Nick Timothy MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

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

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I assure the Education Secretary that we are very positive about schooling in this country. I am sure that she will want to thank all school leaders for their work to help English schools to soar up the rankings for the programme for international student assessment and programme for international student assessment rankings—PISA and TIMMS—but will she join me in sending personal congratulations to Katharine Birbalsingh, whose approach to discipline, the curriculum and teacher-led instruction makes her school Michaela the best in the country?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent speech about the “protect” element of the counter-terrorism strategy. It is clear from the Manchester attack inquiry report that the asylum system is a big part of the story. Salman Abedi and his brother Hashem—who planned the attack and prepared the explosives, and was as guilty of the attack as Salman—were born in Britain to Libyan asylum seeker parents. Their father, Ramadan Abedi, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamist militia. He was granted asylum in this country, but travelled back and forth between Britain and Libya throughout that time, which is a story that we often hear about people who are granted asylum here. Given the number of people who come here illegally and across the channel, whom we have no ability to investigate and on whom we cannot make checks, how does the hon. Gentleman think we might reform the asylum system to prevent such things from happening again?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill · Hansard source

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  What has been striking about the debate so far is the extent of cross-party consensus on this matter. My worry is that the Bill contains a set of proposals that we might be supporting because they are something that we deem possible to do, whereas we may be neglecting some things that are harder to do. In the inquiry into the bombing, several aspects of the story were very concerning, from the way the asylum system worked through to the Prevent programme. While 90% of MI5’s counter-terrorism casework is Islamist, the latest data shows that the number of Prevent referrals for young people suspected of Islamist radicalisation has fallen from 3,706 in 2016-17 to only 781 in 2022-23. As a former police officer, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we have to do something to ensure that Prevent is properly targeted at the real threats we face?

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

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  I think the answer to the question must be no. That may be fair enough, but can the Minister tell us whether she has had any conversations with her opposite numbers in the Home Office, which sponsors MI5, or the Foreign Office, which sponsors GCHQ and MI6?

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

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  On the point about process: at the point at which the Bill came before the House for a Second Reading, how many of its clauses were already subject to revision within the Department?

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

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  I would be grateful if the Minister could explain what conversations she has had with MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to understand whether, given their unusual, specific, specialist operations, there are any circumstances that might go beyond those already set out.

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

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for the universalism, or near-universalism, of employment rights and presumably, within that, trade union rights. The power to withdraw one’s labour is a very important part of modern employment practice. We are talking about the three security and intelligence agencies listed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, but I want to give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to give his view about the universalism of these rights, including the right of the police, for example, to join a union and to strike.

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

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  I am sorry to test everyone’s patience. We have heard at different points during the proceedings that “Good employers do this already.” Undoubtedly, that is true, and where employers want to be able to offer certainty, they will. The full quote the Minister just read was “by and large”, because employers cannot do that in all circumstances, even those that set themselves up to be that thoughtful. Does the Minister recognise that where businesses do not do the things in the Bill, it is not necessarily because they are bad employers? Obviously, some employers may be bad. If he recognises that, does he therefore recognise that through standardisation and an increase in things such as compliance costs, the Bill is, in a cumulative sense, adding costs to businesses that are not bad employers?

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

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  I want to add a couple of thoughts, not so much about the principle of the amendments, but about what they say about the process. I note what the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield said about the history and about the Law Commission having made its proposals in 2020. That rather adds to our confusion about why the amendments are being introduced in Committee and why they were not part of the Bill on Second Reading. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us a little about the preparation of the Bill and what his officials said at the time of Second Reading about how many more amendments would be necessary in Committee and about its readiness. Will he also tell us more about the precise impact of the amendments, and what they mean for the Bill’s impact assessment?

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

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  On the cumulative effect of the pressures that are building on business, during our evidence sessions last week with various witnesses, the compelling point was made that we should not look at the Bill in isolation. The impact assessment states that the costs are a minimum £5 billion a year for business. Some witnesses thought that that was actually an underestimate, and that the true figure will be higher and will grow when more details emerge as we go through this process. We should also look at the Bill alongside decisions such as the equalisation of the national living wage for young people, the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions and other business taxes that were in the Budget. I thought my hon. Friend might want to say something about the cumulative effects of all those decisions.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Management of Public Finances · Hansard source

