Hospitality Sector

Debate between Sarah Olney and Andrew Murrison

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why this jobs tax has been so damaging, not just to the hospitality sector but to the many people who rely on the sector for flexible work that can fit in with their caring demands or other issues that they are experiencing.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is trotting out a whole load of helpful suggestions, of which the hospitality Minister is no doubt taking careful note for the time when he makes his representations—which he said he would not be making—to the Chancellor. Does the hon. Lady agree that he could also make recommendations to the Deputy Prime Minister, especially in relation to the Unemployment Bill, that would have no particular cost attached? I am thinking of the “banter ban”, which even the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said is absolutely bonkers, and is likely to make hospitality venues even less attractive to those who need to use them.

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I entirely disagree with him about the banter ban. The Liberal Democrats agree with the concerns expressed in the motion about the challenges facing the hospitality sector, but we do not agree with the part of the motion that expresses regret about measures in the Employment Rights Bill on workplace harassment, which we do not believe have been accurately represented. As is clear from what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) and the significant work done on this issue by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), we welcome the introduction of reasonable and workable measures to protect employees from harassment in their place of work.

The Government must take steps to boost the hospitality workforce, and that includes showing much more urgency in introducing a youth mobility scheme. It took nearly a year for them to listen to calls from the Liberal Democrats and others for the negotiation of a youth mobility system, and I hope that Ministers will not continue to drag their feet on an agreement that will truly benefit the hospitality sector. Changes implemented in April 2024 that increased the minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas shrank the talent pool from which businesses can recruit, contributing to greater staff shortages, and in a 2024 survey of nearly 1,700 employers from a range of sectors, including hospitality, almost 40% of employers with hard-to-fill vacancies said that a reduction in the availability of overseas talent was one of the main causes of staffing issues. At a time when so many businesses are considering whether they can remain viable, we must give hospitality businesses the tools they need to grow and help boost the wider economy, and access to global talent is part of that. I therefore ask the Minister once again whether the Government will finally set out a timeline for the introduction of a youth mobility scheme.

We also need serious action from the Government on boosting the domestic workforce by supercharging apprenticeships and investing in skills and retraining opportunities. Can the Minister assure the House that Skills England will function as a properly independent body, with employee rights at its heart?

Businesses across the country continue to struggle with sky-high energy costs, and I recognise that the recent industrial strategy provided some welcome measures on that front, particularly for the manufacturing sector, but as the motion points out, there was very little in the strategy to help support hospitality firms with their soaring energy bills. Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for energy market reform, which would include reducing our reliance on expensive fossil fuel imports by investing in home-grown renewable energy. In recent months we have set out a plan to cut energy bills by half within 10 years by breaking the link between gas prices and electricity costs, so that households and businesses can see the benefits of cheap, clean power in lower energy bills.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Sarah Olney and Andrew Murrison

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I very much look forward to having that debate in a future Session of this Parliament and on a future piece of legislation. That is why I tabled new clause 7—to call on the Government to make a commitment to future legislation, so that we in this House can debate and support broader and further reforms to ensure the democratic legitimacy of the House of Lords.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recall that, in fact, we have had that debate? We had it last in a proper sense in 2007, on Jack Straw’s proposals when, on the basis of the consensus that we are trying to establish here, consensus there was none, and the thing descended into complete chaos. Would she remember that, when making her proposals? If she thinks there will be consensus on this extremely difficult issue of an elected House of Lords, I am afraid she is in cloud cuckoo land.

[Sarah Olney]

Well, how polite of the right hon. Gentleman to say so. Obviously, I do not personally recall what happened in 2007. What we are trying to establish today are the steps that can be taken to reform the House of Lords. We very much support the step that we are debating today—that first step upon which, as the Minister said in her opening remarks, there is broad consensus. We want to see broader reform of the House of Lords and we want the Government to bring forward further proposals in due course. New clause 7 is about pushing them to produce those further proposals in a timely fashion, so that we can hold that debate in this Parliament and progress the cause of measures on which we can find consensus across the House.