Employment Rights Bill

Lord Leong Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, as a proprietor of a small business, I can say that anything with the words “all reasonable” in it is going to meet with some very careful consideration. Of course, I am going to take advice and spend a good deal of time internally looking at the consequences. For me, and I would expect for most businesses like mine, there are going to be costs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, employment lawyers do not come cheap, and I expect that this is going to cost a great deal more than the Government say it is.

Of course, I can also see the benefits. If I read Clauses 19 and 20 together, and apply them to the way schools are run, I think we are going to get discipline at Katharine Birbalsingh levels, because schools will have an active duty to make sure that their staff are not harassed by pupils or parents. They will be required to come up to the best standards, so I can see the Government’s ambitions in this. Amendment 97, which proposes a really accurate look at the benefits and costs of this part of the Bill, would be therefore helpful so that we all understand how to make the best of what are undoubtedly, at their heart, some very good intentions.

In case the noble Lord, Lord Fox, is reaching for his matchbox again tonight to light his straw men, here are a couple of examples from my experience. One is from visiting someone my age in hospital who was recovering from a serious operation. A couple of other people on the ward, under the influence of the shock of the operation and the drugs they were on, had reverted 50 years; the way they were treating the black nurses was quite extraordinarily horrible. The nurses were taking it on the chin and carrying on giving the best possible care. The other example is a disabled woman in a wheelchair who asked for help getting on a train at a station but was refused for reasons she thought condescending. She got a bit cross, and the station manager said, “Right, we’re not putting you on any train today”.

Those situations would both be impacted by Clause 20 in particular. How will this Bill work in practice? Looking at those two circumstances, will it be possible for the NHS, or indeed other caring organisations, to offer care where patients have become, for reasons that are not to do with their conscious selves, completely unreasonable? Is it reasonable to leave a disabled woman marooned in London just because she had a disagreement with a member of staff who got upset about it? How is this going to work? A really good understanding of that—rather than us all having to worry about what the impact of this section might be —would be a really helpful thing to find in this Bill.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very thought-provoking debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for tabling Amendment 97. The noble Lord is seeking to add a new clause that would require the Secretary of State to assess the impact on free speech and on employers of Clauses 19 to 22 when the Bill becomes an Act. We have already produced and published an extensive set of impact assessments. Indeed, we have produced and published no fewer than four impact assessments covering provisions in the scope of the noble Lord’s amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

In order to get his speech off to a really good start, can the Minister include his defence of the red rating given to those impact assessments by the Regulatory Policy Committee, a completely independent assessment?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for reminding me of this; we covered it last week. The RPC did not question the policy of the Bill. It just questioned the evidence—and I will go further on this Bill.

These assessments are based on the best available evidence of the potential impact on businesses, workers and the wider economy. We plan to further define this analysis in the future, working with a range of stakeholders including businesses, trade unions, academics, think tanks and the Regulatory Policy Committee to do so.

The Government are steadfast in their commitment to tackle all forms of harassment in the workplace. We know that harassment at work can have a huge impact on affected individuals, as well as broader economic impacts. The burden of holding perpetrators to account and of driving change is too great to be shouldered by employees alone. These measures send a clear signal to all employers that they must take steps to protect their employees from harassment, including from third parties, to encourage a cultural change.

We know that the vast majority of employers agree that harassment is unacceptable and are working to ensure that their employees are treated with respect. We will work in partnership with them towards this shared goal and will support them with these changes. We will publish an enactment impact assessment once the Bill receives Royal Assent, in line with the Better Regulation Framework. This will account for amendments made to primary legislation during the Bill’s passage through Parliament that would significantly change the impact of the policy on business. This impact assessment will be published alongside the enacted legislation. Additionally, we will publish further analysis, alongside carrying out further consultation with stake-holders, ahead of any secondary legislation, to meet our Better Regulation requirements.

According to our best estimates, across all our harassment measures the monetary cost to businesses will not be significant. Other than the initial one-off familiarisation cost, repeatable costs to businesses are very low. All three measures will also bring benefits to businesses in avoiding the harassment of staff.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I hear what the Minister says, but even the economic analysis says there will be a 15% increase in individual enforcement cases in employment tribunals arising from litigation because of the Bill. The analysis says:

“The exact impact on the enforcement system is difficult to predict because the number of cases that enter the system each year fluctuates”,


and that

“final policy decisions taken at secondary legislation will alter the number of workers in scope of protections and likelihood of a worker making a claim. These decisions are still subject to consultation and further policy development and therefore cannot be assessed with confidence”.

