Exiting the EU and Workers’ Rights

Neil Gray Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate today and, I have to say, to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). Although I have great respect for the way in which he delivered his speech, I could not agree with a word of it apart from when he said that democracy is on trial. It is indeed, and the people of Scotland are watching intently.

However, begging your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to start with probably the only thing I have to say today that will garner support from Members on both sides of the House and offer my congratulations to Scotland’s own Andy Murray on securing top spot in the global tennis rankings. Becoming the first Scottish or British men’s No. 1 in the strongest era of the global sport of tennis is an incredible achievement. He will go down as not only one of the best Scottish or British sportsmen, but one of the greatest ever male tennis players. Well done, Andy; it is thoroughly well deserved.

We are now approaching five months since the EU referendum vote took place and we are still no clearer than on 23 June about what leaving the EU will actually mean. We still do not even know what role this House of Commons or the devolved Parliaments will have in invoking article 50. You would have thought that this would be a fairly simple matter of process that would be spelled out in a document before the referendum—perhaps something like a White Paper. Regardless of what people thought of the White Paper on Scottish independence—whether people agreed with the blueprint for an independent Scotland or not—it is clear that the people of Scotland were given far more information about what their vote would mean than happened in the EU referendum.

The Scottish Government produced a 700-page White Paper on Scottish independence. Whether this UK Government or the leave campaign, nobody came up with as much as a side of A4 on what would happen if the UK voted to leave—no plan, no blueprint, no vision. That is why it is impossible to tell what motivated a majority in the UK to vote to leave. Was it some idea of British nationalism? Was it immigration? Was it the whopper about £350 million a week for the NHS? Was it the ridiculous scaremongering from the former Chancellor or all the surviving former Prime Ministers? That is why when people talk about mandates and what the people want, it is clear the Prime Minister has a mandate to pursue exit from the EU, but she has no mandate over what that exit looks like, or to rip Scotland from EU institutions against its will. Indeed, the only detailed mandate that has been delivered to the Tories regarding Brexit is on the matter of the single market. It is spelled out in their 2015 manifesto, which states:

“We say: yes to the Single Market.”

It could not have been clearer, yet now we see prevarication.

What is clear is that far from having a cunning plan, this Government do not even have a seating plan. Where do they sit on the single market, on the customs union, on social security rights for UK nationals living in Europe, on the right to take advantage of the Erasmus scheme, or on Europol? Finally—although this list is far from exhaustive—where do they sit on the rights of EU workers to remain here in the UK?

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Gray]

I think you’ve had your say—[Interruption.] I think the right hon. Gentleman has had his say.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. That was a good correction just in time, but if I have to be strict with the Official Opposition Front Bench at this end of the Chamber, I have to be strict with the SNP Front Bench at that end as well.

[Neil Gray]

I perfectly understand.

Despite months of SNP campaigning for the security of EU workers based in the UK, they are still to be played as bargaining chips or negotiating pawns for at least another two years. We have no idea how EU workers in the UK will be treated after Brexit or what rights they will have. This is about not just morality and the fact that these workers and their families have chosen to live, work and contribute to the UK, but the economic value that they add. The Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee is currently taking evidence on the economic impact of exiting the European Union. A paper submitted by 4-consulting states that EU workers contribute £7.3 billion to the Scottish economy. That is why the SNP is so keen to see a different immigration system for Scotland, one that recognises not only the value of workers from other countries to our economy but how dependent many communities and sectors are on imported skilled labour. But this Government will not give Scotland those guarantees, and we have no guarantees about workers’ rights in general either. We are getting mixed messages from those on the Government Benches. We are being told by some that workers’ rights are a burden, with the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) wanting a sunset clause, and others saying that we should implement only the workers’ rights that are practical.

[Michael Tomlinson]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is making his case eloquently. However, did he fail to listen to the speech made by the Secretary of State, who set out clearly that all these rights will be transferred?

[Neil Gray]

For how long? In addition, does the Secretary of State carry the confidence of his Back Benchers? We are still to find that out. As I have said, so many of his colleagues have given us mixed messages about the so-called “burden” of EU workers’ rights on this country.

