Anneliese Midgley

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I absolutely agree with him about the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East has done on this for over a decade. This Bill brings changes that tip the scale in favour of working people and, taken together with the rest of the new deal for working people, it amounts to the greatest uplift in workers’ rights in our generation. That is down to the friends that I have just mentioned here today. It is their legacy and it is one that will change the lives of millions of working-class people for the better. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), will do a great job of completing the process. This is personal for me, because it was my dad’s secure, well-paid, unionised job on the production line in Ford’s Halewood plant that gave me a better life than my mum and dad had. It lifted us out of poverty and provided us with enough money and stability for a decent home, and enough to live a life of dignity on. Everyone should have that, and that is why I will fight for work where people can flourish and thrive and for jobs to take pride in that can provide a good life. No way would I be here in this place, representing the place where I was born and raised, if it was not for my dad’s job. The Tories, backed by the Lib Dems in the other place, are trying to water down the Bill. They are aided and abetted by Reform, who are never in this place to debate this and have consistently voted against the Bill. Some of the Lords amendments would rip out the heart of the Bill. I am going to speak briefly to amendments 23 and 106 to 120, which would delay protections from unfair dismissal until a worker had been in their job for six months. This would mean that a worker could be dismissed at whim, for no reason. How is this okay? How is it defensible? A day one right not to be unfairly dismissed is good for workers and good for businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) spoke about the research from the IPPR and the TUC, which found that 73% of employers supported giving employees protection from unfair dismissal from day one of employment. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), dismissed the TUC’s research from the Dispatch Box, but it represents 5 million workers and everyone else at work. Are they not stakeholders who should be listened to as well? We know that good employers up and down the country already live up to the standards that we are setting out in this Bill. Today, we need to stop these attempts to water down the Employment Rights Bill, deliver the protections from unfair dismissal that our constituents voted for and make sure we deliver the new deal for working people in full.