Jobs Market

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Skidelsky (CB)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

It is the turn of the Lib Dem Benches.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I love the optimism from the Minister. Can he say what distortion there is on the employment figures from jobs which are not real jobs—zero-hour jobs—where people do not know whether they have a job tomorrow, next week or next month? There are so many people who now seem to be counted in the Minister’s assessment of jobs who are not fully employed. Do the Government have any actions planned to turn those negligible jobs into real jobs?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am, of course, very much a glass-half-full type of person, but one of the core reforms that the Government put through in the Employment Rights Act was to ensure that zero-hours contracts do not drive standards to the bottom. We are about rewarding good employers and ensuring that they are not undercut by bad employers through mechanisms such as zero-hours contracts.