Fire and Rehire Tactics

Debate between Nia Griffith and Paul Scully

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I am going wider than workers’ rights and productivity. That is why we are rolling out the Help to Grow management scheme for smaller businesses, and other things. This is huge. We need better transport connections. That is part of the levelling-up agenda. There are lots of things within that, and I do not underestimate what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Our employment landscape is very different from that in Germany. In Germany, they tend to ask permission—it is courts first there, whereas we tend to be tribunal led. There are big differences.

One of the key things I want to raise about productivity relates to what the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) said. She was absolutely right to say that job security leads to a better, more productive, happier and more loyal workforce. That allows workers and employees to plan and it results in better mental wellbeing. That is why, by setting statutory minimums in legislation, guidance and codes, we want employers to go further. Frankly, it makes business sense for employers to go further, rather than follow the egregious example of P&O. What is the point of taking people on and training them, which involves costs, time and resources, only to then cast them aside and have to do the same thing again?

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I will give way, but I will then need to make progress so that I allow time for the hon. Member for Slough to respond to the debate.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

The Minister says that rational and good businesses would not do this, but the fact of the matter is that hundreds of businesses are being undermined because some businesses are using fire and rehire. It is being used repeatedly and in many different sectors. It is no good saying that it does not make logical sense; we need the legislation to back that up. That is what we want the Minister to bring forward.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about parliamentary staff. Before becoming a Member, I worked in this place for a little while. I was an avuncular figure because I was about 20 years older than everybody else. People would come to my office in tears because former colleagues—they are not in this place any more—did not know how to employ people. The way in which they treated some of their staff was absolutely appalling. I have seen it at first hand.

The hon. Member for Llanelli rightly mentions the behaviour of some employers, and we have heard a number of examples today. Almost a year ago, The Independent reported that one employer was making a third of its workforce redundant and then taking on other people on less secure contracts. The Labour party claimed that by doing so it was putting itself on a firmer and fairer footing ahead of a general election, when it was telling people to use their own laptops, anti-virus software and firewalls, and to work from home. That is what I mean about outcomes and outputs. We can have great words, but if an organisation is not acting on them, that is no good to the employees who trust it. People want something that is flexible and that works to protect jobs but that also gets the best out of workers. It is really important that we work for that.

Let me leave the House in no doubt that this Government will continue to stand behind workers and stamp out unscrupulous practices where they occur. We will provide further updates regarding the consultation on the statutory code in due course, and we will inform the House and keep Members up to date on what we are doing on fire and rehire.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Nia Griffith and Paul Scully

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), who gave us a more than adequate demonstration of what one might call the Corbynisation of the Labour party. It is an equal pleasure and a privilege to follow three fantastic maiden speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Victoria Borwick) reminded me that I must go back and flick through my copy of the “Alan Clark Diaries”, which I did enjoy. I was not present to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), but knowing him as I do, I am sure he lit up the House. I look forward to reading his maiden speech in Hansard. I had to go to visit a constituent who is a black cab driver attending a rally upstairs about Uber. Those people are small business people in their own right, and it is important that we take that into consideration. As has been said, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) gave a fantastic maiden speech, and I know we will hear far more of her in the years to come.

For 20 years or so, I have run my own small business—I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Being responsible for other people’s livelihoods, going through bad times when one struggles to pay the mortgage and the bills, but also during the good times of real success when one can think, “Actually, that was down to me and my efforts as a self-employed businessman”—those experiences give one a perspective on life, on business life, on working life, on wages and on what it means for people to strive and take opportunities. That is why I welcome so many of the measures that the Chancellor has given us in the Budget, in stark contrast with Labour. In the lead-up to the election, we had what has been described as the heaviest suicide note in history—the Ed stone.

[Nia Griffith]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Chancellor has tried to imitate one of our policies by trying to raise the minimum wage? He mistakenly calls it a living wage, but it is not at that rate. However, he has not offered any incentives to employers to introduce it, as we were proposing.

[Paul Scully]

I will come back to the national living wage.

The platitudes on the Ed stone were in stark contrast to the measured policies in the Budget.

Hon. Members can talk about semantics and about whether it is the national minimum wage or the national living wage. What we have seen is a significant—