Employment Rights Bill (Ninth sitting)

Sarah Gibson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Greg Smith]

I will just finish this thought; the hon. Lady knows that I am not shy about taking interventions. Every business, even if it has only one or two employees, will know what the plan is if one of its employees comes to it and says that their wife, partner or whatever is pregnant and that they will require at some point in the near future two weeks of paternity leave. On the grounds that virtually every business that I know has that plan—has that understanding of what it will do in offering the statutory requirement for paternity leave and the way it will remunerate it or not, as the case may be—I am struggling to understand why it should be only those companies with more than 250 employees that are subject to the requirement.

[Sarah Gibson]

The reason for leaving it at 250 employees, despite a thought among Opposition Members that it should be extended to 500, is that, currently, small and medium-sized businesses are classified as having up to 249 employees. Larger businesses, which will undoubtedly have the infrastructure, should be able to publish the information. The new clause would prevent an onerous burden on very small businesses from having to publish the information. It does not imply that they would have lesser standards; it is merely that they would not be obliged to publish the information.

[Greg Smith]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes. I am the last person to want to put a greater burden or unnecessary burden on any form of business. All I gently suggest is that this probably is not that great a burden on a business, on the grounds that it will already know what it is going to do when an employee comes and asks for paternity leave, maternity leave or whatever. That is particularly the case given that much of the rules and regulations is already set in statute and, when this Bill undoubtedly achieves Royal Assent at some point, will be further enshrined in statute. There are many other regulations that businesses have to comply with when publishing on their website—I am thinking of privacy notices and various GDPR regulations and so on—just as all the members of this Committee and Members of this House have to do on our own websites. I do not think anyone would try to define any of us as large businesses or huge employers, and I do not think that there are any hon. or right hon. Members left who do not have a website. Perhaps one or two do not—

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

Certainly there is no objection from the Opposition to the principle of flexibility in ensuring people can have that choice and ability to dictate when leave is taken, particularly in the case of paternity leave. I can think of many examples, including colleagues from the previous Parliament. I acted as the proxy vote for one of them while they were on paternity leave. They pushed that back slightly—the obscurities of this place—to ensure that their paternity leave did not marry up with recess. However, there will be many other reasons and flexibilities that people require away from the eccentricities of working in this place.

I ask the Minister to reflect on whether, within that framework of flexibility, which in its own right is a good thing, there needs to be any secondary guidance or advice to businesses on what might turn out to be some very rare but foreseeable circumstances where employees or individuals push the boundaries a bit too far with their employers. and on what to do in those extreme cases. That is not to detract in any way, shape or form from the principle of flexibility, but I ask whether there is a requirement for guidance notes or Government advice, however it is formed, to give employers a bit of a safety net if, in one or two cases, those boundaries be pushed a bit too far.

[Sarah Gibson]

Given the Liberal Democrat new clauses we discussed earlier, it is clear that we welcome any flexibility that encourages paternity leave and allows parents to share the leave in an equal and welcoming way. Therefore, we welcome this clause.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, there are clearly defined time limits, and I am sure that most employers and employees will manage to work this out. I just point out gently that the impact assessment on these provisions received a green rating, so some work has been done on this. I remind Members that we are undertaking a wider review as well in respect of paternity and parental leave.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14

Bereavement leave

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Gibson]

After that incredibly moving speech by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, I cannot help but share the absolute concerns of friends of mine who have also lost children in pregnancy quite early on. I appreciate that that causes devastation, and I would be very happy to support any amendments that are suggested on Report. Perhaps an earlier date for bereavement would be appropriate.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire for sharing such a personal story with us today. As he says, the loss of a child or a baby at any stage is incredibly upsetting. Parents who suffer a stillbirth may be entitled to parental bereavement leave and pay. Although there is no statutory entitlement for miscarriage before 24 weeks, we expect employers to respond with compassion and understanding and encourage employees to discuss the support that they need with their employer. A woman is protected against discrimination in the workplace due to pregnancy, any illness related to pregnancy or absence of that illness. That includes any illness caused by miscarriage extending to two weeks after the end of the pregnancy. After that, the woman is still protected by the Equality Act 2010 sex discrimination protections if she is treated less favourably because she suffered a miscarriage.

