Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)

I will again speak on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Amendment 141B is a no-brainer; I believe the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, referred to it as blindingly obvious. It would give workers the right to disconnect, which is already available to French workers; I am sure that many noble Lords have heard about that, since its introduction was seen to be world leading at the time. I am sure that many British workers expected to have exactly the same right as a result of this Bill, given the widely covered promises that the Labour Party made over recent years before it was in government. I quote the Labour Party 2022 Green Paper on employment rights, as it is unequivocal on this issue. It says: “Labour will bring in the ‘right to switch off’, so working from home does not become homes turning into 24/7 offices. Workers will have a new right to disconnect from work outside of working hours and not be contacted by their employer outside of working hours”. That is very clear. By June 2024, the party had fleshed that out with an explanation in the document, Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: “The pandemic has led to a step change in flexible and remote working practices in many workplaces, which … inadvertently blurred the lines between work and home life”. That is extremely worrying. The headline in that 2024 text is: “Right to switch off”. Unfortunately, backtracking is already evident, but the promise to the electorate is more equivocal: “We will follow similar models to those that are already in place in Ireland or Belgium, giving workers and employers the opportunity to have constructive conversations and work together on bespoke workplace policies or contractual terms that benefit both parties”. However, the headline was: “Right to switch off”. I think most people would have read that and hoped for a more balanced and less harassed life. The Green Party is always keen to help any Government. Here, we would like to help the Government live up to the promises they made to an exhausted and overstretched group of workers, who find themselves trapped with a boss who expects them to answer emails from the sideline of their child’s netball match or to take a client’s call when they are on holiday. The promise from the Government has been that they intend to introduce a statutory code of practice instead. That does not mean that such contact will be illegal or even prohibited, but if an employee can prove that they are routinely being contacted outside of their contracted hours then this can play a role in an employment tribunal payout. On the previous amendment, the Minister mentioned that it is possible to make complaints. Most people do not do that; it takes too long and they do not have the expertise to do it, and they may not even have the energy to do it—that is fair enough. Tribunal cases are possible but they are extraordinarily rare and extremely slow. We have a health crisis in the UK—an overworked crisis—and a huge imbalance in the power relationships between employers and employees, as many other parts of the Bill point out. In the Green Party, we are always constructive. This amendment provides the Government with a chance to live up to their promise to the electorate to empower workers and to help them remain healthy and engaged in their family and community lives, not for ever distracted by having to check their phone. After all, the economy is there to serve people; it is not for people to serve the economy. I beg to move.