Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, in the time available I want to focus on the workplace impact of the Bill and say something about what I think is the Government’s mindset.

The Government claim that the Bill will create the right conditions for economic recovery, strengthen the business environment, reduce regulatory burdens and improve business and consumer confidence. These are worthy objectives and who could possibly oppose them? However, the problem with the Bill is not its objectives but the ideology and mindset from which it springs. These were ably summarised by my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lady Dean, and I share their sentiments.

What we have here is a coalition that is not very well advised about how the real world of industry operates. It appears to have no real understanding about what is holding back the economy. It is simple: lack of demand; falling consumer confidence; and the refusal of the banks to lend to and support UK businesses. The Government do not recognise the dangers posed by cuts that are too fast and too deep, which have taken the economy from growth to double-dip recession. Neither do they seem to be aware of the dangers posed by wage cuts, wage freezes and the biggest fall in living standards for a generation, which, together, have choked off any meaningful recovery.

The coalition clearly believes that growth and recovery will come from taking away the rights of hard-working people and the regulations that give them security. They are eager to dilute employment rights and abolish regulations which prevent accidents and save lives. This Bill is about a dismantling of workers’ rights earned over many years to stop exploitation. It is also about the abolition of the protection which ensures the health and safety of workers. As I understand it, this is not a one-off. It will be complemented by a so-called Growth and Infrastructure Bill where workers will be offered a few IOU shares in return for their employment rights.

The coalition does not seem to understand that workers’ rights can not be bought and sold on eBay. They have to be earned and they have to be respected. In the world of the coalition, basic employment rights are barriers to growth and health and safety laws are burdens on business. In the upside down world of the coalition, they believe the best thing to do with justice and fairness is not to spread it, nor embed it, but to abolish it. That is what the Bill seeks to do.

I know of no credible economic theory which has ever argued that making it easier to sack people will deliver employment growth and prosperity. The reality is very different. You do not boost recovery by making it easier to fire workers. You boost recovery by making it easier to hire workers. Nothing in the Bill will achieve that objective. It is regrettable that there are so many positive steps the Government could have taken to boost growth and jobs and create a totally new industrial workplace environment. Every economics student would be able to say precisely how. But no, instead the Government have opted to attack ordinary, hard-working people. Their rights and their safety are the target of the Bill. It is not only unjust, unfair and unnecessary: it is also unworkable. You cannot rebuild your economy by destroying the morale, commitment and productive capacity of your workforce but this is precisely what happens when workers are treated as liabilities rather than assets.

By any standards of fairness, a large section of the Bill is not just wrong-headed, it is actually self-defeating. It is often said that those who live the longest see the most. Even in my bonus years, which I am very much enjoying, I did not expect to see such an anti-workers Bill. It is a Bill that will undermine the rights of millions of people in workplaces up and down the country. It is a Bill that will undermine the economy, not help it. It is a Bill that says everything you need to know about the way the Government think, just how out of touch they are and the direction of travel for the future.

What is needed, to make a real difference, is a Bill built on fairness, investment and growth.