Baroness Noakes (Con)

My Lords, we have certainly improved the Bill during its passage, but it remains a very bad Bill. It is bad for business, which means it is bad for the economy, and it is just terrible for people who want jobs. It is also a dreadful time to be making such significant changes. The economy is stressed. The Bank of England has failed to tame inflation, and we now have the highest rate in the G7. Speculation abounds about how big the black hole is in the Chancellor’s Budget preparations. Bond markets can see that our economy is in trouble and they have hiked gilt yields to levels not seen since 1998. Sterling is on the slide. It feels like the 1970s all over again. Businesses are still reeling from the impact of the national insurance increases on top of the significant increases in minimum wage rates. This is already taking its toll. The Resolution Foundation said last month that it reckons the unemployment rate will have increased to 5% this month. Almost all the employment data are negative. Payroll numbers are down, job vacancies are down, the PMI employment index is down and economic inactivity is up. Against that background, creating new employment rights and going back to 1960s trade union legislation is not far short of suicidal for the economy. The Government say the Bill will cost £5 billion, adding to employment costs. Most of that will fall on the SME sector. That is bad enough, but the bigger problem is that the Bill will work against economic growth. Instead of job creation, we will have more job destruction. In the other place, the Government have an opportunity to accept the modest changes that your Lordships’ House has made to the Bill. Those changes are moderate and will not remove all the Bill’s harmful effects, but I hope that the Government will at least take this opportunity to modify the impact of the Bill.