Getting the right workers for the right job at the right place and time is business’ number one challenge. As I’ve travelled the country with the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, we heard that message from business after business, firm after firm.
That’s exactly why a business plan for Britain requires a ‘good work’ revolution.
Without one, businesses will continue to find growth restricted, and development constrained by lack of working hands.
In our committee, it’s our privilege to hear from the best of firms operating across the UK today. But we’ve also heard from some of the worst. Amazon executives who couldn’t tell us why their workers went on strike. Evri – which was accused of operating a slave drivers’ contract. McDonald’s, where allegations abounded of managers demanding sex for shifts. Shein, which couldn’t tell us if its cotton came from China.
Low labour standards aren’t the way to help Britain’s firms fix their skills shortage. Having heard the evidence, we believed there were three big changes needed to the Government’s Employment Rights Bill, which MPs voted on last week.
Yes, it needed to listen to business saying that their costs were rising too fast. But leaving loopholes in the law would maroon good businesses on an unlevel playing field, competing with firms that undercut them.
So, the Government must be upfront in the letter of the law as to when workers are entitled to contracts and must press on as fast as possible with defining clearly who is self-employed – and everyone else who isn’t.
Secondly, we must make sure we don’t simply offshore poor labour standards; allowing e-commerce firms to make their goods in sweatshops, import them at cut-down rates and undercut British manufacturing. The essential companion to this legislation is a bold update to the Modern Slavery Act.
Third, ministers must recognise that laws which aren’t enforced aren’t much good to anyone. Establishing a Fair Work Agency to do this is a good idea, giving it the power to improve conditions and transform fair competition – wiping out the grey economies that entrap workers in shocking conditions. But Parliament must have a plan for matching world class standards of labour rights enforcement.
If we learned one thing from last year’s elections around the world it’s that voters frustrated with poor living standards vote for populists. To avoid that peril here, the Government would be wise to ensure it keeps the needs of workers and businesses at the heart of its strategy for shared growth.
A shared growth that we want to see trickling through and benefitting all of us in Solihull and our region, especially our young people who were so inequitably affected by the constrictions of the pandemic – our future relies on their skill,aptitude and hard work; it is our job to provide the opportunity.
