Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Uma Kumaran and Justin Madders

Committee stage
Thursday 5th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[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