Employment Rights Bill clears last parliamentary hurdle

Labour’s flagship workers’ rights bill has passed its last parliamentary hurdle and is set to become law before Christmas.

Conservative peer Lord Sharpe, the shadow business and trade minister, had tabled an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill during its latest stage of parliamentary ping pong in the House of Lords.

But he withdrew the amendment after a short debate, removing the final block on the bill’s passage.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle he was “delighted” the bill had made its way through the House of Lords.

“This landmark legislation, now soon to be in law, will drag Britain’s outdated employment laws into the 21st century and offer dignity and respect to millions more in the workplace,” he said.

Most of the bill’s measures will require secondary legislation before coming into force.

The government has described the bill – which applies to England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland – as the “biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation”.

It will give workers access to sick pay and paternity leave from the first day on the job and contains new protections for pregnant women and new mothers.

In November, Labour backed down from its plan to give all workers the right to claim unfair dismissal from their first day in a job. But the government will bring in enhanced protections from six months in employment, the bill’s most significant measure.

It is expected to gain royal assent this week.

Unite union’s general secretary Sharon Graham said the bill must now be implemented “without any further dilution or delay”.

“Labour need now to stop being embarrassed by these new laws for workers. The bill had already been watered far too much, not least the failure to ban fire and rehire and zero hours contracts,” she said.

The Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) general secretary Paul Nowak said it was a “historic day and early Christmas present for working people across the country”.

“Finally, working people will enjoy more security, better pay and dignity at work thanks to this bill,” he said, echoing Unite’s calls for the legislations to be implemented “at speed”.

But the Conservatives said it was “ironic Labour’s job-destroying unemployment bill passed the very same day official figures confirmed unemployment has risen every month this government has been in office”.

The party was referring to figures published on Tuesday showing UK unemployment rose to 5.1% in the three months to October, from 4.3% a year earlier.

Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “[The bill] will pile costs onto small businesses, freeze hiring, and ultimately leave young people and jobseekers paying the price for Labour’s capitulation to their union paymasters.”

In a joint statement on Monday, ahead of the deadlock ending, business groups including the British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses said they remained concerned about some of the bill’s changes.

But they said to keep the six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal the legislation as it currently was should now be passed.