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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“It is good for employers and it is good for the economy. We should therefore be saddened to hear that research by the TUC has found that one in three workers do not feel comfortable approaching their managers about a problem at work. More than a third of workers do not feel they or their colleagues are treated fairly, and half of all workers say their line manager did not explain their rights at work properly. Trying to attack trade unions and limit the right to strike will address none of those underlying issues. It is time the Government ditched their ridiculous, outdated and prejudiced view that trade unions are the enemy within. It is time the Government respected the views and rights of those who choose to take strike action.”
“So many questions, so little connection with reality. Then there are the double standards we have seen in recent times, whereby the last Prime Minister but one was elected by an electronic ballot, but trade unions, despite there being a review five years ago, are still not allowed to use electronic voting for industrial action. Such embarrassing double standards cannot be defended. There are, as we know, about 6.5 million trade union members in the UK. Every one of us present today will have constituents who are members of trade unions—ordinary men and women who want to organise themselves collectively to strive for better working conditions. We should be supporting them and not attempting to thwart them in their efforts to improve those working conditions. A happy workforce is a productive workforce.”
“It has been suggested that tailored minimum thresholds, including staffing levels, will be determined in each industry in an attempt to delegitimise industrial action and effectively remove the right to strike. That is as impractical as it is immoral. For example, how can a railway be run safely on a skeleton staff? Twenty per cent of signal boxes cannot be operated, and it is far from clear what the consequences will be if unions do not comply with agreements on that. Will their action become unlawful? What is the minimum service? Is it different in different sectors? Who decides? Where is the liability if workers refuse to comply? Are we looking, with these proposals, at fundamentally changing the nature of the employment relationship so that a third party, the trade union, can compel an individual to attend work?”
“We know that it places agencies supplying those workers in an invidious position, risking their business reputation and financial situation. We also know that many roles that may be on strike require technical skills or training and training agency workers to do those jobs is expensive and time-consuming. Allowing agency workers in during a strike will shift a negative focus on to those workers and it will not address the underlying issues. It is little wonder, given those factors, that on the face of it the regulations have done nothing to reduce industrial action. They create a nice headline for the Tory supporters in the media and provide useful soundbites for the next set of leadership candidates, but achieve nothing useful. Yet the Government want to go further.”
“What is the Government’s response? To spout anti-trade union rhetoric, to denounce those wishing to take up their rights to withdraw their labour and to introduce yet more anti-trade union laws, which will do nothing to address the underlying issues that those taking action face. Already this year, we have seen agency worker regulations as the latest attempt to undermine those taking industrial action. So far, it looks like they have not worked, because we know that agency staff are unlikely to choose a role that requires them to cross a picket line against one that does not. We know that inserting third-party agency workers into a dispute is likely to inflame tensions and elongate strikes in the impacted sector.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my membership of Unite and the GMB. The right to join a trade union is a basic democratic right, as is someone’s right to withdraw their labour. Trade unions play an invaluable role in ensuring justice is served, defending workplace rights, pay, and terms and conditions for their members. Far too many people experience insecurity, uncertainty and exploitation at work. In-work poverty is on the rise, and years of wage restraint have created the circumstances that we now find ourselves in, where the ever growing gap between wages and the cost of living has become a chasm. The result is that millions of people are now actively considering taking part in the act of last resort: industrial action.”
“Since 1991, 1.3 million IVF cycles have been undertaken, resulting in 390,000 babies being born. IVF has become commonplace over those three decades: 6,700 IVF cycles took place in 1991, and 69,000 took place in 2019. I doubt that a tenfold increase in employers’ awareness has accompanied the increase in IVF treatment, which is why this debate is so important.”
“The Minister is standing in today, but she may know that I have asked many previous Ministers when we can expect such a Bill. I am not expecting an answer, so to the right hon. Lady I say that I suspect it will take a Labour Government to introduce the plethora of employment legislation that this country desperately needs. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster for securing this debate. This issue has not traditionally received the attention it deserves because people understandably find it difficult to talk about, but we need to foster a culture of openness. As we have heard, infertility and fertility treatment are the second most common reason for a woman to visit her GP—the most common is pregnancy. About one in seven couples are affected by infertility, which is about 3.5 million people in the UK.”
