Lord Whitty
Main Page: Lord Whitty (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Whitty
My Lords, does the Minister not accept that there is a difference between past employee shareholdings and a trade-off, which is what is proposed for employment rights? I suspect that our late colleague, Lord Bill McCarthy, would have asked a forensic question at this point. How does the Minister expect this scheme to run? Is it to be a one-off trading of all your employment rights or is there to be a sort of tariff, where you trade in flexible working for so many shares, maternity rights for so many more, the right to join a trade union for a few more and health and safety legislation for a few more than that? How is this actually going to work and what are employees being asked to sell?
Lord Marland
As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, knows, I normally have a high regard for his interventions but not in this case. The Benches opposite have to be so careful about bandying words such as “bullying” and talking about giving away employees’ rights. Noble Lords need to read the text to understand that we are not giving away all employees’ rights.