Laurence Turner MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman says that there will be situations where it is not just difficult, but impossible for an employer to abide by the Bill. Can he give some examples of the situations he has in mind?

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We are back to talking about perverse outcomes and unintended consequences, which are important things to consider. However, is that not what we are looking at in amendment 131? In in my view, it confuses sectors with functions. The hon. Gentleman says that he and his colleagues have selected these particular cases or sectors because they relate to freedom of speech. However, if we take the example of universities and higher education, a higher education institution contracts services of all sorts, many of them not relating to freedom of speech—for example, security and refuse services—but if the amendment were made and if it failed to conduct even basic vetting on a contractor, it would be exempt from these provisions if an incident of sexual harassment occurred. However, if exactly the same circumstances were to be repeated by a community hall or a church that would fall under the scope of the legislation. Is there not a problem in the drafting of the amendment? On that basis alone, it should not be accepted.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB and Unite trade unions. I noticed last week that the Prime Minister made a James Bond joke, and I wondered whether he was following the Committee’s proceedings in real time. There is a valid question here: when James Bond buys a vodka martini, what happens to the tips? Hopefully, thanks to this Bill and the legislation passed last year, we will have a more equitable solution. I want quickly to raise two issues. The “Make Work Pay” document published earlier this year stated: “Labour will strengthen the law to ensure hospitality workers receive their tips in full and workers decide how tips are allocated.” I would be interested in the Minister’s views on whether this measure meets that very welcome commitment. Whether tips that would have been received during shifts that are cancelled fall under the definition of reasonable compensation is presumably a question to be addressed in the future. In respect of the points raised by the hon. Members for Torbay and for Mid Buckinghamshire about consultation with groups of workers who are not represented by a trade union, I suggest that the kinds of businesses they mentioned should have at least a degree of familiarity with the principles of that, since they are established and well understood in the context of redundancy situations and in other areas.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that, in those cases where someone has ended up taking the equalities route because that is the only route available to them, it can be particularly reputationally damaging to the employer? Does he also agree that, because by the nature of those claims—particularly where they relate to disability discrimination—the system requires the claimants to stress an impairment of some kind, that process is also distressing for the claimant in a way that is wholly unnecessary? Making these changes would at least avoid those circumstances for both employer and employee.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Throughout these proceedings, we have talked a lot about evidence bases and the likely impact of particular measures on business. The clause might be short and to the point—I do take the points made by the shadow Minister that we will come on to more detailed discussions, and it is right to debate the general principles here—but it does have precedents. In terms of the dilemma or decision over whether the qualifying period should be two years, one year or, as in the Bill, day one—but with that important provision for a probationary period—the issue has been road-tested. The period was set at two years for many years. Then it was reduced to one year in the late 1990s, and economic growth continued. When the qualifying period was raised from one year to two years in 2012, the impact analysis that the then Government produced said that one year was easily sufficient in the overwhelming number of cases. On this aspect of the Bill, the businesses I have spoken to in my constituency and in the general Birmingham area have told me that, in almost all roles, employers are not still talking about whether someone is suitable for the job 12 months in; it is usually apparent within weeks. That circumstance is still covered by the initial period of employment provided for in the Bill. According to the impact assessment, the estimated saving to business across the entire the economy, after the familiarisation cost period, was relatively small—I believe it was around £2 million to £3 million in 2011 prices, so probably somewhere around double that today. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles used the word “grandiose”. We are really not talking about that, but about a relatively small number of cases that could fall under that initial period of employment provision. Let me return to an argument that has been made previously in the Committee, but that is relevant here. One undesirable effect of that change in the qualifying period was that because a worker who faced detriment and unfair treatment in the workplace had no recourse to an unfair dismissal claim through the employment tribunal system until they reached their two years, they found themselves relying on equalities arguments instead—a day one right in law as it stands. The effect—another perverse outcome—has been to overload that part of the employment tribunal system. This change is sensible. It will help with the undesirable effects in the court system as it stands. The Chartered Management Institute, which we heard evidence from, surveyed its members and found that 83% of managers agreed that improvements in family-friendly policies and day one rights, including in respect of unfair dismissal, would positively impact workplace productivity. In some of the related provisions in the Bill, particularly around the initial period of employment, there is promise that we will see a light-touch regime, and we are all looking to see what the details will be. I know that the Government are due to come back on that.