Scunthorpe Steelworks

Sonia Kumar Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Select Committee member Sonia Kumar.

[Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)]

The UK now produces less steel than our European neighbours Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Austria and Poland, and over the past 30 years, China’s share of global steel production has risen from 13% to 54%. To safeguard the future of the steel industry, we must think about diversification. Does my hon. Friend agree that supporting British small and medium-sized enterprises into the steel industry will make it more competitive and sustainable?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that conversation and all her work with the steel industry in her constituency. The steel strategy that we are putting together, which will be published in the spring with £2.5 billion to invest, will consider how to stimulate demand, use research and development and get the most out of scrap in the UK, as well as looking at trade and overcapacity, carbon leakage and the availability of sites—there is a whole raft of work going on. She is right about ensuring that there is an industry for the big and small players. That is what we are working through, and I look forward to working with her on that.

Employment Rights Bill

Sonia Kumar Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andy MacNae]

I am a member of Unite the union, but I rise to make my remarks from the perspective of a business owner and employer, in response to comments made by Conservative Members, who have now wandered off, about small and medium-sized businesses. These are personal comments and I will give my personal perspective, but I know many businesses, large and small, that share this point of view.

Before coming to this place, I was running businesses of various shapes and sizes for well over 20 years. I did my MBA at Manchester Business School, I have started and led several businesses, and I have served on the board of many others, so I have been about a bit. Throughout that time, it was always clear in my mind that whatever the business, the critical success factor is always the skills, drive and quality of the people that the business employs or contracts. To succeed, any business must attract the best possible people. That is why I have always felt that the selection and recruitment process was my key role in any organisation that I led. I will always argue that great businesses, by which I mean those with sustained success, will always be good employers.

When I look at the measures in this Bill, all I see are the things that good employers are already doing. We know that support for employees when they have children pays off in the long term. We know that giving employees job security increases their commitment and productivity. We support our people when they are sick, and we know that taking holidays is vital to maintain performance. We do not unfairly dismiss, whether someone has been with us for one day or for many years. We have rigorous recruitment processes, and we make it clear that employees must show they meet requirements for a job during the probationary period. We pay as well as we can, knowing that employees who feel valued will deliver for our businesses.

Up until now, good employers have always felt the risk of being undercut by unscrupulous and short-term disruptors looking to make a quick buck. This is a real and serious issue—I have experienced it in business, and many other business owners have raised it with me. Businesses doing the right thing should not be disadvantaged, yet weak and outdated employment legislation has left them exposed. This Bill levels the playing field. Good employers can keep on doing what they do, knowing that their competitors can no longer undercut them by, for instance, employing a majority of their staff on zero-hours contracts, not giving holiday pay, firing and rehiring or just underpaying.

This Bill is good for good businesses and good for workers. It is good for growth and for society. It will put more money in people’s pockets and deliver real, tangible benefits for working people, and I am very pleased to support it.

[Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which include my membership of GMB, Unison and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

When I spoke on Second Reading, I welcomed the advancements that this Bill would make on statutory sick pay, maternity and paternity pay and protections around pregnancy, as well as its values of fairness. I support new clauses 44, 47 and 48: it is only right that if someone has done a fair day’s work and a business fails to pay them, the Secretary of State should have the authority to give notice of underpayment. No one in Britain should go home from an honest day’s work out of pocket and worried about paying their bills. I also welcome the Secretary of State’s interventions on imposing financial penalties on businesses that make underpayments.

I believe that poor practice in the workplace should be called out and that those responsible should be held accountable. However, we also need an adequately resourced fair work agency, so I support new clause 82, tabled by the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne). The agency should be agile enough to tackle issues upstream by supporting businesses that want to comply with the law, as well as having enough resources to tackle meaningfully non-compliant businesses. On the Business and Trade Committee, we heard from several businesses, some of which were great employers and some of which were unable to justify their malpractice, with evidence of modern-day slavery in their supply chains.

We cannot have companies getting away with poor practice where workers cannot use the toilet, are not entitled to their breaks or fail to get their fair pay. Transparency, accountability and enforcement are key, but we must remember that most businesses do their best by their workers, and I have witnessed that. Since Second Reading, I have met with business owners in several sectors, from steelworkers and scaffolders to restaurant owners and retail. During my visits and roundtables in my constituency of Dudley, both workers and employers often tell me that they want the same thing: the stability to grow and a fiscally responsible Government who care about them and their future. Stability is not a zero-sum game. Research shows that when businesses look after their employees, they create a more loyal and productive workforce, which in turn strengthens businesses and helps them to grow the economy. In 2023, digital research by Deloitte found that

“fostering trust, opportunities for growth, and employee well-being are the keys to increased workforce retention and satisfaction”.

To reassure businesses, we know that the implementation of this Bill will be in phases. That approach promises to allow step-by-step upskilling of HR professionals and to update employment practices one step at a time; they will not be expected to be employed until 2026. I therefore ask the Minister to provide a road map outlining details of future consultations, with a two-year timeline to help to guide business owners to provide stability for businesses. A road map would undoubtedly help to ease growing pains, allowing small businesses time to plan the necessary administration, upskilling and ability to resource for the fair work agency. Both workers and businesses in Dudley would benefit greatly from that stability, and I wholeheartedly support this Bill.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

I rise to support the Bill, and in particular Government new schedule 2. I must also draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of both the GMB and Unite trade unions. I should also make clear to the House my employment history, both as a chief executive officer and a managing director of companies in the United States, the UK and Israel, and my record as a company founder and employer.

Department for Business and Trade

Sonia Kumar Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)]

As a member of the Business and Trade Committee, I welcome this debate and the opportunity to look at our priorities for the future. Small and medium-sized businesses make up 99.9% of British businesses, employing over 16 million people. As the daughter of a greengrocer, my speech will focus on supporting SMEs to grow our economy.

It is crucial that the Government’s plan to deliver long-term growth includes digital inclusion, improving financial literacy, improving access to finance, workforce reskilling, and expanding the export-led growth capabilities of SMEs. Digital exclusion is not just a social problem, but an economic one. The Government’s digital skills plan recognises that businesses and workers must be equipped with digital capabilities to drive growth, yet millions of adults and thousands of businesses lack the digital skills and financial literacy needed to compete in both today’s and tomorrow’s economy. They face barriers to digital adoption, including cost, lack of awareness and difficulty accessing Government support.

I have spoken to several businesses in Dudley and I recently held a networking event, and those from small businesses repeatedly said that they do not have the time to learn digital skills, and using social media as part of their marketing strategy was walking into the dark. SMEs also face barriers in accessing finance to scale up and enter new markets abroad.

I support the Business and Trade Committee’s priorities, so will the Department agree to spend on expanding financial incentives, as Governments must make grants, R&D tax reliefs and digital adoption funding easier to access, especially for SMEs outside London and the big cities; to focus on financial literacy so businesses can thrive; to streamline public procurement as too many tech SMEs struggle to win public sector contracts due to the overly complex processes; and to have initiatives for businesses to access finance, whether that is seed money or scaling up to export? Lastly, will the Government commit to maximising opportunity in the industrial strategy for all towns like Dudley to ensure that no town is left behind on this journey to economic prosperity?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Plant Oxford Site

Sonia Kumar Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

It is hard to know where to start. The “puritanical ZEV obsession” was, as the hon. Gentleman knows, a Conservative policy from the last Government. The only changes made to that policy under the last Prime Minister dampened demand by changing the deadline, and hampered manufacturers by not ensuring flexibility or pragmatism in how the policy operated—it was the worst of both worlds.

By contrast, Labour and the Government are acting with pragmatism. We are listening to industry and working at pace to get this right. We are also creating the conditions in which the automotive industry can thrive. That means delivering not just the economic and political stability so lacking under the previous Government, but an industrial strategy that will deliver growth, including in the automotive industry; investing £2 billion in automotive transition through the Budget; investing in research and development; supporting and talking to our industries; and understanding the global climate.

It was really clear in BMW’s statement that there were macroeconomic global and commercial reasons why the decision to delay was made, but BMW is clear that it is still committed to this investment in the UK. I have talked to my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who is liaising closely with workers and unions, as would be expected. We will continue to work to ensure the right economic and political climate, so that these industries can grow.

[Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)]

Will the Minister update the House on progress on the industrial strategy for the automotive industry? How will that support supply chains in places like Dudley and across the west midlands?

[Sarah Jones]

We are working at pace on delivering the industrial strategy in the spring. There are 150,000 good jobs in the automotive industry, and we want to see those jobs grow. We have identified eight growth sectors that the industrial strategy will turbocharge. Advanced manufacturing is one of them, and that of course includes the auto industry. We have £2 billion of investment, committed at the Budget, to underpin that. We are also working in the industrial strategy on identifying any barriers to growth, so that we can ensure that the sector grows in the years to come.

The industrial strategy will give the stability that we need over the long term—over five and 10 years. It will look at the policy levers that we can control to ensure that businesses continue to want to invest in the UK. PwC has just ranked the UK the second-best place in the world to invest, so I think the future is positive.