Brexit: Protection for Workers — House of Lords, 2019-03-07
Topic: Labor
Iain McNicol (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I first thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in the other place and especially for his kind words about Lord Bhattacharyya The crux of the Government’s announcement is the two amendments they will table to the implementation Bill. We are told that these seek to ensure there is no regression of workers’ rights, and that Parliament will be given an opportunity to consider how rights in the UK tally with those in the EU. These are noble aims which I am sure this House can get behind. However, I am afraid that on this side of the House we have considerable concerns over whether these amendments will achieve and deliver this I remind the Minister of the comments that Frances O’Grady of the TUC made yesterday in response to the announcement: "In the face of a government determined to reduce rights, these measures would in no meaningful way compensate for the loss of the protections that currently exist" The TUC and various unions have been clear in their response to the proposals, saying that they are not good enough and fail to protect workers after we leave the EU. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I agree with those statements I turn to specifics. I am interested in the Government’s process of getting to this announcement. Can the Minister detail his department’s process of consultation with the different unions and the TUC? The issue at the heart of this announcement is that, even if a Statement by the Government notes that legislation would in fact lead to a regression of rights, there is no power to stop the Government proceeding with their intended course of action. Can he explain how these amendments would stop a Government reducing workers’ rights if they wanted to? If he thinks I am being a bit unfair, I remind him of the working time directive. It was a Conservative Government who sued the European Commission, claiming that there was no legislative basis for the directive since working time had nothing to do with health and safety at work. Luckily for workers in the UK, the Government lost On the process of adopting future improvements in EU legislation, the proposal is equally lacking. The only means of challenge is through Parliament, not the courts, and thus subject to any Government’s majority—not material facts that could be legally tested. Furthermore, these proposals apply only to changes to primary legislation. Any other forms of legislative change would not be covered. Given that the bulk of UK legislation to implement EU law is secondary legislation—the Working Time Regulations, TUPE and health and safety regulations, to name but a few—would the examples given above be covered under the new proposals? As we have seen recently, Commons procedures may not permit sufficient amendments to actually deal with all the problems at hand The Statement uses the words "standards" and "reduction of standards" and I seek clarification from the Minister on this. In speaking against Amendment 3 on the Trade Bill last night, the Minister said: "First … The term ‘standards’ does not have a single legal definition which can easily be called upon … Secondly, on the notion of ‘reducing’ standards, how the Government would prove that they were or were not reducing them would be problematic".—[Official Report, 6/3/19; col. 631.] The Government cannot have it both ways. Either the use of the terminology "standards" and "‘reducing’ standards" is correct and proper or it is not The Statement provided today is not good enough. The comments made at its beginning suggesting that the Minister’s party has suddenly assumed the role and mantle as a champion of workers and working people is baffling. Annual earnings are more than 3% lower than they were in 2008 and nearly 4 million people are now in insecure work. If the Government are serious about workers’ rights in the UK, they have a long way to go to prove it.