Speeches by Bance.

“Okay. You say there are 1,700 who are directly employed?”

“Yet, of course, the implication of having someone on an agency contract is that you can terminate them immediately with no notice.”

“My understanding is that there are numerous employees who have worked a decade-plus on agency contracts at the Shirebrook facility. Why do you continue to use agency contracts? Is it a way of ensuring that you minimise your liabilities to those workers?”

“Do you have any statistics around the length of time that those workers have worked on an agency contract at the Shirebrook facility?”

“Of the 4,000, how many of them have worked there for longer than the 22-week average that we heard REC talk of?”

“Turning now to the workers at your Shirebrook warehouse in Derbyshire, I think there are around 4,500 workers there. I may not quite be right. How many of those are on agency contracts?”

“No.”

“It is helpful to understand that.”

“That was why you said in your opening remarks that you would take the word “low” off the face of the Bill, to make it clear that it was all part-time hours and that everyone under full-time enjoyed protection against the behaviour that we have seen through zero-hours contracts.”

“Paddy, perhaps you can help me to understand. What we are talking about here with low hours is the boundary at which protections against zero-hours contracts kick in. Is that right? So, do you think there will be an impact if, say, the low hours were set at seven? Do you think that there would be an increase in the num…”

“I want to ask both Mr Carberry and Mr Lillis about the definition of low hours. One of the points that is being left out from the primary legislation on the face of the Bill is around groups of workers and the number of hours they need to work to qualify for the new protections against zero-hours contracts. What do you…”

“Sorry, what was their entitlement to holiday pay? If their terms and conditions were the same as your directly employed workers what was the entitlement of your freelance workers to holiday pay?”

“No, the question was about wage conditions.”

“Turning now to Mr Bedford, there have been reports that Deliveroo riders are subcontracting their accounts to workers who do not have the right to work in the UK. Do you have any concerns that substitutions are being used to exploit vulnerable workers?”

“Why do you continue to allow substitutions of riders when it has been so very well publicised that it is open to abuse? Surely it would be easier just to take away the right for people to nominate a substitute and then you would be confident that you were not contributing to an illegal market in inappropriate working.”

“The other way, of course, to deal with the issue of inappropriate use of substitution is for the employing company to recognise that its workers are in fact workers rather than self-employed. Why do you continue with this idea that these workers are self-employed rather than workers with a responsibility to your compan…”

“So you are not totally sure whether you were in compliance with relevant employment law when you engaged these workers via Temper? I am very happy for you to write to me with the results of your compliance on that point.”

“Thank you. So do you feel that you made a mistake working with this app?”

“Did it become clear that it was not something you wished to pursue before or after there was media coverage of the reputational impact on your company for using bogus self-employed workers employed through an app?”

“Sorry; you took the decision not to continue with the trial before or after the media coverage?”