A substantial component of UK employment law is grounded in EU law, and where it exists it provides a minimum standard below which domestic employment cannot fall. Although some protections already existed in domestic law before being enhanced at an EU level, in many cases new categories of employment rights have been transposed into domestic law to comply with emerging EU obligations. Subject to the provisions of the EU withdrawal arrangement or a subsequent trade agreement, withdrawal from the EU would mean that the UK employment rights currently guaranteed by EU law would no longer be so guaranteed, which leaves us reliant on a Conservative Government to step up for workers.

A post-Brexit Government could also seek to amend or remove protections enshrined in EU law for UK workers. The House of Commons Library paper makes it clear that EU-derived employment rights that feature in primary legislation would be relatively safe from the effects of leaving the EU, but would be

“newly susceptible to the possibility of change.”

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

On 27 October, I received a reply to a question about what would be in the great repeal Bill. Part of the answer was that on exit day existing rights would be enshrined, but subsequently it would be open to the Government and this Parliament to change those rights.

[Neil Gray]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and the point he raises will fill workers up and down this land with dread, because it will be this Conservative Government who are going to be responsible for the workers’ rights that we all enjoy. The Library paper identifies the greatest risk as the uncertainty surrounding the protections in secondary legislation, which is where much employment law is contained. That is where Unison and others also see the greatest risk, with the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield having been reported as seeking a five-year sunset clause to the great repeal Bill. That would mean that all protections currently the subject of EU regulation would automatically expire, wreaking intended and unintended damage to hard-fought workers’ rights and, in turn, to the economy.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that workers’ rights are most vulnerable in areas relating to agency workers and working time limits, particularly now that the Cabinet contains senior Members who have previously advocated a bonfire of the regulations on workers’ rights?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely, and I will come on to those points later in my speech.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 predates EU rules, but EU standards have led to the introduction of broad duties on employers to evaluate, avoid and reduce workplace risks. According to the TUC, the number of worker fatalities in the UK has declined significantly since EU directives were implemented. The Scottish National party continues to argue for better work conditions and fairer working environments. The protections for workers in insecure employment, including part-time workers, agency workers and those on fixed-term contracts, are enhanced by the EU.

[Kevin Foster]

The hon. Gentleman said that workers should be filled with dread, but should they not feel encouragement, as in so many areas this Parliament has legislated for standards that are higher than the EU minimum, not lower? There is no reason to believe that that will not continue, not least when people want to put election manifestos forward at election time.

[Neil Gray]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the recently passed Trade Union Act 2016 and hope that he will consider his comments in those terms.

In these challenging times, we have seen moves to zero-hours contracts across many industries, and conditions where workers are vulnerable to exploitation and being trapped in a cycle of low pay. EU TUPE rights introduced important protections for workers affected by contracting out, company buy-outs and even the privatisation of public services. Without those rights, employees in permanent, secure jobs could be placed into more uncertain contracts or have their terms and conditions reduced.

The UK must continue to comply with EU employment law in full, including new rights adopted within the EU, meaning that future Governments cannot remove rights at work. UK workers should not be denied any of the rights enjoyed by working people across Europe. New rights are already under discussion within the EU, such as protections for posted workers, improved rights for working parents and the European pillar of social rights, so UK workers could be excluded from these protections post-Brexit. The TUC has said that

“workers should benefit from the highest level of protection in the EU. It should not be possible for future governments to take the opportunity to compete with other countries on the basis of a race to the bottom on rights at work.”

It is female workers who stand to lose the most from Brexit. Alongside the European working time directive, we also now have protections over maternity leave and equal pay, and better protection from sexual harassment and from pregnancy or maternity discrimination. Women in the UK secured the right to equal pay for work of equal value thanks to the EU, and although there is still a long way to go to close the gender pay gap, the protections from the EU push the agenda forward, rather than backward. We have no idea of what is to come post-Brexit. Pregnant women and new mothers have been protected by day one rights and unfair dismissal rights, and by protection from discrimination. The right to paid time off to attend antenatal appointments is also now secure for pregnant women, keeping them in work. The parental leave directive allows parents to take up to 18 weeks’ unpaid leave to care for a child and protects workers who need to deal with family or domestic emergencies. A staggering 8.3 million working parents qualify for these rights in the UK.

