Employment Rights Bill (First sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Dom?

Dom Hallas: I do not have a view.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, David—you have expressed some quite strong views. My constituency of Stratford and Bow has over 12,500 registered business, of which over 5,000 would count as small businesses. I note that the FSB has a consultation open that closes today seeking the views of those businesses. I have not received representations from small businesses that reflect what you are saying, but I would be interested to see what the FSB’s consultation comes back with. My question is, with the Bill in its current state, how can the Government work with small businesses to support implementation measures?

[The Chair]

It will have to be a one-sentence answer.

David Hale: I do not particularly mean to express strong views. I am trying to highlight the things that we need to have a better idea of before the legislation is in place. As you say, we have large-scale surveys out to try and work out what the possible impact of the Bill will be. We will run focus groups with businesses to try and work through what the consequences of the Bill will be. To do that, it would be useful to have a better understanding of what exactly the Bill will look like. But I am very happy to talk whenever about any specific measures in the Bill, and to ensure that how small businesses will react is linked to how decision makers will decide what is in the Bill.

Dom Hallas: I would just add that your experience is probably correct, Uma, but the reason for that is slightly different: no businesses will even know at this stage that the Bill will have any impact on them. The reality is that they are completely ignorant about what is happening in Parliament, when it comes to the way in which their businesses are changing. You see that on Budget day: even though there are weeks of conversations about what may or may not be coming, a number of businesses are suddenly surprised that things have changed for them. That is a practical concern, and that is precisely why you should engage with business both through this process and after it, not just by talking to people like me and David—although we are obviously always happy to be here—but more generally by doing as much outreach as possible with businesses on the ground that are trying to build stuff every day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Hume]

Q Carly, you have experience in supporting businesses, including SMEs, to transform their processes and culture to become happy workplaces. How do you see the measures in the Bill making happier workplaces for people with disabilities and health conditions?

Carly Cannings: That is a good point. Arguably, from my reading of the Bill, there is not a lot of specific focus on those rights. It is about standards across the board. There are already some protections, particularly unfair dismissal rules. Even though the qualifying period is likely to change, there are still the protected characteristic rights—the day one rights that already exist.

I have to say that, from my reading, the Bill does not scream out that there is lots in there that will help specifically those with disabilities and long-term health conditions. Flexible working is definitely part of that picture, but the big change was making it a day one right, which has already been done. The legislation is just tightening that up further. Being able to have flexibility is a big issue for people in terms of accessing work, so that is probably the biggest one. But as I say, a lot of that work has been done in making it a day one right.

[Uma Kumaran]

Q Carly, this question is to you as well. The number of questions coming to you reflects the fact that we need your mission to help us to be a happy, healthy, thriving workforce in Parliament. How can we use the Bill to communicate the measures available to businesses? We heard from a previous panel that businesses may not be aware of what is coming in. How can we use some of the transformative measures in the Bill to promote happy, healthy workplace cultures?

Carly Cannings: I have reached out to businesses to try to get a sense of what is going on. At the moment, because there are lots of gaps in the detail, employers probably are not focusing their minds so much on the detail of the Bill. I suppose it comes off the back of the Budget and the NI changes. There is probably a lot for employers to get their heads around at the moment.

The consultation and engagement should be kept going so that businesses understand what is coming. Back to Cathryn’s point about seeing the greater good of this, if you get through what might be some initial pain in making some changes to your policy and implementing those changes, it is for the greater good. I suppose a lot of what I talk about is joining the dots between having happy, thriving workplaces and having more productive, successful businesses. It is about understanding that raising these standards and making working environments better for people is better for not just the people in them but the businesses themselves.

Ben Willmott: I think we need to look at how the system as a whole will work, particularly on that point about labour market enforcement. We have to look at not only national enforcement efforts but how efforts to support small firms work at a regional level, such as with combined authority areas, and the interface and being joined up at that level is really important.

One of the things that we are doing currently is the Government-funded HR support pilots through which we provide a limited amount of pump-priming HR consultancy support. We are working with Angus council in Scotland, as well as the Tees Valley combined authority and the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. They have a number of our CIPD-qualified HR consultants who provide up to two days of pump-priming HR consultancy support to small firms. That is being evaluated by the behavioural insights team to understand what good-quality business support on the people side looks like, and what a cost-effective system of providing that would look like as well. Some of those areas also need to be thought about if we are looking at creating a system where there can be a step change in people management capability and employment standards.

Cathryn Moses-Stone: Just to add one more thing, we need to streamline the enforcement processes and provide really clear guidance and support. It is all about those comms coming from Government, not just the scaremongering legal side. A small business should be able to log on and ask, “What support can I get? Can I get short modular courses on management training to help me figure out the legalities of this?” What resources will be available to support and not just regulate? You cannot regulate positive workplace culture into existence.

[Dr Tidball]

Q You have all spoken really comprehensively. Carly, I just want to push a bit more on what makes a happy employer. I was delighted to hear that you think the Bill will help raise that minimum floor and help employees. Again, you started to talk a bit there about how that then has an overall impact on the business. Could you really drill down for us on what it is that makes a happy employer?

Carly Cannings: How much time have we got?

Employment Rights Bill (Second sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I refer again to my declaration of interests and to my membership of the Community union, Unison and the GMB.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my declaration of interests and my membership of the GMB union.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my declaration of interests and to my membership of Unison and Community trade unions.

Examination of Witnesses

Allen Simpson and Neil Carberry gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Darling]

Q Thank you, Chair. This has been touched on before, but there is something I really want to understand, if anybody can address it: productivity is a big issue for the British economy, so are there any opportunities that you see in this Bill for driving a bit harder towards that goal?

