Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I am quite concerned about this amendment, although I rarely disagree with my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. I am just concerned about the number of agencies or government bodies that keep being created. We already have considerable regulation in this country; I am not convinced that this will add value. Although I recognise the reasons why my noble friend put this forward, I hope he might reconsider tabling it again on Report, if he was so minded.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I start by saying how pleased we are to see my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond in his place. I had the privilege of moving his previous amendments in his absence, but we are delighted to see him back with us and I thank him for proposing this important amendment.

The way my noble friend did it was very welcome because, at the heart of his speech, was a recognition that the labour market—especially the supply of temporary and agency workers—has to be fair and transparent. He used those particular words and stressed their importance. I agree with him that it is essential that all companies involved in these arrangements operate under the same clear set of rules. Too often, we see instances where umbrella companies or certain intermediaries do not meet the standards expected of traditional employment agencies, whether on pay, workers’ rights or transparency. This inconsistency undermines the integrity of the labour market and can put vulnerable workers at risk. Licensing could, in theory, help address this by ensuring that any business participating in employment arrangements meets minimum standards and is subject to proper oversight.

However, as my noble friend Lady Coffey stressed, the amendment raises some other important questions. Clause 34 broadens the definition of “employment business” to encompass a range of activities connected to supplying workers who are employed by one party but work under the control of another. This means that the regulatory net will be set much wider than before, potentially to cover businesses beyond traditional recruitment agencies.

Moreover, it is worth considering whether the same objectives could be achieved through improved enforcement of existing regulations rather than by introducing a new licensing framework. In this Chamber, we have to weigh carefully the costs and benefits, particularly to smaller businesses that may struggle with additional compliance burdens. We must also consider the impact on businesses and the wider economy. Many employment businesses operate with tight margins; for them, licensing means added costs, added paperwork and longer lead times to launch new services or respond to labour demand.

This is not an argument against regulation per se; it is simply a recognition that badly designed or poorly phased licensing can create barriers to entry, reduce competition and even push some providers underground, where abuses are harder to detect. In sectors that are already experiencing labour shortages, such as social care, hospitality and logistics, the cumulative impact could be significant.

As my noble friend Lady Coffey pointed out, there is also the risk of regulatory duplication or conflict. Some sectors already have licensing or registration schemes; others are subject to sector-specific standards set by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission or the Financial Conduct Authority. Without co-ordination, we risk creating overlapping regimes, with businesses subject to multiple audits, rival codes of conduct and inconsistent enforcement. Workers too may be confused about their rights and the mechanisms available for redress.

I also note that the amendment does not contain any provisions for parliamentary oversight or consultation. The power it seeks to create is broad and, while it is subject to the discretion of the Secretary of State, it is not constrained by any statutory duty to consult stakeholders. In a sector as economically important and socially sensitive as this, there must be consultation. Against that background, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 151, 174 and 180, which are in my name. These amendments would address one of the most crucial challenges in our education system: how we value, support and compensate more than half the school workforce—the non-teaching staff. These teaching assistants, business managers, IT technicians, cleaners and catering staff form the backbone of every successful school.

While the Government’s intention to establish a school support staff negotiating body demonstrates a genuine commitment to these vital employees, and indeed fulfils a manifesto pledge, I am really concerned that the proposals as drafted are unworkable, expensive and time-consuming. They will add to the complexity and workload of every single school, not just academies. Individual maintained schools will often not be aware that the pay structure in their local authority is different from that in a neighbouring one. My amendments focus on academy schools, but the thrust of my argument to the Government is to think again because of the impact on every single school.

Amendment 151 seeks to mitigate potential damage by limiting the SSSNB’s powers to creating a framework that academies must consider regarding remuneration, terms and conditions, training, career progression and related matters. I believe that these flexibilities should extend to maintained schools. Amendment 174 would require the Government to produce before introducing these changes an impact assessment of the cost to the whole education sector, both academies and maintained schools. Amendment 180 would require annual reports of the SSSNB to include an assessment of the increased costs to the sector of any pay and conditions agreements.

It is important that we are clear what we mean by support staff. Support staff are not a homogenous group but an extraordinarily diverse workforce spanning many different roles, skill levels and contexts. Teaching assistants, while crucial, comprise less than half of all support staff. The remainder includes roles ranging from pastoral care to facilities managers, finance assistants, network administrators and school receptionists.

A small maintained primary school might employ a part-time administrative assistant handling multiple responsibilities, while a large multi-academy trust might maintain specialised finance teams, HR professionals and IT specialists serving multiple schools across a region. This diversity is intentional and beneficial. Schools and trusts have developed different approaches to organising their support functions because they face varying challenges. They serve distinct communities and operate at very different scales. What serves a 100-pupil rural primary school will not suit a 2,000-pupil secondary academy. What works for a stand-alone school will not fit a trust operating across multiple regions. Any national framework that fails to acknowledge this reality risks becoming either too vague to be useful or too rigid to serve communities effectively.

I am not trying to suggest that the status quo is perfect. The current National Joint Council arrangements have significant weaknesses in their application to schools, leading some local authorities such as those in the so-called London fringe to opt out of the Green Book terms and conditions entirely.

First, the NJC terms and conditions were designed for general local government workers—from refuse collectors to office administrators—but they barely address schools’ specific working environments and unique demands. Secondly, there is insufficient co-ordination between teacher and support staff pay negotiations. These separate processes often reach conflicting conclusions about affordability and appropriate pay increases. Did the Minister consider expanding the remit of the STRB to include support staff? Thirdly, the Department for Education has minimal influence over support staff pay decisions, and school affordability is not factored into NJC decision-making. Consequently, when resources are limited, teachers’ pay becomes the residual after other decisions are made, which is clearly an extraordinary outcome.

The current legislative approach is fundamentally flawed. Mandating a single detailed set of terms and conditions for all support staff will create more problems than it solves and certainly will not address the challenges schools face with recruitment and retention. First, it is essentially impossible to have a national set of pay scales for this very wide range of roles, given the vast variation in how schools and trusts organise their functions and their work. Consider this example: how can one write a generic job description for a finance assistant that serves both a small primary school’s sole financial administrator and a large trust’s specialist management accountant? Although sharing a title, these roles require entirely different skills, qualifications and responsibilities. What schools do for themselves, and what is done by the local authority or trust’s central team, varies hugely across the country. How many people there are to run finance or technology in a school, and therefore their seniority and skill, depends on the size of the school and on its legal status.

Secondly, at present, under the NJC each local authority sets its own grading structure. Even if you could find a role which was commonly defined across the country, you would find that it was graded and paid somewhat differently in different areas. The SSSNB would be expected to override these 150 grading structures and produce one national one. This would inevitably entail paying some people more, at potentially substantial cost in some areas, or paying some people less. I would argue that neither outcome is palatable.

Furthermore, much of this variation is driven by local labour markets. Some areas have to pay more than others to get decent IT skills, for example. It would be extraordinary to require schools in Cambridge to pay the same for IT skills as other schools if it meant that they could not get the skilled people they needed or that other schools had to pay significantly more than they do now.

I have heard Ministers suggest that their aim is to create a pay floor, not a ceiling, but that does not change the fundamental problem. It represents a full pay negotiation beyond NJC agreements, and therefore an effective national grading structure in which roles are mapped to a national spine in a consistent way across the country, rather than the more than 150 ways that currently exist. The task of trying to do that could begin only after considering every local variation. The floor points negotiation faces another challenge: employers cannot afford floors above current pay rates, plus cost of living adjustments, and understandably unions will not accept anything lower, even as a minimum. Given that the same role currently receives different pay across local authorities within the NJC, achieving both goals everywhere is impossible.

I hope the Minister acknowledges that this will create complications for local authorities, as their grading structures will likely not align with nationally mandated school support staff pay scales. Must authorities alter their grading structures to match the national framework, or will they apply it only to schools, or neither? Every possible answer creates serious problems of complexity and comparability within individual local authorities.

Most concerningly, this fiendishly complicated approach addresses non-existent problems. Despite repeated allegations of academies cutting and poaching support staff, sector colleagues can find no evidence of this. I find it hard to imagine that any rational person would take a cut in their salary to be poached. In fact, academies that have departed from standard terms and conditions have done so to enhance pay and improve conditions and career prospects, not to reduce them. Claims that support staff lack clear contractual terms are just not correct. Like teachers, they have specific contracts, often referencing established national or local frameworks. Contractual arrangements are not the issue.

Our school support staff deserve recognition, proper pay, good working conditions and career development opportunities. Above all, they need a policy framework that serves them and their schools effectively. We can build this through pragmatic reform, building on existing strengths, addressing real weaknesses, and respecting the diversity and complexity of modern school organisations. However, we cannot achieve meaningful improvement through legislation that ignores schools’ practical operations and imposes uniformity where variety better serves everyone. My amendments seek to make some progress towards this goal. I strongly urge the Minister to reconsider the Government’s approach. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendment in my name, but first I fully endorse what my noble friend Lady Barran has said. It is worth the Government reflecting on her direct experience of this before Report.

My amendment is quite simple. It is about the practice and conventions behind whatever we get into primary legislation. Candidly, I object to the naming of an organisation that is not a regulator in this country as needing to be consulted by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State can consult anybody they like when considering making regulations. I do not see why the TUC should be named in primary legislation. That is the reason for my amendment. This is poor legislation and adds nothing to the Bill.

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[Lord Prentis of Leeds (Lab)]

I rise to speak in favour of the proposed school support staff negotiating body, as set out in the Bill. Noble Lords may remember that such a body was established in 2010. All the things that have been said in the Chamber today on this issue were talked about prior to that. Unfortunately, there was a change of Government. The coalition came in and even though the arguments were dealt with, everything was set up and moving forward, and the school support staff negotiating body—which we had great hope in—had met once, the coalition’s first act was to abolish it.

