Justin Madders
MP for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard asked about, will consider the points raised in this debate and whether any of them can be put into future updates to guidance. As was mentioned, good passenger information is central to standards.”
“As the roads Minister, I of course recognise the importance of bus stops and the important effect they have on the streetscape. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard made clear that she is passionate and informed about the importance of bus journeys to everyone.”
“Where responsibility for highways or individual assets sits elsewhere, close and effective working between the relevant authorities is essential. We expect local plans to join up services, infrastructure and passenger information, rather than treating them as separate issues. That will no doubt be music to the ears of my hon.”
“Our guidance encourages authorities to take a strategic approach to stops and interchanges, including keeping an inventory of infrastructure, identifying priorities for investment and setting locally appropriate standards for facilities and maintenance.”
“She is absolutely right that the quality of a bus stop is about more than accessibility, although of course accessibility is vital. Passengers notice whether a stop is easy to find and use, whether it offers shelter or seating where appropriate, whether it is clean, whether the surroundings feel safe and well maintained and, as we have di…”
“That approach reflects a simple principle: local transport authorities know their areas and are best placed to plan improvements across the whole local bus network. That is why the Department’s vision for buses, within an integrated transport system, puts local transport authorities at the centre of delivery.”
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“In Ellesmere Port, we are proud that the Canal & River Trust has made its headquarters there, but we are concerned about the implications of the funding decisions, which amount to a £300 million cut in real terms over the next decade. Clearly that will cause the trust real problems, so I urge the Minister to think again about these decisions and to engage with the trust about how that gap can be bridged.”
“NHS Cheshire and Merseyside integrated care board has instructed all NHS providers to make cuts of 5% in their services. Its instruction is not being discussed with members of the public, Members of Parliament or indeed anyone, and it is clear there is no mandate for this action. Given that the Government have made great play of the NHS having more funds than ever before, I am at a loss to understand why the cuts are necessary, so will the Minister intervene to ensure that they do not happen on her watch?”
“I want to ask about licence conditions, and particularly those that prohibit the offender from contacting certain people or entering certain postcodes. It is obvious that such conditions are about protecting victims and their families. My concern is that the Lord Chancellor’s statement did not make it absolutely clear that breaching such conditions will lead to a return to custody. It is important for victims to hear that those kinds of transgressions will result in an immediate return to custody.”
“I saw the Secretary of State’s Network North map on Twitter, featuring those legendary northern towns of Tavistock, Dawlish and Plymouth. That might have been mildly amusing had my constituency not been cut in half, with the whole of the Wirral disappearing into the Irish sea. Have we been taken off the map because we have no funding for any capital transport projects? Will Cheshire West and Chester Council now get a refund for the hundreds of thousands of pounds that it has already spent on preparatory work for HS2 coming to Cheshire? That money now appears to have been wasted because of the bungled handling of this contract.”
“Biodiesel producers in my constituency are being undercut by cheap Chinese imports because of the Government’s decision to award them inward processing relief. This is making it difficult for us to support UK industry, so can we have an explanation for why that decision was made?”
“Ellesmere Port Catholic High School has huge challenges: five classrooms, the chapel, two corridors, changing facilities, kitchens and canteens have been closed, meaning that a number of technical lessons cannot be taught and no hot food can be served. I have a direct plea from the headteacher, who says: “I cannot understate the urgency of this situation, particularly with the temporary accommodation. We are having real issues getting the Department to approve mitigations so that we can operate for all our students in the short term.” After this statement, will the Secretary of State have a look at this case and talk to officials about getting the approvals that that headteacher needs?”
“This decision is as embarrassing as it is baffling. The Minister talks about improvements, but my constituents have not seen those improvements. He talks about reducing the number of cancellations: with Avanti having cancelled half of the services from Chester directly to London, that will obviously reduce the number of cancellations. Yesterday, for example, Avanti started a train from Crewe rather than from Chester. That presumably does not count as a cancellation, but that is absolutely no consolation to someone in Chester. It seems to me that the Government know that the companies are playing with the figures and are prepared to accept a second-class service for the people of the north.”
“Maybe we have seen so little substantive policy change because, despite the legislation having been around for a year now, Departments still have not got their heads around what they want to do with all that law. One notable exception was the recent decision to try to revoke the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 via the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—although that was at odds with what was said throughout the passage of the retained EU law legislation.”