Paul Nowak: Absolutely, Mr Darling. I think the evidence is clear from research undertaken by, for example, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that employers tend to invest less in staff who are insecure and low paid. What we want to do is create a situation where employers are investing in staff. We have a problem in the UK: if you look at employer investment in skills, it is about half the EU average, so I think we want to move away from a low-skill, high-turnover situation.

Somebody talked before about the impact of staff churn. I was at an employer at the end of last week where they had 46% staff turnover each and every year. As the trade union representatives pointed out to me, every new person being recruited by that business works out at around £4,500 per person. I think that the Bill actually incentivises employers to invest in their staff, and to invest in the way that they use staff, and that certainly will have a positive impact on productivity.

There is also the fact that, when you give workers a collective voice, they are more likely to work with employers on things such as the introduction of new technology. How are we going to get to net zero in a way that secures good-quality employment? What does that mean for training? It really does open up the potential for much more productive working relationships.

[Uma Kumaran]

Q Thank you, panel, for your thoughts and representations today. My constituency of Stratford and Bow has a rich history—I am sad that the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire is not here at the moment to listen to this part—and we are rooted in the fight for working people’s rights. It is the site of the 1888 London Bryant and May strike, better known as the matchgirls’ strike.

Paul, 136 years ago, Sarah Chapman was first elected as the TUC rep from the then-formed Matchmakers’ Union. She fought ardently for women’s rights, and she made great representations at the TUC for women’s rights, but it has been 136 years and there is still much more to do for women in the workplace. I am really pleased to see that the TUC has said that

“Labour’s Employment Rights Bill is so vital for women’s pay and equality.”

I am keen to hear your thoughts on why you think that is, and other reflections from the panel.

Paul Nowak: It would be good to hear from colleagues from Unison and Unite, who directly represent hundreds of thousands of women at work. We know, for example, that women are more likely to be employed on zero-hours contracts, and are more likely to be in low-paid occupations. I think things like the fair pay agreement in social care could have a transformative impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of women who go out to work.

That is alongside all the other provisions in the Bill—for example, the presumption around flexible working, which will allow people to balance work and family life but also, crucially, allow us to bring people back into the labour market who are struggling at the moment to find work that suits their caring and other responsibilities. There is a whole range of provisions in the Bill that will have a direct, positive impact on women at work, and a direct impact on those sectors in which we know that low-paid, insecure employment is most concentrated—retail, social care and hospitality.

Maggi Ferncombe: I represent Unison. We are 80% women. I talked at the very beginning about the significant difference this Bill will make, but I will give you some examples. Paul touched on flexible working. You could sum up this Bill in lots of different ways, but it is going to make such a difference to carers who care as a profession but also to carers who have caring responsibilities outside work, most of whom are women.

I will not touch on the fair pay agreement, because Paul already has, but the other area is the reinstatement of the school support staff negotiating body. These workers are again majority women and majority working part time. It will be transformative for those workers to have a set of standard terms and conditions, opportunities for training and salary, and not to have to take part-time jobs outside of their school work to be able to make ends meet. That will be the transformation for women.

Dave Moxham: We have been fortunate in Scotland—not completely fortunate—to get a bit of a head start on some of this discussion, particularly about low-paid care workers. We have a strong developing consensus that care workers’ voices are women’s voices in the collective bargaining arena, and that is something that we want to develop in Scotland. It is something that I think the Bill may just have to address for Scotland, because this is one of those situations where, because of the devolved nature of the delivery of care, we may need to invest powers in the Scottish Government rather than the Secretary of State. That is something we would intend to submit to the Committee on.

But I think we have really good early indications that a living wage for care workers, and the full involvement of unionised care workers in the delivery and shaping of their services, can pay enormous dividends. We are a long way from getting it right in Scotland, but I think we have got a good start there, which I hope some of the legislation here will reflect.

Hannah Reed: Very briefly, I fully endorse what colleagues have said. I am not going to repeat it, so as not to take the Committee’s time. Many women are part of trade unions because they want their voices heard and they want to be able to address issues such as inequality, bullying and pay discrimination in the workplace. The introduction of equality reps’ rights will provide an important focus to say that equality must be at the heart of the negotiating agenda within workplaces.

Alongside that, I recognise that there are improvements to parental rights that will help to ensure that there is a fairer share of parental responsibilities in the home. We have already talked about a lot of zero-hours contract workers being women. One of the things we are very aware of in hospitality is that, too often, employers bring in too many workers for shifts and say: “Sorry, we do not need you any more. Go home.” They then cancel a shift without any compensation for the workers for their travel time, costs or childcare. We hope the Bill will help to address some of those concerns.

[Chris Law]

Q Following on from Mr Moxham’s comments, I wonder whether there are parts of this UK-wide Bill that give you concern for employment rights in devolved nations where devolved Governments already have responsibility for employment relations? Is it not time that employment law was devolved, as is supported by the STUC, TUC and Scottish Labour, and as already exists in Northern Ireland? That is not least because it will help to protect us from future Conservative Governments that may wish to repeal all the good legislation that is coming forward.

Dave Moxham: There is a growing consensus in favour of the devolution of employment law to Scotland, but I think we all know that the Bill cannot achieve all of that, whether this Committee was in agreement with it or not. What is of interest to us is the interface between employment law at a UK level and the responsibilities of the Scottish Government, who obviously employ the vast majority of the public sector in Scotland. In a sense, that is what I am referring to here. Through procurement and other regulations, the Scottish Government are working with us to deliver collective bargaining arrangements in Scotland, which interface and have a potential complication—if not conflict—with what is in this Bill. We would like that to be looked at.

