Robbie Moore

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend highlights that this Bill will not give businesses the certainty and confidence to recruit individuals who need that little bit more experience to get into the job market. Indeed, the Government’s own analysis points to an unintended consequence: “Where businesses cannot absorb the increase in labour costs, they may look to pass them onto workers by reducing expenditures that benefit workers (e.g. staff training) or scaling back future improvements to T&CS (e.g. wage growth).” This is not a pro-growth Bill, and it is not even a pro-work Bill; it is a pro-union Bill. The Government have even said this themselves. Their plan to make work pay has referred to this Bill as an “Employment Rights Union Bill”. Perhaps that is because the Bill is chock full of changes to union regulation made by our previous Conservative Government—changes that were specifically designed to protect the public from the unscrupulous practices of the unions and their more militant members. Minimum service provisions were introduced by the last Government specifically to protect the public from being caught in the crossfire between the unions and the Government—yet, by lifting those restrictions with this Bill, Labour is showing that it is more interested in appeasing its union bosses than in ensuring that minimum service is guaranteed throughout any dispute between the public sector and the Government.