“Rightly, society and the law have said that that kind of response is unacceptable. The hon. Lady summed it up well when she said that people should not be penalised for being unable to conceive naturally. There were a lot of good speeches from Back Benchers. As always, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave a good contribution. I think everyone was pretty much in agreement about the importance of this issue. The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who does an excellent job in all sorts of areas on equality in the workplace, said that we need to create a culture of openness and support for employees, and I hope this debate engenders that. She also asked about an employment Bill.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing this debate and on her excellent speech. She said that there is little legal, medical, practical and emotional support for those seeking fertility treatment. That encapsulates the broad issues facing people in that situation; obviously, we are looking at a very specific issue today. I agree that IVF should not be considered on a par with cosmetic surgery—it is a very different thing altogether. The hon. Lady really brought it home to me how far we need to go. She gave the example of her constituent who was told that she would be sacked if she undertook IVF treatment. That is the sort of thing that we would expect to have been said in the ’70s to someone who said they were pregnant.”
“The picture that has been presented today overwhelmingly suggests that we have not got that balance right at all.”
“However, having to physically administer treatment while in the workplace, and possibly while alone in a toilet stall, must be extremely difficult for those who have to do it, and fearing that a line manager might be questioning where they are while they do that can only add to the anxiety that people feel. Then there is the issue of whether someone’s treatment will negatively impact on their career, because they have an unsympathetic line manager. The experience can be very isolating. We have to change the culture to make sure that women feel supported and do not feel alone during these times. In conclusion, the statistics that I have cited and the testimony today should give us all food for thought about whether we have got the balance right and make us consider whether there is sufficient support for those with fertility issues.”
“Similarly, recent research published by Zurich found that 58% of women undergoing IVF treatment withheld that information from their employer and 12% of women left their job completely because their employer was unsupportive. These are statistics that we absolutely have to challenge and change. It is easy to see why those undergoing fertility treatment report such experiences. Both from what we have heard today and from issues reported in the media, it is easy to see why so many people—particularly women—report feeling vulnerable and distressed about discussing these issues with their employer. I think that almost all in society are sensitive to how emotionally challenging and stigmatising seeking fertility support can be.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was not aware of that; obviously it is a matter that comes within the Department of Health’s bailiwick, so I would have to defer to my shadow colleagues in that sector. However, perhaps in a few days he will have a new role that will enable him to put a focus on this issue in a way that we have not seen so far. We have heard a number of statistics that show why fertility treatment is such an important issue in the workplace. Fertility Network UK says that 56% of those seeking such treatment reported decreased job satisfaction; 63% admitted to reduced engagement; 36% had increased sickness absences; and 38% had seriously considered leaving their job or actually quit their job because they were trying to conceive—a statistic that should shame us all.”
“I am pleased to be able to speak to the Minister about this. We were due to meet yesterday, but unfortunately he cancelled at short notice, leaving me with a feeling not dissimilar to that of Avanti West Coast passengers. I have no criticism of him for that, because he had important business in the House. I hope we are able to meet soon, because I have been trying to meet him and his many, many predecessors for the last six months to discuss this issue. The state of direct services between Chester and London is appalling. We were promised improvements by Avanti, but the services have actually gone backwards. Having seen how Avanti has failed to deliver on its promises so far, I have no confidence that it will be able to pull this off in time for the renewal of the franchise. Does the Minister have confidence in Avanti?”
“To conclude, with all the talk of sunset clauses in the Bill, perhaps the one thing that it shows is that we do need a sunset, and we need it as soon as possible. We need a sunset on this Government once and for all.”
“Government Members should think carefully about whether they wish to troop into the Lobby to support the Bill and hand over such sweeping powers to a select few. If they do, and if their constituents come back to them in 18 months’ time and ask why they voted to end holiday pay, daily rest breaks or protections for wildlife, it will not be good enough to say that that was not what they wanted to happen, because that is what their votes today could lead to. Today we are being asked to sign a blank cheque. We are being asked to agree a Bill that puts some of our most important environmental, employment and social protections on a cliff edge and place our trust in a Government that change their Ministers and Prime Ministers as often as most people change their socks. No self-respecting defender of democracy can sign up to that.”
“We all know that businesses need certainty to make investment decisions and commit to the long term, but we are instead entering a period of at least a year when everyone will have to guess what the regulatory environment will be in 12 months’ time. Why do Ministers not avoid that quagmire and just tell us what laws they want us to keep? This Bill presents the House with a choice. If Members vote for it, it will be their choice to strip powers away from our democratically elected Parliament, undermine parliamentary sovereignty and throw away much-valued rights and protections. What has been proposed today does not take back control; it gives away control. It adds even greater uncertainty and risks jettisoning rights that many people thought were secure.”
“Worse still, there will be no warning before these laws fall off the statute book. No consultation, no engagement, no reference to Parliament—Ministers simply have to sit on their hands and these rights disappear. It has been made clear by many who have spoken that the Bill does not take back control. Indeed, it was never designed meaningfully to take back control; it is designed to give it away. But the Bill does not just relinquish control; it heralds a new age of uncertainty. We were in one anyway but, like the chaos of the last few weeks, that uncertainty is entirely ideologically driven. At a time when this country needs as much political and economic certainty as it can muster, we are instead served up a diet of ambiguity.”
“However, we know perfectly well that planning rules are nothing to do with the EU, so the Department has hardly demonstrated a firm understanding of what EU law actually does. More worryingly, that list also included a proposal to give agency workers lesser rights than permanent employees. I suspect that one was sent in by the chief executive of P&O—not that he waited for a change in the law. That is important, because the Bill makes no reference to protecting workers’ rights. It instead bakes in a race to the bottom by putting rocket boosters under the deregulation agenda, in direct contradiction to the Tory party’s pledge on page 5 of its manifesto: “we will legislate to ensure high standards of workers’ rights, environmental protection and consumer rights.” This Bill does the opposite.”
“It would be remiss of me not to mention the bespoke consultation on which red tape the public would like dropped, which the Department, under the former Secretary of State, conducted via the Daily Express . Apparently there were over 2,000 responses, which prompted the Department to publish the top nine ideas—yes, just nine. Maybe they could not find 10 that were printable. I am sure we are all eager to hear what was first on that list, so I can reveal that the No. 1 benefit identified by the Department was: “Encourage fracking”, by shortcutting “rules on planning”. I am not sure whether Government Members will be keen to have another debate on fracking, given the chaos we saw last week.”
“Of course, the legislative framework should be updated to recognise the new world we are in, but, given the chaotic nature of Government, it is not unreasonable to assume that things will be missed. Indeed, things have already been missed. More importantly, the chance for this place to have a real say on what is retained and what will be sacrificed for the easy headline of an arbitrary date by which all laws will be gone. We are talking about more than 2,400 pieces of legislation. It will simply not be possible for Ministers, let alone Parliament or even the people who might be affected by these rules, to have a proper say in these timescales. I do not accept the analogy made earlier about transposing EU laws; the Bill goes far beyond that and will potentially change those rules, as well as revoking and amending them.”
“Instead, we are directed to a dashboard, which even the Government admit, may not be complete, and from there we have to enter search terms that may come up with affected regulations, but even that does not tell us what the Government intend to do with those regulations. It is almost as if a list of all the laws that will be chopped is something that the Government do not want us to know. It is almost as if they are worried that people might see such a list and say, “Well, I didn’t vote for this.” Let us be clear: huge risks flow from a sunset clause that will come into effect probably just seven or eight months after the Bill becomes law. I would call it a precipice rather than a sunset.”
“I have already referred to the lack of clarity from the Government about which elements of retained EU law will be assimilated, but it is worse than that. As we have heard, the Government themselves do not even know whether they have found all the laws that will be covered by the Bill. I hope that, at the very least, it will be acknowledged that the Bill does not contain an exhaustive list of retained law that is on the chopping block. It would have been helpful for everyone to have such a list so that Members would know exactly what they are voting potentially to abolish.”
“With the abolition of the TUPE regulations, will we be going back to the dark ages of employment rights where getting a new business owner means a P45 for all the staff? Will it once again be permissible to discriminate against people just because they work part-time, or are an agency worker? There is no doubt that the removal of many of these rights would disproportionately impact women in the workplace. What about rights to paid annual leave? Introducing the right to paid holidays was one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government. Let us be clear: there is no appetite among the public, and certainly no mandate, to scrap it. Let us be clear as well: holiday pay is not red tape. Daily rest breaks are not red tape. Parental leave is not red tape. These rights are basic tenets of a civilised society.”
