Employment Rights Bill
Sarah Russell ExcerptsWednesday 12th March 2025
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Employment Rights Bill 2024-26 View all Employment Rights Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 March 2025 - large print - (12 Mar 2025)
Greg Smith
My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. If we look at the detail of this Bill, it is very clear and obvious that the Government are trying to make it as difficult as possible for people to opt out of the trade union political fund. That is the very point of them changing this legislation.
Greg Smith
I will make a bit of progress, then I will come to the hon. Lady.
An opt-in is the default under consumer protection law and information law. Combined with the 10-year reminder change, it is highly likely that many trade union members will not be aware that their subscriptions are being used in this way or that they are eligible to save money on their trade union fees by not being a member of the political fund. Despite all the talk of supporting working people, it is clear that that concern simply does not apply when working people’s money is being taken to fund the Labour party and other political causes. We have tabled amendment 291 because we believe fundamentally that people should consent explicitly to what is, in effect, a subscription trap. Amendment 291 would simply maintain the status quo; it is the right thing to do.
Mrs Russell
I draw attention to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a member of Community and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how many times such a ballot has actually resulted in the closure of a political fund? I think he will find that the answer is none.
Greg Smith
The hon. Lady is putting up a smoke-and-mirrors argument to try to cover the fact that the Government are changing the status quo from an opt-in system to an opt-out system. To me, it is just straightforward common sense that people would expect to have to opt in rather than, in this particularly egregious case, being casually reminded every 10 years that they could save a bit of money by opting out of a cause that they perhaps did not even agree with in the first place.
In fact, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the right hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), pledged to end auto-renewal subscriptions. When the Conservatives were in government, we passed the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which contained two significant proposals on subscription contracts that are notable here. One of those was reminder notices. Businesses need to provide notices to consumers to remind them that their subscription contract will renew and payment will be due unless the consumer cancels. The second proposal was to allow consumers to be able to exit a subscription contract in a straightforward, cost-effective and timely way. Businesses need to ensure that the process for terminating is not unduly onerous and that consumers can signal their intent to end the contract through a single communication.
The Labour party, which was then in opposition, supported those aims—in fact, the Bill did not go far enough for Labour at the time. On Report, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) tabled new clause 29, which the Labour party voted to add to the Bill. The new clause had a two-pronged approach. It required traders to ask consumers whether they wished to opt into subscriptions renewing automatically either
“after a period of six months and every six months thereafter, or…if the period between the consumer being charged for the first and second time is longer than six months, each time payment is due.”
The second aim of the new clause, which the Labour party used to support, would have required that if the consumer did not opt into the arrangement described, the trader had to
“provide a date by which the consumer must notify the trader of the consumer’s intention to renew the contract, which must be no earlier than 28 days before the renewal date.”
If the consumer did not provide a notification, the subscription contract could not renew.
Where am I going with this? [Interruption.] Government Members are chuntering too early, because there has been a considerable shift in the Labour party’s policy position on subscription traps. It seems to believe that consumers should be given every possible opportunity to cancel subscription contracts with businesses, but that it should be as hard as possible to cancel a subscription to the trade union political fund. Under amendment 292 and new clause 88, trade union members would have the same rights, pushed for by Labour, as other individuals with a subscription.
New schedule 2 could be used to give sweeping powers to Labour’s trade union paymasters, as the Secretary of State could reduce the threshold for trade union recognition to as little as 2% of the workforce. Trade unions could easily be imposed on workplaces across the country, with small employers being particularly vulnerable. In a workplace of 200 workers, fewer than five of them would be required for workplace recognition. Paired with the other measures in this Bill, that will strike fear into business owners across Britain, who could now be forced to deal with all-powerful trade unions as part of Labour’s return to the 1970s. The way in which Labour has gone about this is just another example of the shoddy nature of this Bill and of Labour’s approach to workplace regulations. The Attorney General has said that
“excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses, or skeleton legislation, upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law values I have already outlined,”—
I am quoting him—
“but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty.”
On facility time, amendments 293 and 295 would remove clause 54, “Facilities provided to trade union officials and learning representatives”, and clause 55, “Facilities for equality representatives”. They would remove the requirement to provide reasonable time off for facility time, the creation of facility time for equality representatives and clauses that will reduce transparency requirements over facility time, respectively. Together with amendment 296, they would prevent facility time for equality representatives from being provided unless the relevant public sector organisation is meeting its statutory targets for performance. Trade union facility time already costs the Government nearly £100 million a year. Under the last Labour Government, the civil service spent 0.26% of its annual pay bill on facility time, compared with 0.04% in the private sector. Under the last Conservative Government, in 2022-23, the average for the civil service was 0.05%.
Labour councils are still the worst culprit. The transparency data collected by the Government in ’22-23 shows that Transport for London under the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has 881 full-time equivalent union officials on the books, costing £8 million a year. Bankrupt, Labour-run Birmingham city council has 30 full-time equivalent union officials on its central books, costing £1.2 million—no wonder that it went bankrupt. Furthermore, the council had 12 full-time equivalents in its maintained schools, costing £583,000.
Clauses 54 and 55 will increase that cost by giving more time off to public sector union officials at the taxpayer’s expense. That is not right when the Chancellor is asking Ministers to make cuts to their Departments across the board. Public services will be worse and the taxpayer will be expected to contribute more.
