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Exiting the EU and Workers’ Rights

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) in what was, I believe, his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. This has been an

excellent debate, and I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to it. It is right that the question of workers’ rights should be debated at length and in some detail, because it is of fundamental importance to Members on both sides of the Chamber.

This has been the first in a series of debates on important issues that arise in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union promised by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. My Department intends to bring forward, in Government time, a number of further debates on key issues related to EU withdrawal over the coming weeks and months.

Let me first reiterate that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in his opening speech, the Government fully recognise the fundamental importance of strong workers’ rights in this country, and we are determined to preserve them. Not only do they exist for the protection of all employees, but they have a vital function in encouraging the development of a productive and thriving economy. It is clear that the Government’s determination to preserve, and not to erode, employment rights is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) celebrated the fact that we were experiencing a rare moment of accord between the Conservative and Labour parties.

The Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government will not, as a consequence of our withdrawal, allow any erosion of rights in the workplace, whether those rights derive from EU or UK law. She has further made it clear that the Government are determined to deliver an economy that works for everyone, and fundamental to that is the preservation of existing workers’ rights.

I repeat the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in his opening speech that the UK already goes beyond EU minimum requirements in a number of areas of employment legislation. For example, UK domestic law already provides for more than a week’s additional annual leave—5.6 weeks rather than the minimum of four weeks set by the EU—nearly four times the required amount of statutory maternity leave and much greater flexibility around shared parental leave, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out.

Furthermore, we have recently adopted a number of measures to strengthen further the protections provided to workers, including introducing the national living wage in April this year and increasing funding for enforcement activity to ensure that employers are meeting their responsibilities. We have commissioned a review into modern employment practices—the Taylor review—with a view to ensuring that new practices of working, which were touched on by the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), do indeed work for everyone. We are legislating to ban exclusivity clauses in zero hours contracts to stop the abuse of such contracts. We introduced shared parental leave in 2015 and extended the right to request flexible working to all employees from June 2014. Those are measures pursued by a Conservative Government committed to providing strong protections for workers. We are determined to maintain those protections beyond withdrawal from the EU by enshrining them in our law under the great repeal Bill.

A number of points were touched on by hon. and right hon. Members, and I will seek to address them in the brief time available to me. One point that was made by a number of Members—including by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), in what I thought was an excellent and passionate speech, and by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)—was the need to heal the wounds, so to speak: to build a national consensus ahead of our exit from the European Union. That is what the Government are seeking to do, and we hope that debates such as this will help to achieve it.

The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), echoed by the hon. Members for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), raised issues about devolved competence and how they will affect the negotiations. The Government have made it absolutely clear that the concerns of the devolved Administrations will be central to the negotiations that we are embarking on. Indeed, the first meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee for the exit negotiations will be held this very week, so there is close consultation between the Government and the devolved Administrations.