It is important to recognise that not all employment law is reserved to Westminster. In Scotland, there are the Agricultural Wages Board and the employment tribunals already, and a range of other things are devolved. Partly with respect to Wales, which I will not try to speak for, but definitely with respect to Scotland, which I will, there may be aspects of this Bill that might need to be looked at, particularly the relative responsibilities of the two Parliaments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Law]

Ninety per cent?

Joeli Brearley: Ninety per cent; it is a significant proportion. Often, these are for quite measly sums of money. They are pushed on women when they are feeling very vulnerable. Women are told that, if they sign this non-disclosure agreement, they will get a really good reference and it will all go away—“You get this lump sum of money, off you go.” But what they mean is that you cannot talk about what has happened to anybody. Legally, you can talk about it to your spouse and your lawyer, but that is about it. That really damages the mental health of women who sign them, because they cannot say what has happened to them. They sort of harbour this dirty secret, and that really is very damaging to them.

It also means that we do not know what is happening behind companies’ closed doors. I can tell you now that there are companies that win awards for being brilliant employers for women, but behind closed doors they are pushing women out when they are pregnant and forcing them to sign non-disclosure agreements so they cannot talk about it publicly.

Along with Zelda Perkins, who runs Can’t Buy My Silence, we would like to see that non-disclosure agreements are unenforceable unless the claimant—the person signing it—wants them to be enforced. That is a piece of legislation that Ireland has just pushed through: making NDAs unenforceable unless the claimant would like them enforced, and unless the documents are written in very clear language—often non-disclosure agreements are really complicated to read and nobody can fully understand them—and there is still the opportunity to report what happened to a trade union and to the ombudsman. Again, at the moment nobody knows what is happening because, by their very nature, non-disclosure agreements stop you talking to anybody, so we would like to see a similar change here.

[Uma Kumaran]

Q Thank you both for your representations. Joeli, I follow your work and have a lot of friends who have followed Pregnant Then Screwed—thank you. Jemima, I have read the Fawcett Society’s report on the gender pay gap, and heard your views here. Listening to you both today has put some new questions in my head on top of those that I already wanted to ask.

You have both talked about maternity provisions and what they could mean for the country. More broadly, what is the benefit to the economy and to businesses of having stronger maternity provisions as set out in the Bill?

Joeli Brearley: By maternity provisions, do you mean maternity leave and pay?

[Uma Kumaran]

Yes, maternity rights.

Joeli Brearley: As I mentioned before, we know that 54,000 women a year are pushed out of their jobs from the point that they get pregnant, while pregnant, while taking maternity leave or just after they return. That is one in nine; it is a woman every 10 minutes.

What tends to happen is that it takes those women a very long time to recover. Sometimes it is a slow drip feed of bullying and harassment, because people know that just pushing them out is unlawful and they could go to tribunal. This is severely damaging to women’s careers, and to their first year with their new baby—it really damages their mental health—and it is a big contributor to the gender pay gap. We do not know exactly how much it contributes to the gender pay gap, but it obviously is a big contributor.

What we need to see—and what we have been campaigning for—to change this is, first, ringfenced, properly paid paternity leave, because until an employer sees any employee as somebody who could go off when they have a child, they will always have a bias against women. At the moment, men do not take time off—a maximum of two weeks, often—once they have become a father, so they are not seen as a risk, whereas women are seen as a risk, so that bias starts in the recruitment process. We know that if we ringfence paternity leave and pay it properly, men will take time out, which also reduces the unpaid labour gap; we know that men tend to do less of the unpaid labour, so taking these steps would mean that women could excel more in their careers.

Secondly—I know it is not within this Committee’s scope but I have to mention it—our childcare system is a chaotic mess. It needs to be affordable and it needs to be accessible. Until that happens, women will take a step back from their careers. We also need enhanced redundancy protections, like what is in this Bill, but we need them to be very specific and to be about, “If the business fails—”

[The Chair]

Order. That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you both for your evidence. We now move to the next panel.

Examination of Witness

Alasdair Reisner gave evidence.

Employment Rights Bill (Third sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 28th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Nick Timothy]

Okay. Joanne Cairns?

Joanne Cairns: We have been involved in a number of roundtable meetings with DBT, which have been very helpful in understanding what the Government’s intentions are on a number of aspects of the Bill. I do not know exactly how many meetings we have been involved in, but the engagement of DBT with unions has been good, as it appears to have been with business as well.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

Q Thank you both for your evidence today. How important is managing work and caring responsibilities to your members? How will the Government’s “Make Work Pay” agenda and the Bill help to address those issues?

Joanne Cairns: Many of our members are juggling paid jobs with caring responsibilities, whether that is childcare or looking after disabled partners and relatives. The majority of our members are women; the burden of care continues to fall disproportionately on women, so we really welcome a number of the measures in the Bill that will help workers with caring responsibilities, including the right to parental leave and paternity leave being from day one of employment. We welcome the shift in the burden to employers to justify why they have refused a request for flexible working, and the new right to bereavement leave, which widens the current provision entitling bereaved parents to statutory parental bereavement leave.

We think that there are some areas in which those rights could be strengthened. We welcome the Government’s commitment to review parental leave more widely outside the Bill; we will be engaging with that review. We think we need to look at the length of paid maternity and paternity leave, the provision of paid carer’s leave and the wider support that is needed to make sure that those rights work effectively for working families.

