Through our landmark Employment Rights Bill, we are making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave day one rights. This aligns then with maternity and adoption leave. But we are going further. We have launched the parental leave review, fulfilling our manifesto commitment. The review will explore …
I thank my hon. Friend for his efforts in this area, and indeed for highlighting the excellent work that some businesses are already doing, going further than the statutory minimum. As we know, when it comes to supporting working parents, every little helps. This review will be evidence based. It wi…
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) on securing her first Adjournment debate. She has chosen a topic extremely well and, as she highlighted, it is really important that we draw attention to the incredible courage of the women who participated in the matchgirl…
I am certainly happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Redhills on that achievement. If it is opening in the autumn, I hope it will be ready for when I come and visit her in her constituency. Perhaps those involved would like to work to that as a target.
As we know, a great many people and o…
CommonsStatutory Instrument14 July 20252 contributions
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the motion, That this House authorises the Secretary of State to undertake, during the period beginning with the date of approval of this motion and ending on 31 July 2030, to pay, by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Deve…
I acknowledge the shadow Minister’s consistency: he opposed his own Government’s policies in this area and now he is opposing ours. Clearly he disagrees vehemently with the direction of travel of the drive—pardon the pun—for electric vehicles. He rightly referred to some of the challenges, such as r…
I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) on introducing the Bill and on squeezing in his remarks under the wire. He made some important observations. Clearly, we do not have the time we would like to explore the provisions in more detail, but I understand that I will be engag…
I may have anticipated the hon. Member’s intervention; I will be engaging with him shortly on the Bill’s provisions. It is not a Bill that the Government will be able to support, but I do want to have further conversations with him about it. It is important that we recognise directors’ duties for wh…
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Turner. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) on securing this debate on the contribution of whistleblowers. I thank all the Members who have contributed to it. I join my hon. Friend’s tribute to those who blo…
CommonsMinisterial Statement1 July 202530 contributions
With permission, I will make a statement on the Government’s manifesto commitment to review the system of entitlements to parental leave.
This Government are dedicated to delivering more for working families, and our plan to make work pay is central to achieving that, with the mission to grow the e…
I take it that the shadow Minister is not in support of the review. May I correct him on a few points? Of course it is not a coincidence that this is being announced today; our manifesto was clear that we would launch the review within one year of taking office, and, of course, this week we do celeb…
+28 more contributions in this session
CommonsOral QuestionsBusiness and Trade12 June 20253 contributions
I thank my hon. Friend for her question; she is absolutely right to raise it. UK product safety law is clear: all products must be safe before they are placed on the market. As she sets out, goods sold via online marketplaces are becoming a significant problem. That is why we introduced the Product …
We had a Westminster Hall debate last week in which a number of these issues were raised. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are undertaking our fourth review of the GCA. I encourage him and other hon. Members to contribute to it. We are considering the points made in that debate, and we will welc…
+1 more contribution in this session
CommonsOral QuestionsBusiness and Trade12 June 20255 contributions
The Employment Rights Bill is the next phase of delivering our plan to make work pay. The Bill is both pro-worker and pro-business, and will see significant benefits for employers. For example, increased worker wellbeing could be worth billions of pounds a year. The Bill will also reduce workplace c…
I am very sorry to hear the news from the hon. Lady’s constituency. It is the case that 667,000 more people are in work compared with this time last year, and 300,000 fewer people are economically inactive. I am rather surprised that she mentions the national insurance hike, because the Leader of th…
I thank all hon. Members for contributing to the debate—my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), for Harlow (Chris Vince), for Erewash (Adam Thompson), the hon. an…
I will address new clause 2 in due course. That is a more a consumer-related issue than a product safety one, but I understand the intent behind it.
We have heard a lot of concerns—many of them misplaced—about the breadth of powers contained within the Bill. In the other place, we did increase the …
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) on securing this important debate, and on the sweeping historical nature of his opening comments, which gave us a broad view of the importance of agricult…
I thank the right hon. Member for his question. Of course, the review is dictated by the legislation that his party was, in government, involved in introducing, so part of the problem is where we are with the statutory framework, but I do take his wider point that clearly there are a number of diffe…
I will do my best, Mr Stringer. No doubt the tension of knowing there might be an interruption will add to the excitement of my comments. It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I declare an interest as a foster carer. We are not specifically talking about foster care, but it…
That point has been mentioned a number of times in this debate, and we will certainly look at the research as it is produced.
I have noted that the shadow Minister now supports paid carer’s leave, although he could not bring himself to support it during the passage of the Employment Rights Bill. I …
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Vaz. I think it is to your advantage that you have not already heard the same arguments on this issue as we heard this morning. I am sorry to say that we are still clearly at cross-purposes about what the Bill does and does not do. There wa…
I am afraid that is just not correct; that is not how the Bill operates. I can explain again why the EU is referenced: it is because the majority of our product safety regulations derive from the EU. In the debate on the draft Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment) Regulations last year, it w…
Thank you, Sir John—and what a lengthy title. I hope that is not a portent for the rest of the day. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning. I thank all Members and officials for helping us to examine the Bill.
The Bill, as the title suggests, is a little dry—as dry as the weather, po…
I am not able to read the Secretary of State’s mind, but this debate is about a different area of law from the one the Secretary of State was talking about. I refer the hon. Lady to one of her colleagues, the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who sai…
I had to wait 50 minutes for a question, Mr Speaker, but this is an important one and I share the hon. Member’s concerns. We regularly meet Ofcom to discuss the performance of Royal Mail, and I will certainly write to him about the discussions we have in respect of his constituency.