Employment Rights Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 16th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

263ZA: Clause 87, page 107, line 12, at end insert—
“(3A) A person may not be appointed as an enforcement officer under this section unless they—(a) possess professional qualifications relevant to the enforcement of labour market legislation;(b) have undergone prescribed training in the exercise of statutory powers, including rights of entry, inspection, and seizure.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that enforcement officers possess appropriate professional qualifications, training, and suitability.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will speak to Amendments 263ZA, 263ZB, 263B, 263C and 271ZA in my name. I will also briefly refer to Amendments 268 and 271 tabled by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond who sends apologies that he cannot be here this evening.

Amendments 263ZA and 263ZB go to the heart of what it means to enforce employment and labour rights in a manner that is consistent with the values of competence, fairness and democratic accountability. They correct a notable deficiency in the current drafting of the Bill and help to align the enforcement regime with the expectation of the workers it is meant to protect and the legal and moral standards of the state that commissions that protection. The role of an enforcement officer is not merely administrative. It is a position of public authority. It carries with it the power to enter workplaces, examine records and question individuals and in some circumstances to impose sanctions or refer matters for prosecution. These are not trivial tasks. They are functions which, if carried out poorly, inconsistently or abusively, can cause serious harm, not only to employers but to vulnerable workers who may already be in a precarious or marginalised position.

Under the clauses currently drafted, there is no explicit requirement for enforcement officers wielding these powers to possess any formal qualifications or specific training. That silence is troubling and perplexing. We would not allow an environmental health inspector to carry out food safety inspections without the requisite public health training, we would not permit a planning enforcement officer to issue legal notices without understanding the statutory framework in which they operate, yet here we are contemplating giving substantial and often intrusive powers to individuals without requiring that they meet even a basic threshold of professional competence. This amendment seeks to address that omission in a way that is clear, proportionate and entirely consistent with how enforcement is handled in other regulatory spheres. It is not enough to presume that competence will arise through experience alone or that the Secretary of State will voluntarily set high standards through policy or guidance. Experience in other areas has shown that when qualification and training requirements are not embedded in statute, they become vulnerable to erosion, particularly when budgets are tight or political pressures arise.

The second amendment proposing new subsection (4A) is of equal importance. It would require the Secretary of State to ensure that enforcement officers maintain records of all enforcement actions, that they provide written notice to the persons affected by those actions explaining the reasons for the intervention and that they submit activity reports to an independent oversight body. Again, this is not a matter of administrative detail but a fundamental principle. Enforcement that is opaque is enforcement that is liable to error, inconsistency and, in the worst cases, abuse. The powers under this part of the Bill are extensive and potentially disruptive. They can lead to business interruptions, reputational damage and personal distress. For these reasons, it is only right that enforcement activity be recorded, explained and subject to independent scrutiny.

The requirement to maintain accurate records of enforcement action is essential not only for the protection of those being investigated, but for the proper functioning of the enforcement system itself. Without such records there can be no effective auditing of performance, no analysis of systemic trends and no evidentiary basis for defending an action should it be challenged in the employment tribunal or the courts. Similarly, the obligation to provide written notice to those affected by enforcement actions is a basic requirement of procedural fairness. It ensures that individuals and businesses understand why a given action was taken and gives them the opportunity to challenge it if they believe it to be unjustified or disproportionate. It is a protection against not only state overreach, but the perception of arbitrary or unfair behaviour by agents of the state. Perhaps most importantly, the requirement for regular reporting to an independent oversight body injects an essential layer of democratic accountability into what is otherwise a closed executive process.

The oversight body would not be tasked with micromanaging individual cases. Rather, its function would be to ensure that the enforcement regime as a whole operated in a manner consistent with the rule of law, with proportionality and with respect for the rights of those subject to state power. The amendments would protect businesses from inconsistent or poorly executed interventions, and they would protect the integrity of the enforcement regime itself from reputational damage and legal challenge.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I said earlier in my contribution that the letters of appointment made to these people will spell out their duties. Obviously, their relationship to the Secretary of State will be spelled out in the letter of appointment. I have said several times now that they will be operationally independent, so that could be a key message in those letters of appointment.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for her extensive answer and to my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lady Coffey, the noble Lords, Lord Carter of Haslemere, Lord Londesborough and Lord Stoneham, for their contributions to this short but very interesting debate.

