Employment Rights Bill (Ninth sitting)

Michael Wheeler Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

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

I refer the Committee to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of trade unions. It seems that my thoughts align with those of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak on the reasonableness of completely unforeseeable and unexpected things, but I would go a slight step further on what we are looking for from employers.

Even in circumstances in which something is so completely unexpected and unforeseeable that it might be reasonable for preparatory measures not to be in place, the duty would also address how employers respond. It is about having systems in place to react to incidents when they happen, rather than foreseeing every possible eventuality of the completely unexpected and unforeseeable. We can have supportive measures in place to prevent harassment from continuing or from happening again, and to support the individual.

[Greg Smith]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I broadly agree, but my challenge to him is that reasonableness can be interpreted in many different ways. There will always been an appeals process or something similar, but I worry that unless the legislation is clearer, some good-willed employers who are entirely honest and decent in how they try to protect their staff could, in some circumstances, be on a very sticky wicket trying to defend themselves against something that they never foresaw or dreamed of. They may have been a little too innocent, but they will find themselves in a difficult spot. That is where safeguards need to be locked into the legislation in respect of what is a very subjective test.

I was about to come on to an example. I will preface it by saying that absolutely nobody should be abused in the workplace and absolutely nobody should face any form of harassment in the workplace. However, let us think for a moment about how some of the Bill’s provisions would operate in an NHS accident and emergency department. In any A&E up and down the land, our wonderful doctors and nurses sometimes put themselves in harm’s way, particularly late at night. Perhaps they have a patient who is clearly inebriated but has injured themselves. I am not excusing it for one second, but it can and does happen. Let us say that an incredibly drunk patient, who may have fallen and broken their hand, verbally abuses—not sexually harasses—the doctor or nurse treating them. The doctor or nurse does not deserve that, and that behaviour should not be happening, but I would wager that it happens most Friday or Saturday nights somewhere. It is unacceptable, but it does happen. What should happen in that circumstance?

Employment Rights Bill (Tenth sitting)

Michael Wheeler Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB and Unite.

I want to bring this debate into reality—after all, the Bill seeks to affect real people’s lives and make their life at work better—and talk about my personal experience as a young woman. I was working a couple of jobs to get by, one of them as a silver service waitress on a zero-hours contract and minimum wage. The employer hired only young women, and we worked mostly at high-profile sporting events. To be sexually harassed was seen as normal. We were told to expect it, and we were told that we were expected to accept it—it was part of the job. The employer would also over-hire, so too many of us would turn up and many of us would be sent away, because it was decided that our face or figure did not fit the event that day. Those of us who got to the service were groped, propositioned, reprimanded if we talked back, and threatened with the sack. Travelling home from work together, we would feel completely humiliated and degraded, and we would exchange tales of what had happened to us that day. We took solace in the fact that we were not alone.

That behaviour is not something we should accept, but we know it still happens. That is why this part of the Bill is so important. No one should go to work dreading being harassed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester pointed out, the Fawcett Society has said that

“40% of women experience sexual harassment throughout their career.”

The Bill is intended to prevent workers from being subject to that vile behaviour, and it will ensure that people can get on with their jobs without being filled with fear, dread or humiliation, or feeling unsafe and degraded.

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

I did so this morning, but I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, as it pertains to some what I will say.

First, I want to take us right back to the beginning of the debate, if we can remember that long ago. The shadow Minister referenced the Regulatory Policy Committee’s assessment, in particular on the need for clauses 15 and 16. I strongly welcome what the Bill is doing in this space, in particular on third-party harassment. I do not profess to be an expert in the procedures and mechanisms of the RPC, but if we look broadly at society and at surveys and analysis of the state of work and what workers go through in this country, I think there is ample proper evidence of the need for these clauses.

I draw the Committee’s attention to this year’s “Freedom from Fear” survey released by USDAW, which surveyed retail workers in this country. It is an annual survey and the figures were released as part of Respect for Shopworkers Week in November. It featured responses from 4,000 participants, and the interim results showed that 69% of respondents—69% of a sample of 4,000 retail workers—had been verbally abused while at work, not by colleagues but by customers: a third party. Forty-five per cent had been threatened at work while simply going about their job. That is just one survey of one sample of one sector in our country that demonstrates the need for clauses 15 and 16.