On flexible working, the shift to employers having to justify their refusal is welcome, but there are still eight business grounds on which employers can refuse a request. It is still very difficult for employees to ask for flexible working; they are often concerned about what the repercussions of making a request might be. We recently surveyed our members with caring responsibilities and found that only just over half were even aware of the right to request flexible working. Of those who were aware, only half had used it. We would like a more robust framework for making requests for flexible working. For example, we could abolish the restriction on the number of applications that can be made in a 12-month period; extend the right to all workers, not just employees; and ensure that there is a right to appeal if a request is refused.

However, I would say that there has been some really important progress through the Bill and, we hope, through the review of parental leave to support working families.

Liron Velleman: I do not want to repeat what Joanne has said, but I have a small point to make. The day one right to request flexible working is so important. So many people start a new job and then work out, “Okay, how am I going to balance this with my caring responsibilities?” If they cannot make that request for the first six months and they really struggle to make sure their kids are picked up from school or to deal with their elderly parents, they might find a not great way of dealing with it. It is then quite difficult to turn around to their employer and make the request six months down the line. It is so much better to be able to say, as a day one right, “This is what I want to give to this new employment that I have just received, but this is the world I exist in and these are the other responsibilities I have—how can we best make that work?” We know that our members will see a huge benefit from that, especially if they move to a new workplace.

[The Chair]

As there are no further questions, let me thank our two witnesses for attending.

Examination of Witness

Nye Cominetti gave evidence.

Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 28th November 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Do not worry about the bell.

John Kirkpatrick: I will carry on, as long as I am audible, Sir Christopher.

We have found similar sectors where people are vulnerable. We have issued specific guidance, often in combination with relevant trade associations, in sectors like hospitality and the performing arts, which appear particularly prone to instances of sexual harassment. We continue to do a lot of work on this; we have active enforcement activity, for example, with McDonald’s. We have also made an announcement only today with the Welsh Rugby Union; as some of you will be aware, they have had their difficulties in this area, but they have agreed with us a section 23 agreement, as we call it, to rectify what is going on.

It is really important. We are broadly comfortable with the provisions in the Bill that strengthen the sanctions on sexual harassment. We know that we are responsible for enforcing some of those that already exist, and we are concerned that the scale of that enforcement will be challenging for us and that we—Margaret spoke earlier about resources—will need the capacity to be able to do what we can to help enforce the measures that Parliament puts in place.

Margaret Beels: I am well aware from the evidence that comes to me that one of things that vulnerable workers also experience is sexual harassment. They are so desperate to keep their jobs that they will accept that, because it is the price of getting the next shift. That is unacceptable.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, John and Margaret for the important work that you both do in your respective roles. How do you believe that the measures in the Bill could improve opportunity for workers of all backgrounds? I am thinking specifically on class, race and disability.

John Kirkpatrick: I think I said earlier that to the extent that some of those protected characteristic groups have worse experiences in the labour market than others, protecting them is absolutely desirable. The only risk is to the flexibility of employment, which can even include such things as zero-hours contracts, which are very convenient and desirable for some people. If those opportunities were to diminish, that would be of some concern, but I think that that does no more than repeat the point I made earlier that we need, both in advance and subsequently, to monitor very carefully the impact of these measures on levels of employment and quality of employment, which is what I think they are aimed at.

Margaret Beels: In terms of the sectors that we regard as being at the highest risk of labour exploitation, which is what I worry about, such as agriculture, the car-washing industry, construction or adult social care—we have not talked much about adult social care, but I have been doing quite a lot of work in relation to workers’ experiences in adult social care—I welcome the measures in the Bill that will start to address some of those issues. I know that the Bill will not necessarily address the totality of those problems, because there are obviously issues around the finance for improving those things, but previous speakers talked about what we as a nation value. We need to value our adult social care workers and the work they do, and to give them more support.

John Kirkpatrick: Since Margaret has introduced social care as a particular sector, I might add that the work we have done in the past on the workforce in that sector again showed an issue that I referred to earlier, which is the challenge of people being able to understand their rights, particularly where those rights are complicated and are not necessarily written in the most accessible language, even in the best guidance. That can be really challenging, and has been particularly for ethnic minority workers in the health and social care sector among others.

Margaret Beels: It was quite striking in the work I did on adult social care that about a third of domiciliary workers in England are on zero-hours contracts. That does seem a very high number.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, may I thank you both for coming along and sharing your expertise with us this afternoon?

Examination of Witness

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anneliese Midgley]

Q I want to follow on from the last question. A previous witness today said, “I think, if you introduce lots of rights like paternity rights and flexible working rights from day one, you risk having more problems and that will be a cost.” I just want to go a bit deeper into your assessment of that and whether you think family leave and flexible working should be viewed as a net cost.

Dr Stephenson: I am also an employer, and we have an incredibly flexible working policy. I think flexible work is largely beneficial for employers as well as workers, not least because it enables you to recruit and retain the best staff. At the moment, the labour market is relatively tight, particularly in some parts of the country and in some sectors. We have higher levels of, for example, economic inactivity among women than men and we know that this is something the Government want to do something about.

One of the reasons for economic inactivity among women is caring responsibilities. There are large numbers of women who are not in the labour market who said that they would like to be in paid work if they could find a job that gave them the flexibility they needed. That can only be a benefit to wider society, and ultimately to employers, first, because they can attract the best people and, secondly, because we are more likely to have a strong and growing economy.

