Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, I rise to speak on this really quite interesting clause. I have carefully read Hansard from the other place in trying to understand what it is really putting in place. I am concerned by aspects of the comments made by the Minister at the other end, Justin Madders. He said that it really means only that businesses have to consult on their location and only with trade union representatives, and that, “By the way, these things get sorted in legal debate in the courts, and we hope the courts will understand”. That is not good enough when we are writing primary legislation. In thinking this through, it is important for the Committee to consider what is happening here. Why is this needed? It has apparently been done to reduce the pressure on people with a vulnerability. Let us take the example of a pub chain, which has quite a big estate and has decided that it is going to reduce its number of hours. That could be a consequence of some of the other measures being brought in by the Government or just a trend that is happening. So it starts to think about what it is prepared to do in terms of how many people it employs in its pubs. It may not want to do that straight away; it may want to think about it in different sections and to leave that discretion to local managers. The man or woman in the street would think that that is perfectly sensible. However, the businesses that gave oral and written evidence to the Bill Committee are worried—which the Minister recognised in saying that they should not worry—because that is exactly what the legislation is saying they will have to do. They could be undertaking consultation at huge expense, right across the country, while recognising that some of those situations could be very localised. We already have sensible measures in place. When there are going to be significant redundancies across the country, it is already a legal requirement for them to go before Ministers, whether from the Department for Business and Trade or the Department for Work and Pensions, who can then mobilise local jobcentres and the like to prepare for those redundancies. Imagine going back to the business considering the impact of that on what can be quite localised operations. The Explanatory Notes are silent, frankly, which is why I took to reading Hansard from the Commons. I am concerned and would be grateful to hear from the Minister why this is the right approach and how, despite the uncertainty still left in this legislation, the Government want this to be in place. Instead, they should accept the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt to make sure that these situations are well considered and that we do not end up in a situation where, despite the primary legislation, we have to go to an employment tribunal again and again. For that reason, I hope the Minister accepts my noble friend’s amendments.