Through the Employment Rights Bill, we can rectify something which was wrong. The new body referred to in the Bill is long overdue. It will work towards a number of goals for support staff, some of which have already been mentioned. It would give them a voice in the education debate, achieve fair pay, which is the law of this land, and create unified pay and conditions across the country—what is so wrong with that? Local government, which has been mentioned, negotiates on behalf of millions of local government workers who do different jobs in different communities, with different arrangements in place to meet the local conditions where the service is being provided. All that has been in place not for decades, but for a century. Look at our National Health Service. We all applaud joint working and the implementation of fair pay and conditions—fair pay for work of equal value— across the NHS and all the different disciplines it provides in our communities. Collective bargaining works well. Those bodies address and deal with any issues as they arise.

We are talking about a group of school staff who, for many years, have seen teachers have collective bargaining—which we obviously support. Other school staff have nothing; they are at the whim of the headmaster or headmistress, and of local conditions. Little is done on their behalf, which is why school support staff across the country welcome the re-establishment of the school support staff negotiating body.

The TUC is a voice for good. It is at the heart of the trade union movement and is respected by employers and governments alike. If there are differences or issues that need to be tackled, why not go to the heart of the trade union movement and ask for its advice and assistance? It has been doing it for nearly 100 years and doing it well. There is no reason whatsoever why it cannot be part of the arrangements for establishing the new body. I am proud of the work the TUC does.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I was clear that the Secretary of State could consult whoever they liked, and I would not be surprised if that was the TUC. My point is, why is this being put into primary legislation when it is completely unneeded?

[Lord Prentis of Leeds (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that comment.

The whole intention appears to be to limit the scope of any collective bargaining. It is as clear as day. Different forms of words can be come up with concerning who is involved, who should clear what, and so on. That delays things, and that is the intention of the amendments before us.

Noble Lords have to understand that the proposals legislate for the Secretary of State or their nominee to be involved in the negotiating body. I personally have no reservations about that. We want to talk to the people who have the power and the influence to make decisions that improve the service and teaching in our schools. This proposed new body is intended to improve schools and education. What better way of doing it than to bring people together, give them a voice, allow it to be heard and come to conclusions which are for the benefit of all?

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[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I too will speak to Amendment 185, to which I was very pleased to add my name. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, on this amendment and my noble friend Lord Hendy, who spoke to his amendments in this group.

As the noble Baroness already indicated, Amendment 185 relates to training and education for the social care workforce, which is a critical imperative given the care and attention required by the people they care for. I declare my interest as vice-chair of the APPG on Dementia, and I thank the Alzheimer’s Society for its support in preparing for this debate.

Our social care workforce is vital in providing care to those who need it. However, they have been undersupported for too long. This amendment seeks to include training and education in the remit of the social care negotiating bodies that the Bill will create. These bodies will then determine the fair-play agreements in the social care sector, and, in so doing, improve training and education, which will also make a significant contribution to tackling the recruitment and retention crisis that the social care workforce faces.

However, of particular concern is the level of training and education in dementia among the adult social care workforce. The Care Quality Commission’s 2024 State of Care report highlighted dementia as a key area of concern and, specifically, that

“health and care staff do not always understand”

the specific needs of people with dementia. Many of those who, like me, have people with dementia in their families only realise this either when they are training to deal with it or when they are working with them on a daily basis.

A Nuffield Trust report from November also found that people with dementia in England are not consistently receiving good-quality social care, so this amendment seeks to build the foundations to change that, not only for people living with dementia but for all who draw on care, through the prioritisation of training and education within the workforce. That is a simple but vital aspect of ensuring that workers receive the recognition and the value that they deserve. That is what this amendment, if included in the Bill, would do. It would help in introducing opportunities for progression and development within the workforce and improving the quality of care that people receive.

I come to this debate as someone who strongly supports the Employment Rights Bill, because I believe it introduces a number of measures to increase the protection and rights of workers. In so doing, I hope that my noble friend the Minister and the Government ensure that training and education form a part of this legislation. I hope that the Government share these sentiments and see the value of the changes that this amendment would implement. I look forward to the winding-up comments from the Minister.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will begin by mentioning that my sister and I cared for my mother in the last fortnight of her life, and we were significantly helped by carers—to whom I will be forever grateful—in that short time.

Of course, our social care workers right across the country were genuine heroes during Covid-19, and that recognition needs to continue. At the time of Covid-19, I was Secretary of State in DWP and, clearly, the workers there were carrying out tremendous acts of heroism right across the country—but there is a recognition, in a similar way to the NHS, that this drove quite a lot of burnout. However, recognising the importance of carers and the choices that people made in taking up that really important role, I felt it was absolutely vital that we tried to get better organised, to encourage people not only to stay in the sector but to join the sector. That is why I worked with the Department of Health and Social Care at the time, with my honourable friend Helen Whately.

I do not wish to lower the tone entirely, but I turn to the explanation of the creation of this negotiating body and to one of the things that I think is key. I am not at all opposed to it in principle. However, it suggests that the bargaining power of care workers has been low, partly because of low unionisation rates. This is only 20%, it is suggested, of a workforce of 1.6 million, which is about 5% of the total workforce in this country. I must admit I am somewhat sceptical about that.

