Speeches by Bance.

“Are you comfortable with the pace of change of movement of people on to directly employed contracts?”

“Okay. Are you comfortable with that pace of change and do you think that pace of change will enable you to meet your obligations under the new Employment Rights Bill when it enters into law in the next couple of years?”

“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?”

“Can I check something? Paddy, I think you said in your opening remarks that the 12-week reference period was used for holiday pay and that it was very recently got rid of for holiday pay, I think in the last two or three years. Many employers will have systems that enable them to operate a 12-week reference period for …”

“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.”

“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?”