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 10 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important and relevant point. The people who are most adversely affected are those who have the least and who are on the lowest incomes in the economy, and the social care sector is a good example of that. In the city of Birmingham, the average turnover rate for care workers is around 30% every year. An enormous number of people are concentrated in particular sectors. One of the difficulties in Committee is that we use overall, aggregate numbers when weighing the impact of policies, but they are felt particularly in certain sectors—that is a common point of agreement among Members on both sides. If we get this change right, the benefits will be felt most keenly in the parts of the economy, and by the people, that need these protections most. Again, it is worth reflecting on what we heard in the evidence sessions. We heard from Professor Bogg, from the University of Bristol, that “if you look at the OECD countries, we are the fifth least regulated on dismissal protection out of 38 countries, and we are the third least regulated on hiring on temporary contracts”, and that the change “just pushes the UK back into the mainstream of other…OECD countries with employment regulation that works effectively.” –– [ Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 28 November 2024; c. 143, Q147.] There can be a lot of sound and fury about the individual measures that we are debating, but I want to reinforce the point that all the evidence we have had, whether that is written evidence from interested parties, evidence the Committee has heard or historical evidence—maybe not going quite back to the industrial revolution, but at least over the past 30 years of changes in the qualifying period—shows that the effect on the overall economy will be sensible and limited. However, it will be the lowest-income workers, whose living standards, rights and dignity of work we all want to improve, who will benefit most. The clause is extremely welcome, and I commend it to the Committee.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if the Bill were to go back to the Department as he suggests, the period in which changes to employment legislation are considered by Parliament would be extended and the uncertainty of which he speaks would be prolonged? Does he further accept that one of the business community’s key requests was for ongoing consultation as the Bill makes its way through its parliamentary stages, and that if we were to take the action he suggests, the Government would be breaking that commitment to business that business has asked for?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your exemplary chairmanship, Sir Christopher. Before I get into the clause, may I say that I enjoyed my discussion with the shadow Minister about the Northfield constituency? I am half tempted to cite my great grandparents, who were confectioners and newsagents, to burnish my small business credentials, but some on the Labour Benches can do it better. I appreciate that he said that the amendment is probing and that he is taking a particularly unique case in order to test the limits of the Bill. Focusing on the words of the amendment rather than on the wider issues, because it is the words that matter, it is important to look at the history of employment rights as they relate to the intelligence services, because this is an area that was tested in the 1980s and 1990s in particular. The consequences of not extending these rights to the intelligence services speak to the argument against making the amendment. For those of us who come from a trade union background, there is an uncomfortable reminder of the ban on trade union activity at GCHQ in the 1980s, which led to a number of skilled professionals leaving the employment of that service. It is important to remember the 14 trade unionists who were sacked because they did not give up their trade union membership. Many of them were re-employed 13 years later, because they still had their skills, which were in high demand. The shadow Minister talked about the unique nature of flexible working in the intelligence services. I suspect that employees of those services have flexible working arrangements that are hard for any of us on the Committee to imagine, but when employees of the intelligence services did not have recourse to most of the normal procedures of employment law, it was an acknowledged problem that dissatisfaction among employees of the services in itself became a security risk. Some hon. Members may recall that there were a number of very high-profile cases of dissatisfied members of those services who went on the public record in breach of the Official Secrets Act. In some cases, that was attributed to dissatisfaction with employment situations. I can do no better than quote from the Intelligence and Security Committee’s annual report of 1997-98. At that time, the Committee was chaired by Baron King of Bridgwater, the predecessor of one of the Conservative Members who tabled the amendment. It stated: “The Committee also believes that everything possible should be done to ensure that employees of the Agencies have the same rights as employees elsewhere.”

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman seems to be looking for statistical evidence about employers unreasonably refusing flexible working requests. I must say that it is a shame that the workplace employment relations study was last carried out in 2011. The Government at the time declined to repeat the exercise; had they not, we might have the information in front of us that he is looking for. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there are precedents—blacklisting, for example—in which there were widespread but anecdotal reports that the practice was occurring? It was difficult to prove, and on that basis, the regulations on blacklisting were not enacted. Then, lo and behold, it became apparent years later that the practice was not just widespread but had been carried out on an industrial scale. Had the measures been put in place at the time, many lives would have been left unbroken.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point. It is a shame that our Liberal Democrat colleagues are not able to join us, because we could have an interesting discussion about the consequences of the 1919 police strike, and the promises that Lloyd George made and subsequently broke, which led to the creation of the Police Federation rather than an independent trade union, but I will not detain the Committee on that matter. I will just say that we are operating under the international framework for employment law, which sets out very clearly that there are exemptions to the normal right of freedom of association—let us call it what it is—and that includes industrial action. I do not think that the Bill is the right place to diverge from that international framework. I had reached the end of my points. As I say, there are good national security reasons for rejecting the amendment.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We heard from the Co-op, in the evidence sessions that we all attended last week, that that support is there. Off the top of my head, I would add Octopus and Centrica, two examples of very significant businesses that have welcomed provisions in the Bill.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister’s comments to the effect that he accepted in practice the arguments on the workplace and presenteeism were welcome. If, through this Committee, we can reach some degree of cross-party consensus on the issue, it would be a real advance and proof of the value of this process. I mean that sincerely. I turn to the measures. The question of waiting days is as old as the national insurance system. Although many of the incremental changes made in the Bill are welcome, it is time to take a step forward. The case for that step was proven during the pandemic. The Minister quoted USDAW research, and I am obliged to quote GMB research, which found that 90% of care workers could not afford to take time off if they became ill. That meant that during the pandemic, many people were presenting at work either for the duration of their illness or for the waiting period, and we have very good evidence of that. I will quote one example. A study by Dr Laura Shallcross and other authors in The Lancet found that the odds of covid infection in care home residents and staff and of large outbreaks “were significantly lower in LTCFs”— long-term care facilities— “that paid staff statutory sick pay compared with those that did not.” That was one of the key determinants or predictors of where outbreaks might occur. To perhaps quote a more human voice, a social worker and member of the GMB said: “For me, being on a zero-hours contract, I don’t always get work. If I become ill, I don’t get paid. If I get a cold or flu-related illness, I am expected to stay at home without pay, because I may pass the illness on to our service users. It is a very, very stressful life.” When the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals surveyed its members, 47% agreed with the abolition of the waiting days period, so there is support in this area among private sector practitioners. When the Fabian Society, of which I declare I am a member, looked at this question, it found that the cost to business of adopting that measure would be very low—somewhere in the region of £15 per year for each employee. As matters of cost have been raised in Committee on several occasions, I shall finish by quoting from the 2010 Black review, commissioned by the then incoming Government, which I think is still the best evidence we have of the cost of the statutory sick pay regime. It said: “Great Britain has a mixed approach to sickness absence. Although employers in theory bear the cost of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), the cost itself is not very high. Barriers to dismissal are relatively low (although it should be noted that dismissing someone specifically to avoid paying SSP is illegal). Employers are therefore obliged to bear little cost or accountability for sickness absence, albeit many employers choose to pay more in occupational sick pay (OSP) than the statutory obligation.” There are many cases where occupational sick pay is paid at a rate higher than the SSP rate. That is of course welcome, and accounts for the majority of employers. For those employers who are being brought into paying SSP earlier, as we have heard, the cost is low, but the changes could make a really significant difference to the lives of some of the lowest paid workers in the economy. This measure is extremely welcome.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I draw attention to my declaration in the register of members’ interests and my membership of the Unite and GMB trade unions. We will of course see the consultation on the definition of reasonable notice in due course. Does the hon. Member accept that the meaning of reasonableness will be dependent on the circumstances of each case? What is reasonable in the case of, say, an early years setting might be quite different to that for an offshore oil rig.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that if a cap of some sort were introduced, there would be a risk that, as we have seen in other cases, people who have been subject to a detriment may seek other routes, particularly under equalities legislation where damages are uncapped? That is an existing problem that has added to the strain in that part of the employment tribunal system.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Troubles · Hansard source

