Lord Leong (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions to today’s debate. The debate has been wide ranging, from special constables and heritage railways to the SSSNB. I am grateful for everyone’s valuable insight. I will address the points raised by all noble Lords. On Motion C, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for indicating his support for the Government’s proposed amendment in lieu. On Motion K1, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, on his new role within the Heritage Railway Association. I am grateful to him for working with the Government on this matter and look forward to continuing to work with him and my noble friend Lord Faulkner. I will address Motion N1 and the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. First, I want to make one point absolutely clear: I can confirm that the Bill will not set a ceiling on pay. In fact, it sets a minimum standard—the floor—where all support staff are entitled to negotiated pay. When taken together, the SSSNB measures in the Employment Rights Bill, the teacher pay measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and subordinate legislation respectively will mean that teachers and support staff in all maintained schools and academies in England can rely on a minimum pay offer. All schools will be able to innovate with pay. No one is saying that they cannot pay more than the minimum pay offer; they can be innovative in their pay and conditions to attract and retain the very best workforce that they need for our children. We are legislating for a new statutory body for school support staff rather than extending an existing system. School support staff have been without a school-specific national voice for far too long. It is right to establish a body where minimum terms are negotiated and agreed by school employer and employee representatives. As most noble Lords will know, roughly half of the 22,000 state-funded schools in England are now academies, and the body is being newly established, so it is right that academies are included in the statutory remit of the SSSNB in the same way as maintained schools. As I said earlier, beyond the minimum offer, school support staff will be able to benefit from more favourable pay and conditions. The SSSNB will also allow for greater consistency in the relationship between roles and training, and no one is saying that staff cannot be accorded any training support and pay. It will be up to the SSSNB to agree how this is to be done and what the core offer will look like. This can all be done by local arrangements. We want there to be a core offer that all support staff can expect to receive, with flexibility for employers to go beyond that in their respective local circumstances. Employers will be able to retain contracts for their employees that contain more favourable pay and conditions than were agreed prior to the SSSNB regulation. I hope I have answered some of noble Lords’ concerns. I urge all noble Lords to give due consideration to the Government’s amendments and trust that Members will feel able to lend support to our position.