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  Last week, the Chancellor told the CBI conference that she would not come back “with more borrowing or more taxes”. Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister hung her out to dry and refused to repeat those words. Will she repeat them today and rule out any more borrowing or any more taxes—yes or no?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q But the only real businesspeople who have been here have been unambiguously against it. Justin Madders: I think you will find that the Co-op is a real business, and it employs an awful lot of people.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Indeed. With not just the Bill, but the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions and things like the equalisation of the national living wage for young people—you also mentioned energy prices, Mr Johnson, which are a particular concern of mine—you sound very worried about the future of innovation, investment and ultimately jobs in this country. You have a platform today to send a message to the Prime Minister and all the Ministers who are involved in this legislation. What would that message be? Luke Johnson: I think there is a complacency about our current prosperity. There is this belief that jobs will always appear, that businesses will always invest and that living standards will naturally rise. It sometimes feels as if Britain is a nation running on fumes at the moment. We have large amounts of debt, certainly at Government levels. We have public spending projected to take, I think, 45% of GDP—a very high level compared with 10 years ago—and that crowds out the private sector. Interest rates, especially if you have to borrow from the bank, are pretty punitive. As for the idea that we can continue to occupy the role in the world that we used to occupy decades ago, it is a dramatically more competitive place. There are dozens and dozens more countries where money can be invested, factories can be sited and jobs can be created. Many of them are much lower-cost than we are. They might argue that they have a hungrier workforce, or whatever it may be. No country has ever taxed and regulated its way to a higher standard of living. It feels as if that is what this Government are about. They need to get real about how prosperous economies are actually created. Michael Lorimer: If I were speaking to him, I would say, “Listen well to those who matter most.” To go back to the White Paper, you simply cannot create jobs without the private sector on board. You can listen to all sorts of people who will give you incredibly important stakeholder advice, but if you want to create jobs and grow the economy, the business community has to be on board. If we want to create prosperity, the private sector is where it is going to happen. I would say, “Listen well to those who matter most.” Secondly, I would say, “Take your time and consult widely on this.” I feel that at the minute the consultation is not wide enough. We are here today: there are two of us speaking, broadly on the same message. Take time and do not rush it through for the sake of meeting a timescale. Take time and speak to business. Go out to the country and speak to small and medium-sized businesses and employer groups. A lot of this stuff is not controversial. It is tick-box and—to go back to the first question—it is reinforcing a lot of stuff we do in the business anyway. We have 600 employees; at the minute I think we have three people in total on long-term sick, so we do not have a lot of problems. We have an engaged workforce and we are delighted to pay people well, at above the national living wage. All that stuff is about us trying not only to help our people to prosper, but to help our customers and the Banbury community to prosper. All this feels quite counterproductive and could have a lot of unforeseen consequences.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is true. That is a correction.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Can you name some? Justin Madders: I cannot name individual CEOs. Octopus has been very positive, Sainsbury’s has been very positive and, as we heard today, the Co-op has been very positive. I think the CBI welcomed the Bill and welcomed the engagement as well, and Make UK too. There are quite a lot of organisations on the employer side that are generally welcoming of the intentions of the Bill, and I think that has been reflected in the evidence.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I thought that I would quickly clear up the disagreement that seems to have broken out between the two sides of the Committee, so I have gone through the record of Tuesday’s session. Paul Nowak said: “It is very likely that we will see increased unionisation as a result of the Bill” –– [ Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 67.] and Mick Lynch said that the Bill will mean that “many workers”—more than 50%, he hoped— “are covered by collective arrangements in one form or another.” –– [ Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 62.] That is up from 22% today. So I think it is fair to describe that as re-unionisation. I do not really understand why the Labour party would be so ashamed of doing such a favour for the Labour movement, of which it is a part. But anyway, you just mentioned P&O. I just wanted to ask you, who did you think was right about P&O? Was it the Transport Secretary or the Prime Minister when he slapped her down for criticising them? Professor Deakin : I am not sure I quite understand the question.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is quite conspicuous that you are the first two witnesses, I think, who actually run businesses yourselves, and your evidence is rather different from much of the— Luke Johnson: Has any of the other witnesses ever created a single job?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Okay, you don’t want to answer that; I will ask another one. One of my concerns about labour market regulation relates to the use of substitution clauses by firms like Amazon and Deliveroo, where they give a licence to a courier and the courier is then entitled to share that licence with others. The expectation is that responsibility for checks for things like the status of the substitute, in terms of whether they can work legally and so on, and responsibility for the pay that will be provided to that person, all lies not with Deliveroo or Amazon, but with the person that they have contracted with in the first place. That is not dealt with in the Bill at all; I think it should be. Can you expand on that, please? Professor Deakin: Of course, the issue of employment status has been deferred, has it not, to a consultation? But unless a way is found to include workers like the Deliveroo workers within the scope of protective labour law, the proposals to improve collective bargaining rights and many other rights will just fall away. Large businesses like Deliveroo, I would say, need workers; and if our labour law system cannot describe those workers as protected by one means or another, there is a clear defect in it. There are various ways to get to that point. They do not all turn upon the definition of worker, or the use of a substitution clause to get you outside the scope of the current law. In some cases, and in some countries, independent contractors are protected by labour law rights, even if they do not count as employees. In our past, homeworkers who might have employed other people had legal rights under labour laws. So this issue absolutely has to be addressed. I understand it is out for consultation. Many of the measures contained in the Bill would not be effective, unfortunately, if this issue was not grappled with. Professor Bogg: In the situation that you have just described, I think part of the driver for the use of substitution clauses is that they are used to avoid employment status. So in any review of employment status, a key thing that will need to be addressed is the problem of substitution clauses as a way of avoiding either employee or worker status. There is quite a simple way to do that, which is to treat personal work as an indicative rather than a conclusive factor, because it then just drops back into the range of things that the tribunal will look at. In a situation where a large company is relying on wilful blindness to avoid responsibilities under migration rules or under health and safety legislation, there is a very simple response, which is to impose criminal liability on large corporations that try to rely on wilful blindness to avoid obligations in primary legislation. That is a very straightforward way of tackling an abusive avoidance of rules that are very important to enforce.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I would have to leave that to them. Michael Lorimer: I did think, Nick, that we could have met in the endangered species part of the Natural History Museum, as business leaders.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I think that you, like all the other witnesses from the trade unions, were quite pleased with the Bill, and understandably so. I know you said that you felt shut out over the 14 years of government until the general election. I want to ask about your engagement with the Department and with Ministers, and indeed with No. 10. How many meetings have your organisations had with officials, special advisers and Ministers, and were you involved in any of the drafting of the clauses of the Bill? Did you see any in advance before publication, and that kind of thing? Andy Prendergast: Personally, I was involved in two meetings, and they were tripartite ones. They were quite robust exchanges where we had Ministers, civil servants, people from the employers’ associations and large employers, and also people from trade unions. I think those meetings were really quite helpful. We were raising points that sometimes they would argue with or agree with, and they raised points that sometimes made us look at things differently. In the wider sense of the union, we have had quite a lot of engagement, but I would expect a union to be engaged over a Bill that has a huge amount of clauses about trade unions. In terms of whether we saw any of it in advance, no. We were very much holding our breath when the Bill came through. Part of my job is to tell people things and make cases, and to be told that they have heard, and then something comes out that is the complete antithesis of everything that we talked about. As I said, we did not see the Bill in advance. When it turned up, there were some things we liked an awful lot. Some things, as we said beforehand, did not go far enough. The majority of engagement was tripartite, and I think both ourselves and the business organisations that have taken part in that process have helped understand it, and we have got to something we can all live with. That is certainly our impression. Mike Clancy: I would just emphasise that Prospect is not affiliated with a political party, so any comments I make are based on evidence of the past and the present. We have had proportionate engagement. We have not kept a count or a register in that regard. Frankly, probably trade unions and business would want more and more time on this, and I am sure that will be a challenge going forward. What I think was most positive, and something I had not seen in my career before, was a tripartite meeting with a range of very senior business representatives, trade unions and civic society with officials, the Business Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister back in August. That is important because it demonstrates that we can get in a room, we can talk to each other and we can resolve problems. That, for me, is the absolute core of this Bill and the “Next Steps to Make Work Pay” agenda. I hope that we can do more of that. I have talked a lot—I have had the privilege of doing this job for a long time—about how we have lost convening spaces in the economy in the past period, so we may be shouting over fences or making our cases separately to Government. Government is difficult, and it is about problem solving. The more that business, trade unions and civic society can come together and say, “Look, we’ve got our differences at the edges, but we can do this together. This is how we would fashion an outcome within the public policy you set,” the better. We will always want more, but to be fair, with their strong pace and intensity, the Government and their supporting officials have done an admirable job in convening us.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is about employment rights. We have been discussing P&O throughout the whole—