I do not want to get into a huge debate about social funding. This is a challenge that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is taking up. With her capabilities, I am sure she will find a way through in this regard. However, I think we should recognise that there are a whole bunch of employers right across the country, and that social care funding is provided for through national government, through the hands of local government and, of course, council tax payers through the social care levy. That is the key challenge that we need to recognise, and we need to consider how this negotiating body could address that.

I will apologise to my noble friend Lady Browning for not speaking on something. When I looked at my amendment—I have an amendment coming up in the next group—I de-grouped it because I was trying to differentiate thinking about the progress of social care in regard to trying to split it away from the negotiating body. Perhaps I will explain briefly why and then, in the next group, come on to what I suggest could happen instead.

I have already set out that I started working on this, getting DWP to be engaged and thinking through about swaps and similar things. Indeed, one of the things that came out of that was the care pathway on a journey after People at the Heart of Care at the end of 2021, leading to the Next Steps consultation. I would say that the care workforce pathway is working.

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[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Perhaps I can just clarify that we were very much sighted on the fact that in education, people who are on the non-teaching staff are included in the Bill in the pay negotiating bodies. We were not clear why it should be different for social care workers.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My noble friend makes an excellent point. I must admit that I had almost to force-fit Amendment 200A, which I am coming to, into the Bill in order to be able to talk about a very valid concern about the progress and retention of social care workers in our country, recognising the absolutely vital role that they play in many care homes across the country.

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Moved by

[Baroness Coffey]

200A: After Clause 48, insert the following new Clause—
“Registration scheme: duty to provide access(1) Social care providers must ensure that their employees have access to any registration scheme which Social Work England may establish.(2) In subsection (1), a “registration scheme” is system where social care workers’ training is centrally logged, allowing their previous training to be recognised by a new employer.”

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have already set out, in the debate on the previous group, my appreciation of social care workers right across our country. I said that I would try to set out in this group one of the ways that we can achieve the outcomes that the Government, and, I think, this Committee, are seeking to see: improved pay, terms and conditions for social care workers, including for the benefit of the people they help, to try to increase retention and tackle some of the challenges faced.

In my previous role, I commissioned my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith to consider in-work progression. While in DWP, I was concerned more broadly about people getting stuck in low-paid roles and what we could do to help increase their prosperity. In looking at a wide range of sectors, her commission highlighted the challenges facing the care sector right across the United Kingdom. A variety of research elements went into it. It cited research that found

“little incentive to gain qualifications in a sector viewed as low status”,

and that:

“Those working in care perceive it as involving highly skilled work, but workers tend not to view care work as a profession”.


As I referred to in the debate on the previous group, and therefore will not repeat, it set out, in effect, the care workforce pathway, which got going and has been enhanced by the current Government recognising the progress that could be made.

It used to be the case that a lot of people went into the care sector through the apprenticeship route. A decade ago, Skills for Care would cite nearly as many as 100,000, but that has significantly changed and has gradually fallen over time. Some of that might be to do with the nature and the variety of the work, which does not necessarily lend itself entirely to being appropriate for the apprenticeship levy for everybody in that sector. Last year, we ended up with about 24,000, one quarter of which were at level 2 entry, with, I hope, some of the people who had already completed level 2 securing level 3, but it represents quite a shift. It is testimony to the Department of Health having put together and worked with an Ofqual-registered qualification at level 2 as part of this new way to try to make sure that there is progress.

I agreed with one recommendation that my noble friend made, but she made a recommendation that I did not agree with. One of the challenges she set out was the hugely diverse nature of the social care sector. In financial support, as much is given to adults, as opposed specifically to pensioners, when it comes to social care. Indeed, my longest-standing friend Dawn spent most of her career as a social care worker for adults with learning disabilities. There is variety within the work that 1.6 million people in the workforce undertake every day. One of the challenges—whether you are self-employed or are moving to an agency or local authority—is that there is no way of recognising your experience and any training that you might have done. That is one of the key challenges of people leaving the sector, or getting stuck—instead of, perhaps, the sector expanding.

One of the recommendations was to emulate what happens in the construction skills certification scheme in the UK construction industry. This has been developed with a card and it shows that individual workers have transferable proof of a level of training and qualifications. When you start with a new employer in the social care sector, you would then not have to go through all the training that you have already done heaven knows how many times. If you are perfectly well skilled that is a frustrating element as well.

I do not agree with one of the recommendations. I strongly do not believe we should be regulating this sector. I think that would become more of a barrier. There are now many careers and jobs that are regulated by some separate authority. My noble friend made this recommendation on the basis that Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have done exactly that. Anyone who wants to be a social care worker has to become registered and be regulated by, for example, Social Care Wales or the Scottish Social Services Council. I am not convinced that we should be getting into that in this sector.

However, it could be possible—perhaps not for the negotiating body we have just spoken about, and I was suggesting why I did not think it would be appropriate—for Social Work England to establish something if people wanted to register and get their training recognised so that they had an equivalent to the construction scheme card. Again, the workers under that are not regulated by the construction industry in that regard. However, it has become a useful tool so that employers and workers are clear on what they can bring to the next employer they are seeking to have.

