Contributions
1,586 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I will give the hon. Gentleman one more go.05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, and I fundamentally agree with his point about bereavement leave and dependant leave. As we heard in the evidence sessions, I…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I am tempted not to give way to the hon. Gentleman, since he seemed less than keen to take my interventions in the farming debate yesterday, but I will grant him an intervention…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)The hon. Gentleman makes a fundamentally good point about issues such as modern slavery. Actually, it was a former Conservative Prime Minister—I accept that we had a few in the…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I can assure the hon. Lady that I am intimately aware of the cost of childcare. It is something that challenges families—men and women, mums and dads, carers, grandparents and all…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I will finish this point and then give way —the hon. Lady knows that I am up for the debate. There could be a pretty stark choice: go bust and no jobs, or some short-term…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I do accept the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. It is helpful to have this debate to tease out the core issues. The point I would put back to him is that those small…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I can think of businesses in recent times in my own constituency that are particularly affected by shipping delays, some as a result of the covid pandemic, which I accept was an…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention, because she underlines the fundamental point that I am making: most businesses do not want to turn people away. Convenience…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I do not want to repeat the whole debate that we had the other day as we might not hit the clause that the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues are trying to get to today. I fully accept…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly sensible point. We will come on to that issue shortly. The central point that I ask the Government to reflect on, before any…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)I will just finish this point. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am not shy of taking interventions. Government amendment 31 will cap the compensation an employee can receive if the…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of Government amendment 30, but I gently suggest to him that…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Seventh sitting)The word “clarity” is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting there, so I will probe it a bit. Amendments 37 and 38 concern provisions in the Bill about how employees may make a claim…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)I am grateful to the Minister for her responses. I highlight that this is a probing amendment designed to test the Government’s thinking. I appreciate the flexibilities that she…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)I feel that we have gone over those details multiple times, particularly on Tuesday, so I will not take up a great deal of time. However, it is important to put on the record the…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)On the one hand, the Minister says that he wants certainty. On the other hand, he is repealing legislation that is but a year old. I fully appreciate that a new Government will…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There are clearly thousands of businesses in this country; I notice that he did not name a single business from his constituency. I actually…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I believe that it was the Deputy Prime Minister who, in the media over the weekend, could not name a single business that supports the…05 Dec 2024HANSARDEmployment Rights Bill (Eighth sitting)My argument is similar to the arguments that we have had in substantive debates on previous groups of amendments to the schedule. With this Bill, we have consistently seen an…05 Dec 2024