Clause 20 will also allow for regulations to be made about dismissal during a protected period of pregnancy, and the enhanced dismissal protection policy will cover women during their pregnancy. I point out that at the moment the Women and Equalities Committee is looking into that and doing an inquiry. We will study the outcome of that very closely as we take our policies forward.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I broadly agree, but my challenge to him is that reasonableness can be interpreted in many different ways. There will always been an appeals process or something similar, but I worry that unless the legislation is clearer, some good-willed employers who are entirely honest and decent in how they try to protect their staff could, in some circumstances, be on a very sticky wicket trying to defend themselves against something that they never foresaw or dreamed of. They may have been a little too innocent, but they will find themselves in a difficult spot. That is where safeguards need to be locked into the legislation in respect of what is a very subjective test.

I was about to come on to an example. I will preface it by saying that absolutely nobody should be abused in the workplace and absolutely nobody should face any form of harassment in the workplace. However, let us think for a moment about how some of the Bill’s provisions would operate in an NHS accident and emergency department. In any A&E up and down the land, our wonderful doctors and nurses sometimes put themselves in harm’s way, particularly late at night. Perhaps they have a patient who is clearly inebriated but has injured themselves. I am not excusing it for one second, but it can and does happen. Let us say that an incredibly drunk patient, who may have fallen and broken their hand, verbally abuses—not sexually harasses—the doctor or nurse treating them. The doctor or nurse does not deserve that, and that behaviour should not be happening, but I would wager that it happens most Friday or Saturday nights somewhere. It is unacceptable, but it does happen. What should happen in that circumstance?

[Sarah Gibson]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Greg Smith]

Let me just finish this point. I am trying to deal with a real-life scenario that should not be happening, but does. What does the doctor or nurse do, under the Bill? Do they refuse to treat the patient? Some would argue that perhaps they should, but the reality is that that is not what they are there for. They are there to heal, treat and support that patient who has got into a stupid predicament.

[Greg Smith]

I will just finish this point. Both hon. Ladies know that I will give way.

Where would the test come? What should the NHS, as the employer, have done to prevent that situation? What is the overall outcome in that scenario? Where does the reasonableness test fall? I repeat that I am not excusing the behaviour; I am putting it forward as a test to the provisions in the Bill, as a situation in which the employer—ultimately the national health service or perhaps the Health Secretary—would find themselves.

[Sarah Gibson]

I appreciate the shadow Minister’s giving way. I will make an effort not to intervene every time he stands up.

There is a very serious point here that anyone who has ever been in a situation in which they have felt intimidated will understand. An employee in higher education may be intimidated by students who are irritated, angry or frustrated about their results. In my case, they came to my office because they felt that they should not have failed. I have found myself in a small room—the kind of room in which this House would not allow MPs to hold a surgery—with no external access and no security guards on the door to intervene.

Such situations can be hugely difficult. Although the employer is not always in a position to pre-empt the situation, taking reasonable steps surely means providing an option for everybody to have an emergency phone number—that is what was available to me in my university job—or, at A&E, to have security staff intervene when somebody arrives quite clearly inebriated, in the same way that our security staff do at our surgeries. They will immediately foresee the problem and will make sure that the person is accompanied and is not left alone with a member of staff. Those are the sort of reasonable preparations that we would expect; I would be surprised if any employer were not happy to carry them out. I therefore see no reason why that should not be made clear in the legislation.

[Greg Smith]

I hope that the hon. Lady is right, but part of the test that the amendment sets for the Government is whether it will work. Is it clear? Will it put the protections in place that everybody wants to see? There is a question mark over whether they will work.

The NHS A&E environment is an example with which we are probably all familiar from our postbags. Constituents write to us about situations that they have witnessed or been in themselves, particularly on a busy Friday or Saturday night or in the Christmas season when there are lots of parties and lots of people probably having far too much to drink and sometimes getting themselves into unacceptable situations. There might not be the staff to double up; the patient might be abusive to all of them. It is unacceptable, horrible and wrong, but it is sometimes the reality. Where does that leave the senior doctor or nurse on duty, the chief executive of the trust, and ultimately the Secretary of State or the permanent secretary to the Department of Health and Social Care? Where does the test actually leave them, and what more can be done to make the legislation work?

The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby has been waiting patiently to come in.