Fire and Rehire

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for securing the debate and I declare an interest as a member of Unite.

Pay and terms and conditions of work are fundamental to the lives that people can afford to lead and the pensions they will be entitled to. Constituents have written to me describing fire and rehire as abusive, appalling and immoral, and they are right. It is an attack on the rights of working people, who generate the wealth that shareholders enjoy and who provide the services we need. Dismissing workers in order to re-employ them on worse terms and conditions is quite simply wrong, and it is shameful that any employer would engage in those cynical tactics. The Government must ban fire and rehire.

As a member of Unite, I was proud to support yesterday’s day of action and I pay tribute to the work of the trade union movement. It is a matter of deep concern that the practice of fire and rehire seems to have become more common since the start of the pandemic. Deploying such a tactic at such a time is particularly shameful, and there have been high-profile disputes involving companies such as British Airways, British Gas, Go North West, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, and Brush Electrical Machines.

Earlier this year, the TUC estimated that since March 2020 nearly one worker in 10 has been told to reapply for their job on worse terms and conditions. The research showed that young people have been particularly badly affected, with nearly a fifth of 18 to 24-year-olds who were surveyed saying that their employer has tried to rehire them on inferior terms during the pandemic. According to the TUC, 15% of the black and minority ethnic workers it surveyed have faced fire and rehire, compared with 8% of the white workers it surveyed.

Earlier this year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy engaged ACAS to gather evidence of how fire and rehire is being used. The Government received evidence from ACAS on 17 February, yet still they have not published it or responded to it. That is simply not good enough, so will the Minister commit himself today to publishing the evidence and his Department’s response to it without further delay?

In January, a Labour motion tabled in the House of Commons called on the Government to set out for Parliament a timetable to introduce legislation to end fire and rehire tactics. The motion was carried by 263 votes to zero, with MPs on the Government Benches abstaining. That was profoundly disappointing and showed how little the Conservatives care about workers’ rights, terms and conditions.

Make no mistake—the Government’s lack of action is causing misery and financial difficulties for working people. The Secretary of State has described fire and rehire as unacceptable, and the Minister who is here today has condemned it many times in his own words, yet Government legislation to end those shameful tactics has not been forthcoming. Will the Minister do what the Prime Minister failed to do last week and guarantee that there will be a commitment to end fire and rehire in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech?