New workers rights bill marks ‘big shift’ for UK workforce, says employment minister

We spoke to the employment minister Alison McGovern – we started by asking her if she had given in to the business lobby over the employment rights bill.

Alison McGovern: No, not at all. And I think it’s Sharon Graham, who you’re quoting there from Unite, the union, and everybody will share their opinions about this bill. And that’s great. That’s very welcome. We’ve spent a long time talking about this, and this is a momentous day because we finally got the bill in front of us. However, there’s a long way to go yet in terms of the parliamentary process. So, yes, of course, people will share their opinions and we’ll continue to work with businesses and trade unions to get this bill right.

Cathy Newman: So you could, through the parliamentary process, you could beef some of this up. For example, on flexible working, where there is a default to flexible working. But businesses can refuse those requests from employees for a vast array of reasons. I just wonder whether you think that you’re able to sort of beef that up during the process.

Alison McGovern: As I say, I think this is about putting a principle in place, putting a floor underneath workers, because we’ve got far too many problems with an insecure workforce. So we want to shift that balance and give people new rights for the first time. Where there are questions like that, about how this will work in practice, we’ll talk to people about it. But also you’ll know that when we introduced the minimum wage that had a massive impact and also, it wasn’t perfect immediately. We worked on it over time. And that will be true of this big shift as well.

Cathy Newman: So you’re pulled both ways on this, aren’t you, because businesses say it could make it harder to hire workers. Will you listen to their concerns as the bill goes through?

Alison McGovern: As one of the ministerial team on the bill, I’ve already been listening to businesses, to trade unions, to charities and others, and quite often in the same room having those conversations together. And that’s how we’ll go on to get this right. You know, when I think about the hundreds of thousands of social care workers in this country, many of them, but not all of them, represented by trade unions, this is a big day for them because in social care, we’ve got too many low-paid people who are very highly skilled. And this bill will have a special effect for the first time, a negotiating body for the whole of the social care workforce. That’s a big shift.

Cathy Newman: None of these changes come in until 2026. So it’s change, as your slogan says, but it is change at quite a snail’s pace, isn’t it?

Alison McGovern: Some people will say we’re going too fast. For some people it won’t be quickly enough. The truth is, it takes time to legislate at the scale we’re doing today. This is a big bill. It’s got to make its way through the House of Commons and through the House of Lords and have that appropriate scrutiny.

Cathy Newman: Business has had its concerns about workers’ rights. They’ve got the budget coming up. The Guardian reports that you’re looking at, according to Treasury modelling, you’re looking at increasing capital gains tax to 39%. You also haven’t ruled out raising employers’ national insurance contributions. Is this budget going to worry business, do you think?

Alison McGovern: We’ve been talking very regularly with business over a whole number of issues. One of their major problems at the moment is not enough staff. It’s my job, and looking after our job centres and our work coaches, to try and get more people into good jobs. That is a thing that I’m working together with businesses on, day in, day out, and that will continue up to the budget and beyond.

Cathy Newman: Clearly, I don’t expect you to comment on the budget. You know, you’re not the chancellor, but, you know, she has limited her room for manoeuvre by making promises on income tax and VAT and national Insurance and so on during the election campaign. So there aren’t many taxes that she can go for. So going back to your department, welfare reform and employment rights are going to have to, you’re going to have to be pretty ambitious on that going forward, aren’t you, to avoid swingeing public service cuts?

Alison McGovern: We are very ambitious on it because at the moment, if you go into a job centre, there are brilliant work coaches there but the problem is the system holds them back. There’s too much admin, there’s too much box ticking. They can’t focus enough on the human being in front of them. And I want to change that.

Cathy Newman: You just added a whole load of regulations in what you set out today. So employers are going to look at that and go, well, I don’t think I’m going to take on those people who are struggling to get back into work, as you describe it.

Alison McGovern: I think employers have different views about this and I respect that. I think some employers would say there are things here we already do and we’re interested in there being a platform underneath workers so that the better businesses aren’t undercut by the bad. I think employers will want to work with us to get the detail of this right. For young people, their challenge is that they failed, you know, had a bad experience at school. The qualifications they need, that they didn’t get, and there’s been nothing in place to help them since then. So those are big challenges. Liz Kendall, secretary of state, and I are very ambitious about change.