“Now we are in a situation where the Government have announced only a handful of areas where the revocation of or amendments to retained EU law amount to a substantial policy change, and even then there is not always a direct relationship with our leaving the EU. One example is the “Smarter regulation to grow the economy” policy paper, published in May, which promised to diverge away from some EU-derived employment law. Even that, however, was bulked out by a review of non-compete clauses in employment contracts, which have never been derived from EU regulations. It is hard to see why those things were lumped together, unless the Government wanted to create the impression that they were doing more than was actually the case with the new-found Brexit freedoms.”
“They have had an ongoing ambition to act on the relevant laws and reach a place where we will be free from EU regulations, but the destination was in mind well before they knew what they wanted to do with the new-found freedom, or what the best way to get there was without causing, at best, uncertainty—and at worst, chaos. I know the Government were under pressure from unhappy Back Benchers who were disappointed by the pace of change following Brexit, so they presented the retained EU law Bill in the forlorn hope that having an unachievable deadline would somehow force Departments to come up with answers to the questions. It was a bit like cramming for an exam the night before. Belatedly, that approach was discovered to be completely unworkable.”
“Has the Solicitor General found himself in a Red Adair troubleshooting role for the Department? Or has the operation of the legislation moved to the law offices? The Opposition welcome the opportunity to debate the regulations, because we would have been starved of that altogether had the Government pressed ahead with their original plan for the wholesale bonfire of retained EU law at the end of the year. I am glad that the Government finally listened to all the legal experts, the campaigners and, if I may say so, the Opposition when we pointed out that that approach would be an unmitigated disaster. It is clear that from the outset the Government have approached the issue completely the wrong way round.”
“It is fair to say that the passage of the Act was a rollercoaster ride, not just because we saw an ever-changing line-up of Ministers on the Treasury Bench but because of the way the legislation ended up operating. On the personnel, I congratulate the Solicitor General on what must be at least his fourth consecutive appearance on this issue. That is no doubt a reflection of his ability but perhaps also reflective of the chaotic approach of his predecessors. It has not gone unnoticed that since the Secretary of State for Business and Trade found herself the centre of attention following an urgent question off the back of a written statement that heralded the U-turn on the operation of the Act, nobody from the sponsoring Department has appeared on the Treasury Bench to deal with the outstanding issues associated with the Act.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. Indeed, we have very good north-west representation in the Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester, who is making her first outing as an Opposition Whip. I am pleased to see her in her place. We served together on a local authority for many years, and I am sure that she is delighted to have the opportunity to hear me speak again. This is an important moment in the operation of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central and I had the pleasure of spending many months scrutinising throughout its passage in the House of Commons. We now have the opportunity to see whether the theory that was propounded by the Act’s advocates is matched by the practice.”
“It is a muddled, confused mess and I am afraid that that is shorthand for the Government’s approach to governing more generally.”
“I will conclude. Tonight, we have heard various examples of problems that remain in the Government’s approach to and delivery of removing retained EU law from our statute books. Of course, that is a vital task that will potentially impact everyone in the country. We support, and have always supported, the need to remove legacy EU laws that are no longer relevant, so we will not vote against the regulations tonight, but the way that the process has been handled does not engender confidence on the Opposition Benches that the Government have a grip on this process at all. We still do not know whether the Government have identified all the relevant EU-derived laws, let alone decided what they want to do with them. With some regulations, they appear to have changed their mind on them altogether.”
“For example, there is, on the face of it, a similar explanation for the removal of the Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2013 from the statute book, relating as they do to the Dublin III regulation, which does not apply to the UK. However, the explanatory note says that the revocation is subject to savings for ongoing cases so that the provision of legal aid can continue in those cases. I have picked that one out as an example as it falls within the Solicitor General’s bailiwick. Can he advise the Committee how many ongoing cases that would relate to and whether there is, as a result of the removal of the measure, a question of access to justice? If he cannot answer in detail tonight, he can of course write to us, but I would make the point that that is the sort of thing where an impact assessment might have proved useful.”
“The explanations include statements such as: “This legislation is unnecessary because the UK is no longer an EU Member State” and: “This regulation relates to a requirement/scheme/agreement which is no longer in operation, or is no longer relevant to the UK”. Those are understandable, and I see many such types of statements provided next to the instruments. However, given that the decision to leave was taken more than seven years ago, and we knew then that we would no longer be part of the EU, I am left wondering why it has taken until now for these particular instruments to have been identified. There are other statements that need further explanation.”
