance to the employer not to discriminate in favour of a shareholder preferred option. For those reasons, the legislation can be enhanced by clarity of purpose in order to protect the employee and also the employer, who might have to answer questions about the choice that was made at the point of recruitment. There is no protection in respect of recruiting a shareholder employee rather than someone else who is equally or better qualified. I support the Motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Morris and Lord Lea, for their interventions. As I made clear in my opening remarks, we do not believe that the provision in the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Lea, is necessary. It should be up to employers to recruit as they see fit. If a company wants to recruit an employee shareholder, as companies already do with employees and workers, it should be able to do so in its own way. Taking the argument further, if an employer wishes to post a notice for, or advertise, an employee shareholder position, they should be free to place this as one role, just as they would be able to do in an advertisement for any other role. While the House has raised concerns on behalf of the individual, and particularly given the concessions we have made, we must ensure that we do not tie the hands of employers. The noble Lord’s Motion would do just that. Therefore, I hope that it will not be supported by the House.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I thank the Minister for his reply. Perhaps I should first mention my thanks to my noble friend Lord Morris of Handsworth, who some 15 years ago was the chairman of the TUC working party on rights at work. I recall that this was part of a hugely successful programme of improving the quality of the contract of employment in many ways. This is the first time I have seen legislation that explicitly states that you can have a contract of employment of less satisfactory quality. That should be a source of concern. It would have been a source of concern in Whitehall in the days of the Ministry of Labour. At the moment we have legislation that is like a dog with three legs. There is input from the Treasury, Customs and Excise and BIS, but because there is no ministry of labour, the collective experience of people who know about recruiting and agreements seems to have been totally lost.

I think that our predictions will come true and that the Government—or the Government in power at the time, because we are only two years from a general election—will see this programme staggering on its feet. All the difficulties, from those raised by my noble friend Lord Myners to those raised in our last debate by other noble Lords on all sides of the House, will come to pass. However, in light of the hour and having had a full debate on this question over many days, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Motion A2 withdrawn.