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  On 21 November we marked the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings. That date will have been felt most heavily by the families of the 21 people who never came home, and by many more who still carry the mental and physical scars of that day. The Secretary of State knows that the announcement of the repeal of the legacy Act was welcomed at the time it was made. Will he agree to enter into correspondence on the potential implications of his announcement tonight for that campaign?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester and the hon. Member for Torbay, who both made very able speeches. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, asked about the justification for extending the current time limit from three to six months. One argument is set out in the Law Commission’s 2020 report, which argues that some of the current problems that employment tribunals experience are linked to late applications and the onerous requirement for applications, particularly in equalities cases, to demonstrate that there was a clear justification or inability regarding not submitting a claim in time. Those edge cases are adding to the current backlog and creating the incentive, which has been discussed already in this Committee, for people to bring cases under the Equality Act 2010, which is putting severe pressure on the limited number of specialist employment tribunal judges who deal with equalities matters. Another argument is that there is an inconsistency in the law, because the time limit for equal pay cases is six months. The effect of these measures would be to equalise the time limit for other unfair dismissal and discrimination claims with that of equal pay. In the previous Government’s 2021 response to the Law Commission’s report, they said—I hope this is taken in the constructive spirit with which it is intended—that the recommendations were welcome, but that it was not the right time to make such changes. I am therefore keen to hear the shadow Minister’s position on this extension, because the last Government’s position seemed a little like St Augustine’s prayer—“Let us equalise access to justice, but not yet!” I very much welcome the fact that these measures have been brought forward and that we now have a chance to equalise that time limit. Last week, we heard from one of the witnesses, Joeli Brearley, that: “I was pushed out of my job the day after I informed my employer that I was pregnant, and it was the tribunal time limit that prevented me from taking action against my employer.” –– [ Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 84, Q79.] There are many such cases where, because of someone’s particular circumstances, they are not able to bring a case, or the burden of bringing a case within three months is too onerous. The requirement in equalities cases for a claimant to prove that an extension was just and equitable, or that it had not been reasonably practicable to bring a case in time, is adding to that burden on the tribunal system. The Law Commission’s report was published in 2020, so the then Government had four years to model the impact of the changes that they were considering. If Conservative Members know of any impact analyses undertaken under the previous Government, I would very much like to hear about them.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the shadow Minister; I suspect he is setting some kind of record with the number of interventions he is taking. Earlier, he said that there may be alternative measures and protections to mitigate the problem that the Minister is seeking to address, whereby someone has been called to a shift but has arrived, incurring some cost, to be told that there is no work available. What alternative measures does the hon. Member have in mind?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will not keep the Committee long. A lot has rightly been said about the need for certainty for business, but we should remember that the other side of the coin is the need for workers to have certainty. I was contacted recently by a constituent who works a zero-hours contract in the hospitality sector. He is unable to get a mortgage because the bank will not grant that facility to him due to the nature of his contract. At the level of the individual, this means economic activity and family planning being put on hold. In parts of the economy, there are employment situations—we do not, of course, tar all employers with the same brush, but if there were no bad employers there would be no need for trade unions—in which people are turning up to work, sometimes in digital form, to find shifts being mediated through applications, not even through people. It is the 21st-century equivalent of a foreman standing at the factory gate and allocating shifts on an arbitrary basis. We have heard today about the potential, which is too often realised, for favouritism and abuse of that facility. We have had good debate about a number of details regarding the changes in the Bill. The changes in clause 1 will be welcomed by people who work in the retail sector, including in my constituency, and in other sectors that have high rates of zero-hours contract working, including the care sector. I very much welcome the clause.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 sets the reference period at 12 weeks. The hon. Gentleman says that 18 months is probably an artificially high number. Does he think that the 12-week reference period, which the previous Government supported just 12 months ago, is in about the right place?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My personal view is that they should not be accepted, but the hon. Gentleman surely knows that he should not seek an opinion on the party position from a Back-Bench MP. My second point is on the sectors that would be affected by the amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester made an incredibly powerful contribution, which we all thank him for having the courage to make, about his experience in the hospitality industry. I want to talk about the social care sector, and it is important to remember that one in three workers on a zero-hours contract in England works in adult social care. In a former life, I spent many hours going through the corporate structures of social care employers, and their accounts and other filings. It is commonplace for an individual care home to be constituted as an individual employer, even though they ultimately all share a common ownership structure, so what appears to be a small business is often not one. During the pandemic, there was a complex interaction between care workers on zero-hours contracts and a lack of access to statutory sick pay, and there was a direct link between SSP coverage and high rates of infection, and indeed deaths, in those homes among both workers and residents. The measures in the Bill will make real progress. Going back to points that have been covered already, I fear that this group of amendments will have serious unintended and perverse consequences, and I encourage Members to vote against it.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to make two brief points that have not been made in this debate. The first, which is narrow, is that we already have a legal definition of SMEs under the Companies Acts 2006, which defines the upper limit as 249 employees. I acknowledge that the previous Government’s position was to extend to new regulations the higher thresholds that those on the shadow Front Bench are seeking to put forward through these amendments. I am happy to be corrected, but I do not believe that any legislation incorporating that position was subsequently carried. There is a serious point here. These may be probing amendments—we will find out shortly—but this process is not the right point to introduce a new legal definition.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way; he has been generous with his time. On the point about perverse incentives, does he accept that if this group of amendments were in force, it would create a perverse incentive for the creation of umbrella companies and other forms of employment law evasion? If we are to enforce the provisions that we seek to pass in the Bill, instead of introducing a new dimension to employment law through the exemptions that he proposes, the only way to do that is to have a consistent approach across employers.