Speeches by Madders.

“I beg to move amendment 46, in schedule 1, page 107, line 16, at end insert— “(4A) A worker has the right not to be subjected to any detriment by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by the worker’s employer done on the ground that— (a) the duty imposed by section 27BA(1) applies to the employer in relation to th…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member for that helpful run-through of some of the issues that we are actively considering. He will be aware that a consultation on the issue closed only yesterday, so I would not want to pre-empt the outcome by accepting the amendment today. We understand the various arguments he has advanced…”

“I understand the point the hon. Member is making, but he will understand that when a Government Department—in this case the Department for Work and Pensions—undertakes a formal consultation, it is obliged to consider all responses before coming to a conclusion. That is why it is premature to agree to his amendment.”

“The very issue that the hon. Member is putting forward in his amendment is the issue that the Department for Work and Pensions is consulting on at the moment, which is why it would be premature to make a decision at this stage.”

“Clause 9 provides for the removal of the requirement for an employee to earn at or above the lower earnings limit to be eligible for SSP. This requirement means that currently up to 1.3 million people, primarily women, are not entitled to receive SSP from their employer. This group are some of the lowest-paid in societ…”

“That is a reasonable question. It is another Department’s consultation so there are only so many levers I can pull, but I envisage that the amendment will be tabled at Report stage at the latest. I hope that is sufficiently clear. Question put and agreed to. Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Order…”

“I am grateful for the shadow Minister’s support for the amendment. Amendment 43 agreed to. Amendments made: 44, in schedule 1, page 107, line 10, after “27BA(1)” insert “or 27BD(5A) or (5B)”. This amendment is consequential on amendments 11 and 14. Amendment 45, in schedule 1, page 107, line 10, after “27BA(1)” insert …”

“I am afraid that I will not be able to tell the shadow Minister what will not be subject to the affirmative procedure. I think that the intention is actually for the amendment to bring everything that is in scope of the clause under the affirmative procedure, but I will endeavour to confirm that and come back to him, i…”

“I beg to move amendment 53, in schedule 1, page 109, line 30, leave out “last” and insert “latest”. This amendment and amendment 54 concern the calculation of a week’s pay for the purposes of an award of compensation by an employment tribunal following a complaint under proposed section 27BF of the Employment Rights Ac…”

“I will not detain the Committee too long on clause 4. It contains amendments to the Employment Rights Act 1996 related to clauses 1 to 3, which we have just debated. Proposed new section 27BU defines various terms used in clauses 1 to 3, and the rest of part 2A of the 1996 Act, relating to zero-hours workers and other …”

“Amendment 42 is another technical amendment that concerns not the function of the Bill but parliamentary procedure, so if we want another dry, technical debate, we certainly have the opportunity. Clause 4 makes provision for new section 27BW to be inserted into the Employment Rights Act 1996. New section 27BW(3) would …”

“I am grateful to the shadow Minister for tabling these amendments. He will again be unsurprised to learn that we will not be accepting them. The Bill fulfils our pledge to end exploitative zero-hours contracts. We are introducing a right to guaranteed hours to eligible workers on zero and low-hours contracts, to give t…”

“As the hon. Member will know, the total cost to businesses from the Bill, as set out in the impact assessment, is about 0.4% of total employer costs. We absolutely acknowledge that there are many good employers out there who do this already, and we hope that there are many employers who do not who will feel that it is …”

“I will not detain the Committee too long, because it feels like we have had the clause stand part debate already. I will briefly go through the provisions of clause 2, which creates the right to reasonable notice of shifts. As I set out when we discussed clause 1, we must tackle one-sided flexibility. Guaranteed hours …”

“The way the shadow Minister was intervened on made it feel like this was an Opposition amendment, but it is actually a Government amendment to deal with the issue of split shifts and the anti-avoidance measures. This is about rebalancing the level of risk faced by a worker and an employer. At the moment, the balance is…”

“I am afraid we are back into some of the more technical minor amendments, on which I will not detain the Committee too long. Amendment 24 will ensure that employers have to give reasonable notice of not only when a shift starts and how many hours it will be worked, but also when it will end. The Government’s intention …”

“I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 2, page 13, line 42, leave out “from what time on which day” and insert “when the shift is to start and end”. This amendment requires notice of a shift to include when the shift is to end (as well as how many hours are to be worked and from when).”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That is indeed the overall message from every provision in the Bill: that good employers are doing lots of these things already. Those things represent the kind of practice that we want to encourage and even to legislate for, because there is plenty of evidence that good wor…”

“I am grateful for the shadow Minister’s amendment. If it is a probing amendment, he has asked a lot of reasonable questions. There are, of course, things that we will be hoping to address today and during the passage of the Bill—and, indeed, the subsequent regulations. The first thing to say is that we do not believe t…”

“To pick up on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield, this is about who we are trying to help. This clause is primarily about low-income workers who do not currently have the security and certainty of regular hours. They are more likely to be young, female or from an ethnic minority back…”