THE apostle Paul’s small tent-making enterprise featured in a speech by the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, during a Lords debate on the Employment Rights Bill last week.
Speaking throughout the Second Reading of the Bill, which might apply to England, Scotland, and Wales, Dr Hartley spoke of her research on work and the apostle. “Paul was never one to shrink back from labor and spoke of the non-public cost of his tent-making business, describing it as wearisome and fraught with the challenges of local politics. Two thousand years later, we proceed to live amid diverse uncertainties.
“As we scrutinise this laws, we achieve this affirming that employees matter. If we get this right, we will move closer to a society during which individuals are viewed with inherent value and dignity. When individuals are valued and supported in what they do, they contribute to greater economic flourishing.”
Noting that “in-work poverty has risen significantly lately”, she wanted to deal with security in working conditions, the impact on children, parental leave, flexible working, and implications of the draft laws for SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
While, she said, she welcomed the Bill “in extending basic rights, protections, and entitlements to employees, concerns remain as to how these individual protections will truly enable collective flourishing and a stronger and resilient society for the confident future desired by everyone”.
Introducing the Bill, Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour) outlined “the pressing issues employees face today. Workers have waited too long for change as a consequence of the legislative stasis over the past decade and more.” Wage stagnation and “far too many individuals in low-paid and insecure work” were problems, together with worker anxiety over unexpected changes to working patterns.
The Bill encompasses employment law, collective redundancy, pay conditions in specific sectors, conditions for seafarers, trade unions and industrial motion, and employment tribunals.
Lord Hunt (Conservative) expressed concern. “No one can persuade me that there was fair, effective, and comprehensive parliamentary scrutiny of this laws, which is scandalous when we expect of the profound effects it’s sure to have on British business and the way our businesses operate.” He referred to the Bill’s “Henry VIII powers” — clauses that enable ministers to amend or repeal provisions with no full parliamentary process.
Lord Londesborough (Crossbench) was apprehensive that that it was a “one-size-fits-all”, “whether you might be a UK multinational with a workforce of 100,000, a start-up with ten staff, or a family business with two employees”. He described the Bill as “one other giant vampire squid sucking the life out of our economy”.
For Baroness Noakes (Conservative), “It is just not pro-growth to impose £5-billion-worth of costs on businesses.”
Lord Palmer (Liberal Democrat) raised “kinship carers. I recently heard of a pair caring for his or her grandchildren out of affection and duty, yet they receive not one of the employment rights or support given to foster carers. Is this not an injustice?”
In her maiden speech, the great-niece of the Labour minister Emanuel (Manny) Shinwell, Baroness Berger (Labour), said that she applauded the Government’s “commitment to bringing forward practical measures to value and support working parents” and “measures to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts”.
Also making her maiden speech was a former adviser to the Prime Minister, Baroness Gray (Labour), who testified to her Civil Service experience. In one other maiden, Lord Young (Conservative) pointed to free-speech implications within the Bill. “Employers can have to balance the rights of third parties to precise their legally protected beliefs with the rights of their employees to not be harassed. That is a particularly complicated area of law.”
For Baroness O’Grady, a former TUC General Secretary, “the Bill has strong public support across the political spectrum.” Lord Prentis (Labour), former General Secretary of UNISON, said that “the UK was shamed earlier this 12 months for being the eighth most unequal economy of the 40 studied, and that’s the reason this Bill is so vital”.
Summing up, Baroness Jones spoke of “a vital step towards the Government’s manifesto commitment to boost employees’ rights and improve the lives of tens of millions. Alongside our recent industrial strategy, it would increase productivity and create the precise conditions for long-term, sustainable, and secure economic growth.”
The Bill will return to the Lords for the Committee Stage from 29 April.
