Employment Rights Bill (Second sitting)

Michael Wheeler Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Equalities (Dame Nia Griffith)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of USDAW, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers.

[Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)]

I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB and USDAW.

[Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I refer to my declaration of interests and my membership of Unite and the GMB.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Darling]

Q My second question is to you, Neil, although I do not know whether you will be able to answer it—I listen with interest. How could the legislation impact on employment opportunities for individuals who have a disability, whether that is a sensory, physical or learning disability?

Neil Carberry: I regret that we are not at the end of the session, because it would have been lovely to meet Jennie.

Let me reflect on the REC’s experience. Over the past two years, we have placed 3,200 people into work from long-term unemployment through the Government’s restart scheme, and many of those people have faced barriers associated with disability. Allen reflected earlier on the flexibility offered by hospitality. Agency work also gives us a chance to do things a bit differently; it is not nine-to-five in the office. Access to Work is obviously an excellent scheme, but it only goes so far.

I will give you an example from Birmingham, where we have placed a single father into work. His challenge was not his own disability; he has a severely disabled child. The school to which one child goes is on one side of the city and the mainstream school the other child goes to is on the other side of the city, so he cannot do a nine-to-five. We have been able to place him into work on a flexible contract—when he can work, on a zero-hours contract. That is creating some opportunity.

What is really important in the whole Bill is to meet the workforce where they are, and they are somewhere different from where they were 10 or 15 years ago. This need for flexibility is how people manage. Let me round off with my favourite example. We have a member which fills Christmas shifts for John Lewis up at Magna Park in Milton Keynes. That is 3,000 jobs every day between August and Christmas, making sure that you get your Christmas presents. Ten years ago, they needed 3,500 candidates to fill those jobs because people got sick, had a week off, and obviously did not work seven days a week. Now they need 12,000 candidates, because people have greater choice: they are sitting at home, signed up to five or six of my members, and they are taking the shifts they want. For instance—this is an example that we have used in our own “temp work works” campaign—we have a temp worker who is managing a chronic illness, and they are working in the ways that they can work. If we think about the Government’s agenda today, I think embracing flexible work and agency work on that front, as an enabler for people, is really important.

[Michael Wheeler]

Q This question is primarily for Allen and UKHospitality. How big of a challenge is retention in the hospitality sector? Do you agree with the Nationwide Caterers Association that one benefit of the measures in the Bill around guaranteed hours will be reduced staff turnover?

Allen Simpson: Turnover is higher in hospitality than in many other sectors. Part of that is what you might call non-regretted turnover—that is, people who are in hospitality for a period and move on to their wider career, people who were students, or people with caring responsibilities. There are also people who move on for other reasons.

For people who want to be on a fixed-hours contract and are currently on a flexible contract, I absolutely agree that the ability to move from one to the other should help with retention—that seems absolutely true, yes. Equally, there are other elements of the Bill that provide a really suitable balance towards the worker and that will have exactly the same effect. The question is balancing that real value, which is absolutely there, against the unintended consequences of, as Neil has indicated, creating a hurdle rate, which means that it is hard to bring people into the workforce.

We saw, I think today, that there are 2.8 million people in the UK who are unemployed for health reasons. This is a sector able to bring those people in, and we need to make sure that we are both retaining and giving opportunities to people already in the sector and providing access to the sector for those 2.8 million people.

[The Chair]

Before I call Nick Timothy, we do not have long left now, and other Members are indicating that they want to speak. Could questions be quick and answers be slightly shorter, too?