Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-10-22
Topic: Labor
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): No, I am concluding this section, then I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman. These points are important For this reason, I have amended section 19 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to relieve a union of those duties where there is a fire and rehire situation. Clause 2 introduces amendments to the Employment Rights Act 1996 to give enhanced protection to workers who are fired and rehired Another insidious practice I have come across is where companies have come to realise that fire and rehire can be an effective way of avoiding redundancy payments. The law currently allows an employee to be dismissed for refusing to accept a variation in contract. Employers now consider that, by making the new terms so unacceptable, they can effectively force the worker to refuse the new contract. The job is still there; the employee has simply refused to do it on the revised terms so there is no redundancy. For this reason, the Bill ensures that, where an individual worker or a small section of the work force refuses to accept the variations that have been agreed with other representatives in the workplace, and that person is dismissed for refusing to accept the variation, they will be entitled to claim unfair dismissal. This allows the rest of the business to move forward in harmony, and does not result in closure and loss of all the jobs The primary remedy for unfair dismissal is, of course, reinstatement or re-engagement, to which the Bill has precluded a defence of impracticability. But this does not present a problem, because section 117(3)(b) and (4)(a) of the 1996 Act allows the defence of impracticability to an employer who refuses to effect a reinstatement or re-engagement order, and precludes the additional penal award of compensation, which is the usual consequence of non-compliance. Thus, only normal unfair dismissal compensation would be payable to a refuser. Such compensation is, of course, all that the company would be liable to pay, even where an employee would otherwise have qualified for many years of redundancy payment. As such, I believe that it represents a reasonable and proportionate solution for those who genuinely feel that they cannot afford to accept the diminution of pay, terms and conditions that are proposed I have tried to set out for the House five things—that the Bill seeks to address a genuine social and economic problem; that a legislative vehicle is necessary and desirable, even though other mechanisms can partially address the problem; that the Bill is a reasonable and sensible measure that substantiates good practice and discourages bad; that the Bill is fair and proportionate in the remedies that it proposes; and that the Bill is technically proficient in connecting up with all the other relevant legislation. There is one final question, which concerns the politics surrounding this Bill. Given all that Ministers have said denigrating the practice of fire and rehire, it is remarkable that the Government have imposed a three-line Whip against it today. Why? In politics, it is rare to find something that absolutely everyone agrees on, yet all the way from Len McCluskey to the Prime Minister himself, everyone agrees that fire and rehire is wrong, so why are the Government determined to block this Bill Normal practice would be to allow the Bill to pass Second Reading and go into Committee, where it could be amended and any perceived deficiencies ironed out. If that proved impossible, the Government could kill it in Committee or on Third Reading. Why are the Government intent on talking the Bill out this morning? The tactic of filibustering to talk the Bill out is cowardly. It seems that the Government do not wish to be seen actually to vote against the Bill. They would rather pretend, under the cloak of a closure motion, that they want to go on talking about it so that it simply runs out of time Today, the Government are set to vote against not the Bill, but the closure motion—the effect is the same. The Bill will die. Nobody is fooled. British workers will know that this Government would rather play politics than look after British families. There is another aspect to the politics of this Bill. The Government have told their Back Benchers, who are rightly concerned that they will be blamed by their constituents for voting this Bill down, that they have tasked the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) with bringing forward a Bill of their own. She has considerable experience as an employment barrister, and I hope that she does bring that forward. I doubt it will be substantially different from clause 1 of my Bill, although I doubt that the worker protections will be as comprehensive as mine in the subsequent clauses What does that say about our politics? The House knows that I have run a cross-party campaign to support this Bill. I have welcomed MPs from all parties, and I value their contributions to this campaign. That the Government believe they must brand any solution with their own party political colours is something I find sad. We began this week by remembering our colleague and friend and by praising the cross-party manner in which he had conducted his politics for so many years in this place. How good it would have been had we been able to conclude the week in the same co-operative cross-party spirit.