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?