“The powers that the Bill gives to Ministers mean that they can make sweeping changes to just about every facet of people’s lives with minimal or no recourse to parliamentary scrutiny. This type of grasp of power is simply unprecedented, and the potential consequences of it have concerned many groups, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the TUC and, that stalwart of the anti-growth coalition, the Bar Council. Environmental groups have called this legislation an attack on nature and have warned against the dire effects that not retaining the legislation could have on the UK’s environment—potentially less wildlife and wild spaces, less protection for bats, otters, dolphins, kingfishers and salmon, and more polluted rivers. What about employment rights? What is to become of them?”
“A proper Bill that looks to recast our country should include a considered view on what rights and protections we want to retain, what we want to enhance and what rules we want to see the end of, but this Bill runs away from that debate. It is sweeping in its effect, but timid in its narrative. We left the EU so that this Parliament and the people whom we represent could be put back in charge of our own destiny, but the Bill does the opposite. It reduces scrutiny, it reduces transparency and it reduces accountability. If we are not careful, it will also reduce working people’s rights, environmental protections and our rights as consumers, and there will be not a thing that this Parliament can do to stop that.”
“If we cannot even agree what is covered by the Bill, what confidence can we have that things will not slip through the net? That is the position in which we now find ourselves with the Bill. We do not know what the Government will do, when they will choose to do it, and, now, even who will be doing it. I appreciate that, over the past few weeks, this has become a familiar feeling for us all, but this will be the first time that the institutional dysfunction that is currently engulfing the Conservative party will be put onto the statute book. We agree that there needs to be a legislative solution to the issue of EU influence on UK law, but that should be in a Bill that has some coherent and underlying vision about what type of country we want to be moving forward, beyond the simplistic deregulation mantra.”
“There is a very good reason why working people have a lack of trust that the Government will protect employment rights. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) gave a superb speech about why the Bill was bad for democracy. He was right to quote the Hansard Society, which said that the Bill sidelined Parliament. He also said—and I agree entirely—that one person’s burdensome law is another person’s right to safe working conditions. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) made the important point that the Government had admitted that the list of laws covered by the Bill is not comprehensive. She said that, even in the past week, a Government Department has claimed that a rule on free-to-air coverage of sporting events was not covered by the Bill, when in fact, she says, it is.”
“There have been more than 20 speakers today, and there have been some really important speeches, particularly by Labour Members. My hon. Friends the Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) have spoken extremely well. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) spoke, as he always does, as a powerful advocate for the chemical industry, and it was alarming to hear about the increased costs that it faces. I hope that the Government are listening and act accordingly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made an important point. He was right to link the Government’s actions and anti-trade union legislation that we have seen, and will see again, with what might happen with the Bill.”
“That it has taken us until today to get to where we are now seem like slow progress, but overall this is a welcome first step. In today’s climate, though, and given that the Government were elected on a promise of delivering more wide-ranging labour market reforms to create genuine fairness and flexibility, much more needs to be done.”
“The Minister mentioned the follow-up regulations, which will enshrine the right of legal redress. As we know, due to the implementation of the compulsory extra hurdle of ACAS conciliation that the Government have introduced, those rights do not become live until the early conciliation process is enshrined in law, so I would be grateful if the Minister gave us an assurance, and ideally a date by which the Government are committed to introducing those regulations, so that the rights that we are considering today become enforceable. Finally, I wonder why we have taken so long to get to this point. I refer not only to the commitments made by the Government but to the Taylor report. We are seven years on from the original regulations, the review of which took place over 18 months ago.”
“I am not talking about people who are genuinely self-employed, but those who are working in the gig economy and are often placed on highly restrictive contracts that do not offer the genuine freedom that self-employment provides. I think we all know the kinds of contracts that I am talking about. Speaking of the effectiveness of the regulations, it would also be useful to have an assessment of how effective previous measures have been. As I have said, it is unclear what impact the 2015 regulations have had. While there are clear differences between workers on low pay and those on zero-hours contracts, they share the insecurity about accepting other sources of income, which the instrument is designed to challenge. It would be reassuring and helpful to hear how the Minister will evaluate both today’s regulations and the previous ones.”
“It is a legal requirement that those working less than 35 hours on the minimum wage, which is currently £332 a week for those over 23, be actively seeking additional work as a condition of receiving their allowance. What assurances can the Government give to those earning above the current lower earnings level of £123 per week but below the universal credit threshold of £332 about exclusivity clauses that may remain in their contracts? Will they face sanctions if they are unable to take additional work? Will the Government consider extending the scope of the regulations to cover those people as a result of what may well be some difficult conversations? What steps will be taken to protect those who may earn below the lower earnings limit but may not be covered by the regulations because they are classed as self-employed?”
