Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-11
Topic: Labor
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to all my noble friends who took part in the debate—my noble friends Lady Drake, Lord Young and Lord Cunningham. Indeed, I am grateful for all the contributions from around the House. However, what has puzzled me a little about the contributions from around the House is the fact that most of the argument seems to have been about the need for, and virtues of, zero-hours contracts as such, and the need for a flexible labour market. I had hoped that we had been at pains to establish that of course customers, consumers, passengers and patients now live in a 24/7 economy. The issue is not about ZHCs; it is not even about codes of practice, because good employers such as Marks & Spencer do not abuse ZHCs, whereas Boots does. Pret a Manger does not abuse them, although McDonald’s does. Good employers can already decide how best to employ their staff. Whether a company does or does not have ZHCs is not the issue The issue is that there are some people with ZHCs, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, rightly said, who are exploited and suffer because although they are summoned to work by text, often overnight, they turn up and are then sent home again without a penny. What is more, they may have spent £5 or £8 in travel costs to get there and back. They may have spent £15 or £20 in childcare to get there and back and they get not a penny of recompense for the expenditure they made to uphold their side of the ZHC contract All that I am asking for is fairness, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, said—fairness between the employer who can dispense with the services of somebody and the employee. He may need to do that—I can see the point—but it should not be the worker who exclusively and solely bears the cost of the cancellation. That is what is unfair; not ZHCs, not flexible labour contracts, but the fact that only one party, the most vulnerable, the poorest, the weakest, should bear the cost of a zero-hours contract when they turn up to work and the work is taken away from them, even though they are doing exactly what the employer requests The noble Lord, Lord Deben, was worried. I thought that the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was admirable in putting the simple point that the amendment would require the Secretary of State to make regulations, but keeps the content entirely open. However, we expect them to reflect the spirit of the discussion in this House tonight that zero-hours contract workers—the people we are concerned about—should be able to be protected in this way In Committee, the Minister said that the Secretary of State already had powers to do that. This was followed up by a letter saying that that was not the case. The order-making power does not extend to other issues around ZHCs such as compensation for late-notice cancellations. I repeat that the Secretary of State has no power presently to regulate this anomaly at best—this exploitation, bluntly, at worst—that we all agree is unfair. He has no such power. The amendment would give him that power. After consultation with the sector—it may take months, I fully accept that—he can then introduce appropriate requirements for codes of practice or whatever may be proper to defend the people of whom the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, so eloquently reminded us: the lone parent who may be £20 or £30 out of pocket because at five minutes’ notice her shift is cancelled. At the moment, the Secretary of State does not have the power to do that This is not about ZHCs or the flexible labour market, I am asking your Lordships to do what this House is always at its best in doing: say to the Secretary of State, "We are willing to give you the power, we expect you to handle it sensibly, in consultation with industry, but it is not fair, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, said, that the most vulnerable should pay the cost of the employer’s requirements".