Lord Lucas (Con)

My Lords, I have Amendment 107A in this group, which is intended to be an entirely helpful amendment for the Government, allowing them to put nine months on the face of the Bill but preserve all the flexibility they have there at the moment. I think that would be a small step forward in giving comfort to employers to know what is coming their way. I understand that probationary periods are uncomfortable for people who want to take them—it would be interesting to try them in this House. None the less, when you run a small business, as I do, they are important. I have in the past employed prisoners; actually, every single one of those has worked out really well. I have employed promising young people who have turned out to be a total disaster. It is really hard to know. You cannot rely on references these days; nobody gives a truthful bad reference, because they would just get sued for it, so it is really hard to pick up warning signals. Everyone’s documents are compiled by AI, so they are beautifully written and answer all the questions perfectly. You cannot interview everybody, you have to take a chance, and sometimes it just does not work out. To have to prove capacity or competence is hard. I do not know whether any noble Lords here have been involved in a school where the head has not quite worked out. It is really difficult to get rid of them on the basis of competence; it takes so long to negotiate their departure. If you are faced with that sort of disincentive for the ordinary, run-of-the-mill employees—“If get this wrong, I’ll be saddled with a £50,000 bill for unfair dismissal”, which is about the scale of these things if you are paying people decently—that is a big disincentive to employing people in the first place. It is certainly a huge disincentive to taking on people who have a question mark in their CV—a period of unemployment or something that looks odd about it—or who are just young. We want people to take risks. I have enjoyed taking risks. It is wonderful when it goes right. You really feel you have helped someone in their career and have been part of building a life for them. They leave you, which usually they do, but you take pleasure in what they have gone on to do and the success they have made of their life, and perhaps you have done a bit there. But it is a risk, and to load that risk on to what is by its nature an inexact, uncomfortable and uncertain decision is a real incentive not to take that decision—not to hire. I think it would be a mistake to go down that road, although I am comfortable, as the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, pointed out, with a shorter timescale. You ought to know, if you are paying attention, whether things are right within three months; you might want to give someone a bit of extra leeway if you think they can set themselves right—but not holding it at two years. I am totally in favour of that; nine months seems a decent figure. It has to be possible, as my noble friends have said, to dismiss people just because it has not worked out. In some circumstances that is the best you can say: “No, sorry—we both did our best and it didn’t happen”.