B

Baroness Noakes (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 8 May 2025

Debate

Employment Rights Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I will comment briefly on my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom’s Amendment 28, which replaces the test of reasonable belief with that of formal confirmation. I mentioned earlier the work done by the Low Pay Commission on zero-hours contracts when it reported in 2018. It also examined the issue of compensation for short-notice cancellation of shifts. It emphasised in its report that there would need to be fairly rigorous record-keeping. It said that both employers and employees would need “proof a shift had been offered”. That speaks to the content of Amendment 28. It does not seem to me to be sensible to have something that rests solely on reasonable belief, because that is impossible to prove and would result in difficult questions being put to an employment tribunal. Although I am obviously not in favour of imposing bureaucratic requirements on employers, this is one area where the legislation should point towards there being some formality of record-keeping so that there can be no dispute about whether shifts have been offered or cancelled.

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