Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Michael Wheeler and Uma Kumaran

Committee stage
Thursday 28th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Uma Kumaran]

Q We heard from two business voices today that were not perhaps entirely reflective of the rest of our views. I have more than 12,500 businesses in my constituency of Stratford and Bow, of which more than 5,500 are small and medium-sized businesses. I have met lots of them over the course of the last year. I have certainly not heard similar views. We also heard from legal experts, who said that the Bill brings us closer to OECD norms than perhaps was said. Can you tell us how businesses will benefit from the Bill?

Justin Madders: There is generally an acceptance, both in the economic analysis we have heard from some of the witnesses today and from businesses themselves, that getting a motivated, engaged and retained workforce is good for productivity and the business overall. Having a more engaged and well-remunerated workforce has been shown to actually boost profits. The fact that the OECD was referred to by the Resolution Foundation as a body that believes that greater workers’ rights actually improve the economic outcome of the country is a really important factor that we need to emphasise.

[Michael Wheeler]

Q Picking up from the last question, we have heard how the Bill will benefit employers; what other groups of people in the country do you think it will benefit?

Justin Madders: There are an awful lot of people who will benefit if we get this right. I am talking about people who do not know from one week to the next how many hours they will have or whether they will be paid enough to put food on the table. Our reforms on zero-hours contracts will really help with that. People who can be arbitrarily sacked for no reason for the first two years of their employment—about 9 million people—will benefit from that. The 1.6 million people in the social care sector will benefit. There are 900,000 people a year who will benefit from bereavement leave entitlements. Overall, as ACAS has suggested, the cost of disputes to the economy can be up to £30 billion a year. Just imagine what a difference it would make if we could shave a fraction off that. I think that the Bill is setting a new culture in our country about how we do workplace relations. It is putting the value of the worker/employee relationship with businesses at the heart of everything we do.