Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, in rising to speak, I declare an interest: I am not only a member of Unite but I was president and one of the founder members of that union. I must say how pleased I am that my noble friend Lord Bach is back in his rightful place on the Front Bench. From what the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham, said, it appears that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, will be doing most of the work in Committee with us. Any questions that we have about the Bill we should direct to my noble friend Lord Bach. From past evidence, we shall get well informed as well as courteous replies from him. I have several things to put to my noble friend. Most have been mentioned earlier, but it is as well to stress from this side of the House some of the possible concerns that we have about the Bill. First, I must say at once that I welcome plans to beef up the enforcement of the minimum wage. It has needed beefing up for a long time and also needs an increase in its budget. I shall return to that later. I also welcome the plan to give further powers to the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. However, like my noble friend Lord Wedderburn, I am concerned about reform of the dispute procedure. We must ensure that what comes out of that does not lower the position of employees or trade unions who, in many cases, are in vulnerable positions. That is something that we shall be looking out for as we go along. Like everyone else who has spoken on this side of the House, I am concerned about the code of practice that ACAS is drawing up. I do not see how we can debate this Bill, particularly as there will be enforcement powers, without seeing that. It is nonsense. Surely, we in Parliament have a right to see it and to debate it—how do we know what will come up?—whichever view we may take in relation to the Bill. I hope that my noble friend will take note of that because nearly every speaker has referred to it. We are being bound by something and it seems absolutely ridiculous that we do not even know what will be said. I can see that he is taking notes about that. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, asked what future role ACAS would have. That also needs to be explained. We know what its role has been in the past. It has been for mediation, to encourage collective bargaining and to try to get disputes settled at an early point. That is something that all of us on both sides of the House want to see, but I agree that if ACAS is to have new powers it has to have the funding to be able to carry them out. I want to stress that at this stage. I am also worried about ETs. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, expressed a lot of concern about them. In relation to what happens to ETs and their role in the future, we must preserve and safeguard the position of people in difficult situations who are often in non-unionised companies. We need to protect their rights and ensure that there is no narrowing of the access to justice. My noble friend Lady Turner said that everyone had a right to their day in court. We must make sure that people will not be kept away and that tribunal staff themselves will not filter and stop people from going who should have that particular right. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, said that there has been a tendency to look at the role of the chairperson and to diminish the role of the lay member. We do not want a situation where the lay person is not counted and where those whom we will call judges if this provision goes through will have absolute power in many cases. The knowledge of lay members has been very valuable indeed in relation to employment tribunals. We do not want to see that happen. I said that the enforcement of the national minimum wage has been weakened in recent years. I welcome the Government’s proposal to double the enforcement budget over the next three years. That is a very welcome but overdue move, as is the tougher stance to be taken on penalty payments. Another factor that makes that absolutely necessary is the growth in agency employment and labour migration. We must address these new circumstances. I welcome the right being given to people to opt out of having to buy extra services from an agency. Many of them seem to be bound hand and foot by agencies as regards obtaining not only tools and uniforms but accommodation, heating, electricity, council tax deductions and even advice on visa assistance and training. There is almost a new kind of slavery growing up with the agencies and it is right that we should give people the right to be able to break away from that. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Wedderburn said about employment rights for agency workers. It is a great pity that this was not settled in Lisbon and that it must now be settled domestically. A solution to this must be found. I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that a great opportunity was missed in not putting this to bed on that occasion. As regards the various options for financial loss, to which reference has been made, I notice that the Government have put forward various options. They have talked about option B and calculating interest. It has been suggested that this could be difficult as it could involve compound or simple interest and that neither side would know what was happening. It is also suggested that there are tax problems in relation to this. I believe that the case against the measure is rather overstated. I cannot see why there could not be a separate rule for the national minimum wage arrears and an award—an additional payment based on the arrears. I cannot see that there should be a difficulty with that but I agree with noble Lords who said that it is not just the wage itself that should be paid; compensation also ought to be awarded. I cannot see why we cannot build that into it. Much comment was made by noble Lords opposite about trade unions and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the ASLEF case. We shall have long discussions on that in Committee so I shall not go into it now but my noble friend Lord Wedderburn said that we may have to look again at the Long Title and see where we stand on this. We need to look not only at what happened in relation to expulsion but what would have happened in relation to other disciplinary action that might have occurred. However, we shall return to that matter. I welcome the fact that we are returning to employment law. Let us hope that finally we can arrive at a solution that benefits all parties, is simpler and enables us to resolve disputes earlier. I look to play my part in Committee as this Bill goes forward.