Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-18
Topic: Labor
Anthony Woodley (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the critique by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, was absolutely stunning. Last month, the Minister told this House that it was "outdated" to talk about workers and bosses because apparently: "We are all working together for the good of the country."—[Official Report, 29/6/22; col. 645.] I say to the Minister: go and tell that to the 3.6 million kids in poverty. Go tell it to them The Minister even claimed that the trade unions were a "minority profession", which "do not represent anybody". So I ask him again whether this is now the Government’s official position: that 6 million trade unionists do not count. Is this the justification for hobbling trade unions which are fighting for better pay to offset rampant inflation? We are still waiting for the mythical employment Bill—much talked about, but never seen. I remember the Government’s crocodile tears at P&O’s use of agency staff to undermine trade union rights and drive down pay and conditions, yet here they are now, proposing to enshrine such despicable practices into law. I asked the Minister who has been consulted over these changes, and he replied that there had been no consultation—as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said—since 2015. My noble friend is right. The economy has changed significantly over the past seven years: Brexit, Covid and now the cost of living crisis. It is "wholly inappropriate" to rely on a seven year-old consultation, especially given "the wider economic and political context" Those are not my words but those of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the REC, which represents agency firms—the employers—and of the TUC, representing trade unions. The REC even warned that these proposals leave employment agencies and their workers in an unfair moral position because of the pressure to break strikes. Let us stop pretending that this Government are on the side of working people, especially when they are slipping through major changes so underhandedly, with only a couple of hours of parliamentary debate Surely such a significant shift in workplace power deserves "proper parliamentary scrutiny"? Again, that is not just my opinion, but that of the REC and the TUC, which have both written to our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as the Minister mentioned, warning against these inflammatory changes being rushed through both Houses. The committee also expressed its concerns with the way the Government have introduced these statutory instruments, especially with their impact assessment—again, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said—which was delivered late and recognised as being of very poor quality, with a "lack of robust evidence". Surely the Minister can see that these proposals deserve primary legislation, not sneaky SIs I ask the Minister: why this all-out war on trade unions, which risks breaching not just international conventions but even domestic law? Will he accept responsibility for poisoning industrial relations across this country as a result? I draw noble Lords’ attention to a contribution from the debate in the other place. The Conservative MP—yes, that is right, the Conservative MP—Alec Shelbrooke said: "This agency worker measure was not in our manifesto, and it seems to have been done very quickly in reaction to what is going on in the public sector." After stating the obvious, that the private sector has "quite a few unscrupulous employers"— there is one for the record books—he hit the nail on the head: "If people lose their ability to have an effect when they withdraw their labour, I am afraid they will effectively lose the ability to withdraw their labour."—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/22; col. 93.]