As we come to the end of our discussion on these amendments to the Employment Rights Bill, I express my thanks to noble Lords who have contributed with such clarity and conviction and my disappointment with the Government’s response. Amendment 269, tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes, fits very neatly with the requirement on the Secretary of State to produce annual reports under Clause 92. The Secretary of State has a duty to consult the advisory board, so I simply cannot understand why the Government would reject the idea of just combining the two and getting on with it. Equally, I do not understand why they would not want to take the suggestions of my noble friend Lady Coffey to tighten up the requirement. Nothing under those terms for the advisory board or the reports that need to be produced by the Secretary of State require a great deal of external information.

We have tabled amendments that are measured, constructive and rooted in principle. We have not sought to gut the Bill or to frustrate its aim of enforcing fair and lawful treatment in the labour market. On the contrary, we have sought to strengthen it and to ensure that the powers that it grants are effective and accountable, that enforcement is robust and fair and that ordinary businesses, especially small and micro enterprises, are not crushed under the weight of uncertainty, disproportionate penalties or faceless bureaucracy.

The noble Lord, Lord Carter, made excellent points about accountability. Enforcement is about not just force but legitimacy. It is about trust, and trust is only sustained when those who wield power are subject to oversight, transparency and to reasonable limits. That is not red tape. It is just a democratic principle. That is why we ask for qualifications and training to be made a prerequisite for enforcement officers, an obvious step given the serious powers that they will be entrusted with.

The Minister rejected my amendment introducing that notion, saying that it was not necessary because of Clause 87(6), just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I note that Clause 87(3) says:

“In this Part ‘enforcement officer’ means a person appointed by the Secretary of State under this section”—


note that it says, “a person”, not necessarily “a qualified person”—whereas Clause 87(6), on which the Minister replied, says:

“A person appointed under this section may exercise any powers of an enforcement officer to the extent specified in the appointment”.


As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, informed us, there is no notion in there of independence, skills or anything else. That argument as to why our amendment is not necessary falls based on what is in the Bill.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I advise the Committee that if this amendment were agreed to, it would not be possible for me to call Amendment 264A for reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for her amendment in this group and for her introduction. I will speak to Amendments 266 and 267 in my name. These amendments are not presented in opposition to the spirit or general objectives of the Bill. Indeed, we fully support the aims of enforcing employment rights and ensuring that bad employers do not undercut fair ones. These amendments respond to a real and serious concern about the breadth of the power that the Bill currently gives to Ministers—a power that, if left unchecked, would allow a future Government to expand the remit of the fair work agency with far-reaching consequences but only the most minimal parliamentary oversight.

Paragraph 35 of Schedule 7 allows the Secretary of State to add to the list of enactments that fall under the enforcement remit of the fair work agency by way of regulations. That list, set out in Part 1 of Schedule 7, includes a range of statutory rights covering pay, working time, sick pay and protections against exploitation. The current drafting allows for the addition of any enactment that relates to employees, workers, employers or trade unions. That is an extraordinarily broad formulation. It would allow the Secretary of State to bring into the fair work agency’s scope virtually any area of employment or labour law, potentially even those governing union recognition, industrial action or collective bargaining, by secondary legislation and with no meaningful boundary in statute.

Amendment 266 seeks to address this by narrowing the scope of this delegated power. It would limit the types of enactments that can be added to those that relate to hours, pay or holidays. These are, after all, the core minimum terms and conditions of the employment relationship. They are well understood, capable of objective enforcement and already subject to statutory minima in other parts of the Bill. They also reflect the matters over which the recognised trade unions typically have statutory bargaining rights. There is, therefore, a clear and principled rationale for limiting the fair work agency’s enforcement jurisdiction to these domains.

We put forward this amendment on the grounds that it is both reasonable and proportionate. It would still allow Ministers to respond to emerging issues in labour markets, such as new forms of pay abuse or evasion of working time rules. It would, however, prevent this power being used to draw the FWA into controversial or contested areas of employment law, or into territory where individual enforcement through tribunals is more appropriate than systemic enforcement by a regulator. It would preserve the coherence of the agency’s function and protect against mission creep over time.

