Lord Clement-Jones (LD)

My Lords, I am going to be extremely brief because it is now 11.20 pm. We need to finish these proceedings at least before midnight, but that may be an ambition too far. I declare an interest, as I should have done in the last group, as chair of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. It would have been extremely useful to have inserted the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Berkeley, because that is precisely what my amendment is all about. It is about ensuring that our employment law ensures the rights of a growing segment of our workforce. Our current system is based on statutory definitions and case law, and it settled on three categories: self-employed; worker—also known as limb (b), as the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, mentioned —or dependent contractor; and employee. However, determining whether an individual falls within this framework is often inconsistent and reliant on lengthy and expensive court cases, such as the landmark Uber v Aslam case. The Minister has extremely helpfully undertaken a consultation on employment status, and that is exactly what this amendment was designed to provoke, so I feel that to a large extent we have succeeded in pushing the Government further towards defining that kind of employment status. I have had some useful conversations with Evri, which engaged in a legal case when it was under the name Hermes. As a result of its engagement with the GMB, it has come forward with what I think is an extremely interesting and satisfactory form of dependent contractor status that grants certain rights as if they were employees, and that is precisely what I hope this consultation will come up with in terms of family leave, entitlements, the right to request fixed hours and so on. The GMB, while awaiting formal policy setting through its democratic process, has expressed a positive stance towards retaining and reforming the limb (b) worker status. So I hope that the consultation that the Government engage in will not try to force everything into two categories but will make sure that that third category is recognised and given enhanced rights. I think there was some misunderstanding in Committee in what the Minister said. She talked about complications and so on, and I hope that does not mean that what we are all trying to get to is two categories, employment or self-employment. I hope that the result of the consultation will be to come forward with some kind of dependent contractor status for precisely the kinds of people that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was talking about—however fast they may go on their scooters.