“Perhaps more concerning is the fact that the power being exercised under the regulations to prevent the revocation of instruments expires at the end of October. What happens if more are found after that date? What happens if the Government suddenly decide that an instrument found in these regulations does not need to be revoked? If we take the same margin of error from schedule 1 to the original Act and extrapolate it to this instrument, we can expect at least one regulation in schedule 2 to have been mistakenly revoked. Looking at the set of blanket explanations for the revocations, I wonder about the level of detail in the consideration of the implications of some of the revocations.”
“Indeed, for the whole lifetime of the 2023 Act that brought in these regulations the Executive has not been functioning, so I must ask the Solicitor General why, given that that was the case, the Northern Ireland regulations were included in the first place. Even if we give the Government the benefit of the doubt on that, there are still four other instruments in the regulations that the Government say are suddenly no longer dispensable. That raises serious questions about how much of a grip they have on this process. It certainly vindicates our position that the original cliff edge in the legislation was unrealistic and dangerous. We could have lost laws that needed to stay on the statute book had someone not double-checked and produced these regulations.”
“Any conclusions that the Solicitor General could share would be of great interest. Just as importantly, we want to hear what measures will be put in place to stop such mistakes happening again. Have any further checks and balances been put in place to ensure that regulations are not revoked unnecessarily? Or are we just relying on hope that it will not happen again? I appreciate that some of the unrevocations relate to laws specific to Northern Ireland. Given that there is no functioning Executive or sitting Assembly, I quite understand why that decision has been taken, but the situation is not a new one. It has been the case for well over a year.”
“It might be enough in many instances, but I hope the Committee will not mind me sounding a note of caution, given that, as the Solicitor General pointed out, the regulations contain seven instruments that will be reassimilated or unrevoked—I am not quite sure what the correct legal terminology is. The seven regulations were previously identified by the Government as being redundant. We must ask: how many of the 587 instruments to be revoked at the end of the year will it transpire are still needed after all? I am sure the Solicitor General will not be surprised at me wanting some more information on that and on how this legislative hokey-cokey came about in the first place. I would not be surprised to hear that there has been an investigation into why this has happened.”
“If we take the Government’s word that the regulations covered in schedule 2 are redundant, it might assist the Committee if there was a bit more detail underpinning the list. It is important for Members to hear details of the impact of the revocation of the regulations, if there are any, and for that to be included in an impact assessment, but the Government have decided against publishing one alongside the regulations. It may be that there is no impact in any of these revocations, because they are simply reproduced elsewhere or relate to us no longer legally being part of the EU or associated organisations, as we have left, but we do not know the answers because we have been provided with a one-sentence explanation for most of them.”
“It might keep Back Benchers happy for a while if Ministers can say they have removed 600 or so regulations from the statute book, but I do not think they envisaged that the majority of this exercise would be akin to clearing out junk from the garage. The contrast between the rhetoric and the reality was summed up by the current Secretary of State for Business and Trade in a written statement on 10 May 2023, when she said that the Government were “proposing a new approach, one that will ensure that Ministers and officials are enabled to focus more on reforming retained EU law and doing so faster.” —[ Official Report , 11 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 438.] When will we see the fruits of that labour?”
“Will the Solicitor General tell us how many regulations are in that category and are actually being revoked in name only? This situation perfectly encapsulates how the Government have approached this issue the wrong way round from the beginning, working on the basis of a headline and of being seen to be ditching red tape and not worrying about the detail. Surely we should have debated the matters of principle and policy first. Once we had identified the areas of meaningful policy to be retained or amended, attention should have turned to the redundant pieces of retained EU law. The way the Government have approached this matter seems to be to pick off one or two areas from which to diverge, and to treat the rest of it as a tidying-up exercise.”
“But that is the point: it was already superfluous when Brexit was just a twinkle in the eye of the right hon. Member for North East Somerset. Far from making the most of the opportunities afforded by Brexit or allowing the country to be more competitive, what we are doing with this SI is effectively a bit of housekeeping and chucking out excess bits of scrap paper. Looking at the schedule, I can see at least half a dozen references to regulations having been superseded by UK legislation already, so they have nothing to do with our leaving the EU. However, there could be more. I have no problem with tidying things up, but let us not pretend that removing essentially duplicate pieces of legislation is some great unleashing of the country’s potential.”
“Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), in his June 2022 ministerial statement, in which he claimed that the Government would seize on the opportunities offered by Brexit to lift “red tape to secure greater freedoms and productivity”. —[ Official Report , 22 June 2022; Vol. 716, c. 868.] Instead, the Government are using their time to focus on removing deadwood. Take the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (Application to Armed Forces etc) Regulations 1994, which appear on the first page of schedule 2 to the regulations. I agree that it is a completely outdated instrument, given that its provisions were included in the Equality Act 2010, which was in part a consolidation of a number of existing elements of equality law, including laws relating to sex discrimination.”
“For all the talk of “getting Brexit done”, it appears that there has been very little action to untangle those laws from our statute book. Will the Minister confirm whether work is still being carried out to identify more uncaptured retained EU law and whether more has been found since the publication of the regulations? Will there be a cut-off date by which he can confidently assert that no more EU regulations will be found? I hope it is before 31 December, given that that was the date by which everything would have automatically fallen had the Bill remained. Let us look at the substance of what is being revoked, because it is a far cry from the rallying comments made by the former Secretary of State, the right hon.”
“According to the dashboard, the Government are still discovering more pieces of retained EU law. In fact, the dashboard suggests that the vast majority of instruments being revoked by these regulations have only recently been discovered. Some 77 out of the 93 instruments being revoked were completely absent from the dashboard only a few weeks ago, so I hope the Solicitor General will be able to provide some explanation of how it can be the case that, a year after the dashboard was first unveiled to much fanfare, regulations are still being added to it. On top of that, the dashboard happens to say: “Future updates to the Dashboard will take place throughout 2023.” I hope we get some kind of explanation as to how many more additions we can expect and why we still do not know which laws have derived from the EU.”
“Is it a symptom of the chaos of the last seven years that explains why the Government still do not know what laws they want to get rid of? Is it because nothing was done until the Bill was drafted last year, and once the work began it became apparent that it could not be done in the timescale set out? Or is it actually because quite a lot of the rules are worth keeping? I suggest that the Government are literally making it up as they go along. As the Solicitor General said, more than 90 laws are being revoked via the instrument, which means, according to the retained EU law dashboard, that there are still 3,263 pieces of law that are unchanged. At the current pace, we are going to need at least another three years to get through everything, although that presumes that the actual volume of retained EU law will remain static.”
“I of course understand the point, but it is important to give the context for why the regulations are before us today. We are faced with a piece of legislation that, to quote the written statement from the Minister for Industry and Economic Security, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), is “redundant and therefore does not reflect policy change”. In the same statement, the Minister said it was “only the beginning”. Why is it only the beginning? How many more of these instruments do we have left? We left the EU seven years ago. A Bill was presented to Parliament almost exactly a year ago that proposed to do away with every piece of unnecessary EU regulation by the end of this year, but now we are told that this is just the beginning.”
“Further to the question from the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), I too would like a debate on special educational needs. The reason I ask is that there was a report last weekend about the Government signing a contract with a consultancy with the aim of reducing the number of education, health and care plans by 20%. We all know the struggles that parents face to get EHCPs at the moment, so I am horrified by the suggestion that there might now be an additional element of demand management put into the system. Children’s right to education should not be subject to that, and there are enough hurdles in the way for parents as it is.”
“That campaign needs to be accompanied by a better awareness campaign on the dangers of inhaling nitrous oxide, be it criminalisation or hospitalisation. People who see it as a bit of harmless fun need to know that there are consequences.”
“Given that thousands of kids are currently inhaling nitrous oxide without any police intervention at all, I wonder what the approach will be to enforcement, unless we expect the cells to clog up. Paragraph 58 of the impact assessment states: “It is estimated that between 8 and 63…additional prison places will need to be built.” This implies that there will be some enforcement action, and it comes with a price tag of between £2 million and £15.8 million, which is not an inconsiderable figure. Can the Minister advise us on where these new prison places will appear? It looks like this will lead to at least some people ending up in prison. There also needs to be a campaign to increase awareness of this new criminal liability, because young people have been inhaling nitrous oxide without any criminal consequences.”
“It would have been extremely helpful if we had had full details of the licensing regime when we were considering this statutory instrument today. This legislation is only going to work if we have a properly enforced licensing regime that is effective in dealing with non-legitimate sales. If we are going to support this motion, we need to be assured that there will be an effective licensing regime coming off the back of it. Of course, we are cognisant of the fact that criminalising this substance must be accompanied by other measures, such as increased community policing. The impact assessment states: “investigation costs to the Police have not been estimated.” Surely, if use remains as ubiquitous as it is now, it will have a huge impact on police resources, unless users are given a free pass.”