Furthermore, the Bill extends the right to facility time to equality representatives, who will now be allowed paid time off work to carry out activities for the purposes of
“promoting the value of equality in the workplace…arranging learning or training on matters relating to equality in the workplace…providing information, advice or support to qualifying members of the trade union in relation to matters relating to equality in the workplace…consulting with the employer on matters relating to equality in the workplace”
and
“obtaining and analysing information relating to equality in the workplace”.
Those are all noble goals, but that should not be done at the taxpayer’s expense.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
I wish to develop some of the detailed and eloquent arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), and to speak in particular about the amendments relating to part 4 of the Bill and the trade union movement.
Before he leaves, let me thank the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) for his very measured comments. I enjoyed his referral back to the industrial relations of the 1950s, although I should point out that we have moved on a little since then; I will say more about that shortly. I also thought that he simplified the Opposition’s position. We are not here to bash the unions. We support a progressive, modern trade union movement in which the balance is struck correctly between employer and employees. Unions should not and do not run businesses, but they are an important part of our industrial relations landscape.
There can be little doubt that this is, unfortunately, a Bill drafted by the few to the detriment of the many, and the numerous provisions that will largely abolish the Trade Union Act 2016 threaten to drag the country back to the dark days of the 1970s. The very enjoyable speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) perhaps illustrates that return to the 1970s. I am pleased to see a number of his friends from the rebellious left on the Government Benches, and I look forward to hearing their comments in due course.
The Trade Union Act 2016 was brought in by the last Conservative Government to reflect the modern British economy and workplace. It moved the trade union movement into the 21st century and ensures that hard-working people are not disrupted by little-supported strike action.
Mrs Russell
In my constituency of Congleton, we have been blighted by approximately seven years of strike action by Northern. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the key to modern industrial relations is to have good industrial relations, not to pull apart Bills that make things better?
Charlie Dewhirst
I think the best solution would be proper privatisation of our railways, including nationalised services like Northern, which is constantly on strike. I would use Hull Trains, which serves a lot of constituents in my area and is very rarely, if at all, on strike, as an example of an excellent, private open-access firm. Rail franchises that have been nationalised have a far greater problem with strike action than those that have not.
I wish to go back briefly to the ’70s—the height of the trade union movement. The number of trade union members peaked in 1979, at around 14 million. Since then, the number has declined considerably to around 6 million, the majority of whom are in the public sector. It is often for good reason that people in the public sector are members of a union, but it means that the landscape has changed. We have moved away from being a society and an economy of heavy industry and large manufacturing, and of towns that may have been built on one or two industries, or one or two factories, where everybody in that area was largely employed, either directly or indirectly, in those places. That was where the trade union movement was required, where it was strong and where it was needed.
The modern workplace is very different. We are now largely a services-based economy, and the relationship between employer and employee is much more modern and much more flexible. We have heard about the need for the traditional trade union movement, and about a return to secondary action, flying pickets and so forth. Clearly, there is no place at all for that in the UK now.
Jerome Mayhew
This is a chaotic mess of a Bill, cobbled together in 100 days to satisfy a press release. We have the unedifying spectacle of an amendment paper that is 274 pages long, as the Government try to correct their many mistakes.
The main thing that I want to address in my short speech is the idea that Labour is beholden to the unions. That is often suggested, but let us just look at the facts, because we need to put this to bed. Between 2019 and 2024, Labour received only £31,314,589 from the unions, and in this Parliament more than 200 Labour MPs have been paid directly by the unions. The Ministers in the Department for Business and Trade have collectively received about £120,000 from unions. What are the unions paying for? Whatever it is, they have been handsomely repaid in the drafting of this Bill. To make it easier for Labour Members, who were all here to hear my point of order, perhaps they could put their hands up if they have not received any cash from the unions—oh dear, oh dear!
Clause 52 suggests that there should be a requirement to contribute to political funds when people join a union. It changes the rules on how union members should donate and how they should contribute political funds to the Labour party. Clause 52(2) changes subscriptions from an opt-in to an opt-out. That raises the question: why do we need this clause? What is the problem that the Labour party is trying to fix? Is £31 million just not enough? This clause encourages unions, when signing up members, to take advantage of their distraction, because members will not be focused on that and they will fall into what is in effect a subscription trap.
In other circumstances, the Labour party does not think that subscription traps are a very good idea. In fact, the Government sent out a press release on 18 November 2024 entitled, “New measures unveiled to crack down on subscription traps”. That sounds good so far. It says:
“Consultation launched on measures to crack down on ‘subscription traps’ and better protect shoppers…Unwanted subscriptions cost families £14 per month per subscription and £1.6 billion a year in total”.
It goes on:
“New proposals to crack down on subscription traps have been unveiled today…‘Subscription traps’ are instances where consumers are frequently misled into signing up for a subscription…It comes as new figures reveal consumers are spending billions of pounds each year on unwanted subscriptions due to unclear terms and conditions and complicated cancellation routes.”
The Business Secretary says:
“Our mission is to put more money back into people’s pockets and improve living standards across this country, tackling subscription traps that rip people’s earnings away is an important part of that.”
Clause 52 flies in the face of that press release.
Mrs Russell
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a massive difference between major corporations wanting to take money out of people’s bank accounts every month and trade unions wanting to represent people as effectively as possible in the workplace?
Lincoln Jopp
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance). She is such a compelling advocate that I am tempted to go on strike myself. I do sense a certain amount of antipathy between the two sides of the House, so, before I come on to make a fair point in support of amendment 292, I want to prepare the ground by doing two things.
First, I want to try to convince Labour Members that they missed an opportunity, because I am, at heart, a rabble-rousing potential motivator of people. When, about three Christmases ago, the ambulance drivers went on strike, it irked me that the soldiers who were going to stand in for them at no notice would have their Christmas ruined, so I started a campaign to try to get them an additional £20 for every day they stood in for the ambulance drivers. This plan was—the Chancellor would have loved this—net positive to the Treasury. Of course, the departments that employ the ambulance drivers and the arm’s length bodies do not pay them on strike days, and the pay differential between them and the £20 bung to the soldiers meant that the Government still saved money. I managed to get The Sun on board and get a letter into the paper, and did a bit of television.
Mrs Russell
Is the hon. Gentleman not ashamed that, under his Government, hard-working ambulance drivers felt they had to go on strike?
Lincoln Jopp
I think the hon. Lady has slightly missed the point of what I was saying. Reading the body language of Members on the Government Benches, I think they all wanted to hear how this story ended up.
It did help that the then Secretary of State for Defence was a friend of mine, with whom I served in the Scots Guards. We did get the £20 bung for all the service personnel who stood in—regardless of the fact, interestingly, that all the generals, air marshals and admirals were against it, as were all the officials. There you go—I very much have the same values at heart.
Secondly, to win over the other side of the House to the very fair point I will come on to make, let me pay tribute to the remark of the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), in respect of union membership, that he wanted people to
“make a fair choice one way or the other”.
I note that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) also referred to fair work. I want to come back to that theme of fairness in addressing amendment 292.
The Bill is, to put it politely, something of a cat’s cradle of clauses, so I will briefly remind the House that the Bill seeks to place on employers an obligation to give their workers a written statement that they have the right to join a union, and, if they do join, to contribute to the political fund. Amendment 292 would simply inject a bit of balance into the legislation by requiring trade unions to notify their members annually that they have a right to opt out of the political fund and to obtain an annual opt-in from their members.
This all puts me in mind of November 1988, when Mrs Thatcher was about to visit Poland. At Prime Minister’s questions, just prior to her going, an Opposition Member stood up and asked whether she would raise with Lech Wałęsa the right to join a trade union. There may be some Members present who were there—I will not be so ungallant as to ask. A roar went up from the Labour Benches, and the redoubtable Mrs Thatcher replied that she would raise with the Poles the right to join a trade union, but that she would also raise the right not to be a member.
The Bill seeks to whack the pendulum pretty hard in favour of union power; our amendment would bring it back into balance somewhat. We all know someone, after all, who has fallen prey to one of those charity muggers who stop people in the street and try to sign them up to whichever charity they are being paid by that day. I have known people who have done that job, and it is not an easy one. Similarly, any Member of this House who stood in a precinct and tried to sell their political brand and get people to sign up will attest to that completely. Sometimes, the charity collectors are successful, and the all-important direct debit details are extracted. In fact, I remember hearing a number of Labour Members railing against this practice in the previous Parliament.
Amendment 292 would remind workers that they still have an off-ramp, if they want one—they still have agency, and they still have freedom of choice. We have heard Member after Member stand up over the past two days of debate and declare—in some cases sheepishly, in some cases more proudly—the money they receive from the trade unions. This is only right and proper. The public can make up their own minds as to whether this money has coloured the judgment of Labour Members, or whether it is simply support from an organisation that shares their values. But to turn down amendment 292 would, in my view, be a dreadful look. This is a totally measured, balancing amendment and, if Labour Members vote against it, the public would be right to conclude that the Government are being motivated not by a sense of equality, fairness and justice, but instead by something else. I urge hon. Members to vote for amendment 292 and to give power to the people.
Mrs Russell
This afternoon I want to talk about a point that I think many of us across the House would agree on: employment rights are quite useless without any sort of enforcement mechanism. I should first mention that I am a member of the Community union and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and I refer everyone to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
On enforcement, I am very pleased with clause 122 increasing the time for bringing employment tribunal claims from three to six months. It is a result of extensive campaigning by Pregnant Then Screwed and other organisations including the National AIDS Trust. They were very aware on behalf of their members of something I used to see regularly as a solicitor: a lot of people who have been very badly treated in their employment are so traumatised that they cannot come forward and make their claims within the three-month time limit. In addition, that reduces the potential time available for negotiation between former employees and their former employers, which is not in the best interests of either employees or employers. It is therefore really good news for both parties that we will have this increase in the amount of time available to bring those claims.
The other measure that I am particularly delighted about in the Bill is the creation of the Fair Work Agency. We absolutely need there to be accountability for employers that are not paying the national minimum wage. They are few and far between, and those that are not doing paying it need to be properly monitored and subject to enforcement, in order to create a fair playing field for all companies. I am sure that Opposition Members would completely agree that the national minimum wage is a fundamental part of our society and that everyone should be paying it.
The other matter I want to draw attention to is the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body. In my constituency, significant numbers of people need adult social care, and having a stable workforce is important in delivering that.
Alison Griffiths
I think the hon. Lady possibly misrepresents the intent of Opposition Members. We are not anti-trade union; we are anti the drafting of this Bill. I think it is important to make a clear distinction between the two.
Mrs Russell
I thank the hon. Lady for her point, but I think it is a very difficult distinction to make: that they are pro-trade union but anti things that make it easier for trade unions to effectively represent workers.
To return to my point, access to trade unions means access to good-quality advice, quicker resolution of disputes and a reduction in unrepresented litigants in person, which, in my experience, can make life genuinely difficult for well-meaning employers. Every single thing in this Bill will be good for workers, but it will also be good for employers, and I will be very pleased to vote for it later today.
Jayne Kirkham
I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare my Unison membership, although I am also an ex-solicitor. I am going to address the Government amendments relating to enforcement, rather than trade union rights.
We have a large demand for social care in Cornwall, as is the case in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell). Our population tends to an older demographic and, with many people leaving friends and family to retire to Cornwall, the availability of care is very important. Our social care system is close to breaking point due to the combination of years of underfunding and a fragmented privatised system. Skilled care workers are chronically underpaid for what they do, often at minimum wage, and we struggle to get and retain care workers.
The Bill contains many provisions that will help: strengthened sick pay; parental leave; protection from unfair dismissal from day one; improved family-friendly rights and flexible working; measures to tackle zero-hours contracts, including for agency workers and workers at umbrella companies, as well as for direct employees; and strengthened redundancy rights. The Bill also specifically gives social care workers respect and recognition through a fair pay agreement, and reinstates the School Support Staff Negotiating Body. It will be a game changer for those low-paid workers—mostly women—who work in care and schools.
“Chapter 4A
Sarah Russell Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Smith
I agree with my right hon. Friend. The crux of what she says is the difference between the approach of Conservative Members to economy and the way that Labour Members, and those on the other left-wing Benches, look at the economy. The left of British politics tends to view everything through the lens of business being bad, of all employers seeking to exploit their workforces, and of an image of a Victorian factory from a novel of that era. In reality, we must recognise the symbiotic relationship between employer and employee, because we do not grow the economy without things working in both their interests. The Bill seeks to tip the balance too far in one direction, forgetting that that will take away the incentive for employers—the wealth creators—to get on and grow.
Let me move to new clause 84 and amendment 284. Conservative Members have absolutely no issue with the right to request flexible working. Indeed, Conservatives in government passed the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023. That made it easier for employees to make flexible working requests, gave them a statutory right to do so, and required employers to consider and discuss any requests made by their employee more quickly. That legislation appears to be working. Indeed, the Regulatory Policy Committee has said that
“there is little evidence presented that employers are rejecting requests unreasonably.”
Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I spent 13 years as a solicitor working in employment rights, predominantly for employees and periodically for employers, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that flexible working is not working for many mothers in this country. Many women are giving up jobs and becoming self-employed because their employers will not agree their flexible working requests.
Greg Smith
It is good to hear from a real solicitor who gives her wealth of knowledge to this area. I am not trying to suggest that everything is perfect and working well. I fully accept the fair and good point that the hon. Lady makes about many mothers getting back into the workplace or extending their careers, but the Bill is not the answer she is looking for, if she looks at it in more detail.
The RPC gave the Government’s impact assessment for flexible working provisions a red rating, and that goes to the nub of the point. Is there room for improvement? Of course there is, but the impact assessment for the flexible provisions in the Bill was given a red rating—not fit for purpose. Once again, I ask the Minister this: what problem are the Government trying to solve with clause 7? Before rushing to pile more red tape on businesses through the Bill, did the Government consider options such as raising awareness of the right to request flexible working? Our new clause 84 requires the Secretary of State to assess the impact that clause 7 will have on employment, wages and economic output.
Mrs Russell
I assure the hon. Gentleman that women absolutely do know about the right to request flexible working, and that is not the source of the problems they are facing.
Greg Smith
The hon. Lady almost makes the point for me. Earlier, I made the very point that we introduced that right. It was working well, yet the RPC says that the provisions in the Bill will do nothing for it and are not fit for purpose—I thank her for her intervention.
New clause 84 calls for consideration of
“the likelihood of the costs of flexible working measures being passed on to employees through lower wages”,
and of the likely effect that the right to request flexible working will have on productivity, wage growth, equality of opportunity, job security, economic activity and employment. Equally, it requires that a report setting out that those findings
“must be laid before each House of Parliament no sooner than 18 weeks after the consultation has been initiated.”
Greg Smith
I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment. This Bill would criminalise and bring in the banter police and so on just because people are expressing a perfectly legitimate political view that somebody else finds offensive. I double-underline that sexual harassment is absolutely—
Mrs Russell
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The shadow Minister is in danger of misleading the House. Nothing that he has referred to is a crime. Sexual harassment, as dealt with in this Bill, is a civil matter dealt with by tribunal.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. That was in fact a point of debate, rather than a point of order.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I rise to speak to new clause 74, which appears in the name of the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh). I pay tribute to her and say that the Back Benches are very lucky to have her. May I also pay tribute to Mr B, whose story she told so movingly?
The campaign to redress the power imbalance for those offered non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual harassment, harassment, bullying and discrimination has been many years in the making. It transcends organisations and it transcends party. I pay tribute to Members past and present of all colours who have been part of this campaign for so long. I was pleased to hear from the Minister from the Dispatch Box that he hopes to continue to make progress, but I hope to urge him to go further faster, and for very good reason. It is long past time that this practice just stopped.
I want to reveal another never-before-told story from ITN. It is never-before-revealed because it is covered by a non-disclosure agreement, which means that I will be using privilege to reveal the details. Before I begin, it is worth saying that the victim is not alone; I understand that there are seven out there from ITN—we have heard another one today—and that investigations have been done by ITN’s board, which is intent on change. This victim is clear that she does not want to cause ITN problems, but she wants MPs to understand the effect that this continues to have on her life and why we need to act quickly.
This young woman was in her mid-20s when she landed her dream job at ITN. She quickly became trapped in what we understand to be a coercive, controlling sexual relationship with an older male editor. He would hurl wild accusations at her and accuse her of affairs with colleagues. She ended up suffering from panic attacks as a result of the relationship. Before Christmas 2019, she finally had the courage to end it.
When she returned to work in January, she had been demoted. Her hours were reduced and so was her pay. The first editor she told warned her to stay silent. She said: “You don’t want to be one of those women who always moan about being wronged.” She then confided in a more senior editor, and things got worse. She told her: “It’s not like he ever hit you. It’s not like you ever had to go to A&E with broken bones.”
She went to work every day for the next year. It took ITN months to agree to an HR investigation into what happened. It agreed only on the condition that she would also be investigated. HR found that it could not assess the complaint because it was criminal in nature, but at the same time found it to be unfounded. That makes no sense. Around this time, she asked a question at an ITN women’s empowerment forum, in front of all staff, during the pandemic. She simply asked, “What support is there for women who report alleged sexual harassment in the workplace?” Within an hour, her email had been cut off. HR summoned her to an urgent meeting; her primary offence, it would seem, was asking for help.
From that moment, she was suspended without pay. She had been completely cut off from almost all support networks for about a year. ITN told her that she was not allowed to tell anyone—except the police, to be fair—what was happening. Even her best friend had to sign an NDA to attend a meeting to support her. The NHS offered her group therapy for her anxiety, but she felt that she had to decline because the organisation insisted that she stayed silent. Her lawyer said that the organisation was trying to starve her out in negotiations over her exit. They took years. By the time they got to a settlement, she had racked up £70,000 in legal fees.
Mrs Russell
I know from experience that it is a practice of employment lawyers who work for employers to go on to Google Maps and look at the houses in which complainants live, to assess the assets that they are likely to have and whether they are likely to be able to afford to continue their defence to tribunal, or whether they could be offered a smaller amount as a settlement. Does the hon. Lady agree that NDAs are providing cover for that?
Layla Moran
Absolutely. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that we need to put a stop to.
The young woman eventually reached a settlement, but it was extremely one-sided. She panicked, because the NDA gagged not just her but her partner, her best friends and her parents, but it did not gag the men or the senior executives involved in the harassment that she faced. It covered not just business matters—we are not seeking to stop confidentiality agreements on business matters—but everything painful that she had endured. Her mental health spiralled and she ended up in hospital. Every day that she was in a hospital bed, the lawyers sent her automatic reminders to sign her NDA. This was a woman at her most vulnerable. It is entirely wrong that she was put in that position.
It is worth saying that almost none of that NDA is enforceable. It if was taken to court, it would fail. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 makes it clear that she should have been able to get that support. We are kidding ourselves if we think that NDAs are not still being used and issued. They are. That is why this Bill—whether now, in the Lords or wherever—needs to put a stop to it.
Many years on, following an investigation into the treatment of these workers at ITN, the woman does believe that the organisation is trying to change, and she is grateful to the executives from within who are pushing for reform. The latest update is that ITN is willing to renegotiate her NDA. That is laudable, but she should never have been put under one in the first place, and those protections should be everywhere.
We face a weird situation which we in the House have created. In the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, there is a provision—it was tabled as an amendment by Labour and taken on in the Lords by the then Conservative Government—that says that such non-disclosure agreements are not allowed, but it covers only higher education settings, because that was the scope of the Act. I am an Oxford MP. How does it make any sense at all that I might have a constituent who is protected from such non-disclosure agreements if they work for the university but not if they work for any of the university spin-outs?
Mrs Russell
It appears to be quite commonly overlooked by Opposition Members that flexible working will still be available to people on fixed-term contracts. Does the hon. Member agree that such contracts can be used to manage seasonal fluctuations?
James Wild
I am simply pointing to the words of the chief executive of Currys, which employs thousands of people across the country. I am not here to tell employers what form of contracts to offer their staff, and I am not sure that it is the hon. Lady’s job to do so either. However, the Bill will certainly remove flexibility.
The Government are doubling down by extending that requirement to agency workers. Flexible contracts, which are valued by staff—we have heard from other Conservative Members about their benefits—will be undermined by the Bill. A flexible labour market is an important part of securing a growing economy. The previous Government managed to achieve that while also extending employment rights. As the Federation of Small Businesses and organisations that provide millions of jobs have warned, the clear danger of the Bill is that it will make it harder to employ people by increasing risks and costs.
Rather than striking the balance that the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), spoke about, the Government have produced measures that, when taken together—and on top of the Chancellor’s tax-raising Budget and the near doubling of business rates for hospitality, retail and leisure businesses—create a significant cost and regulatory risk. That is why we oppose the Bill and the Government’s action to hike taxes and increase regulation that will make us less competitive.
Alison Griffiths
I refer the hon. Member first to my earlier comments about ensuring that we do not disincentivise employers, and secondly to the flexibility that is needed for both employers and employees.
Amendment 288 seeks to exclude hospitality providers and sports venues from those provisions, recognising the impracticality of holding employers accountable for every interaction in those environments. It is simply not practical to think that every publican, landlord and bar owner—small business owners—would be liable for any harassment that happens towards their employees in a pub, bar, nightclub or festival. Amendment 285 would require an impact assessment to be carried out on clause 18. Of course businesses and business owners should embed good working practices and guidelines to combat this abhorrent behaviour, but it is impractical and undesirable for the Government to legislate nationally for every sector and business.
Mrs Russell
The hon. Lady will appreciate that there is a defence here if an employer has taken all reasonable steps. It is only reasonable steps.
Alison Griffiths
I am sorry; I think we have made enough progress.
I urge the Government to reconsider, to withdraw the Bill and to work with businesses, unions and workers to create a fair and balanced approach that prioritises the political interests—
Employment Rights Bill
Sarah Russell Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Mrs Russell
I need to highlight to the House that I am a member of the Community and USDAW trade unions, and I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I would like to speak to various bits of this legislation today. There is so much in it, and I know that so many of us on the Government Back Benches are really pleased with what we are bringing forward.
The first part of the legislation that I want to address is clause 22, which will bring forward in future legislation more protections for women who are pregnant, on maternity leave and in the period immediately following their maternity leave. I have spent the past 13 years representing large numbers of women who were either made redundant while pregnant, on maternity leave or trying to come back from maternity leave, or whose employer suddenly woke up one morning and decided that they were underperforming, often within 24 hours of their announcing their pregnancy. I had a client who had been headhunted and brought into the company, was totally stellar, doing incredibly well and got promoted, but then announced her pregnancy and within a week she was on a performance plan. HR explained to her that because they were, you know, kind and did not want to do that to her while she was pregnant, they were very generously offering her a settlement agreement so that she did not have to go through that.
Lots of perfectly decent people do not understand why they are losing their jobs, and it is because they are pregnant. Pregnant Then Screwed found that 12.3% of women who have had a baby have either been sacked, constructively dismissed or made redundant while pregnant, on maternity leave or within a year of their maternity leave ending. It is a widespread problem, so it is fantastic that the Bill contains clause 22, which will allow the Minister to bring forward steps to expand the available protections. I would like to know how quickly we can do that, because pregnant women out there need that protection literally today.
Lola McEvoy
My hon. Friend, who has great expertise in this area, is making an eloquent speech. Does she agree that dismissals of pregnant women or new mothers are dramatically under-reported because of the use of non-disclosure agreements in a lot of companies while they are taking action against them?
Mrs Russell
I could talk about NDAs at some length, but I do not have time to today. They are definitely problematic, and they are definitely concealing the extent of the problems that women suffer when they announce their pregnancies.
The second element I like in the legislation is the improvements to the right to request flexible working. Those on the Conservative Benches have questioned why we would do this. The answer is that the term “part-timer” is still a term of abuse in this country. While that is still something that people say fairly regularly within workplaces and popular parlance, we still have a problem, so this legislation should help to improve that.
Conservative Members have talked a lot about clause 17 and the third-party harassment elements, and it is worth getting into some of the detail. The defence for an employer for failing to protect their staff from third-party harassment is taking all reasonable steps to prevent that harassment from occurring. Employment tribunals have been interpreting the meaning of “reasonable” for a long time, and in a discrimination claim there is essentially a three-part judiciary: a judge with legal experience, someone with employer experience, and someone with employee experience—sometimes from a trade union, but sometimes from elsewhere. When they talk about “all reasonable steps”, it is only reasonable steps; it is not every single step in the entire history of the universe that anyone could ever dream up or imagine.
Wera Hobhouse
The hon. Member is speaking powerfully. Does she agree that this amendment is being used by the Conservative party to condone something offensive and despicable, and that they are trying to defend the indefensible?
Mrs Russell
I completely and utterly agree with the hon. Member. Actually, a lot of what is coming from Conservative Members is scaremongering. A lot of those discussing this behave as if employees with unfair dismissal rights were unexploded bombs. All the people I represented did not want to bring tribunal claims; they just wanted to have been treated fairly and reasonably in the first place. They were typically extremely destressed by their experiences, and for quite a lot of them, their mental health had deteriorated substantially in the course of what they had gone through. I do not think that when people have unfair dismissal rights a little bit sooner, they will all be rushing to employment tribunals the moment that something goes slightly wrong in their workplace. What most people want to do every morning is get up, go to work, do a decent job, get paid for it and go home. That is what we will continue to see after this legislation passes: that most employers want to look after their employees perfectly reasonably, and most employees want to do a perfectly decent job.
Joe Robertson
I have been rather unsuccessful this afternoon in finding someone on the Government Benches who has concerns about the £5 billion cost to businesses that this Bill will bring. Will the hon. Member express concern over the £5 billion cost and the downward pressure on growth that this Bill brings, according to the Government’s own assessment?
Mrs Russell
My primary concern is that those on the Conservative Benches talk about employees as if they are, as I said, unexploded bombs, and they talk about employers as if they are unlikely ever to recruit anyone ever again, and I just do not believe that to be true. Most employers will make a sensible assessment of whether having an additional member of staff will benefit their business and then they will recruit them. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you.
It is really important that we cut through the disinformation and scaremongering, and that when we take the legislation forward, ACAS has good information ready to go. It already has great information online— I encourage employers who are worried to look up ACAS information videos on YouTube and look at its factsheets. We must make it clear to people that they have access to sources of free advice, which is important for small businesses, so that they can see what is and is not required of them. The position being stated today is bluntly exaggerated and quite damaging as a result.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
I rise to speak in favour of my new clause 105. The labour abuse that it seeks to address is the wrongful use of substitution clauses by gig economy workers. To guarantee fairness and justice in the labour market, it is crucial that there be transparency, which can be delivered through the introduction of a comprehensive register of all dependent contractors. That will help to ensure that employment rights are upheld and pay is not suppressed through illegitimate competition, but it will also support the enforcement of right-to-work checks. The unlawful employment of migrants with no right to work here is not good for taxpayers, British workers or migrants who follow the rules, yet substitution clauses allow what have become known as “Deliveroo visas”—the industrial scale abuse of our immigration and labour laws.
Before addressing the substance of my new clause, I also commend new clause 30 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), which I have sponsored. It would give special constables the right to take time off to carry out their police duties. Other public service volunteers, such as magistrates and councillors, receive that right.
I turn to my new clause 105. Ministers have said that they will consult on employment status and moving towards a two-part legal framework that identifies people who are genuinely self-employed. I support that ambition, and I am grateful to the Minister for his warm words in Committee, but my new clause provides a way to resolve a particular abuse and hold big employers in the gig economy to account.
There are 4.7 million gig economy workers in the UK, including 120,000 official riders at Uber Eats and Deliveroo, two of the largest delivery companies in the country. For years we have heard stories of the rampant labour market fraud and visa abuse committed by contractors related to those companies. From late 2018 to early 2019, there were 14,000 fraudulent Uber journeys, according to Transport for London. In addition to Uber and Deliveroo, Amazon and Just Eat have been linked to labour market abuses. Much of that abuse has come through the legal loophole created by substitution clauses.
Amazon tells its couriers that it is their
“responsibility to pay your substitute…at any rate you agree with them”
and
“you must ensure that any substitute…has the right to work in the UK”.
It is a dereliction of duty to pass responsibility for compliance with criminal and right-to-work checks on to workers, but those companies clearly have an interest in maintaining a status quo in which undocumented migrants take the lowest fees in delivery apps.
Data from the Rodeo app shows the effect of that abuse on riders’ order fees. Just Eat riders saw their fees drop by 14.4%, from £6.53 in 2021 to £5.59 in 2023. There was a 3.4% drop for Uber Eats order fees—from £4.36 to £4.21—during the same period. Deliveroo has blocked its order fee data from being published. Those figures are not adjusted for inflation, but it is clear to see how pay and conditions have worsened for riders. By undercutting domestic workers—British workers—and exploiting those with no legal right to be here, companies are privatising profits and socialising costs. Promises from such companies to introduce tougher security checks have not made the problem go away. We should all be appalled by this state of affairs, because nobody should be above the law.
During random checks two years ago, the Home Office found that two in five delivery riders who were stopped were working illegally. In the same month, 60 riders from Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat were arrested in London for immigration offences, including working illegally and holding false documentation. Last month, Deliveroo sacked more than 100 riders who shared their accounts with illegal migrants. But that is only the tip of the iceberg: insurance companies report unauthorised riders involved in motor and personal injury cases.
That is happening because undocumented migrants are renting rider accounts for between £70 and £100 a week. Profiles have been bought for as much as £5,000. The i Paper found more than 100,000 people on Facebook groups where identities have been traded for years, including one group that gained around 28,000 members in less than 18 months.
Illegal migrants are using social media apps to rent accounts and share information on a significant scale. Today, we only have figures from press investigations, but we can find copious examples across the internet with ease. Legal workers have reported problems to the police and the Home Office, but that has fuelled tensions as they compete for orders and has even led to violent clashes between legal and illegal riders in Brighton and London, including physical beatings and damage to bikes.
People working illegally for these big companies are working longer hours round the clock for lower fees, never knowing when their last payday might be. They use group chats to share information and evade Home Office immigration raids. We do not even know how many substitute riders there are for these companies at any given time. A spokesman for the App Drivers and Couriers Union says:
“Unfortunately there is this loophole that allows some bad people to come through. They are not vetted so they could do anything.”
Paternity Leave and Pay
Sarah Russell Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I have spent the last 13 years advising women, in particular, in employment tribunals, and I have advised a lot of women who have suffered maternity discrimination. That was an absolute mainstay of my practice. My comments will be completely heteronormative; that is not to disparage any other family structures.
During the pandemic, for the first time large numbers of women and men were able to work from home. I say that because prior to the pandemic I spent a lot of time advising women on flexible working requests. If they asked to work from home for one or perhaps two days a week, that was habitually turned down. They were told that it was completely impossible; employers would not hear of it. Once men did it, it became absolutely acceptable, and it is now absolutely fine in most organisations for parents of either gender to work from home for one or two days a week.
If women continue to take the overwhelming majority of parental leave, they will continue to take the entire career burden and will be systematically discriminated against for it. This is a widespread issue: 54,000 women a year lose their jobs when they are pregnant or on maternity leave.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
We also have to think about all the women who do not have children but are discriminated against anyway because employers expect them to. Does my hon. Friend agree that to get paternity leave right, we have to ensure that everyone in their 30s and 40s is equally discriminated against because they might go off and have children?
Mrs Russell
I completely recognise what my hon. Friend says. The risk zone for women’s careers starts when they are approximately 25 and carries on until they are at least 45. I have been advised not to wear my wedding ring to interviews because I was likely to be viewed as a pregnancy risk. Until we deal with that—until men take significant amounts of leave and are paid properly to do it—we will continue to face this issue, and women will be systematically discriminated against, as she says, whether they have children or not.