On Opposition amendment 131, I must admit that I was slightly confused, but I was listening closely and I gathered that its thrust was primarily around free speech. We have talked a lot about unintended consequences in this Committee. I suggest that, whether it is intended or unintended, the consequence of the amendment, which would remove two entire sectors from the scope of the Bill, would be far too broad given the protections that are needed. That is particularly the case in the hospitality sector, and we have heard my hon Friends’ experiences of that sector. I question whether the amendment is at all proportionate, considering the overall aims of the Bill, as well as the experiences and evidence that we have heard from my hon. Friends and witnesses.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fact that the Government have not undertaken an impact assessment on these measures makes it very difficult to know whether the amendment is proportionate, and that in fact our amendment 135, which states that these provisions should not take effect until after the impact assessment has taken place, is an entirely sensible proposition?

If I may make a second point, Mr Stringer, on the issue of harassment at higher and further education colleges, one can quite imagine a situation where students put forward a point of view—perhaps on gender critical subjects, on which a lecturer or employee has particular strong views and students have other strong views—that could easily result in a charge of harassment by a third party. That is not what should be happening at our higher education establishments. We should encourage free speech. We should encourage students to express themselves forcefully but respectfully, and we should not see that resulting in what I would regard as spurious legal cases.

[Michael Wheeler]

As I said, I listened closely to the points that Opposition Members made. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester, I will allow the Minister to come back on the specifics of impact assessments. The point I am trying to make is that we are all looking at the same Bill and the same information. We might desire more information at this point, but we are exercising our judgment. Regardless of the specifics of any impact assessment, I think it is patently obvious that it is a disproportionate response to the concerns raised by Opposition Members to exclude entire sectors from the protections that we are discussing.

On hospitality, we heard in oral evidence from the trade union Unite—of which I am not a member—that it had surveyed its hospitality workers and found that 56% of them had considered leaving the sector entirely as a result of the sexual harassment they were experiencing. We have heard throughout the debate about the desire to support businesses. We heard from UKHospitality about struggles with retention and how measures in the Bill, outside of this one, will aid with that. I hope we can all agree that, beyond edge cases that might raise concerns, the significant protections for workers that we are discussing would be not only good for those workers, but fundamentally good for business.

[The Minister for Equalities (Dame Nia Griffith)]

We have had a full and thorough debate, and I thank my hon. Friends—in particular my learned hon. Friends the Members for High Peak and for Gloucester—for making many valuable arguments, and everybody for contributing their personal experiences.

I remind the Committee that clause 15 requires employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. Including “all” emphasises the thorough approach that employers must take; at the same time, the requirement remains limited to steps that are “reasonable”. The concept of “all reasonable steps” has the advantage of being well established and familiar to employers and employment tribunals. That is a really important point, because the clause clarifies and makes things easier and more straightforward, rather than complicated and burdensome, which is the implication of some of the amendments.

I thank the hon. Member for Dundee Central for speaking to new clauses 39 and 40 tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for her work on violence against women and on stalking, and indeed to the work of her predecessor on stalking. I reassure the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Lady that the Government entirely support the importance of ensuring that workers, including women and girls, are protected from workplace violence and harassment. There is already in place a strong and appropriate regulatory regime that provides protection to workers from violence and harassment. If the hon. Gentleman so desires, I will ask the Health and Safety Executive to write to him on that point.

--- Later in debate ---

Let us test the issue with real business and real industry; let us take the evidence we already have and try to come to a more proportionate view that will not cost the labour market and the British economy jobs. I genuinely cannot believe that anybody wants to create an environment that makes businesses more reticent to employ, companies less likely to grow their workforce, and our great industries less likely to grow. Given the evidence we have heard so far, I fear that that is unfortunately going to happen.

[Michael Wheeler]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way, and I will keep my intervention short, Mr Stringer. We are hearing a lot of grandiose threats when it comes to the economy, and I would like to drag us back to the specifics. This measure is not a ban on dismissal; it is not even a protection from dismissal. It is a protection from unfair dismissal, so it is quite narrow. It still allows for dismissal, disciplinary procedures and all of that. Does the shadow Minister have a timeframe in which he thinks it would be acceptable for workers to be unfairly dismissed?

[Greg Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the unfair dismissal point. Nobody wants to see anybody unfairly dismissed, but it is impossible to see each measure in the Bill in its own silo or its own column; each is part of the cumulative impact of many measures reverting to day one rights. So, too, is the measure before us, and the Committee has heard direct evidence from representatives of real businesses out there that it could have a damaging effect.

I am not arguing against the principle of what the Government are trying to do here—to protect workers against unfair dismissal. I am trying to test the waters on the operability of the Bill, and on the unintended consequence that it may have in terms of overall numbers in the job market and the rate at which companies out there make new hires, or indeed choose not to. It is a worthwhile exercise for the Committee to really test these things to see how this measure will work out in practice.