“I know that various options are being considered for the licensing regime, which the Minister talked about. It is clear to me that just classifying nitrous oxide under these regulations without dealing with the licensing regime will not be sufficient. It will just criminalise those using it instead of tackling the problem of those supplying the drug for non-legitimate purposes, which appears to account for the majority of sales. Those glaring loopholes have raised concerns. One of my constituents whose family have been impacted worries that this is a knee-jerk reaction from the Government and that they have not properly considered the views of healthcare professionals, addiction services and those with lived experiences. She also has concerns about unintended consequences as a result of this legislation.”
“As we have heard, it causes a significant amount of litter and environmental damage. Constituents are fed up with having to see collections of small containers littered in parks and on street corners. In my constituency, users are now graduating to the larger canisters, which are even more unsightly and presumably cause far more damage than the little canisters. Constituents are fed up with the antisocial behaviour that often comes along with this, and there is also a danger when people drive vehicles having inhaled nitrous oxide. According to the ACMD, that misuse when driving accounted for 20% of the deaths associated with nitrous oxide in the last half century. I support the Government’s motion today but there are questions that have been left unanswered, which many Members have picked up on.”
“Data released by the London Ambulance Service showed an almost 500% increase in the number of incidents related to nitrous oxide between 2018 and 2022, with more than a tripling in the number of calls between 2021 and 2022. If those trends in London are being reflected across the country, we are in the middle of a rude awakening about the consequences of this so-called safe drug. Certainly, my constituent whose son was admitted to hospital after rupturing his lung following inhalation of nitrous oxide would attest to the need for greater awareness of the risks of taking it. She has certainly done her bit in highlighting her son’s hospitalisation, but it really should not be up to her to point out the dangers of nitrous oxide. There is also the impact of nitrous oxide usage on communities.”
“To many, it is considered harmless and short-lasting, but there is mounting evidence that there are significant issues, particularly for those who regularly consume large amounts of the drug. I have spoken to the families of those who have been affected. Between 2001 and 2020 there were 56 registered deaths involving nitrous oxide, most of which have taken place in the last decade. While that figure is relatively low compared with benzodiazepines, for which over 2,000 deaths were registered in the same period, the fact that some of those heavy users have developed myeloneuropathy, which causes damage to tracts of the spinal cord and nerves, should not be overlooked. Medical professionals have warned of a notable increase in the numbers of people requiring medical interventions as a result of using the drug.”
“It is probably cheaper at the moment as well. The Sky News investigators found that age verification was skipped and that balloons were offered in accompaniment to cannisters, so there was no pretence at all that those sales were for legitimate purposes. That ease and the apparent openness about the intended use of the gas is astonishing, especially given that someone can end up with a seven-year prison sentence for selling it, but with just 31 and 49 reported convictions in 2020 and 2021 respectively, it is clear that only a tiny fraction of the transgressions are leading to action. More than this, it is failing the predominantly young people who are consuming the substance. It appears that the potential side effects of the drug are underappreciated.”
“To my constituents nitrous oxide is an irritant, manifesting itself in the plethora of canisters that we see clustering in certain places—seemingly in never-ending numbers, judging by the number that my constituents and I collect during our litter picks. However, for users of nitrous oxide there is a far more serious side. Picking up on the comments by the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), it seems obvious that the powers of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 have not been effective, because we are here today talking about this. I have come to a different conclusion to him, though, on what we should do with this regulation. We know from investigations by the likes of Sky News that it is very easy to acquire this drug. It was described as being as “easy as buying bread”.”
“At the conclusion of Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) made a point of order, picking up on a statement made by the Prime Minister that she described as “categorically untrue”. This is about the sixth or seventh time this year that we have had to make such points of order about the Prime Minister. How can we have any confidence that we are going to get high standards in public life if this keeps happening?”
“The updated ACAS guidance has included these elements, but that is not the same as enforceable legislation. As the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said, if it is right for the higher education sector, it is right for everywhere else as well. I feel that this area has fallen victim to the Government’s inertia on employment rights. As the Minister will have heard today, there is a great deal of willingness to see that changed.”