We anticipate that Ministers will argue that this amendment is too prescriptive and does not allow sufficient flexibility to bring in related rights that may not neatly fall into the categories of pay, hours or holidays, but that are none the less important for fair work—for example, information rights, certain protections from detriment or emerging contractual abuses not yet addressed by current law. The Government may say that drawing such hard lines in primary legislation is undesirable and that a degree of discretion is necessary for effective future-proofing.

If the Government do not accept Amendment 266 on the grounds that it is too narrow, it follows that the strength of Amendment 267 becomes even more essential. This amendment would require that any regulations made under paragraph 35 be subject not merely to the affirmative resolution procedure but to the super-affirmative resolution procedure, which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is fond of, as defined in Section 18 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006.

The super-affirmative procedure is not some theoretical or obscure mechanism. It exists precisely for circumstances such as this, where Parliament grants the Executive a broad power to amend the application of primary legislation by secondary means. The procedure ensures that Parliament is properly consulted, that draft regulations are subject to scrutiny before they are laid and that there is an opportunity for representations to be made, considered and reflected in the final statutory instrument.

The two amendments offer a choice. If the Government agree with us that the power to amend Schedule 7 should be tightly confined, they can accept Amendment 266. If they prefer to retain flexibility, they must accept that that comes with the responsibility of subjecting that power to a higher standard of parliamentary scrutiny, in which case Amendment 267 is the minimum safeguard necessary. What would be constitutionally unacceptable is for the Government to reject both amendments, leaving in place a broad and undefined power exercisable by ordinary affirmative resolution. That would be to hand the Executive a blank cheque over the shape and scope of labour-market enforcement in this country, without adequate safeguards in place.

To conclude, I urge the Government to consider carefully the implications of paragraph 35 as currently drafted. It is not enough to say that Ministers do not intend to use this power in a wide-ranging or politically contentious way. We are legislating not just for the current Secretary of State but for future ones, too. If the Government want discretion, Parliament must have oversight, and if they want latitude, we must have safeguards. The amendments give the Government the opportunity to make a choice: define the limits of this power clearly or accept the heightened scrutiny that wide powers properly demand.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling Amendment 264ZA, which concerns the fair work agency’s remit. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for Amendments 266 and 267, which seek to alter the delegated powers in Part 2 of Schedule 7.

Amendment 264ZA would seriously restrict the fair work agency’s ability to tackle labour exploitation of a more serious nature where the threshold does not meet the requirement under the Modern Slavery Act. There are no other enforcement provisions in the Bill that would cover this scenario. Currently, a number of Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority investigations have to be abandoned when the modern slavery threshold is not met. Since 2023, 104 cases have been dropped. That is bad for labour abuse victims and for taxpayers.

We are adding elements of the Fraud Act to the fair work agency’s remit precisely to address this issue. It will allow the fair work agency to investigate cases of financial fraud by abuse of position. That has specifically been included within the Bill following extensive discussions with stakeholders, including the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and the Home Office. Removing the Fraud Act offences from the fair work agency’s scope would truly limit the agency’s effectiveness, and I must therefore respectfully resist this amendment.

Amendment 266, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, would drastically narrow the scope of the power. This would undermine the very purpose of the fair work agency, which is to simplify and consolidate the enforcement of labour market legislation. The fair work agency will be greater than the sum of its parts as its remit is further expanded. This will relieve pressure on a struggling employment tribunal system, which I have heard many times from noble Lords across the aisle.

The power to expand the fair work agency’s remit has appropriate safeguards and limitations. Any expansion of its scope will be informed by the advice from the agency’s tripartite advisory board, and with consideration of the overall enforcement strategy. Furthermore, any changes to the remit will be through affirmative-resolution regulations that will be laid before Parliament and, where relevant, will require the consent of the relevant Northern Ireland department. This power is crucial to the long-term flexibility of the fair work agency. By enabling the remit to expand over time, it can respond to developments in the labour market. If we were to restrict the power to such a narrow range of issues, we would be tying our own hands.