[Uma Kumaran]

Q Thank you, Dr Stephenson. I am really proud that my constituency is the home of the match girls’ strike; the fight for women’s rights in the workplace runs deep in the history of my politics. How do you think the measures in the Bill will benefit women’s workforce participation? You have talked about some of the broader views, but if there is one thing in particular that you think will mark a real difference, I would be keen to know it.

Dr Stephenson: As I said, the flexible working provisions particularly benefit women’s labour market participation. Some of it is not just about participation, but about improved pay and conditions; for example, the end to exploitative zero-hours contracts improves women’s position in the labour market, which means they are less likely to leave the labour market.

Another thing is the fair pay agreements in social care, if they were seen as a starting point and extended so that, having started out with social care and looked at how it worked, you looked at other sectors such as early education and childcare. That is a sector very similar to social care, particularly now we have the big extension of funded hours coming in—largely private provision delivering public services that are majority publicly funded, with a majority female workforce on low pay and often working part time. That model of fair pay agreements could not just support women working in those sectors, but support more women into the labour market, if you had available, affordable early education and childcare.

We did some work with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies last year looking at the loss to the economy from women’s under-participation compared with men, and that loss comes to £88.7 billion. Enabling women to enter the labour market, to stay in the labour market or to increase their working hours has the potential to bring real benefit to both the national and local economy.

[Alison Hume]

Q Some 20% of all employees in my Scarborough and Whitby constituency work in the hospitality sector, and obviously a large number will be women. According to the latest Office for National Statistics figures, 50% of women in part-time jobs in my constituency were paid below the living wage. Can you drill down a little more into how the Bill will lead to greater income security for women working in hospitality?

Dr Stephenson: Having a better enforcement body and proper enforcement of the living wage and equalising minimum wage rates with living wage rates for workers under 21—the hospitality industry in particular employs large numbers of younger people—will be really important. Good employers want to do the right thing, and they are undercut by bad employers who are deliberately breaking the law, so better enforcement is important.

To go back to my earlier point, outwith this Bill it is also important to look at access to proper legal advice for people in those situations. It can be very difficult—we have advice deserts in this country. One of the impacts of cuts to civil legal aid has been a reduction in any lawyers with specialism in certain areas, because the loss of legal aid has meant less money in the sector and fewer people going in to develop that specialism. Even if you can afford to pay, it can be quite hard to find a lawyer for certain areas. The enforcement mechanism will make a big difference, but we also need to look at legal aid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Hume]

Q Minister, we have touched on adult social care today. There are 1.6 million workers in the sector. I know that news of the adult social care negotiating body has been warmly welcomed. Can you expand on why a fair pay agreement is so important for the adult social care sector?

Justin Madders: That is a really good question. One of the reasons was in your question—there are 1.6 million people employed in the sector. It is a huge part of the economy. Unfortunately, at the moment, as we heard in the evidence, it is characterised by poor terms and conditions and high numbers of zero-hours contracts, and quite often minimum wage is not enforced properly. These are people doing really important jobs in our society. They deserve a voice and a collective opportunity to raise terms and conditions, and the opportunity to work with employers to develop a career path. This is a transformative structure that will hopefully change the lives of many working people and, of course, the people they care for.

[Uma Kumaran]

Q We heard from two business voices today that were not perhaps entirely reflective of the rest of our views. I have more than 12,500 businesses in my constituency of Stratford and Bow, of which more than 5,500 are small and medium-sized businesses. I have met lots of them over the course of the last year. I have certainly not heard similar views. We also heard from legal experts, who said that the Bill brings us closer to OECD norms than perhaps was said. Can you tell us how businesses will benefit from the Bill?

Justin Madders: There is generally an acceptance, both in the economic analysis we have heard from some of the witnesses today and from businesses themselves, that getting a motivated, engaged and retained workforce is good for productivity and the business overall. Having a more engaged and well-remunerated workforce has been shown to actually boost profits. The fact that the OECD was referred to by the Resolution Foundation as a body that believes that greater workers’ rights actually improve the economic outcome of the country is a really important factor that we need to emphasise.

[Michael Wheeler]

Q Picking up from the last question, we have heard how the Bill will benefit employers; what other groups of people in the country do you think it will benefit?

Justin Madders: There are an awful lot of people who will benefit if we get this right. I am talking about people who do not know from one week to the next how many hours they will have or whether they will be paid enough to put food on the table. Our reforms on zero-hours contracts will really help with that. People who can be arbitrarily sacked for no reason for the first two years of their employment—about 9 million people—will benefit from that. The 1.6 million people in the social care sector will benefit. There are 900,000 people a year who will benefit from bereavement leave entitlements. Overall, as ACAS has suggested, the cost of disputes to the economy can be up to £30 billion a year. Just imagine what a difference it would make if we could shave a fraction off that. I think that the Bill is setting a new culture in our country about how we do workplace relations. It is putting the value of the worker/employee relationship with businesses at the heart of everything we do.

Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to once again serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I refer the Committee to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and I am a member of the GMB. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge spoke powerfully—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Uma Kumaran, your speech was interrupted. Would you like to continue?

[Uma Kumaran]

Thank you, Mr Stringer. I am glad Members got some steps in and I hope they have come back reinvigorated.

Members across the Committee have spoken eloquently today about why they support the bold measures in the Bill, which is the best upgrade to worker’s rights that we have seen in a generation. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester for sharing his personal story. That is why we are here; it is about the people behind those stories. The Bill is about making a difference to people’s lives.