“The Legal Services Board offered a damning indictment in a call for evidence earlier this year. It said that “notwithstanding the usefulness of the standards and guidance summarised above, the evidence of continuing misuse of NDAs suggests that clearer and more effective expectations for the professional conduct of legal professionals may be required.” This is rather galling given that the Government promised to “crack down on misuse of non-disclosure agreements” all those years ago. Legislation was supposed to be in place to compel employers to write the limitations of the confidentiality clause in plain English, extend legislation to ensure that individuals signing NDAs get independent legal advice, and introduce enforcement measures to deal with NDAs that are not compliant and make them void.”
“When combined with the threat of clawback or penalty clauses, many will, unsurprisingly, self-censor to prevent them from losing their settlement. It also brings with it a weight to be carried—a significant burden over the long term. Clearly, questions must be asked of the response to this situation. What I and other hon. Members have described today is not a recent problem that has emerged from nowhere. The implications of the use of NDAs in the workplace have been known for some time, yet we have seen very little action taken. There was a flurry of interest and promises were made back in 2019, but more than four years later the only changes have been updated ACAS guidance and a warning notice sent out by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, both of which are non-binding and appear to have done little to mitigate the problems.”
“According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, NDAs should not impede or deter someone from co-operating with a criminal investigation, reporting an offence to the police or reporting a breach to a regulator, or prevent proper disclosure about the agreement or circumstances surrounding it to professional advisers, including medical professionals and counsellors, or the making of a disclosure under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. However, although there were no cases of solicitors drafting these agreements to deliberately prevent that, the SRA’s recent investigation found “a number of common trends or practices which inadvertently might contribute to this happening.” This leaves signatories feeling uncertain as to whom they can speak to or what they are allowed to say.”
“The Committee report referred to rainmakers being given a degree of latitude when it came to behavioural standards. Those individuals are worth more to the business, which continues to use NDAs to avoid holding them to account. That sends out a clear message that the safety of employees can be ignored if the accused is valuable enough to the company. One worker told the Committee: “I was told the abuser was indispensable and I was not.” I think we can all agree that that is completely unacceptable and should not be happening in any workplace in this country.”
“This means that dangerous cultures and management failures continue. In relation to the individual, NDAs starve alleged victims of any form of justice, either through internal processes or through tribunals. For the employees who remain, the alleged perpetrator can be left untouched, presenting a danger to the rest of the workforce. The Committee concluded: “We are particularly concerned that some employers are using NDAs to avoid investigating unlawful discrimination…and holding perpetrators to account.” Let us not forget that employers have a duty of care to all their employees and should be looking to tackle these instances, whether or not the person involved is a “rainmaker”—that was another concerning part of the evidence.”
“A witness before the Women and Equalities Committee —I think this evidence is very powerful—said: “There is this very well-founded fear amongst women that, if they talk about having had problems at work, even if their problem is not of their own making, they will be labelled as a troublemaker and they will find difficulties getting new employment.” Those comments, although made in the context of harassment, could equally apply to a trade union representative or, as the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) said, to a whistleblower or, indeed, to anyone who challenges poor practice in the workplace. That power imbalance affects everyone, across the board. One of the most troubling findings in the Select Committee report was the culture that NDAs perpetuate in some workplaces.”
“The Employment Lawyers Association said clearly that employers are the driving force behind NDAs, as they enable settlement without admission of liability. The employers’ reasoning is simple: why settle publicly when they can wait for a tribunal that might get them off the hook or award a lower amount? That speaks to a wider, more problematic imbalance of power between employers and employees that is endemic in the labour market. In many ways, the proliferation in use of NDAs is both a symptom of, and a tool used to perpetuate, the imbalance of power in the workplace. The Solicitors Regulation Authority—which, let’s be honest, is not at the vanguard of left-wing workers’ rights—described the imbalance of power in the workplace as “fundamental”.”
“It is in direct contradiction to the advice given by ACAS, which says that they should only be used where necessary and not as a matter of course. There are many workers bound by completely unnecessary NDAs at the moment, and when an important industry regulator, such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority, suggests there is a wholesale misuse of a contractual term—one that, as we have heard, can have a profoundly negative impact on workers—there is a good argument to say that the Government need to intervene. It is a good example of where there needs to be more intervention. I echo the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, and ask the Minister what work will be done to understand the extent and misuse of these agreements. It is easy to see why the agreements are so prevalent.”