“Chapter 4A

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

I am not sure that the hon. Lady has firmly grasped what the Bill says in this respect. Of course we want to protect everybody in our society—that is the first duty of Government—but I do not think she has fully considered the unintended consequences in the real world, particularly in the hospitality sector.

I will speak briefly to new clause 86 and amendments 286 and 287. Clause 21 and schedule 2 are another example of the Government rushing to legislate in an attempt to meet an arbitrary deadline set by the Deputy Prime Minister, with chaotic results. Clause 21 will remove the qualifying period for unfair dismissal. Again, the Regulatory Policy Committee slapped a red rating on the Government’s impact assessment for these provisions, meaning that the Government have not adequately justified the need for them. They have admitted that they do not have robust data on the incidence of dismissal for those under two years of employment. In other words, yet again, we do not know whether there is even an actual problem with unfair dismissal for this Bill to try to solve.

The British Chambers of Commerce has said that

“Members say that there would be a reduced hiring appetite were this legislation to come in, and that they would be less likely to recruit new employees due to the risk and difficulty, particularly under the day one rights, unless there were at least a nine-month probation period”.––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 8.]

As such, our new clause 86 requires the Secretary of State to assess the impact of the provisions of clause 21 and schedule 2, and amendment 286 requires Parliament specifically to approve that impact before these sections of the Bill can come into force.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Greg Smith]

I am mindful of time, and I do not wish to incur Madam Deputy Speaker’s wrath, so I will make progress.

We have also tabled amendment 287, which would remove clause 21 from the Bill entirely, so concerned are we about how damaging it will be to both employers and employees, particularly those who will not get work as a direct consequence of these requirements.

Our new clause 87 seems a perfectly sensible thing to ask for: a simple requirement that the Secretary of State must have regard to the objectives of economic growth and improving the international competitiveness of the UK economy when making regulations under parts 1 and 2 of the Bill. If agreed to, though, it would of course be a wrecking amendment, because the Government do not know how they intend to give effect to the provisions on guaranteed hours, the extension of those provisions to agency workers or the provisions on unfair dismissal, to name but a few. All of those things will be left to regulations after the Bill is passed, without proper scrutiny from this place, and it will be working people who pay the price.

Our new clause 91 would clamp down on public sector employers using positive discrimination under sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act 2010 where it causes detriment to other employees, and would promote merit-based employment practices. Taxpayers rightly expect that their money should be spent well, and part of offering value for money is that taxpayer money should be ruthlessly focused on improving the public services on which all of our constituents rely. That always means hiring on merit.

Amendment 290, which deals with the school support staff negotiating body, is the last of our amendments that I will speak to. In 2010, the then Conservative Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, abolished the school support staff negotiating body. The Conservative Government had a clear and principled reason for this: employers should have the flexibility to set pay and conditions locally, rather than having a top-down, centralised framework imposed on them. It was to allow school leaders—who know better than politicians in Whitehall—to innovate and do what works best for their schools, their pupils and their employees. Instead of giving employers flexibility to do what works best for them, the Government are re-establishing a national terms and conditions handbook, training, career progression routes and pay rates for school support staff that all school employers will be obliged to follow. We believe that the current arrangements for employing school support staff are working well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I do, and I am trying to make a serious point here. This is a big Bill, and it is one of the Government’s flagship pieces of policy. I heard someone say earlier, from a sedentary position, that we have 12 hours of debate, but that does not come up to the 21 days that we spent in Committee examining the Bill bit by bit. I agree with other Members that it has been rushed through for political purposes.

The purpose of debates such as this is to explore the issues, and try to make a Bill into a better piece of legislation. I am trying to be constructive in explaining where I see the flaws and in highlighting the unforeseen consequences. It worries me when we see the no-platforming of people at universities, and hear about trigger warnings and people saying that they feel emotionally put upon. That, I think, is an abuse of some of the protections that we are trying to introduce, and I think there are people who will try to abuse this particular clause. What I am saying to the Minister, and the Government, is, “Can that wording be tightened up?”

[Richard Burgon]

It is always a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour from the other side of the House, the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke).

I really welcome the Bill, which needs to be put in its historical context. With the exception of those passed under the last Labour Government, virtually every time we have seen an employment rights Bill or a trade union Bill in recent decades, it has been an attack on trade union rights or workers’ rights, whereas this Bill makes a real difference in advancing the rights of working people in this country. They have been kicked around for too long, and it is right that we do not accept that it is fine for workers in this country to be some of the easiest to sack and mistreat in the continent. Workers in our country deserve better employment rights, and this Bill sets about putting them in place.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend will have heard constantly, particularly in response to the P&O disaster, that the Conservatives were going to introduce an employment Bill when they were in government. Does my hon. Friend agree that they have criticised this Government for doing what they promised: to bring in this Bill within 100 days?

[Richard Burgon]

I certainly do. The previous Government never got round to introducing such a Bill. When the Conservative party was in government, all we had about the P&O debacle were crocodile tears or statements of sorrow from the Dispatch Box, which just do not cut it.

This Bill contains important advances, such as establishing bereavement leave and introducing menopause action plans. Over 1 million people on zero-hours contracts will benefit from the guaranteed hours policy, and 9 million people who have been with an employer for less than two years will benefit from the right to claim unfair dismissal from day one. It seems to escape the understanding of many Conservative Members that this does not mean that employers cannot dismiss people; it means that they cannot dismiss people unfairly.