Amendment 267, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, would require that a super-affirmative resolution procedure be used when the Secretary of State exercises the delegated power in Part 2 of Schedule 7. In my almost three years in this House when the party opposite was in government, I never heard them bring any super-affirmative resolution in any of the Bills they brought before this House, so I do not understand the sudden change of heart.

This amendment is unnecessary. The Bill provides for appropriate parliamentary scrutiny as use of this power will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I also highlight that the recent report by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not raise any concern with this power as currently drafted. The additional scrutiny this amendment calls for would place unneeded burdens on parliamentary time, which is currently stretched. With this point in mind, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw Amendment 264ZA.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 267ZA, 267AA and 267AB in my name in this group. Schedule 7 tries to bring together a whole bunch of legislation in a meaningful and sensible way so that it can handily be used in future. I could have extended some of these amendments, but I decided to focus Amendment 266A on paragraph 35(5)(b) of Schedule 7, which relates to Clause 89 on the delegation of functions. I could have considered a whole number of these, because this is a classic Henry VIII clause—put something in primary, shove something through regulations and, hey presto, a whole Act can change before our very eyes. In particular, Clause 89(6), which I address in Amendment 267AB, stood out to me.

My concern is that we start off with this agency, the enforcement officers and all these different things, but Clause 89(1) says:

“The Secretary of State may make arrangements with a public authority”.


I do not think “a public authority” is defined anywhere else in legislation at all. This is the first time I have seen it defined, as

“a person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature”.

That could be a whole bunch of people. What does it really mean? Are they seeking to act in the public interest, or in a different way?

The Explanatory Notes do say what they are, but, as the Minister and the Committee will know, they are not part of legislation. One of the reasons for bringing this out is to try to understand from the Minister precisely what it means. The consequence of these bits of the legislation is that, by statutory instrument, this novel area that we are getting into could be changed very quickly, away from what might have seemed a sensible agency, though I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, would rather have operational independence.

This is why I have peppered through my amendments in this group the very specific point that it should be a public authority that has civil servants in it and is not a non-ministerial department. I think that there are about 24 non-ministerial departments. Perhaps really only two—the Supreme Court and the Crown Prosecution Service—should be non-ministerial, recognising the accountability that, understandably, Parliament and the public expect.

The difference of a non-ministerial department is that it is accountable to Parliament. The device to do that is principally through the Select Committee in the House of Commons, perhaps the Public Accounts Committee, not so much in the House of Lords. Therefore, significant parts of the work being done are left to an occasional accountability meeting, whereas if civil servants are not in a non-ministerial department, the Secretary of State is directly responsible and can be held to account by Parliament and can hold those civil servants to account. I am therefore very nervous about how easy it will become to change Clause 89(6) and what that then means. It would be better for the Government to have more in the Bill about what it is.

As we are starting to get into Part 5, could it be that the public authority starts to become not-for-profit groups of solicitors who start to have these enforcement functions? Could arms of trade unions suddenly start enforcing and be able do all these different elements and to take employers to court so this starts to spread? The reason for my amendments is to try to get better legislation about what this is supposed to be. I am desperately trying to make sure that the only people to whom these things can be delegated will be civil servants who honour what the Government have set out in Part 5 and that the variety of enforcement officers and the fair work agency will be directly accountable and have the executive powers of the Secretary of State. That can be done only if people are civil servants and they are not in a non-ministerial department. I beg to move.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for her amendments that comprise this group, and I speak in support of them. They bring much needed clarity and constitutional discipline to the question of to whom the Secretary of State may delegate important public functions.

Clause 89, as drafted, grants the Secretary of State, as my noble friend has explained, broad discretion to delegate enforcement and other key responsibilities to a public authority. However, the current definition of that term is overly expansive. It could include not only departments under direct ministerial control, but also non-ministerial departments and other bodies with a degree of operational independence from the Government, which raises fundamental issues of accountability.

If enforcement powers, which could be potentially intrusive and far-reaching, are to be delegated, they should be exercised by those within the direct chain of ministerial responsibility. They are civil servants who operate under the authority of Ministers and who are, in turn, accountable to Parliament. Amendment 267ZA, therefore, rightly confines the scope of Clause 89 to public authorities that are comprised of civil servants and are not non-ministerial departments. That would ensure such functions are not handed to bodies that lack clear ministerial oversight or democratic accountability.

Amendment 267AA serves as a necessary consequential safeguard because it ensures that any legal substitution of the Secretary of State with another authority in the eyes of the statute is similarly limited to such core public bodies. Without this clarification, we risk a situation where statutory references to ministerial powers are extended, potentially without scrutiny, to entities with a more ambiguous constitutional status. This is not about casting aspersions on the competence or integrity of non-ministerial departments. Many do good work, but they are deliberately designed to operate at arm's length from Ministers. They should not be the recipients of powers that the public rightly expects to be exercised under ministerial responsibility.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for Amendment 266A, 267ZA, 267AA and 267AB.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 267BA, 267BB and 267D in my name. This is where we get to the composition of the board. In this group of amendments, the most important that I have tabled is probably Amendment 267D. It would remove the words “trade unions” but would insert “employees”. I am conscious that, of course, trade unions represent employees, but I was surprised by the composition of the board: that the word “employee” did not turn up as to who the members of the board were supposed to represent. To that end, one reason why I laid Amendment 267D is that we should remember that only 22% of UK workers belong to a trade union. That leaves 78% who, at the moment, may not necessarily be represented in the consideration of the advisory board. I think it is important that we rectify that.

It is possible that independent experts and others may be involved. By the way, this happens on a variety of other bodies—I think it is so on the Health and Safety Executive. Usually, the organisations representing employees are trade unions, but the point is made that it does not have to necessarily be trade unions. It could be professional associations—that has happened in the past as well, from my recollection.

In looking at the composition of the board, I noticed that my noble friends on the Front Bench have come up with a slightly different approach. Mine has tried to be pretty straightforward and to, in effect, insert an independent chair, who should be put forward to the relevant committee in the House of Commons for consideration before their appointment.

Deliberately, I have put in some specifications as to who should chair the board. Recognising that this is all going to be about enforcement of legislation, considering a wide range of issues including taking legal action when it has not been requested by people, by workers, I have specified that we should consider this board, which is going to be very important to the Secretary of State because there are a number of situations where the legislation says that the Secretary State “must” consult the advisory board. To that end, it would be worth while to have somebody who is a qualified barrister, a KC, but who shows a particular level of accomplishment without needing to look to tribunal judges or similar to chair that board. I beg to move.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 267B, 267C and 268A standing in my name, and I also thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for introducing her amendment, and, of course, my noble friend Lady Noakes for signing them. Amendments 267B and 267C are not mere technicalities; they are a matter of principle. They are a matter of representation and ensuring that the new fair work agency advisory board truly reflects the full diversity and complexity of the modern UK labour market.

As drafted, Clause 90(4) proposes a tripartite board composed equally of individuals representing trade unions, employers and so-called independent experts. While the intention of the balance is commendable, the provision as it stands is both overly simplistic and insufficiently representative of the contemporary workface. As my noble friend highlighted, trade unions, for all their historic importance, now represent only 22.4% of employees across the United Kingdom, 12.3% of the private sector—so the bulk of those are in the public sector.

As my noble friend also pointed out, that leaves a staggering 77.6% of working people whose voices, interests and concerns are not captured through union representation. To restrict employee representation on this advisory board solely to trade union nominees is to exclude the overwhelming majority of the workforce. That is neither democratic nor representative. It is outdated.

This amendment seeks to rectify that imbalance by introducing a more inclusive and nuanced structure. It proposes that the board includes two representatives from the trade unions, rightly acknowledging their important role; three representatives of employees beyond the trade union movement, an expansion that ensures that the voices of non-unionised workers, gig economy participants, freelancers and precarious workers are also heard; five employer representatives to be appointed only after the Secretary of State has sought advice and recommendations from recognised business representative organisations, a process that will ensure that these appointments are rooted in sectoral legitimacy rather than political expediency; and three independent experts to provide critical objective insight grounded in academic, legal or practical labour market expertise. That structure would do three things. It would broaden representation, professionalise appointments and future-proof the board against the ever-evolving nature of work.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for tabling these amendments. I will begin by addressing Amendments 267AC and 267BB, which relate to the chair of the advisory board. The Bill already provides for a strong and credible chair, and we are confident that appropriate appointments can be made under the current drafting. These amendments would significantly narrow the pool of qualified candidates and exclude highly capable candidates. There is no precedent for such restrictions among similar bodies.

