Employment Bill [HL]

I have listened carefully to all the submissions and, first, I make a plea that we remove the alarmist language from this whole debate. From my noble friend Lord Wedderburn I heard that this is a complete group of workers that is ““unjustly treated””. That is not true. Some are but many are not. I heard about ““abuse of economic power”” and about people needing to be ““protected””. Just now from my noble friend Lord Watson, I heard about what is being done to these people and that it needs to be ““exposed for what it is””. At the same time, from my noble friend Lady Turner I heard the words ““both sides of industry””. All that smacks of 1970. It smacks of exactly what the private sector—both unions and employers—over the past 15 to 20 years, and especially the past 10, have worked so hard to avoid. One reason why we have the most successful economy in the whole of Europe is that we have the most flexible labour market. Whatever certain people with vested interests might tell you, there is a connection between low levels of unemployment and high levels of flexibility. I do not recognise the word ““industry””; I recognise the world of employment, of business and of the public sector. I do not see sides. Six and a half years as director-general of the CBI made me understand that there is only one side in the private sector: it is those people who come together to create a successful undertaking from which everybody can benefit. It is not true that every one of those people who enters a contract by which they can retain agency workers works in such a way as to do them down. I come across many agencies that train agency workers a great deal, based on the selfish realisation that the more they train them, the higher the rate that they can command for entering a contract for the provision of their services and, by definition, the greater the take-home pay of the agency workers. I hope that, on this amendment and Amendment No. 26, and when the House debates what is happening in another place now, we will remove the alarmist, damaging vocabulary that belongs to another age. We are in the 21st-century world of work; there are many people across Britain who do not recognise the vocabulary that my noble friends have used. Flexibility is a two-way street. Agency work often provides an entry to the world of work that has been denied to many people in the past. It provides an entry for those who come out of prison and try to go straight; it provides an entry for many a woman who is trying to get back into the world of work after some time out, either to have children or to care for an elderly relative. It provides an entry for students during their summer vacations, allowing them to get used to the world of work and to learn that the pleasure of earning a living is not entirely ours. The 21st-century world of work contains people who abuse the situation, who treat agency workers abominably and who need to feel the power of regulation to make sure that the abuse stops and to ensure the fairness—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for saying it—that I respect in the workplace. However, it is a minority. They must be weeded out and it must stop. I was very influenced by going to BMW’s Mini plant in Oxford. It is a fabulous brand; the engine is made in Britain. It sells around the world, creating jobs and wealth for this nation. While it has a fully unionised, full-time workforce, it is huge user of agency workers, to deal with peaks and troughs and the availability of student labour in the summer, when holidays eat into the full-time workforce commitment. The owners of the plant said to me: ““If this stops, if this puts us on an equal footing with Germany, France, Spain and Scandinavia, please explain to us why we should carry on investing in this country””. They are not gangmasters; they are not the people who should be weeded out and stopped; it is a high-class German manufacturer making a fabulous, globally successful product in this country, creating quality jobs and caring for its workforce, and saying that the ability to have a flexible workforce with agency workers is not only something that it values but is one of the reasons that it invests in this country. I as chairman of UK Trade & Investment valued its investment and trust in my nation enormously. I am with my noble friends when they say that we must stop the abuse that goes on, but I plead with them to stop the alarmist language. Let us perhaps find a term which applies if someone is in a relationship with an employer for such a long time that, as my noble friend Lord Wedderburn said, they are employees and deserve the protection as such. The Government are not against that. I remind my noble friends that the Government are elected to govern for the whole country, not one vested interest—be it the CBI, the TUC or anybody else. The Government are not against saying, ““Let us have some regulations and protection in place for people in the same contractual relationship for so long a period””. As the lady from Greenwich found out, they are frankly being treated as an employee and should be protected as such. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater, or get to a point where the big and quality investors in the country leave. Globalisation gives them choice, and a flexible labour market is ultimately one of the reasons they choose Britain. It is, frankly, to be solved by a period of time after which such workers will be treated as employees in all respects. That period is currently up for negotiation. We are awaiting a lead from the European Commission, and for Brussels to come up with some ideas and thoughts to get this sorted once and for all. Members of the Committee will not find the Government against that, provided it does not eat into the flexibility at the constructive-quality end that helps not only those who make proper use of agency workers, but those in society who want to avail themselves of agency work for all the reasons I have mentioned. The Government have undertaken a review of the current framework to cover all employment rights, determined by an individual’s employment status, to see if that is still appropriate, whether those rights fit into the 21st century, whether they are fair and whether they can support our aim of getting a high participation in the workplace. We are looking specifically at the differing rights and responsibilities in employment law of ““employees”” and ““workers””. [The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 5.31 to 5.41 pm.]