Later it says that the

“initial analysis on the impact of the Bill on enforcement is subject to change as policy development continues”.

The Minister is asking us to wave this clause through on the basis of information that has not been presented to this House.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

No, I was not saying that. What I said is that we are carrying out consultation and we will conduct further impact assessments. We are not saying that we are finished with it and that this is it. We have already assessed the impact of provisions about third-party harassment on SMEs in our impact assessment on third-party harassment. In all our impact assessments we assess the impact on SMEs, and the Bill is not expected to have a disproportionate impact on SMEs.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, “all reasonable steps” is serious stuff. You not only have to employ someone who has a breadth of experience that goes beyond yours as an SME to advise you as to what “all reasonable steps” are; you also have to work out, in conversations with your staff, how those are to be expressed in practice. I reckon it would cost me £1,000 in year one. In year two the cost does not go down much, because things change: the law clarifies and develops, and you have to go back to the expert. Internal conversations may be clear, so it may be £500. Multiply that across SMEs—we are not a huge SME—and you get a much bigger figure than the Government are talking about. I would really like to know where they are getting their figures from.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

This is precisely why we need to have consultation and to talk to the stakeholders out there. The more information we have, the better it is for us to assess the impact. Let me carry on, and I will come back to various noble Lords’ questions.

The proposed amendments would not add value, given the expansive impact assessments the Government have already committed. Some 27 impact assessments have already been done.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, asked for evidence. The ONS figures have been published, so I do not need to repeat them. They state that some 21.8% of the people aged 16 years and over who say they have experienced sexual harassment in person in the last 12 months experienced it at their place of work. On third-party evidence, the ONS states that some 9.2% of the people aged 16 years and over who say they have experienced non-sexual harassment in the last 12 months had been harassed by a client or a member of the public contracted through work.

Before I conclude, let me share a personal story which I still find it very difficult to talk about and share. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I also worked in a pub in my student days. That time is a period that I would rather not remember, but because of the nature of the debate today, I am sharing this with noble Lords for the first time—including some of my colleagues. This is a very personal story. Every day that I worked at the pub, I was harassed. I was called “Kung Fu Fighter” and “Ching”; I was called everything under the sky. Every time they wanted to ask for a pint, all names were shouted at me. I complained to the manager then and he said, “Oh, it’s the British culture. It’s a bit of banter”. It was not a bit of banter, because until today I still find it very difficult to talk about. This is perhaps my contribution to whatever impact assessment the noble Lords want. I left the pub after, probably, two weeks because I just could not take it anymore. When I made some money, I wanted to buy the pub so that I could sack the manager, but, unfortunately, the pub was closed.

This is a very personal story, and I just want noble Lords to reflect. I am just one of millions of people affected in this way. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

We are all very grateful to the Minister for sharing that personal experience. I believe he can be comforted by knowing that there is a shared desire right across this House to ensure that all workplaces are safe, respectful and free from harassment. I hope that he would also expect, in the light of his personal experience—and I think several of us could probably share our personal experiences—that we must, however, act as a Parliament should act, which is that well- intentioned legislation has to be workable, proportionate and underpinned by clear evidence.

The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, made the point about the benefits, but any impact assessment will not be restricted to looking at the costs but will also look at the benefits. Any proper impact assessment should give the full picture, so that when the legislation is presented to Parliament, we can adjudicate on it. In many ways, the consultation he instanced is coming the wrong way round. The consultation should accompany the intention to legislate. Then, once the consultation is complete, we are subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Consultation is no excuse for lacking accountability to Parliament. That is, I think, where the issue divides us.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I take on board every contribution made by every noble Lord. This is a very important aspect, and we need to get it right. Rather than me reading a couple of sentences provided by my officials in the Box, I make an offer to all noble Lords that I will organise a meeting so that we can sit down and go through this in more detail.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

There is no need for me to say any more. Thank you very much. I accept that offer, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.