Employment Rights Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I would like to say how difficult my task is, because I have to follow three such excellent maiden speeches. I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Berger and Lady Gray of Tottenham, and my noble friend Lady Cash. I thank my noble friend and all the noble Lords who have welcomed me with such warm words, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Burns—my fellow QPR supporter.

I asked various people for advice before thinking about what to say in my maiden speech, and I was given three quite strong pieces of advice: thank the doorkeepers, praise the people who introduced you, and keep it short. For inspiration, I looked up the maiden speech of my father, Lord Young of Dartington, who was made a life Peer by the late noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, in 1978, but his maiden proved not to be terribly helpful: he forgot to thank the doorkeepers, he did not praise either of the people who had introduced him, and he spoke for 18 minutes. Noble Lords will be reassured to know that, in that respect at least, I do not intend to follow in his footsteps. I thank the doorkeepers, Black Rod and her staff, the Clerk of the Parliaments and all the clerks, and all the wonderful people who work here and have gone out of their way to help me when they found me wandering lost along one of the corridors.

When I heard the expression “corridors of power”, I did not realise that there were quite so many of them. I have no sense of direction and have made various errors—schoolboy errors—trying to navigate this place. For instance, I entered the Chamber the other day, remembered to bow to the Throne, took my place with what I thought was the minimum of fuss and congratulated myself on having done it—with some élan, I thought. A moment later, I got a text message from my noble friend Lord Effingham, which read as follows: “Lord Young, on the basis that you have taken the Conservative Whip, may I please suggest that you sit on the Conservative Benches?” I then noticed I was surrounded by Labour Peers.

When my elevation was announced, I wrote an article in the Spectator in which I said that I thought I was only the second child of a life Peer to be made a life Peer—the other being the late Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville. In fact, it turns out I am not the only child of a life Peer in this House, and I take this opportunity to apologise to the following people: the noble Lords, Lord Maude of Horsham, Lord Palumbo of Southwark, Lord Prior of Brampton, Lord Soames of Fletching and Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, Lady Chisolm of Owlpen and Lady Jay of Paddington, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Smith of Cluny, the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town, whose mother, the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, also sits in this House, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot.

I really should have remembered that last one because the noble Lord’s father, the late Lord Vaizey of Greenwich, was one of the two people who introduced my father in 1978—and whom he forgot to thank. I do not want to make that mistake, so I thank my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, whom I am also proud to call my close friends. I also thank my excellent mentors—like the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, I needed two—my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Borwick.

As was disclosed, I am a keen QPR fan and season ticket holder. I am the editor-in-chief of the Daily Sceptic, a news publishing site I set up in 2020, and an associate editor of the Spectator, where I have written a weekly column for about 25 years. I am interested in education, having co-founded one of England’s first free schools, as well as three other free schools and the multi-academy trusts they now sit within, alongside five other schools. I am the founder and general secretary of the Free Speech Union, a mass membership public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of its members and campaigns for free speech more widely. In the past five years, with the help of our extremely able chairman, my noble friend Lord Biggar, the FSU has come to the defence of over 3,500 people, not all of whom share my political views.

The FSU really is a non-partisan organisation, and I often find myself defending people whose views I do not share. For instance, I have been a lifelong supporter of Israel, ever since my father sent me to a kibbutz when I was 17. My late father-in-law, Ivo Bondy, escaped from Prague in 1939 by the skin of his teeth. He was Jewish, and I was one of the co-founders of the British Friends of Israel shortly after 7 October. Yet, the FSU has come to the defence of several people who found themselves in trouble for their outspoken support of the Palestinian cause.

Before I sit down, I will say a few words about the Bill. One misunderstanding has arisen about the extension of liability for third-party harassment. The Bill does not extend employer liability for the sexual harassment by third parties of their employees. Employees are already protected from third-party sexual harassment by the Employment Rights Act 1996. Clause 20 extends employers’ liability for the non-sexual harassment of their employees by third parties, and I fear that that will have a chilling effect on free speech. How will the owners of hospitality businesses—publicans, for instance—protect their employees from being harassed by third parties, given that the employment tribunal has defined harassment as including indirect harassment, which includes overheard conversations that are not necessarily directed at them? How will publicans be expected to protect their employees from overhearing customers’ conversations that they may find offensive or upsetting by virtue of their protected characteristics? 

When it was suggested in the other place that pubs might have to employ “banter bouncers” to police the conversations of customers, as one of the “reasonable steps” publicans are expected to take to protect their employees from indirect harassment, it was met with derisive, dismissive laughter from the Government Benches—as being a ludicrous strawman. But I do not think it is a strawman. Before we dismiss that concern as unduly alarmist, I draw attention to a briefing published earlier this week by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. The EHRC pointed out that employers will have to balance the rights of third parties to express their legally protected beliefs with the rights of their employees not to be harassed. That is an extremely complicated area of law, and I do not envy publicans trying to get their heads around that.

The EHRC briefing states:

“The interaction of the third-party’s protection from discrimination and the employee’s protection from harassment is complex and is likely to be challenging for employers to navigate”.


For challenging, read “expensive”, since publicans will have to take legal advice on how to limit their liability. I wonder how many publicans will decide, in the face of all their other difficulties, that this new duty, the cost of complying with it and the additional risks entailed mean that the game is no longer worth the candle.

According to the Campaign for Real Ale, pubs are closing at the rate of 37 a week. I hope your Lordships will think carefully before approving the clause in this Bill which I fear will accelerate the erasure of such a vital part of our history and heritage: the good old British pub.