“Indeed, in the consultation carried out for the 2015 regulations there was a suggestion that exclusivity clauses would be banned for anyone earning less than £20 an hour, which is obviously a significant way away from where we are today. The true cost of that choice to workers was clearly highlighted in the consultation, in which it was stated that earnings-based thresholds become targets to exploit. The fact that the Government still actively chose the lowest reasonable income-based threshold tells us that there is far more to do in this area, and that is compounded when we look at the implications for those claiming universal credit.”
“In particular, it stated that the Government should consider ensuring that “an employer neither prohibits a worker from taking up employment with other employers, outside the work schedule established with that employer, nor subjects a worker to adverse treatment for doing so.” I know that the current vogue in the Government is automatically to dismiss as undesirable anything that comes from Brussels, but there is much to commend in that approach and I would be grateful if the Minister explained to the Committee why he chose not to take it. It is disappointing that a threshold of even the national minimum wage or the national living wage has not been adopted, which would have extended support to many more workers than the lower earnings limit.”
“Member for Glasgow South West asked about his, but I do not think was fully answered by the Minister—why have we chosen to go for the lower earnings limit? Why has that threshold been chosen rather than another? In the consultation, several ways to decide the beneficiaries of this legislation were put forward. Suggestions ranged from using objective measures, such as only accepting exclusivity clauses for the protection of intellectual property or for health and safety reasons, to other earnings-based approaches. In their response to the consultation paper, the TUC suggested that the Government should consider or, at the very least, explain why they do not wish to adopt the same approach laid out in the European Union's directive on transparent and predictable working conditions.”
“That recommendation was accepted by the Government in their “Good Work Plan”, which was published in 2018. The Low Pay Commission also recommended a stronger “right to switch” to stable hours, as well as a right to reasonable notice of shifts and shift cancellations. Consultation on notice of shifts and shift cancellations took place between July and October 2019, but the response to that consultation is yet to be published. If the Minister can update us on progress in that respect, I will be grateful. It is not just the limitations of the current legislation and the wider context that are disappointing; there are a number of specific points in the regulations themselves on which I would be grateful for clarification. First—the hon.”
“We have been taunted time and again with the promise of an employment Bill that looks like it is not going to see the light of day. The Minister will probably not be aware that I took every opportunity to ask his predecessor when we could expect to see the employment Bill, so I will ask the same question of him. Sadly, I expect the same answer as his predecessor gave—the timeless classic, “When parliamentary time allows.” If we hear something different from the new Minister, that would be welcome. Looking at the rest of the Taylor review, it is important in the context of these regulations to see that it also recommended that workers on zero-hours contracts who have been in post for 12 months should have a right to request a contract that better reflects the hours they work.”
“How many people will actually benefit from these regulations? We know from what the Minister said that around 1.5 million workers are currently earning below the lower earnings limit, but how many of those have exclusivity clauses in their contracts? If the Minister is able to answer that, that would be useful. Ultimately, this instrument ought to be viewed in the context of half a decade of failures to deliver on promises to Britain’s workforce. It has been over five years now since the much-lauded Taylor review reported and over four and a half years since the Government accepted many of the report’s findings, and we are now coming up to three years since the Conservative party committed in their manifesto to tackle abuses of employment law and to implement genuine flexibility.”
“To put that into the context of today’s regulations, that is more than four months’ pay for someone seeking to enforce their rights under these regulations. I am sure the Minister can see why that might prove to be a serious barrier to justice. What can be done, either financially or through greater information and representation, to ensure that those who wish to seek legal redress under these regulations are able to do so? I also suggest that requiring workers to undertake the calculations mentioned in regulation 5 in particular will require some serious heavy lifting in terms of public information being transmitted to workers so that they know whether they are covered by these regulations. It is not a straightforward calculation; it is not that easy to say what your average earnings will be without reference to some calculations.”