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you. Can you name a CEO of a real business—not a representative body—employing more than, say, 100 people who would say that this Bill is unambiguously good for the economy? How many of them do you think there are? Justin Madders: I would imagine that there are quite a few.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Do you personally want to see increased unionisation in Britain, and do you hope and/or expect that the Bill will deliver it? Justin Madders: I think that is actually a challenge for the trade union movement. I think that they would accept that this is really up to them. Personally, as a trade union member and someone who has been actively involved in the trade union movement for many years, I see the absolute advantages and benefits of being a trade union member, but it is really up to them to get into the workplaces, explain their advantages to the workforce and then engage on a tripartite basis with Government, business and workers to improve everyone’s working lives.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Further to a point that Mr Turner made, my recollection of the session on Tuesday was that re-unionisation was first mentioned by Mick Lynch, but we might want to check the record about that. You are obviously pleased with the legislation, and I know you think it could go further; I just want to ask a little about how you would characterise your engagement with the Department. Was it very welcoming? How many meetings did you have with Ministers and officials? Were draft clauses shared with you? How constructive was it? Liron Velleman: Community has a productive relationship with the Department for Business and Trade. We have had productive relationships with parts of the Department for a number of years, but unfortunately not on a political level for the last 14 years. It is welcome that this Government have seen a sea change in how they want to do relationships with trade unions.