Perhaps one opportunity I can see from Brexit is to discuss where the powers and responsibilities currently held at EU level will reside when the UK leaves. Obviously, we would expect the areas of devolved responsibility, such as agriculture and fisheries, to be automatically devolved, along with their substantial budgets, but I would like this to go further. Last year, during the Scotland Bill debates, we were told that we could not devolve employment law, but it makes perfect sense to do it post-Brexit. It is not just the rights currently enjoyed by workers that we can see being eroded; current and future events are likely to have a detrimental impact on working conditions and the quality of life of working families.

We have a perfect storm approaching for working families. We see the report from the Resolution Foundation today on the devastating impact of the benefit cap, but we also have cuts to universal credit work allowances coming down the line, a potentially devastating spike in inflation predicted to arrive next year, a massive drop in the pound and the potential threat to employment law post-Brexit. Employers and employees alike are demanding information, details and plans from this Government to provide security where there is currently significant insecurity and uncertainty.

This evening we are going to hear, as we have indeed already heard, Tory after Tory trump up—that pun was intended—that somehow they speak for workers in these isles and that somehow because it was Conservative Governments that brought in factories Acts in the 19th century, that absolves them of their most recent disastrous history. So let me remind the House that it was a Conservative Prime Minister who destroyed the lives and livelihoods of mineworkers with generations of unemployment; that it was a Conservative Chancellor who said at that Dispatch Box in 1991 that unemployment was a price “worth paying” for bringing down inflation; and it was those Government Members sitting opposite now who forced through the worst legislative attack on workers’ rights in living memory, in the form of the Trade Union Bill. So forgive me if my party and the people of Scotland do not trust any Tory government with workers’ rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

Yes, but the unions did not need to use EU law—that was the point. This country has rights through common law and in statute; it was just not a problem. I am somewhat concerned and slightly agitated about this matter. The very firm words from our excellent Secretary of State—I was delighted when he was appointed to his job—could not have been clearer. He said that all the rights that we have by virtue of our membership of the EU will be transferred into substantive British law. Which part of that do Opposition Members not understand? My right hon. Friend could not have been clearer. I absolutely do take his word, and indeed the Government’s word, on this. In many ways, this is a bit of an otiose debate—if I can put it in those terms—because I have no fear that any of the rights that have been accrued over decades by virtue of our membership of the EU will be diminished.

[Neil Gray]

rose—

[Anna Soubry]

And now, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because this is a debate.

[Neil Gray]

I ask the right hon. Lady to forgive me for not giving way during my concluding remarks; I thank her for giving way to me. Although she may take her Secretary of State at his word on this, can she not understand our worry that there are members of this Government who are quite clearly of a different view, and who made that very clear during the EU referendum campaign?

[Anna Soubry]

Heaven forbid that we should ever have different points of views within the Government. I will come on to the concerns that some rightly raise about the rhetoric of the leave campaign. I wanted to intervene on the hon. Gentleman because, as someone who had experienced the miners’ strike on an almost daily basis—I was a reporter working for Central Television in Nottingham—I wanted him to understand that what the Conservative Government rightly did was to protect the rights of coal miners in counties such as Nottinghamshire who had had a vote and had decided that they wanted to work. They faced, on an almost daily basis, a small army of pickets who came down and used the most atrocious tactics to try to prevent them from exercising their right to work.

[Neil Gray]

rose—

[Anna Soubry]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am more than happy to have a debate with him about the rights and wrongs of the miners’ strike outside the Chamber, but I take grave exception to the rather large amounts of nonsense that he was spouting when he gave us his comments about Margaret Thatcher and the then Conservative Government. None of those pieces of legislation that were passed by the Thatcher Government —particularly when they were up against the tyranny of trade union leaders who frequently denied workers the right to have a say about how they worked—to restore workers’ rights and to do the right thing by working people were repealed in the 13 years that Labour were in government. Why was that? It was because members of the Labour Government knew in their hearts that that legislation was what working people wanted. I say that as someone who is a proud trade unionist and who was a shop steward in my union.