“A major concern is that the 2015 changes were not adequately communicated by the Government to employers and employees. As workers can only assert their rights if they are aware of them, good pieces of legislation can fail to deliver on their promise if communication is inadequate. How does the Minister intend to remedy that situation with the regulations before us today? Of course, the problems could be much more systemic. Are the costs, or even just the perceived costs, of tribunals too high for workers to take their cases forward? I note that recently, in a response to a written parliamentary question, the Minister stated that the median cost for obtaining legal representation for a tribunal claim was £2,500.”
“A worker told Zero Hours Justice that: “If I said I couldn’t work one day, I was told I was not working for the rest of the week. I was told I wasn’t wanted at all that week.” Those are some of the real challenges people on zero-hours contracts face. What is the Government’s response to deal with those challenges? It would be remiss of me not to ask the Minister to provide us with a view on whether the original regulations have in fact been a success. It is striking that the post-implementation review of the original 2015 regulations commented that no formal disputes involving the regulations had been recorded in the tribunal system. There may be many reasons for that, but the explanations proffered by stakeholders who were surveyed paints a worrying picture.”
“Given the casework that Zero Hours Justice continues to receive, we can be clear that the regulations have not ended the feeling of compulsion towards accepting shifts and the insecurity that that brings. It has reports from many people, including one who talked about “getting hours at the last minute and having to make urgent arrangements for childcare or other caring responsibilities or cancel social plans.” One airport worker reported that they would “often only get one hour’s notice before a shift”. Another said: “Spending time with my family was really difficult as I never knew if I would be working or not”. There was a common fear of refusing hours in case doing so resulted in fewer hours being offered, or bullying and harassment by the employer or manager.”
“Do they not deserve a fair notice period for their shifts, enabling them to plan their life, their caring responsibilities and even, God forbid, their social life? So while we welcome the regulations as a step to provide some extra security, we have to accept that this is just a small step when huge leaps are required. The campaign group Zero Hours Justice has kindly provided a briefing for Members on today’s legislation. I have found that group’s work and its intimate understanding of the 2015 regulations to be useful and relevant. As I mentioned earlier, it has been more than seven years since the original regulations were introduced, so we have to ask what the results of those regulations have been.”
“Workers on zero-hours contracts still feel worried about losing favour with their employer if they refuse work, despite having had protection from exclusivity clauses for well over seven years. Despite the Government promising to address these problems since their acceptance of the Taylor review in 2018, flexibility still rests primarily with the employer. Is it not a sad indictment of our current labour market that the principle of someone being able to take up another job alongside another low-paid job is being championed as a major step forward towards a fairer labour market? Can we not do better? Do hard-working people not deserve the right to more predictable contracts? For the record, that was a Conservative manifesto commitment in 2019.”
“A departmental press release from May this year said that the regulations “will give workers more flexibility over when and where they work” and will “help increase businesses’ confidence to create jobs”. It is very difficult to see how the our current circumstances will create much business confidence, but even in the very best of times, these measures are only one small step to tackle the imbalance between too many employers and employees across the country. If the Government are serious about tackling the imbalance associated with low pay and insecure work, more will have to be done. The draft regulations are unlikely to deal with some of the core issues affecting those in low-paid work, such as being compelled to accept any shift offered at short notice, and having no remedy if one is cancelled at short notice.”
“As we have heard, the regulations are not just about zero-hours contracts but about some of the most low-paid people in society. We cannot separate what is in the regulations from the wider context of our current situation. The regulations may be presented as part of the Government’s post-covid plans to “build back fairer” or framed as part of the battle against one-sided flexibility, but we need to stop for a minute and consider the two key contextual issues that are unavoidable in today’s debate. At the forefront of our minds should be the experience of the Exclusivity Terms in Zero Hours Contracts (Redress) Regulations 2015, which are in many ways the progenitor of today’s regulations, alongside the Government’s continued failure to deliver on their own commitments to improve worker’s rights.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Mr Robertson. I welcome the Minister to his place—I think this is our first formal engagement. I am grateful to him for setting out the context for the regulations. The precarious nature of work is at the forefront of many people’s minds at the moment. We are all determined to address that and, for that reason, we do not oppose the regulations. We welcome any step, however modest, to tackle the problems in the country’s labour market, and by any measure, today’s proposals are pretty modest in scope. I note that the statutory instrument is numbered 000; I do not know if that is a drafter getting a little bit carried away, but I am sure that it is not the correct number for the regulations.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for providing some explanation. Can he say a bit more about why the needs of those businesses mean that the level is set at where it is now?”