Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Over the past year, workers across the country have risked their lives to keep us safe and our country moving, but workers’ rights and the long overdue employment Bill were not mentioned once in the Queen’s Speech. It shows that workers’ rights are nothing but an afterthought for this Conservative Government when they have to quickly put out a statement saying:

“We will introduce the Employment Bill when the time is right”.

However, the employment Bill could not be more urgent.

The pandemic has exposed appalling working conditions in the UK, which have left workers unprotected. Zero-hours contracts and the exploitative working practice of fire and rehire must be banned through legislation. The TUC has found that nearly one in 10 workers have been told to reapply for their jobs on worse terms and conditions or face the sack. We need proper rights for every worker from day one, an increase to statutory sick pay and the living wage to be raised to at least £10 an hour—something that would have increased pay for 8.6 million workers.

The Government’s commitment to investing in access to education and training throughout people’s lives rings hollow when the same Government are cutting the union learning fund, which supported more than 200,000 learners in workplaces across England in 2019-20. It is a complete fallacy for the Government to state, on the one hand, that they want to level up the country but, on the other hand, to fail to legislate to support the one in eight workers trapped in in-work poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said that it is

“deeply concerned that providing security for low-paid workers was not a priority”

in the Queen’s Speech, and this exposes the central point. The Conservative party is not acting to fix the system, as for the past 11 years it has enacted the policies that have exacerbated the inequalities and insecurities at the heart of our economic system.

There is no new deal for workers, as there was no pay increase for public sector workers in the Budget. Instead, as workers continue to suffer from exploitative practices, the Government have prioritised the introduction of completely unnecessary voter ID plans, which will lock millions of people—predominantly elderly, low-income, and black, Asian and ethnic minority voters—out of our democracy. In 2019, a year with a high-turnout general election, the UK saw just one conviction for impersonation out of over 59 million votes. It is a total waste of money that will cost the taxpayer £20 million every single election. Voting is a right, not a privilege.

However the Government choose to spin it, fundamentally, their programme plans on levelling down our democracy and the living standards of workers. “Levelling up” is nothing more than a marketing slogan, and it is certainly no call to action. My constituents in Luton South and communities across the UK deserve much better than empty platitudes. We deserve a transformative, interventionist strategy that prioritises improving living standards through well-paid, secure, unionised jobs and strong public services.