Member

Turning to Amendments 3, 4 and 5, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, as I have highlighted previously, we expect the length of the initial reference period to be 12 weeks. This balances the need for qualifying workers to be offered guaranteed hours reasonably soon after they start a role with the need for a reference period long enough to establish the hours that they regularly work. If the length of the initial reference period was set at 26 weeks, workers experiencing one-sided flexibility and unpredictability in their working life would have to wait six months to access their right to guaranteed hours. This is too long. Subsequent reference periods are a necessary component to ensure that all workers on exploitative zero-hours contracts will have continuous access to their right to guaranteed hours. If, for example, a worker failed to qualify during the initial reference period, or changed their mind after rejecting an initial offer, without subsequent reference periods they would not be able to access their right to guaranteed hours in the future.