Fire and Rehire Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Whitty
Main Page: Lord Whitty (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Whitty's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(1 year, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, we always do the right thing. I realise that it is an easy soundbite for the noble Lord to say “ban fire and rehire”, but even he would accept that you cannot ban redundancies, for instance if a company is going bust. You would end up banning the rehiring part of the equation.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, legislation is useful, and I hope the Minister pursues that course, but in the meantime will the Government look very carefully at giving any new contracts to a firm which engages in such atrocious behaviour?
Lord Callanan (Con)
We want to see all companies engaging in responsible employment practice. The UK has an employment record to be proud of. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the western world, one of our lowest post-war records—down again yesterday. If you contrast that to many countries in the EU or on the continent, with much less flexible labour markets, the best employment right of all is a job.