Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, this is one of the most important parts of this legislation, and I am very conscious of the Labour Party’s manifesto and its success in the election last year. However, at the same time, this is the same Government who want to increase the employment rate to 80%, which has not been achieved in a very long time. If we go back in history, we see that the Blair-Brown Government did not make changes to go to zero or day-one rights in the same way. Yes, they changed it from two years to one year. The coalition Government later changed it back to two years. Yet we are now seeing—as has already been pointed out elegantly by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, in response to some of the comments raised on the Government Benches—that this is the Government’s own impact assessment. If we look at the Regulatory Policy Committee’s assessment of these proposals, we see that it gives a very strong red rating on this element and suggests that, basically, there is no evidence that they are in any way needed. There are aspects here of “What is the problem that the Government is trying to address?”. Lewis Silkin solicitors point out that if the only changes to be made were those referred to and we were still to have, as the noble Lord, Lord Hendy read out, the different approaches on fair dismissal in the tribunal, the Government could just put forward a statutory instrument based on the existing power of the 1996 Act. However, they have not done so in the Bill; they are seeking to go much further in a variety of ways in Schedule 3. That is why I share the concerns of many other noble Lords who are worried about the unintended consequences. Nobody can believe that a Labour Government would want to see unemployment rise or more people on benefits, or not tackle the challenge of people not in education, employment or training—