Speeches by Madders.

“The shadow Minister will not be surprised to hear that we will resist the amendment. First, it is important to note that the Bill does not ban the use of fixed-term contracts, or seek to force employers to make workers on fixed-term contracts permanent. That is not our intention. We recognise that in some cases, a fixe…”

“The hon. Gentleman asked so many questions that I did not have a chance to make a note of them. A lot of the issues he raised will be dealt with by amendments that we will debate today or later in the Bill’s passage, but I take his points. We are trying to legislate in a way that prevents unintended consequences and lo…”

“The shadow Minister tempts me to pre-empt what we will put in the consultation. I have had a number of conversations with my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles over many years, because he has great experience of the retail sector, where there is a great deal of insecurity of work. People who work in that sec…”

“I am grateful to the shadow Minister for clarifying that this is a probing amendment, and possibly also that it is a ridiculous amendment, although I am not sure that that is the best way to persuade us to accept it. He will not be surprised to hear that we will not accept it. An important point has been raised, and my…”

“I think I understand the point my hon. Friend is making: sometimes, an individual who is aggrieved about their treatment will find a legal claim to pursue the employer even if it does not necessarily fit their circumstances. Giving a much clearer structure for employers will hopefully allow closure—I think that is prob…”

“I understand the point that the hon. Member is making. I think it would not need a new clause but a new Bill, because there is a whole range of very complicated issues about worker status. It is something that we are committed to looking at in our “Next Steps” document, and there is a whole range of issues in that sect…”

“On a very fundamental level, if an employee has less money coming than in the previous week, they face a challenge in paying their bills, whether that is their mortgage, their rent or whatever costs they face. That is a very clear challenge to individuals on zero-hours contracts. A great number of studies show that peo…”

“I congratulate the shadow Minister on tabling the amendments and on the measured way in which he presented them. However, it will not come as any surprise to him to hear that we will not be able to support any of them. The intention of amendment 137—or amended amendment 137—is to exclude SMEs from the provisions in cla…”

“The shadow Minister may be familiar with this line of questioning, because it is basically the same issue as earlier. I may have misinterpreted the way that amendment 141 interplays with the Employment Rights Act 1996, but the amendment refers to “an employer with 500 or more employees,” although the explanatory note t…”

“I refer to my registered interests and my trade union membership. The shadow Minister might well have anticipated my question. Obviously, we acknowledge that the Bill is being brought through at good pace, which means that sometimes mistakes occur. I cannot help but notice that the amendment on today’s paper is slightl…”

“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…”

“A lot of the questions the hon. Member asked will be dealt with by the regulations and by the anti-detriment provisions of the Bill. If he would like to see specific provisions in the Bill, he should have tabled amendments, but I believe we will address a lot of the detail he raised in due course. We are clear that thi…”

“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…”

“Here we are, three and a bit hours in, and we are on the stand part debate for clause 1. I hope we can make swifter progress, but I am sure Members will appreciate that we have debated a number of amendments to this clause, from both sides of the Committee. I will talk a little about clause 1, because it is central to …”