Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work

An angry MP has accused ministers of again failing to introduce measures to improve workers’ rights.

Employment law specialist Justin Madders, MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, was reacting to proposed Queen’s Speech legislation to be introduced in Parliament.

During a debate on ‘Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work’ he lashed out at the Government over controversial ‘fire and rehire’ tactics now being used increasingly by employers.

“I would like to start with last year’s Humble Address, which promised a right for workers to request a more predictable contract, presumably aimed at the many people on zero-hours and flexible contracts,” he told the Commons.

“However it was never introduced, so here we are, another year on and another opportunity missed to deal with those parasitic, unfair contracts which are more befitting to the 19th century than the 21st.

“Until we begin to challenge the very existence of zero-hours contracts, we will only ever be tinkering at the edges of an unfair and fundamentally unbalanced labour market.

“Levelling up will just be a fantasy until we put in place the building blocks that people need for a better life.  

“That means permanent, secure, well-paid jobs. Too few new jobs at the moment offer none of those.”

Mr Madders referred to the four-year-old Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices with “the vast majority of its recommendations still gathering dust on the shelf”.

“The truth is that this Government have no intention of improving workers’ rights, but they should, because the security of a job should be valued as much as the creation of that job.

“Why is it that whenever a multinational is looking to cut its workforce, we always seem to be at the head of the queue? Why are we seen as a soft touch? Why are British workers seen as easier and cheaper to get rid of than just about everyone else in western Europe?

“We need to end the culture of weak employment rights, avaricious corporations and a Government who are indifferent to the importance of job security. Without job security, people have no security.

“Nowhere is that indifference more apparent than in the Government’s failure to address the scandal of fire and rehire. Ministers repeatedly tell us they do not agree with it, yet they do absolutely nothing to tackle it.”

Turning to the need for more homes, Mr Madders said: “We do need more housing, but tinkering with the planning system will lead to more of the same.

“The problem is not developers being able to get planning permission.  The problem is that there is a big cartel at the top.  We get the wrong types of houses built in the wrong types of places, because that is where the money is made.”

In response to the so-called ‘Humble Address’ by MPs, Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said: “We continue to protect the lowest paid workers. 

“We have raised the national minimum wage and again raised the national living wage.  Having been the first Government to institute it, we raised it only in April.”

He referred to “the immense help and the grants that have supported businesses that would otherwise have closed”.

“The bounce back loan scheme has approved more than £46 billion of loans for 1.5 million businesses.”

Pictured - Justin Madders, MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston.