Lord Londesborough (CB)

My Lords, I think we have spent 13 days in this Chamber scrutinising this critical Bill. I salute the Ministers and Front Benches for their stamina and perseverance. The Bill has tested the patience of noble Lords on all sides of this House, so I will not test their patience further by going over the same arguments we heard during Committee and Report—very often the same arguments. I will simply raise one overriding question expressed by the FSB, the CBI, the ICAEW, the British Chambers of Commerce and, indeed, pretty much the whole private sector. They are asking, in light of the Bill, how committed the Government really are to delivering on their overriding number one mission—real, sustainable economic growth —and how the Bill will impact on the two crucial ingredients behind growth: job creation and, as we have heard, productivity. On job creation, vacancies have now fallen to an effective 10-year low when you exclude the exceptional pandemic years. The Bill looks set to accelerate that downward trend. On the need for greater productivity across our 30-million workforce, employers are currently paying, on average, 5% annual wage increases for close to zero productivity gains. The Prime Minister and Chancellor have hailed this as an achievement, putting more pounds in workers’ pockets, but I am afraid that it is as illusory as it is inflationary, and will only contribute to ever-widening black holes. The Bill will, as the Government admit, push up even further the costs of employment and damage the risk/reward equations behind recruitment, probation and employers’ ability to conduct those crucial performance reviews for staff. That is bad news for productivity, and I fear it will not go unnoticed by investors.