Leaving the EU: Workers’ Rights

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is for this House, the UK’s trade unions and the UK’s parliamentarians of all parties to preserve and enhance workforce rights in the UK for everybody within it in a way that is tailored to the extraordinary opportunities that await us as we leave the EU.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Yesterday, I and a number of my colleagues signed early-day motion 57, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), as a public indication of support for the withdrawal agreement Bill through which we would have been able to secure some amendments that would give peace of mind, hopefully to Labour colleagues, that workers’ rights would not be undermined after we leave the EU. Does the Business Secretary share my disappointment that rather than bringing the Bill through this House, enabling us all to talk about these things and trying to get the strongest amendments possible, the Prime Minister has instead chosen to pull his Bill?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I have the greatest respect and regard for the hon. Lady, and I am sorry to say that on this I disagree with her. If Parliament really did intend to provide the opportunity for the withdrawal agreement Bill to have its Third Reading and Royal Assent, this House would also have supported the timetable to do that. Unfortunately, the fact that so few colleagues, on both sides of the House, decided to support the programme motion means that it undermined its own credibility and willingness to bring that Bill to its conclusion.