It will vary around the country but, quite often, social care workers will be contracted by multiple agencies. This recognises the flexibility of work that is available and wanted. This can sometimes lead to significant differential pay rates. Quite often, when working for a local authority, the pay will be considerably less than working for a private agency. It is important that we allow people to have this flexibility but, dare I say it, without the draconian regulation a whole body starts to bring about.

That is why I have put forward the suggestion that, if Social Work England chooses to establish such a scheme, any employees must be able to register training and any existing certificates with Social Work England to facilitate their personal choices on how to progress in work. I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I was unfortunately delayed in getting here for the start of the previous group of amendments. I had added my name to the amendments on education. However, I am delighted to be here. I would have added my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, if I had realised what she was going to say.

I reinforce the need for education and monitoring what people do. The social care workforce is absolutely amazing. Its members work across an enormous range of people. When I chaired the National Mental Capacity Forum over six years, it was very evident that some people wanted to and had great talent for working with people with impaired capacity, and they wanted to learn how to do it better. There were others who did not like working with people with impaired capacity or people who had early dementia or even mental health issues, but they were extremely good at working with people with physical disabilities and impaired mobility. They were very good at manual handling, lifting and so on.

Over many decades, I have worked with social care workers in my field of palliative care. In the report of the palliative care commission that we wrote recently, we recognised the important role of many of these workers. When they look after people in their own home, they are often the person who spots deterioration first. Very often, patients will confide in them because they do not have the mantle of power that nurses and doctors have, and people speak very openly to them. They understand the problems and fears that people have in themselves and their lives. But they can see what is happening only when there is continuity of care—when they have seen the person before and will see them again.

I have to defend Social Care Wales; it has helped having a registration system because it has improved the perception of the status of people working in the field. When looking at this in detail in my field, we found that, although their time in post was transient, they often moved to a different employer. Although they did not remain with one employer, they would take their skills and what they had learned with them.

It has struck me over the years that this is a workforce thirsty for knowledge, skills and education, yet the group is not normally included among those considered as educated. When I first set up the hospice in Cardiff, it was the carers and kitchen staff who came in on their days off because they wanted to learn. Very often, because I had worked with them for 20 years or so, they knew best of all when I was worried about something and when to trigger calling me out of hours, because they had a whole set of skills.

Registering those skills will be very important in allowing career progression and recognition and allowing people in this workforce to work in the domains in which they have the best personality and skill set that suits them—where they feel appreciated and know that they are rewarded emotionally as well as financially. Some people are happy to drive around from one house to another in the ghastly traffic of the outer London suburbs or in cities. Others do not want to do that; they want longer one on one. Some are better working with disturbed young people or people with addictions. If we can have a way of recognising and building on that, we can go a very long way to improving the overall security of this very important workforce, which has, sadly, been tremendously undervalued across our society until now.

It was heartening to hear the Minister summing up on the previous group. I was absolutely delighted to have my name on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, and to hear that the training will be set out via regulations under the affirmative resolution, which I think was going to be our next negotiating point when we were discussing what to do next. I hope that, with these amendments at different points in the Bill, we might find a way forward to get something on education and training recognised for the specific areas that people are in, so that they can gain credit for it, personally and in terms of career progression.

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for contributing and for again recognising the great value we attach to social care workers across the country. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, that I am not trying to do down Social Care Wales at all; it was more that there is almost a regulation approach, which I am keen to avoid and which I believe is not entirely necessary. I welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, and my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom in that regard.

I am really pleased that the Minister has flagged this digital record, which I was not aware of. I am really excited to hear about that. I had already referenced the care pathway in the previous group, and it is great to see it being built on, which is something the sector was keen to achieve.

With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 200A withdrawn.

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[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but I hope I am forgiven for thinking he has not been listening to what I have been saying. As I understand it, this clause is about reducing the number of people down to more or less nothing who are necessary in a company in order for a bunch of trades union mechanisms to be created. The amendment would remove that and tries to push up the number of employees below which this clause would not take effect. That is all that I have been talking about and I am startled to believe that a noble Lord of such eminence apparently has not been listening. I could finish fairly soon, if not interrupted much more.

My concern is that we are all people of good will. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, is rightly proud of the many good things that trades unions have done, but surely she cannot be unaware of how the people of Birmingham might feel about the striking dustmen or about how the people of this great capital feel about striking Underground workers and the commuter trains that so often muck up their daily life. She must be aware that, on another coin of trade unionism, there is the good and the bad. We have employment tribunals with two years of delay to even get to a tribunal, but clause after clause, including this one, threatens to increase the number of references to employment tribunals.

This clause is going to increase the awful number that we have just seen today of 150,000 job losses. In the parallel universe that we are in, can it possibly be that the Government Benches believe that that loss of 150,000 jobs has nothing to do with this plan, with their NIC changes, as my noble friend Lord Lilley said, or with so many other changes that are detrimental to employment in this country?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the Clause 55 stand part notice and Amendment 208. I have sympathy with my noble friend’s amendments regarding small and micro employers. We need to cut to the chase. I will probably irritate the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, but what is the point of this?

