Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his amendment. As we consider this legislation, it is timely to reflect on how it would interact with one of the most significant shifts in our labour market in recent decades: the rise of the gig economy. This sector has delivered considerable benefits, including increased flexibility, new income opportunities and innovative business models. It has allowed many individuals to engage with work on terms that suit their circumstances, whether as a primary or supplementary source of income. However, with any new form of work comes a degree of legal complexity. Our current employment framework was designed largely in a different era—one where work tended to take place in fixed locations, during fixed hours and under traditional contracts. The gig economy challenges many of those assumptions. For businesses, this complexity can lead to inconsistencies in regulation, administrative uncertainty and litigation risk; for individuals, it can mean uncertainty about rights and entitlements, and for policymakers, it raises the broader issues of whether and how the legal definitions of employment need to evolve to reflect modern working practices. The Bill, while not focused exclusively on the gig economy, touches on matters such as workplace rights, regulation and the role of secondary legislation that will inevitably affect it. We should therefore consider whether the legislation provides sufficient clarity for businesses operating flexible models, whether it supports fair and predictable frameworks for all parties, and how future regulations will ensure that any changes to employment classifications or entitlements are based on clear, evidence-led analysis. The question before us is not so much whether the gig economy is good or bad—it is part of the modern labour market, and it will obviously continue to grow and remain so. The more pressing question is whether the labour market is equipped to keep up with that evolution, and whether the Bill provides the right foundation for doing so. In that context, thoughtful and measured discussion about emerging work patterns such as dependent contracting, platform work, freelancing —which we discussed the other day—and other hybrid models are not only appropriate but very necessary. I look forward to further discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others, on this subject. Before I sit down, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for the great courtesy with which he has always conducted himself in his discussions and deliberations with our side. I enjoyed his valedictory remarks. I felt that he was perhaps slightly irked by the fact that we have had some relatively lengthy debates—perhaps because he did not agree with the premises of some of them. I would say very gently that that is the point of Committee; we are not supposed to agree, we are supposed to probe. As a former Home Office Minister, I have to say that these debates are not long; they are brief. These debates are like Usain Bolt; ours were like Mo Farah.