The Conservatives are arguing for the right of employers to dismiss people unfairly. As it stands, before this legislation comes in, the only way that workers can claim unfair dismissal from day one is if it is a discriminatory dismissal. To be clear, an employer could, six months into someone’s contract of employment, say, “I’m sacking you because I don’t like people who wear green jumpers,” or, “I’m sacking you because I find your voice irritating.” That would be unfair dismissal. As it stands, people do not have the right not to be unfairly dismissed until they have accrued two years of service, and the Conservative party needs to come clean about that.

Before I move on to my new clause 6, I want to say that I welcome many of the Government amendments and the amendments tabled by Labour Back Benchers, including the many important amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), who did such a good job at developing employment policy in opposition; the important amendments on sick pay, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain); and the important amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) and for Luton North (Sarah Owen).

My new clause 6 would right what I consider to be a historical wrong. The last Labour Government brought in the groundbreaking Equality Act 2010, which we can all be proud of. As part of that, they introduced statutory discrimination questionnaires. When I was an employment lawyer before becoming a Member of Parliament, I lost track of the number of times that we used statutory discrimination questionnaires to smoke out discrimination in the workplace in relation to age, disability, sex, race, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment, religion or belief, and marriage and civil partnership.

I bumped into an old colleague who is a trade union lawyer on a train, and he made the point that statutory discrimination questionnaires also—[Interruption.] I make no apologies for having a friend who is a trade union lawyer—I think the Conservatives need to get out a bit more. He made the point that statutory discrimination questionnaires showed when a claim did not have a good chance of succeeding at an employment tribunal, helped to manage potential claimants’ expectations, and thus led to an unmeritorious claim either not being pursued or being settled. Such questionnaires helped to smoke out discrimination in workplaces, helping not just the individual employee, but tackling discrimination against workers more widely in that workplace. The truth is that in 2025, given some of the rhetoric from politicians in this country and around the world, it is as important as ever to have mechanisms in place to tackle discrimination in workplaces across the country.

That was part of the last Labour Government’s pioneering Equality Act. Shamefully, the Conservative Government abolished statutory Equality Act questionnaires in 2014 as part of their attack on workers’ rights. In their consultation, 83% of respondents said it was wrong to remove this important mechanism for workers to unmask and tackle discrimination—83%—yet the Conservative party when in government, aided and abetted by some of their erstwhile friends, ploughed ahead in any event.

I tabled new clause 6 because this is an important opportunity for our new Labour Government to right the wrong done by that Conservative-led Government and reinstate a very important advance made in the last Labour Government’s Equality Act. I look forward with interest to hearing the Minister’s response. If he will not accept this amendment to the Bill, I invite him to come forward with a proposal to reintroduce statutory discrimination questionnaires as soon as possible. They made a real difference. They helped to stop some claims going to tribunal that should not have gone to tribunal, but, more importantly, they empowered workers to smoke out discrimination in their workplaces not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of their colleagues in that workplace and for the benefit of wider society. We need that now in 2025, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

A great many very important employment-related issues are being discussed, but I rise in support of new clause 16. As it stands, self-employed people are not entitled to statutory adoption pay, which creates a substantial economic barrier for prospective adopters. Without this support, the selfless act of adoption is being made harder. New clause 16 would fix that.

A constituent of mine, Kirsty, is a self-employed mother who discovered this significant gap in the financial support system while exploring the possibility of adoption. Kirsty and her husband have a son, Charlie, who is a bright-eyed four-year-old with an unshakeable love of trains. He often talked about how much he wanted a little sibling to be his assistant train driver, and after a year of trying to conceive a second child, Kirsty and her family decided that opening their hearts and their home to a child through adoption was the best option. However, one of Kirsty’s close friends—also self-employed and in the process of adopting—informed her that she was not entitled to the same financial support through statutory adoption pay, throwing her plans into doubt.

Unlike biological parents, who qualify for maternity allowance, or employed adopters, who are eligible for statutory adoption pay, self-employed adopters such as Kirsty fall into a financial support void. While statutory guidance allows local authorities to make discretionary means-tested payments equivalent to these allowances for the self-employed, such support is not guaranteed, and local authorities have no legal duty to provide it. In fact, a freedom of information request by the charity Home for Good has revealed that 34% of local authorities lack any policy for providing this financial support. Even worse, 90% of self-employed adopters, when they were surveyed by the all-party parliamentary group on adoption and permanence back in 2022, reported that their social worker never advised them about these discretionary payments and the possibility of receiving them.

Adoption provides children with the opportunity to thrive in a permanent, loving home, often completing a family, as I have had the great pleasure of seeing for myself in my role as a proud adopted auntie. I am confident in my belief that Members across the House will agree that self-employed people are no less suited to adopt than anyone else. Despite the increase in the number of children in care, the number of adoptions in the UK has halved since its peak in 2015, and this is completely unsustainable. The enormous and growing pressures that face our foster care system will only worsen if the number of adoptions continues to decrease.

As of December 2024, there are 4.39 million self-employed people across the UK. If we began removing the financial barriers and empowering those who are self-employed through guaranteed financial support for adoption, we could begin to reverse the worrying trends in the number of adoptions. That would allow willing adopters such as Kirsty and her husband to be financially able to do so.