European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Tom Brake and Matthew Pennycook

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I agree with that, and I agree—I think this was also my hon. Friend’s point—that the public will expect these rights to continue to have the protection they have enjoyed while being underpinned by EU law. These rights should not have a reduced level of protection in the future.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will make a little more progress if that is all right.

Let me remind the House of the sentiments on the Government Benches when it comes to workers’ rights. Throughout the referendum, prominent leavers drew attention to what they claimed was the high cost of EU employment regulations, including those such as the working time directive and the temporary agency work directive. Prominent members of the Cabinet are on record as having called for workers’ rights to be removed. For example, the Foreign Secretary has written that we need

“to root out the nonsense of the social chapter—the working time directive and the atypical work directive and other job-destroying regulations.”

During the referendum, on 18 May 2016, the then Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), went so far as to call for the UK to

“halve the burdens of EU social and employment legislation”

in the event of Brexit. The newest member of the Brexit ministerial team—Lord Callanan—has openly called for the scrapping of the working time directive, the temporary agency work directive, the pregnant workers directive and

“all the other barriers to actually employing people.”

Just this week, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) made a speech in London calling for, among other things, deregulation. It was retweeted and then hastily deleted, as we heard yesterday, by the Department for International Trade.

[Tom Brake]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is about to quote Mr Dyson. When leave supporters wanted to quote a business, it was usually Mr Dyson’s or JCB. Now that Mr Dyson welcomes the fact that leaving the EU means he will be able to hire and fire people more easily, I wonder whether they will quote him quite so often.