Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, I trust that the House will understand if I limit my contribution to the provisions of Clause 27. As noble Lords have already heard, many in this House had hoped and indeed anticipated that the Bill would have been informed by the recent report, No Stone Unturned, authored by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, and recently debated in this House. That report was built upon his experience, coupled with intellectual rigour. Sadly, however, what we have instead are some of the remnants of the Beecroft utterances, which are part of the package being incrementally introduced through primary legislation and the regulatory framework and which demonstrate that the Government’s real agenda is to change the balance of the workplace relationship.

In fact, the introduction to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website, on the subject of employment tribunal changes, could not be any clearer: it says that they will make it easier for business to take on staff and improve the process when staff have to be let go. So now we know what the Government’s real industrial agenda is: there is nothing about increasing the skills level, training and retraining opportunities, investing in adult apprenticeships for those who missed first training opportunities, or meaningful partnership, as the Minister recently outlined. There is nothing about consultation, how decisions are made or the prospects for the future development of the enterprises.

At Second Reading of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, I said:

“You do not boost recovery by making it easier to fire workers. You boost recovery by making it easier to hire workers”.—[Official Report, 14/11/12; col. 1585.]

I stand by that statement. You do not build a stable workforce by taking away workers’ rights, something that the Government seem not to understand. The Government do not understand that in the workplace rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. Workers cannot be expected to discharge responsibility if they feel devowed of their rights.

What is at risk in Clause 27 is very clear but the real difficulty is that we pay a heavy price for Clause 27. It undermines the fundamental rights on which good industrial working practices are built. Instead of stimulating growth, this Bill, along with other packages introduced under the veil of growth, is a hidden charter which provides for hiring and firing.

It is not unreasonable to pause here and ask, “How did we get here?”. I read in no manifesto, or indeed in the coalition agreement, that a Bill would be coming forward that contained the provisions of Clause 27. We got here because the Government will listen only to those who agree with their strategy and philosophy. They will listen only to the IoD and the CBI. Indeed, the recent publication from the IoD sets out a 10-point charter for so-called reform and control of the trade unions. In some instances I am not sure whether the IoD publication draws its source from Clause 27 or Clause 27 draws its source from the IoD publication. If you read one, save yourself some time—you do not have to read the other.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, dealt superbly with the issues around consultation. All I want to add is that the 21 days allowed for consultation on a matter of fundamental importance in terms of Britain’s future growth and infrastructure development is an affront to democracy. No wonder only 184 responses were received—out of those, only two individuals and one business stated that they would be minded to take up the options under Clause 27.

These proposals are without support, not from the usual suspects but from business and professional groups as well as legal practitioners and professional commentators including the Employee Ownership Association, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and, as we have heard, the Law Society. The Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Fawcett Society have both expressed concerns that the employee shareholder proposal will encourage discrimination because it is likely to affect women in the workplace disproportionately. Women are more likely to be employed part time, to be carers, to need parental leave and to be pressured into accepting lower status even before accepting a job offer. If the Government are really serious about wanting women to return to the labour market, they are not going about it in the right way. Clause 27 takes away the support that working women badly need such as training, flexible working and parental support.

Where is the evidence for the Government’s claim that this Bill is necessary? Many who work in industry and understand how it operates see this Bill not as an asset but as a potential liability. In his report the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, stresses the need for local enterprise partnerships to be the engine for delivering growth and infrastructure development for the future. The architects of this Bill see the primary solution to Britain’s industrial malaise as simply attacking workers’ rights. That has been tried before and it failed.

Will the Minister inform the House whether all employees would be eligible for these shares? Will there be a qualification period towards entitlement and, if so, at what point would the employees lose their rights? Will there be equality between full and part-time employees? What happens when the company gets taken over? What happens if the company goes into liquidation? You lose your shares and your employment rights.

The reality is that you have to consult, and be open and engaging. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, that I was an employee shareholder in a company for which I worked for more than 18 years. I did not have to give up my statutory employment rights; I was never asked to give up any rights whatever. That company was successful and still is.

I am a firm supporter of credible employee shareholder ownership and of the principles advocated by the Nuttall review but I doubt whether the proposals for selling workers’ rights for a few shares are credible, moral or fair.