The Minister in the other place said that he hoped this clause would be “straightforward”—it is certainly straightforward—and “uncontroversial”. He said:

“Currently, there is no general requirement for employers to let their staff know of their right to join a trade union”.


and that there is a duty in this clause. He said:

“A lack of awareness of the right to join a trade union may be contributing to declining union membership and reduced worker engagement in collective bargaining. The clause will help empower workers to become active in protecting their rights. This is a step forward in strengthening worker representation”,—[Official Report, Commons, Employment Rights Bill Committee, 7/1/25; col. 517.]


and so on.

I go back to the point I made in a previous debate: the key headline in selling this to the public was that it was about day-one rights. As I have already explained to the Committee, this could have been done through a statutory instrument. Part 4 is a classic example of the fact that a lot of the motivation is about increasing trade union membership. Trade union membership is now at about 6 million people, I think; it might be just over that. By the way, as I said at Second Reading, I am not against trade unions, but I do not think it is the job of legislation to try to increase trade union membership as a consequence of our actions here today. I made the point about political funds.

To come back to the numbers, about 22% of employees are now members of a trade union. Of course, people have to pay a fee. I have recommended to people that they join a trade union, but we should be aware that the only sector where trade union membership is going up is the public sector. My general perspective on some of these things is that people tend to join a trade union when they do not trust their employer and they think they might need help, when they are not treated well or when there are other issues worrying them. That is when a lot of the benefits of trade unions come in, such as getting access to legal advice—I know there are plenty of other benefits as well. Family members of mine are trade union members and, as I say, I am not anti-trade union, but I am concerned about the approach we are taking in Part 4.

On Amendment 208, it would be useful to get an understanding from the Minister about what other prescribed times there might be. It is one of the oddest bits of this part of the Bill. When you join, you get to know certain things—it might not all be on day one; I accept that there is a bit later that talks about instalments and that sometimes you get to know certain key things, but you must do it within two weeks or two months, I cannot remember which. You may not get everything on day one, but, nevertheless, what are the other prescribed times? Will it be the same frequency as is being put in the Bill about the reminder to opt out of the trade union political fund, which will have moved to every 10 years? Why not put it in the Bill if we want an annual reminder, or we want it at the same frequency as a say on whether people can be part of the trade union political fund—or indeed on ways that that decision is made?

I am concerned about this element. There is no doubt that employer representatives are concerned about aspects of this Bill. In particular, when they spoke to me earlier this week, they said that quite a lot of the impact assessment is written on the basis that savings will be down to the fact that there will be fewer strikes. We should recognise the history of strikes happening in our employment places in the last couple of years or so: the number of strikes has gone up significantly in the public sector, exactly where trade union membership is going up—not the other way round. I appreciate that there has been a change in government and that Wes Streeting sat around a table, but we know that right now, where trade union membership is going up, the ballot papers—I do not quite know the process—are going out, calling for getting the vote together for a mandate for industrial action. It is happening right now.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that our very serious concerns about this clause would be assuaged were the Government to have properly followed Cabinet Office protocols and updated expeditiously the impact assessments, which are normally present in Bills of this size and magnitude?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend. I have tried to get deposited in the Library, or sent through some other form of communication to all Peers, a response I have received from the Secretary of State on this matter. By the way, I have still not received a reply from the Cabinet Secretary, who is supposed to uphold Cabinet Office guidelines. In essence, the answer came back: “We’ll do a full impact assessment once the Bill is completed”. We know that industry is looking for that. We have no idea when these regulations will be introduced; I assume that they could already have started the consultation. It is important that the Secretary of State—I am trying to remember; I do not have a photographic memory—basically said, “We haven’t really changed that much”. That is where we are. I will continue to make the point. My noble friend is right and reminds me to chase the Cabinet Secretary.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

Perhaps I can help my noble friend by explaining that Section 38 of the Employment Act 2002 allows an employee to claim compensation of between two and four weeks’ pay. Does she think this will lead to ducks-and-drakes people trying to seek such compensation?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I expect the bigger employers, if they know about this legislation—although we are hearing from a lot of the employers’ representatives that a lot of their members had not even heard about the day one rights until very recently—will probably put their HR departments and lawyers on it. I am concerned about the smaller ones, which is why I am sympathetic to the amendments in this group on micro employers and small employers. Otherwise, this could start to become a very expensive business. It is yet another reason why the Government generally do not seem to understand the chilling effect that not only their economic policies but legislation such as this will have on the recruitment of people to jobs.

[Lord Ashcombe (Con)]

My Lords, I had no intention of coming here today to speak until I had dinner last night. Having put in a day’s work, I thought it was time to come here and express an opinion.

I would like to describe that situation last night. It follows on from a lot of what my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley said and the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor. This friend of mine, whom I have known for 30 or 40 years, is a small businessman in Bath, down in the West Country. He said to me, “Mark, we have a major problem coming. I have friends in similar places who run small businesses”—he runs a business of some six or seven people. “We are all talking together, because that is how we transfer knowledge, and the number of us beginning to think about throwing in the towel is significant. I want you to know about it”.