Approximately 12% of employers disclosed in a YouGov poll that they were reluctant to hire a woman simply because she might become pregnant. This is a widespread issue, whether women have children or not. We need non-transferable, “use it or lose it” parental leave for the second parent and we must ensure that that is paid at a rate such that people are actually able to take the leave. Once we have that and it becomes the default minimum—some fathers will choose to take significantly longer—everyone will be a risk, and everyone will be able to have career development. That will change the entire attitude towards maternity leave in our society. As I said, 54,000 women a year lose their jobs when pregnant or on maternity leave. All the women I advised thought they were just individually unlucky but given the volume of them I can say that they were not unlucky—it was systematic.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on securing this long-overdue debate. Previous debates have had a minimal turnout, so it is fantastic to see so many people here. I also pay tribute to the Dad Shift and the original campaigners Pregnant Then Screwed and Joeli Brearley.
Joeli Brearley came up with the pancake test: if we consistently put mums and dads in two different boxes, with mums looking after babies and dads having to go back to work after those first two weeks, when you have just realised that the meconium will eventually stop, it is mums who learn how to feed the child pancakes and dads who do not. It is mums who will get why some days the child wants pancakes rolled up, some days they want them flat and some days they want them with cream. That everyday caring for children is at the heart of being able to look after them, and slowly but surely it ends up being easier for the mum to take the child and to deal with the toddler, and dads get further and further away.
That is why, in the minute I have left, I want to argue in front of the Minister for PaPa—protected and paid leave—which we need for mums and dads in every single relationship. There is a risk that the Employment Rights Bill and the brilliant changes it introduces could entrench the challenges we are discussing, rather than helping us to resolve them. What do I mean by that? I mean that, if we entrench the idea that shared parental leave is the answer to the challenge, we are entrenching one of the biggest crimes against relationships. As the data shows us time and again, it is mums who end up having to look after children and mums who end up having to take that link. That is why in this country there is a motherhood penalty, which means that mums are seen as less committed, less capable, less competent and less worthy of promotion.
Mrs Russell
Does my hon. Friend agree that the idea that “part-timer” is a term of abuse is a shocking concept, and that what we are discussing today could help with that?
Ms Creasy
I completely agree. I was also shocked to hear Conservative Members, who obviously are not in this Chamber today, talking about flexible working as somehow lesser working. When people work flexibly, they do not work less—that is why they end up sending emails in the evening, because they are prioritising their time to do bedtime. They make it work for their family.
This debate is about making things work for families and tackling the inequalities in the workplace. Those inequalities are why we have a gender pay gap in this country—though in fact it is not a gender pay gap, but a motherhood pay gap. There is also a fatherhood premium, but we are showing in this debate that it is not a premium at all, because asking dads to work harder and longer and to be away from their children is not what modern dads want. That is why so many fathers look at flexibility in the workplace when they take on jobs, and that is why this debate matters.
If we want to support every family, it cannot just be the wealthiest who can set the terms on when they get to see their kids and make those pancakes. I therefore urge the Minister to consider an amendment that many of us will be tabling relating to PaPa for dads in their own right, because that will help every member of the family. I said it in the main Chamber, and I will say it again here: having PaPa is good for us, because our economic competitors are doing it, and we have some of the worst rates of paternity leave. It is also good because we can prevent another generation of dads reaching the stage of having teenagers who they have no relationship with, because they have not been there—not just to make pancakes, but to be the best dad they want to be.
Whistleblowing Protections
Sarah Russell Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I thank all those who have spoken before me in such an informative manner and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for securing the debate.
I have advised numerous whistleblowers throughout my career. Some themes emerge from the experience that speak directly to the points raised by a couple of previous speakers about the impact on whistleblowers when they realise there is something seriously wrong in their organisation and they speak up about it. I have found, particularly in the NHS, that there is an institutional reluctance—and I think I can understand it. I think it is psychologically extremely difficult for people to accept that their department might be systematically failing or sometimes actively damaging patients, and the result is that they tend to turn on the person blowing the whistle and to ostracise them. What follows is an investigation into that person’s behaviour or conduct as relationships deteriorate, and often then a dismissal under the term “some other substantial reason”.
There are five potentially lawful reasons for dismissal, including misconduct, incapability and so forth. One is “some other substantial reason” for dismissal. That phrase is really a catchall for, “There is some sort of decent reason for sacking this person”, but the case law has developed in such a way that “some other substantial reason” for dismissal can just be an absolute breakdown of relationships between people who work together—and that is almost always the case where there is a whistleblower. The result is that we have a massive gap in our law, whereby people who have blown the whistle are systematically being dismissed for “some other substantial reason”.
One of the most effective things we could do within the scope of the current system would be to outlaw the use of “some other substantial reason” dismissals in a whistleblowing framework, so that if someone has blown the whistle, there cannot be a “some other substantial reason” dismissal. There would still be the ability to dismiss for misconduct if there has genuinely been misconduct, but in the situations I have seen, that has usually not been the case; it is just that people have fallen out.
I think there is scope to improve whistleblowing protections in the current system. We could do it through amendments to the Employment Rights Bill, which is making its way through the House. In the longer term—I appreciate that this is not currently fiscally viable—but we could look at extending legal aid to whistleblowers. We could extend to whistleblowers the legal aid protection available to people on low incomes for discrimination claims; that would be in the public interest and would nicely back up the duty of candour that we have been talking about introducing. We could also look at whether the suggestions being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central could be linked to the fair work agency, and whether we could in due course extend the powers of that agency to examine this issue.
It is a terrible thing to advise whistleblowers, because they are so distressed—certainly one of the most distressed client groups I have ever come across. Whistleblowing is typically completely career-ending for them, and the results for many are terrible. We should look at whether our unfair dismissal legislation is well placed to handle such matters. I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central for raising this topic for debate.