For example, the current chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine. She brings deep expertise in public policy, regulation and public service to the role, but she is not a practising barrister. The focus should be on appointing the best candidate through a rigorous merit-based process, not restricting eligibility by profession. Moreover, there is no precedent for these amendments. Similar bodies, such as the Low Pay Commission and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, do not impose this level of restriction or require parliamentary approval. These models work precisely because they allow the Secretary of State to appoint individuals with diverse and complementary expertise. We fully support a strong, credible chair, but that is best achieved through a robust and flexible appointments process, not through rigid statutory constraints or exclusions.

On Amendments 267B and 267BA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, we have no objection in principle to a larger advisory board, but this should be balanced against an increased cost to the taxpayer. In practice, we anticipate there will be nine members of the board mirroring the make-up of the Low Pay Commission, which has operated successfully for 25 years. The current drafting provides flexibility so that the Secretary of State may appoint more than nine members, but it is unwise to lock a specific number into primary legislation without operational justification. The amendment would create a fixed number of advisory board members. Clause 90 already provides for what the amendment seeks to achieve.

Turning to Amendments 267C and 267D, these amendments risk compromising the balanced representation of the advisory board. The current drafting has been carefully chosen to reflect the social partnership model that has served the Low Pay Commission and ACAS well for so many years with a mixture of employer, union and independent representation. Amendments 267C and 267D also seek to broaden employee representation on the advisory board by reducing the emphasis on trade unions. Let me be clear: trade unions serve to protect and advance the interests of all workers, and they are best placed to represent workers’ interests on the advisory board. Moreover, the Secretary of State has broad discretion to appoint members with relevant expertise as independent experts. The Government are also committed to ongoing engagement with relevant stakeholders through a variety of formal and informal means, so the advisory board is only one part of the landscape.

This leads me on to Amendment 268A, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. The independent experts are intended to bring deep subject matter expertise and a perspective not already captured by the other members of the advisory board. The existing drafting already protects against partiality, as an independent expert is a person who does not fall within the groups mentioned in Clause 94. The Bill already provides a sound and balanced framework for the board’s composition, one that is adaptable, proportionate and future-proof. I must therefore resist these amendments.

I must also respectfully resist Amendment 269, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, which risks undermining the very purpose of the advisory board. Transparency in governance is vital, and the Government share the commitment to ensuring appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. Placing a statutory duty on the advisory board to publish its advice could compromise that level of confidentiality and flexibility which we believe is essential for it to carry out its role effectively. Mandating a separate annual report also risks formalising what should remain a responsive advisory relationship, potentially limiting the board’s ability to offer genuine, timely and informal guidance on emerging issues.

Introducing even more reporting requirements would place a confusing and unnecessary reporting burden on enforcement teams, potentially diverting staff and resources away from front-line inspection and enforcement work, where they are most needed.

With this in mind, I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw Amendment 267AC.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend Lady Coffey and I raised the increasing statistical irrelevance of the trade unions. I do not think the Minister addressed that point. She also seemed to write off the idea of the advisory board amendments that we proposed, on the basis that they would be expensive to the taxpayer. But Clause 90(6) says:

“The Secretary of State may pay such remuneration or allowances to members of the Board as the Secretary of State may determine”.


They could determine to pay nothing, presumably, so why would that be an expense to the taxpayer?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thought I covered those points. As I said, we anticipate that the advisory board will have nine members, but we are building in some flexibility. We were trying to avoid locking a specific number into the primary legislation without any operational justification. I think that answers that point.

On the point about the unions, of course, if we stick with the social partnership model, they will be in a minority anyway. They will have the expertise and the knowledge to represent all employment issues on behalf of the workers.