Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Michael Wheeler and John Cooper

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

Sadly, we are not here to relitigate this entire Bill, which is so wide in scope and impact, and yet so skimpy in detail, having been cobbled together for a headline under Labour’s “first 100 days” banner. I refer the House to Lords amendment 61, which without doubt will be dashed aside as Labour seeks to salvage something, anything, as a legacy for its deposed red queen, the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), whose Bill this very much remains.

Lords amendment 61 would reinstate the requirement for trade union members to opt in to contribute to the political fund. Incredibly, Labour Members, who bristle at commercial subscriptions that rely on consumer inertia, will likely vote down this sensible and proportionate change. The reasons why demonstrate the wider issue with the Bill. The left’s hive mind aside, the Bill is a love letter to the unions—a thank you for all the support.

Labour has been bought with union gold, with donations totalling almost £40 million since the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) took the helm of his party. It means that the Bill is payback for the unions, all the time masquerading as a fillip for the working class. We know how important that working-class concept is for the Labour party from watching the candidates for the vacant deputy leadership engage in a “prolier than thou” contest, with hairshirt-and-gravel shades of Monty Python’s “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch thrown in.

In reality, the Bill has little to do with actual working-class people, and the Labour party has no monopoly on them in their ranks. Instead, the Bill does rather more for what is sometimes called the “boutique left”—the trade union apparatchiks and their ilk. The Bill only makes sense if we see it through the skewed prism of every employer being a robber baron and every union organiser a saint. It does nothing for all those who will struggle to find a job in the first place, as its granting of day one rights will give companies—already facing big bills thanks to employer national insurance contribution rises—pause for thought. Other amendments fight a rearguard action with a sensible six-month qualification period. The Bill means that unions are going to party like it is 1979—but they should have a care. In ’79, restive unions triggered strike after strike, sounding the death knell for both their own unfettered power and for the Labour Government.

Lords amendment 62 addresses the threshold for strike action, meaning that 50% of eligible members would have to vote for action. Are the unions not better being sure of the complete backing of their members before lighting the picket-line braziers? Again, the unions should learn the lessons of the past. Next year marks a century since the general strike. Although often talked of in reverential tones by the left, the strike left the unions’ proud red banners in the dirt and the miners it was meant to support back in the underground galleries with worse pay conditions. Why? Because the strike alienated the public. Last week, the chat from the man forced on to the Clapham omnibus when London was crippled by transport strikes was less, “Up the workers!” than, “Right up the workers,” with their £65,000 base salaries and demands for a still shorter working week.

Business cannot afford the Bill unamended, as it will take an estimated £5 billion out at a time of belt tightening. The public cannot afford the Bill unamended, as it will facilitate more frequent and more damaging strikes, and it will make jobs harder to come by. Labour itself cannot afford the Bill unamended. Labour Members may think that, with scandal and crisis all around, they cannot sink any lower in the popularity stakes. Oh, they can, and the Bill is the ticking timebomb that could take them to their nadir faster than they imagine.

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

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my proud membership of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and the GMB. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), who has just popped out for some well-earned tea, for his hard work steering the Bill through the House. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my equally hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), to her place; we both know that she has big shoes to fill.

Today, we finally arrive at the concluding stages of this historic Bill’s long journey through Parliament. It is a moment that has been many years in the making. For well over a decade, working people have been calling for the protections that this landmark piece of legislation will introduce. It is our duty to deliver them, and to deliver them in full. Last year, people voted for change. They are crying out for change, and this Bill delivers real, meaningful and positive change. It is therefore immensely frustrating, although sadly not surprising, to see the old coalition band get back together in the other place, to have one final go at obstructing this Bill through changes, like Lords amendment 1, which will be the focus of my remarks.

One of the defining aims of the Bill is to end exploitative short and zero-hours contracts. The right to a guaranteed-hours contract is at the heart of the new deal for working people because, as I said on Report, the rise of one-sided flexibility has been one of the most damaging labour market developments of the past 14 years. Such contracts leave workers—often the lowest paid—vulnerable to sudden changes in income, with weekly working hours varying unpredictably. It is an unstable, precarious life that many are forced into, and it is long past time that this exploitative practice was brought to an end.

Lords amendment 1, a throwback team effort from the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, seeks to replace the Bill’s right to a guaranteed-hours contract with a far weaker “right to request”. At just five words long, the amendment may seem minor, but it is anything but. As working people know from bitter experience, a right to request often means no right at all. Unfortunately, it is clear from the comments made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) that either Liberal Democrats do not understand or they are wilfully misrepresenting the amendment.

Lords amendment 1 creates a loophole, enabling unscrupulous employers to use pressure or coercion to deter employees from making requests. It also puts that crucial protection out of reach of those who simply are not aware of their rights in the first place. Far from delivering a new right, it reopens the door to workplace conflict, insecurity and exploitation, something of which I am sure the Liberal Democrats would not be proud. It is completely at odds with the spirit and purpose of the provision, and it must be rejected.

We must deliver greater security, stability and dignity to people in their working lives. The right to a guaranteed-hours contract, and the increased financial security that brings with it, is central to achieving that. It will be transformative for living standards, productivity and the economy. I urge colleagues from across the House not to undermine this essential provision and to reject Lords amendment 1. Working people are counting on all of us to do the right thing by them.

“Chapter 4A

Debate between Michael Wheeler and John Cooper

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Wheeler]

I think that a Bill that promotes good, secure work across the economy is something we should not shy away from. I believe, if I am correct, that the figure referenced represents 0.5% of the costs of businesses, so no—I am not concerned.

I would like to finish in a slightly odd place. Benjamin Disraeli believed that his Government’s active role in passing legislation that benefited the working person would

“gain and retain for the Conservatives the lasting affection of the working classes”—

clearly he failed in that endeavour. One nation Tories are now a vanishingly scarce presence on the Opposition Benches. I ask all hon. Members on those Benches, with their opposition to this Bill: when did the Conservatives give up even trying to be on the side of working people?

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

If growth is the intended destination, as my friends in Dublin would say, “You can’t get there from here”. This Bill—so long on amendments and so short on detail—cannot be reconciled with this Government’s stated mantra of growth, growth, growth. By their own estimate, the Bill will cost business £5 billion—so easily dismissed by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles (Michael Wheeler), despite being a serious amount of money. The only growth will be in the mountain of red tape in which the Bill will snare businesses.

I rise to speak in favour of new clause 87, which would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the objective of the

“international competitiveness of the economy”

and its growth in the medium to long term. The Secretary of State for Business must surely recognise the importance of this—after all, I saw him just days ago in a slick video, with cuts quicker than the shower scene in Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, boasting of

“working together abroad to deliver growth at home”.

Now, I love a fantasy film as much as anyone, but the Secretary of State is in danger of jumping the shark with this level of sophistry and stretching credulity beyond snapping point. Growth at home is feeble, and this Bill is its enemy.

So lacking in detail is this Bill, which was clearly scrabbled together to beat the Government’s own deadline of the first 100 days, that it is the equivalent of a parliamentary blank cheque—sign here, and we will fill in all those pesky details later—handing sweeping powers to the Secretary of State. We are being asked to walk into a cage without a key. I have seen this before with the SNP’s woeful prospectus for Scottish independence in 2014. Scots were bright enough then to see through the smokescreen. Will Members across the House be sharp enough to discern the dangers here?