Status of Workers Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-09-10
Topic: Labor
John Hendy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for and humbled by the support around the House for the Second Reading of the Bill. I am grateful to all speakers who have contributed, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Were it not for him, the heroic defence of the current situation by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, would have stood alone It will be understood that I mean no disrespect by not summarising the elegant arguments put forward both for and against the Second Reading of the Bill, but I will take up just a couple of points. First of all, I would like to say how grateful I am for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and his reference to caring capitalism. Personally, I prefer caring socialism, but caring capitalism appears to be an achievable aspiration that is appropriate to aim for with this Bill I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for pointing out the particular vulnerability of young workers and older workers, and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for expressing Christian support for the Bill and drawing to our attention the benefit to the state in increased tax and national insurance that would follow from the adoption of the Bill—a point reiterated by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised a point about unpaid interns. I looked again at the Long Title of my Bill, and unfortunately I do think I would be able to persuade the authorities to include an amendment that dealt with unpaid interns—but I completely agree with him that unpaid internships should not be permissible except as a certified part of a formal educational course I loved the reference by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, to the current law as a braying ass. That is a phrase I shall remember and cherish. She reminded us of the continuous struggle over centuries for the dignity and rights of workers to be protected by statute. This Bill is simply the latest attempt to achieve that The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made an important point about the status of directors. Currently, directors may or may not be employees. Indeed, under this Bill they may or may not be workers; it will depend on the arrangements. I would be happy to accept an amendment to clarify the status of directors, but I am not prepared to accept Uber drivers having their contracts rewritten to make them all directors of some fictional Uber company. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed to the messy complexity of real life, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for whose judicial support I am grateful, pointed out that the messy complexity is in fact created by the state of the law and the exploitation of it by employers’ lawyers. I indicated that I was not going to deal with those who kindly supported this Second Reading, but I must just mention my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton’s intervention drawing attention to the way the Bill would protect pensions. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, also drew attention to the fact that the protection of workers ought to be a cross-party issue; I agree with him on that The opposition to the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, really boils down to an assertion that the current state of the law provides the right balance, which no other speaker apart from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, accepts. He says that is based on the preservation of flexibility and the fundamental protections that currently exist for workers. So far as flexibility is concerned, I am afraid I cannot understand why it can be said that flexibility depends on the absence or restriction of employment rights. Flexibility is perfectly possible with full employment status and the rights that go with it. There are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of workers on flexible contracts who are still employees, so that argument simply does not hold water As for fundamental protections, I regard one of the protections of workers to be a right to complain if they are, or believe themselves to be, unfairly dismissed. I have not heard a justification for delivery riders such as those employed by Deliveroo, or the Uber drivers the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, spoke about, being denied the right to make a complaint to a judicial authority that their engagement was unfairly terminated I did a case in the Court of Appeal a few years ago concerning a lap dancer, Quashie v I forget the name of the nightclub that engaged her. She worked three nights a week, week in, week out, over a period of years. An allegation was made that she was in possession of drugs; her engagement was instantly stopped. We tried to bring a claim for unfair dismissal but were met with the argument that she was not an employee but an independent contractor. We lost in the employment tribunal and won in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Unfortunately, we lost in the Court of Appeal because of the complexity of the current law, as explained by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. I turn back to the fundamental point: why should she not have the right to say, "This allegation was false and unjustified, and my termination is unfair" In conclusion, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate.