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Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I may also go down memory lane about aspects of employment—it was a variety of activities. Where I slightly disagree with my noble friend Lord Hunt, who moved the amendment, is that I expect the Minister will simply say that students are not required to accept a guaranteed-hours contract. She is absolutely right about that. However, if I were in a situation as a student getting a guaranteed-hours contract, happy days. I would lap them up wherever I could. I am trying to think back to my time doing my PhD. I think I worked for the university in two different jobs. I also managed to use some of my holiday to get extra work. It was a mixture of things, and we are seeing this trend increase. With the cost of living challenge that people across the country face, we are seeing a significant increase in students starting to take on quite long working hours, which is somewhat detrimental to their learning progress.

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I can understand that people see a variety of routes through higher education—and we are not just talking here about degrees; we could be talking about master’s. Full-time students and those in education beyond the age of 16 could also be considering technical work, so it is fair to think about the real-life element for an employer.

The Government, it seems, are going to open up an EU mobility scheme. I think a lot of this is to do with the fact that many employers are concerned about what happened with Brexit. Although we ended up with nearly 5 million people getting EU settled status, a significant proportion of people decided not to come back to the UK after Covid, but still have that status and could. At the moment there is this huge gap for employers, who are concerned. It is extraordinary to think how many people are actively seeking work but still unemployed in London, given the number of vacancies in this capital city.

One of the things about full-time students is that there will be a fluctuation in demand and what is needed. For example, there will be a fluctuation of work in the holidays where—how can I put it?—with the other proposed changes in this Bill regarding statutory sick pay, it could be very easy for students to not necessarily turn up and still be guaranteed hours and guaranteed that wage regardless. We should recognise the different experiences that people have. I know that Oxford University does not allow its students to have a job; it bans it in university regulations and you can be expelled from the university.

With student visas, in term time students can work up to 20 hours, and in their equivalent of recess they can work full-time. You can see a variety of situations where it would be very convenient for students to lock an employer into guaranteed hours, which may not be beneficial for the employer, recognising also the need to provide long-term permanent work to people who are not students. That variability is an important factor. Perhaps I should not be so ungenerous.

There is precedent in legislation to restrict full-time students to accessing particular rights, and that is in universal credit. Full-time students are not allowed to have universal credit, apart from one very narrow exemption. This is a good example of where we are

considering the legislation in detail and recognising that we are talking here about the approach that the Government are taking to families and households. I think this is a good exemption that would still allow the flexibility wanted.