We started this month by marking World AIDS Day. The National AIDS Trust supports the amendments to increase the time limit for claims from three months to six, to bring the Bill in line with the Law Commission’s 2020 recommendation. With a diagnosis such as HIV/AIDS, three months is nothing. When a person is diagnosed, they have to go to their doctor, assess the impact the diagnosis will have on their life, and in some cases discuss how to break it to their family, friends and employers. Adding a ticking time limit of three months for their job and their livelihood can be so distressing. That is why I remind Members to remember the people behind the stories—the people we seek to serve and to help.

This is not just about the people; it also impacts business, as we have heard from Opposition Members. We have seen inclusive employers standing with the National AIDS Trust, not just in the UK but around the world, to support the asks that were brought forward to mark World AIDS Day. That is why I urge Members to support the amendments to increase the time limit from three months to six.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

There is one point that I would like the Minister to clarify. Some of his colleagues have said that, by extending the limit from three months to six, we will avoid a large number of claims, as there will be more time to negotiate and they will be concluded in good time. Other colleagues have said that this is an access to justice point, since lots of claims are being missed out because the time limit is too short. Can the Minister clarify, for the benefit of small businesses, whether they will face more or fewer claims? It seems to me that the Government have not decided whether this is a reform to reduce the number of claims that small businesses will face, or whether it will significantly increase the number of claims. Whatever the justice of each individual claim, small business owners will have to deal with its legal consequences and devote time to it. I think they would appreciate knowing whether there will be more or fewer claims.

[Uma Kumaran]

Statistically, less than 1% of women who have been subject to pregnancy or maternity discrimination pursue a claim in an employment tribunal. While making the case for business, it is important to realise that we are talking about a very small percentage of people. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, these things can make a huge difference to people’s lives, and we are talking about very specific amendments that will make a real difference to the lives of working people.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I want to add a couple of thoughts, not so much about the principle of the amendments, but about what they say about the process. I note what the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield said about the history and about the Law Commission having made its proposals in 2020. That rather adds to our confusion about why the amendments are being introduced in Committee and why they were not part of the Bill on Second Reading. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us a little about the preparation of the Bill and what his officials said at the time of Second Reading about how many more amendments would be necessary in Committee and about its readiness. Will he also tell us more about the precise impact of the amendments, and what they mean for the Bill’s impact assessment?

Employment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I do not want to repeat the whole debate that we had the other day as we might not hit the clause that the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues are trying to get to today. I fully accept his point that the situation is not fair on the employee, but equally it is not fair on the employer, given that those circumstances, events or eventualities are quite literally outside anybody’s control.

I urge the hon. Gentleman and his Front-Bench colleagues to reflect on how to put in place a better and more proportionate system to share the burden. I accept that nobody wants or plans for those eventualities. I refuse to believe that any employer ever wants to have to turn somebody away at the door as they turn up for work. They actually want to make those products, provide those services, ensure people have a good night out or whatever it might be. That is the core of their business. That is how they make money. That is how they grow and create more jobs in the first place. I refuse to believe that any business wants to turn someone away and say, “Sorry, that shift isn’t available,” or, “Only half that shift is available today.”

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB trade union.

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Association of Convenience Stores tells us:

“90% of colleagues in the convenience sector report that they have never had a shift cancelled with less than 48 hours’ notice, reflecting a strong track record of responsible scheduling. Furthermore, 86% of retailers state that they always offer alternative hours to employees if a shift is cancelled or reduced, demonstrating the sector’s commitment to fair treatment and employee support.”

It says that it

“can be confident that this will support existing provision by employers across the sector”,

and it welcomes amendment 30, which it says

“provides clarity in relation to short notice for when the shift is both moved and curtailed.”

It tell us that there is a counter-argument that the proposals may present challenges to convenience retailers and other small businesses, but that it has spoken to businesses and that

“these businesses tell us that they are already doing what the Bill makes provisions for.”

We are mindful of the impact on businesses, but there are a lot of businesses out there that are already doing what is proposed, and we have received representations from them welcoming the measures.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, because she underlines the fundamental point that I am making: most businesses do not want to turn people away. Convenience stores are a great example of that, and are actually some of the most flexible employers out there. My constituency, which is spread across 336 square miles of rural Buckinghamshire, has a lot of small convenience stores, and they are exemplary employers. I cannot think of a problem I have ever encountered with any of them.

I come back to my central argument, which is that sometimes things happen. Nobody has planned for it, nobody wants it, and nobody is in any way happy in that situation, but sometimes these things happen. I fully accept the hon. Lady’s point that the vast majority of employers in this country are good employers. We should celebrate them, and not try to see them through the lens of some sort of Victorian novel. That is not what employers are in this country. They are responsible and want to look out for their workforce.

We had a debate the other day about the symbiotic relationship between the worker and the business owner, which are two sides of the same coin: no successful business could have one without the other. I am not saying that there are not rogue traders out there who seek to exploit their workforce—there are, and there must be proportionate, proper and robust measures in place to combat poor behaviour—but that does not undermine the central point that there must be flexibility that accounts for the realities of the real world.

Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I will stop with the Bond jokes for now, but “Never Say Never Again”—Members know that laughter is one of the best medicines, certainly for our mental health and for the mental health of workers. Research from the Centre for Mental Health cites strong evidence that Government policies to boost workplace rights, such as on flexible working and job security, can positively impact workers’ mental health.

Flexibility is crucial to the workplace participation of those with long-term chronic health conditions and those with mental health problems, and it is good for workers. In the oral evidence sessions, we heard that good employment conditions support productivity, employers and the economy, and that good flexible working policies generally go down very well with employees: it can help staff to feel engaged in their work and to feel valued by their managers. I am sure Opposition Members want to feel valued, but—

[The Chair]

Order. The hon. Lady is perfectly entitled to make a speech, but I thought this was going to be an intervention. She can make a speech later. I call the Minister.

[Uma Kumaran]

I apologise, Sir Christopher.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

I thank my hon. Friend for her valuable contribution; she reminds us that flexible working can often be a real help in getting people into work.

The changes in the Bill will support employers and employees to agree solutions that work for both parties and increase the take-up of flexible working. The Opposition amendments, new clause 26 and amendment 132, proposed by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, include a requirement for an assessment of the impact of the Bill’s provisions on flexible working to be produced before the provisions can be commenced. The Government resist those amendments. They have already produced a comprehensive set of impact assessments, which was published alongside Second Reading and based on the best available evidence on the potential impact of the Bill’s measures on business, workers and the wider economy.

Our proportionate assessment included labour market and broader macroeconomic analysis considering the impact of these changes on individuals and businesses. It also provided a breakdown of the impacts on employment tribunals, small business and individuals with protected characteristics. We intend to refine that analysis over time, working closely with businesses, trade unions, academics and think-tanks. The analysis published alongside the Bill describes the overall business impact as neutral. Businesses may see benefits in improved productivity, employee loyalty, worker satisfaction, staff retention and the ability to attract a wider range of employees. It is important to remember that businesses can still reject flexible working requests on eight valid business grounds, including the burden of costs.

As is standard practice, the Government will publish an enactment impact assessment once the Bill reaches Royal Assent, in line with the requirements of the better regulation framework. That will account for where the primary legislation in the Bill has been amended in its passage through Parliament in such a way as to change the impacts of the policy on business significantly. That impact assessment will be published alongside the enacted legislation. We will then publish further analysis alongside future consultations, ahead of secondary legislation to meet our better regulation requirements. I therefore ask Opposition Members to withdraw their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Uma Kumaran]

I would like to highlight a few examples in addition to those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield.

According to the Nuffield Trust, these changes will greatly benefit social care workers and workers on zero-hours contracts who, as has been highlighted, have inconsistent access to statutory sick pay, let alone occupational sick pay schemes, to cover costs such as rent and bills. As we have heard, and we have seen in our constituencies, many of those workers worked through the pandemic, risking their own lives and risking infection, putting themselves in harm’s way, because they did not have a fallback—they did not have statutory sick pay.

A more generous system of statutory sick pay should be seen not only as a right for workers, but as part of our national defences, including against pandemics. In particular, the changes will benefit low and outsourced workers such as porters, cleaners and housekeepers. I recently visited Newham General hospital in my constituency, where I saw at first hand the impact that porters and cleaning staff are having. I heard from the hospital’s chief executive officer how the hospital is unable to function without those essential staff.

Health Equals found that 28% of employees are reliant on statutory sick pay, one in 10 workers get nothing at all if they are sick and 82% of workers reported that flexible working arrangements allowed them to maintain a good level of personal health and wellbeing. I spoke earlier about mental health provisions. Evidence from Mind has shown us that employees with mental health issues are reliant on SSP. Without access to it, they are forced into debt, increasing the strain on their mental health.

The Centre for Progressive Change highlighted a recent study that shows that the cost of presenteeism for the private sector for mental health alone is around £23 billion a year to our economy, which is more than the cost of absenteeism, which is around £5 billion a year. The Institute of Public Policy Research has shown that workers in the UK are among the least likely to take sick days and that the presenteeism culture costs our economy £25 billion annually, due to the impact on productivity. We are speaking about workers today, but highlighting the impact on business and our economy helps to demonstrate why these measures are so important.

I will finish with one final statistic. The Centre for Progressive Change highlighted modelling by WPI Economics that shows that the implementation of an increased SSP rate, alongside other changes put forward in the Bill, such as the removal of waiting days and lower earnings limits, would deliver substantial economic benefits to the UK, including net gains of up to £800 million for businesses. That is £1.7 billion for the Treasury and £2.1 billion for the wider economy. Those are not small sums of money. Those would have a huge impact on our economy, through measures that put workers at the heart.

[Justin Madders]

We have had a good debate. Most Members have spoken positively about the need for this change. Obviously, this was a measure brought in temporarily by the previous Government, during covid. They recognised the particular issue at the time.

Before I turn to the shadow Minister’s comments, I wish him the best of luck in the Mid-Buckinghamshire pantomime. I hope he does not become the George Lazenby of the Conservative party as a result. He raised two perfectly reasonable questions. The first was on Northern Ireland. I can assure him that it was not an oversight. It has been introduced as an amendment because, as this is a transferred power to Northern Ireland, we need their consent before it can be included. I think he will understand that putting it in without getting that agreement might have been counterproductive.

On the second point that the shadow Minister made, about abuse of the provision, of course employers already have the power to deal with employees whom they feel are falsely taking time off sick. Whether that is day four or day one, those powers are already there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby made a very powerful speech to highlight the impact on particular groups. The evidence we heard from the Women’s Budget Group last week was particularly important in that respect. Other Members who spoke, my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham Northfield and for Stratford and Bow, raised a whole plethora of examples with pieces of evidence in support of the policy. I think it is one that is generally supported.

To deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Dundee Central about the level of statutory sick pay, he may not have seen my opining on SSP at the evidence session last week, or the famous comments from the former Health Secretary about it not being enough to live on. I recognise that. Unfortunately, however, I have to give him the stock answer, which is that the actual level is set by the Department for Work and Pensions. He made a fair point about people on long-term sick, because there is a huge interplay between people on long-term sick and the benefits system, but it is in the Department’s gift to set the rate and to look at how it interplays with accessibility to other benefits, which of course depends on people’s individual circumstances.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Statutory sick pay: lower earnings limit etc

Employment Rights Bill (Ninth sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is right, but that is not how the Bill is worded. The Bill allows the reasonability test to be applied over the top of the Equality Act definition he has brought to the attention of the Committee. I gently ask him to reflect on that point and just check, because I do not think he would want this unintended consequence to be followed through into legislation. It would undermine the very serious things we spoke about earlier and, dare I say, trivialise them.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my declaration of interests, and remind them that I am a member of the GMB. It is timely that we are discussing this, as today is Human Rights Day. In 1998, the Labour Government brought the Human Rights Act into domestic law. Freedom of speech is indeed a human right, but that does not mean someone has the freedom to incite hatred, discriminate or attack people with a protected characteristic. In this fictional comedy club we are talking about, what are the things that people are mentioning? Can the shadow Minister give us a specific example of a joke that he thinks the Bill would put in jeopardy of undermining or putting at risk the CEO of said organisation?

[Greg Smith]

I think I have been clear that every law available should be used—potentially, more could be passed—to properly prosecute, challenge, shut down and stop anyone inciting hatred on the basis of race, religion, sexuality or whatever it might be. I cannot find any better set of words to make my revulsion at those crimes clearer, and I show my absolute support for any enforcement agency or Government of any political persuasion that brings forward workable laws to clamp down on those unacceptable criminal behaviours, full stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Uma Kumaran]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Smith]

I will give way in a second.

Many comedians—Jimmy Carr is an example—talk frequently at the moment about comedy being shut down. It is not criminal; it is not racial hatred or hatred on the basis of religion, sexuality or anything like that. It is beyond those points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Uma Kumaran]

We all enjoy comedy in this House, but this is a very serious subject. Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, on the exercise of the freedoms that the shadow Minister is talking about, carries with it duties and responsibilities. It states that the freedoms

“may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of”

a number of things. In this fictional comedy club or this fictional speech, all the things that you are saying may—

[The Chair]

Order. When you say “you”, you mean me.

[Uma Kumaran]

I apologise, Mr Mundell. All the things that the shadow Minister has referred to are already enshrined in various laws in this country, so what is the fictional scenario that he thinks this Bill jeopardises?

[Greg Smith]

The hon. Lady is right to bring the Committee’s attention to that which is already laid down in statute. I think that perhaps where the misunderstanding is coming in—the Opposition are trying to test this—is whether the new reasonability test will deliver perverse results in a tribunal. Probably nobody sitting in this room would expect that to happen, but it could supersede that which is already set down and create a new precedent.

Employment Rights Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Uma Kumaran Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. Obviously, education matters are relevant to the context of the discussion, but this is not a debate about education policy as such.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my membership of GMB union. I note the comments that you have made, but if I may I will just respond to the shadow Minister, who talked about the previous Conservative Government’s record. I draw his attention to an article published by the London School of Economics that said that England was an outlier among OECD countries, having both lower numeracy and literacy levels among school pupils.

[Nick Timothy]

Does the hon. Lady accept that it is not just the PISA rankings that show great advances in achievement in English schools, but the TIMSS—trends in international mathematics and science study—report published last week? That report said exactly the same thing: English schools are ahead of any comparable western country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Uma Kumaran]

The school support staff negotiating body—to stick to the Bill—is an important part of the Bill and will help to ensure standardised fair pay and employment terms across the board, addressing not only local but regional disparities.

School support staff make a massive contribution to the running of our schools. Just last Friday, I visited the Odessa school in Forest Gate in my constituency, which has an above-average intake of SEND pupils, and I saw at first hand the contribution the support staff made. That is why the Bill, and this clause, are so important—because those staff, too, deserve to have their contributions properly recognised through a negotiating body. At present, their job profiles are out of date, opportunities for professional development are poor and the work they do often goes largely unrecognised or unnoticed. The SSSNB can play a major part in tackling the recruitment and retention crisis across our schools.

I do not think anyone could look at our current approach to school staff and say it is a functioning system—that is certainly not what I hear from teachers when I visit local schools. Local support staff have told me the hardships they are under, and the TUC has shared a report with us showing that one in eight workers use food banks, a quarter take second jobs and half are actively looking to leave their role because they cannot make ends meet.

The attitude—which some may call neglectful—that we have had towards school support workers due to the approach taken by the last Government has sent a clear message that they simply are not valued. By re-establishing the school support staff negotiating body, the Bill will change that. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. We are discussing clause 28 and schedule 3, and the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield asked what the Opposition’s proposal would be. Well, nothing needs changing—the clause and schedule are completely unnecessary. I say that because it is my belief that the way the education system in England is delivered—mostly by academies—is a successful model. The Government’s proposals will harm our education system because they will take freedom away from schools and academies. There is a fixed amount to be spent on education, and the governors of schools and academies are best able to decide where those resources are allocated.

The hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield told us it was unfair that some teaching assistants have lower pay than others and that their terms and conditions are not identical. He also said it was difficult to retain and recruit teaching assistants. If that is the case, the governors of a school or the leaders of an academy can pay more to recruit the staff they need.

What we see from the Government is a belief that Whitehall knows best. They intend to centralise terms and conditions and will try to specify how much each teaching assistant in each school will work, because that suits their political agenda and the agenda of the trade unions that pay for their election campaigns.