If this change were to happen, it would affect the poor employees of these businesses. There is nothing inherently wrong with these businesses but there is, as we have heard, more and more legislation coming upon them. It is the employees who are going. The domino effect through local economies is too much for these businesses. These small guys have to employ lawyers, HR experts and so on. I work for a company where we have those in house. They are just getting to the end of their tether. They do not want to stop, but I hope that Amendments 205 and 207 will help prevent that sort of thing happening and another nail in the coffin for these small businesses, which are really struggling as they think about the hassle of going on.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I know we have discussed the implementation plan several times now, and I can assure noble Lords that we are working at pace to finalise that. I do not think it would be helpful to see it in draft or imperfect form. We want people to have a categorical road map which shows the way forward. We absolutely understand that businesses need to see that; we are working on it. I am very confident that when businesses see it, they will be reassured that none of the things that we are proposing in this legislation will be rushed through. They will have time to prepare for it—I think we had a debate about this earlier. We know that businesses need time to prepare, we are absolutely aware of that, and we are going to make sure that they have it.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I just wanted to clarify something the Minister said. I think I heard her say that it would be done by negative resolution. Does that apply to all of Part 4 or specifically for every element of Clause 55?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My answer was specifically about Clause 55.

Amendment 206, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, would remove the compulsory element of the proposals, making it optional for employers to inform workers of their rights to join a union. To be clear, this is not about necessitating union membership but about ensuring that workers are aware of their rights and can make an informed decision about whether to engage. We want to empower workers to take a more active role in protecting their rights, and, where they choose, to participate in collective bargaining to improve their working conditions. Access to clear and accurate information is fundamental to that. This amendment would seriously weaken this measure by allowing employers to simply ignore the duty, defeating its policy intent entirely. It is vital that the right to union membership is made accessible to all workers as intended, that it is communicated regularly, and that employers are under a firm obligation to do so.

Amendment 208, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, would remove the requirement for employers to issue a statement of trade union rights on a prescribed basis. We are legislating for ongoing reminders of the right to join a trade union to reflect the reality of the workplace. New employers may miss information at the start of employment or change roles over time within the same organisation. Limiting the duty to the start of employment would also exclude existing staff, who equally deserve access to that information.

This statement of the right to trade union membership is important in fostering worker engagement and meaningful dialogue between unions and employers. Ongoing reminders are a key part of this measure. The Secretary of State will be able to set the frequency of this notification. This will be, as I have said, outlined in secondary legislation, subject to public consultation, and we invite interested parties to provide us with their views on this matter when we launch the consultation.

On the wider issue, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, urged us to consult more. I can assure him that these proposals have been subject to extensive consultation, and we are continuing to consult on them. I can also tell the noble Lord that we had a very constructive meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses.

Finally, I turn to the clause itself. Clause 55 introduces a new legal duty on employers to inform workers of their right to join a union. Employers will be required to issue this statement at the start of employment, alongside the written statement of particulars, which I commented on earlier. There is currently no requirement in law for employers to notify their workers of the right to trade union membership. This lack of awareness may be contributing to the falling union membership and reduced worker participation in collective bargaining that we have been discussing. This duty intends to address this gap, ensuring that workers are better informed of this right and helping to strengthen the collective voice in the workplace and enhance their representation. This delivers on the Government’s commitment to improve working conditions through increased trade union membership and participation. Specific details of this measure, including the frequency, form, content and manner of the notification, will be set out in secondary legislation, as I have said. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment and I urge that Clause 55 stand part of the Bill.

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[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and others. This clause strikes horror in my heart. The idea that someone could come into my business, access my premises with no notice—good luck with that, because I sit in a room on my own—or even worse, access my systems and my server, which are all heavily password-protected because I am regulated, strikes horror not just in my heart. I can assure the Minister, who says that she has consulted business groups, that she will see surveys coming out in the very near future that show the fear, horror and dislike that small businesses have of this Bill, and in particular the clauses we have been debating tonight. I hope she will have the opportunity to meet again with business representatives and listen to what they are saying.

The draftsman on this Bill is working in another era. What does physical access to a business mean? I like the clauses restricting this for smaller businesses, because most small businesses do not have a physical presence. In many businesses, literally tens of thousands of them, the employees work from home. They might have a WeWork office where they meet every now and then, but it is meaningless to give right of access to most small businesses. If we then go to right of access to digital communications, that implies, from the wording I have read, that a trade union official would have to be given the passwords to enter the systems.

What protection is there? What indemnities are there to ensure that this is not abused? We know that abuse happens, particularly in these days of cyber fraud, where someone who has accessed the system could take advantage. Obviously, I am not suggesting that that is going to be prevalent or happen in the majority of cases by any means, but I do not see any protection for small businesses should that happen.

It seems to me that the whole concept of access is misconceived. I would quite understand it if the legislation were drafted to require an employer of any size to pass messages to an employee—I would understand that; it would be reasonable—but can the Minister explain to us why she is demanding access to both physical and digital assets of small businesses?

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak in particular to the amendments regarding communication with workers. I think it was Amendment 207 but, whichever one it is, I think noble Lords will know. The reason I bring this up is that my noble friend has just referred to aspects of cybersecurity. By the way, I am not suggesting that any trade union would be seeking to cause this havoc, but we know this is a particular challenge. I am struggling to understand how, under wider confidentiality, how anybody would have access to this or be expected to. It may be that the employer is required to pass on an email, I do not know.

I am also struggling to find the justification for this. In introducing the Bill, the Government did not make any reference to digital communication or this other communication; they referred only to physical access. I cannot find any justification put forward by the Minister for this. I cannot find the amendment in Committee, and I am struggling to find the amendment on Report, in the Bill documents on the parliamentary website. I am sure they are there; I am just struggling to find them. I certainly cannot find any reference by the Minister in the other place to why this is deemed necessary. I appreciate that it is not necessarily the job of the Government to do my research for me, but that would be very useful to hear, because it certainly was not in the Bill introduced to the Commons.

I would be grateful if the Minister could give this House a justification, because one of the things that is causing concern among employers’ representatives is this sort of process. It is fairly well established that trade unions are often invited in; that is all part of good industrial relations. The legislation talks about being able to organise. I think the Minister in the other place talked about using it as an opportunity to recruit new trade union members, to organise, to have meetings and so forth. I want to clarify something. The Bill states, in line 15 on page 75, that

“the access purposes do not include organising industrial action”,

so I would be grateful to understand this better. How is the Minister in the other place saying that you can organise different from organising industrial action?

I am genuinely concerned that anyone can just be told, “Please email all your employees with this material”. Fortunately, at the moment, it does not seem that we have prescription that the Secretary of State will write the words that need to be said—I expect they would not be writing on behalf of the trade union—but, again, I am trying to understand why employers would need to allow that to happen. On that, I will draw my comments to a conclusion.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I too shall be very brief. I strongly welcome this new right for workers to have reasonable access to their union representatives at their place of work—that is very important. It is also worth stating the good news that there are many voluntary access agreements already in place. I have had the pleasure many a time of visiting companies, big and small, walking the floor with the managing director and the union representative and having really good discussions, with an opportunity to meet workers and talk about the success of the business.

However, as a union official, I have also been in the position where I have had to meet workers in cafés, pubs, church halls, homes or anywhere, because they were too scared to be seen speaking to a union official outside their workplace with CCTV cameras trained on them. That is the reality that we are also dealing with, but there is plenty of good, practical practice to build on.

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To fully answer the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, this will all be part of further consultation. To reiterate, existing data protection legislation will continue to apply. That means that, whatever systems are put in place, those quite tough and onerous conditions that we have through the DPA will still apply. We expect, in many cases—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Before the noble Lord moves on from that point, I am fully aware of where the reference to digital is in the Bill now. The point that I was trying to make to the Minister was to justify why, when the Bill was originally presented to the House of Commons—perhaps I should have been more specific—it was not mentioned at all. I believe it was not inserted in Committee, so it must have come somewhere on Report, but I cannot find any justification made by the Government for why they have added this digital communication when they had not put it in at either the introduction of the Bill or in Committee in the other place, when it has the most scrutiny at that end. I had hoped the civil servants might have sent him a note.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I assume my civil servants understand that I probably know the answer to that question—they might be right, or they may be wrong. To cast my mind to the inner workings of Committee in the other place, the reference in the Bill, as I understand it, is to communication with workers rather than explicitly to digital communication. I sometimes feel that I cannot speak for the way we examine Bills in Committee in this place, let alone in the other place.

We now have the opportunity to discuss, as we are doing, the fact that in the modern day, in 2025, the idea that access to a workforce would not include digital channels is, frankly, fanciful. Were we seriously to say, not to trade unions but to employees—to workers—that the only way that they could receive a message from a trade union or from an employee representative or, to turn it on its head, from an employer was on a piece of paper or in a one-to-one verbal communication, then I think we would all regard that as fanciful. There is a little bit of sophistry—

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am happy to write to the noble Lord with more detail, but this is one of things that will be set out in regulation following extensive consultation. I go back to the original point of principle that I made about levels of granularity in setting out specific channels: if we specify channels A, B and C, as soon as the Bill is published we risk finding that employers are actually using channels E, F and G, because that is the pace of technology as it develops, so we have to retain flexibility.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

Will the Minister write to me with a better, candidly, a more comprehensive answer than he has given so far in response to my questions? I would be very grateful.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am very happy to write. I resist the idea that I am not being candid here. The noble Baroness may not like what I am saying, but the point stands. I am of course very happy to write to her and to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, with more detail.

In conclusion, we expect that, in many cases, employers and trade unions will be able to agree the terms on which access takes place, including for digital access. In the event that there is no agreement, the CAC can impose terms, including terms dealing with digital access. I repeat: the precise details of how this will work in practice will be set out in secondary legislation following further consultation. I therefore ask that Amendment 208A be withdrawn and that noble Lords do not press their other amendments.