Lords
Oral Questions
24 February 2026
Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper
My noble friend is absolutely right. I can remember the contribution made by the union learning fund to support trade unions to enable the development of skills in their workplaces. It is a real shame that the last Government removed the funding from it. I can tell my noble friend that this is somet…
Lords
Oral Questions
2 February 2026
Prisoners for Palestine: Hunger Strikes
Prison rules are there for a very good purpose, and rules are rules. It is the same for any prisoner, on remand or not. If any prisoner is not content, their concerns can be brought to the independent monitoring board or the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
Lords
Oral Questions
26 January 2026
ILO Convention 190
My noble friend is right to recognise the important step this Government have taken to avoid NDAs when it comes to prevention or speaking out about harassment and discrimination. Our Benches are very proud of that landmark piece of legislation in the Employment Rights Act. In terms of enforcement, a…
Lords
Oral Questions
20 January 2026
2 contributions
Parental Leave and Pay Review
My Lords, the parental leave and pay review launched on 1 July 2025, and we expect it to run for a period of 18 months. The review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings in which the Government will outline next steps for taking any reform forward to implementation.
My Lords, I pay tribute to the advocacy not only of my noble friend but of her former employer, the TUC. The Government have met with many stakeholders and had many encouragements to act in lots of different directions. My noble friend is absolutely right that the system needs reform. We know that i…
Lords
Debate
13 January 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I support what I understand to be probing amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, but first I want to seek clarification from my noble friend the Minister on government Amendment 372. I do so from the perspective of someone who had direct responsibility for organising ma…
Lords
Oral Questions
7 January 2026
Public Sector Productivity
My noble friend asks a really interesting question and I am very happy to consider the point that she raises. The quality of management makes a massive difference in both the private and the public sector. We talked before about working from home. It is well documented that the better the quality of…
Lords
Debate
17 December 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I add my support for these probing amendments and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her work on this issue. I strongly welcome the Government’s promise to launch the largest crackdown in history to reduce violence against women and girls. While of course the misery of experiencin…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 December 2025
Fair Work Agency: Small and Micro Businesses
My noble friend is right draw attention to this matter, on which she has long been a thoughtful voice. In 2024, the Low Pay Commission estimated that some 20% of workers paid at or around the wage floor were underpaid the minimum wage. Analysis conducted by the Resolution Foundation suggests that 90…
Lords
Proceedings
13 November 2025
Economic and Taxation Policies: Jobs, Growth and Prosperity
It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, but she will not be surprised to find that I agreed with very little of what she said—indeed, I was horrified by some of it.
Four minutes is not long enough to cover the very many ways in which the Government are …
Lords
Oral Questions
10 November 2025
Office for National Statistics
Obviously, pay levels within the ONS are a matter for its leadership. I reassure noble Lords, however, that the budget for the ONS has increased. Rarely would I say so from this Dispatch Box, but the last Government and this Government have ensured that the budget for the ONS has increased by 6.5% y…
Lords
Debate
5 November 2025
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 44 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on migrant domestic workers. I added my name to it and send her my best wishes. I place on record my thanks to Kalayaan, Focus on Labour Exploitation, the Work Rights Centre, the TUC and trade unions, and many other fro…
Lords
Debate
28 October 2025
Employment Rights Bill
I was hoping to hear an answer to the question posed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips: without a qualifying period, will employers take on people with a criminal record? That question has not been answered. Secondly, Clause 25 talks about the right not to be unfairly dismissed, so this q…
Lords
Proceedings
14 October 2025
Digital ID
My Lords, I have just been at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, so it is reassuring to hear that there will be close co-ordination and co-operation on this issue. I also welcome the response on social exclusion and those issues, although, in my experience, increasingly low-paid workers need …
Lords
Oral Questions
2 September 2025
Civil Service: Interns
The noble Baroness gets to the nub of why we have decided to change it. This is about making sure that the people who serve our country reflect our country, based on merit, talent and ability and not where they came from. We want that to be reflected throughout the Civil Service. We also need to mak…
Lords
Debate
23 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 150 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hendy, because I think that it is worth taking just a moment to consider the impact of the reduction in union bargaining power that we have seen on ordinary working people in this country. That will not take long, b…
Lords
Debate
21 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I too will be brief. I thought it might be helpful to inject a bit of balance into the debate. Noble Lords might recall that in Committee I spoke of how often there are positive voluntary agreements between employers and unions about access, because everybody recognises that in a modern, c…
Lords
Debate
21 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 127 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hendy, but I am conscious that some of my comments may also be relevant to Amendment 125, which I oppose.
According to the latest LFS figures, 6.4 million people hold a union card, making trade unionism by far the largest d…
Lords
Debate
16 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I want to take this opportunity to correct what I think has been a mischaracterisation of the TUC briefing, which makes it very clear that the right to be accompanied includes, yes, trade union reps but also workmates. I also want to correct what is a misunderstanding of the spirit of the …
Lords
Proceedings
16 July 2025
Afghanistan
My Lords, I do not know whether my question is for my noble friend the Minister or for the party opposite. While I can totally understand why an injunction was sought to protect the content of the leak and to protect lives, I would like to understand—perhaps my noble friend can explain—why an injunc…
Lords
Debate
14 July 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, it is real pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Kramer and to add my strong support to my noble friend the Minister and the Government’s Amendment 46 on non-disclosure agreements. This will make the UK a world leader in legislation to end the silence around workplace harassment and disc…
Lords
Statutory Instrument
3 July 2025
2 contributions
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
My Lords, everyone will be able to speak in this debate. We will hear from my noble friend Lady O’Grady next, then the noble Baroness.
My Lords, like others, I had not really intended to speak in this debate, but unfortunately, I have listened at times—while I respect other views—with incredulity at some of the remarks that have been made. This House rightly has a reputation for a wide range of expertise on almost every aspect of p…
Lords
Proceedings
30 June 2025
UK Modern Industrial Strategy
My Lords, I strongly welcome this industrial strategy, alongside the TUC and the CBI. It is about a mission for fair growth and delivering secure, skilled jobs in the parts of the country that need them most. I am also very conscious of the history of industrial policy. I remember when noble Lords o…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 June 2025
UK Extreme Heat
I thank my noble friend. As a former trade union officer, this is something that I have discussed every summer in my adult life. My noble friend is aware of the current situation with regard to the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, which require employers to provide a reasonable in…
Lords
Debate
18 June 2025
Employment Rights Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 273PA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I want to give an example of why this amendment is so important. Following a five-month freedom of information battle, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism was finally given access to 19 farm inspection reports pro…
Lords
Oral Questions
17 June 2025
Cladding: High-rise Buildings
My noble friend makes an excellent point, and I echo her tribute to the victims of the tragedy and all emergency service personnel. To be clear, companies must be held to account for their role in the Grenfell tragedy. On 26 February, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office announced that …