Latest news with #Lords
The Independent
8 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Lords accused of trying to block Labour's zero-hours contract ban for ‘bad bosses'
Peers in the House of Lords have been accused of trying to block key protections for millions of workers as they push through major changes to Labour's Employment Rights Bill. The Lords last week voted in favour of several amendments brought forward by Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers which row back on reforms to zero-hours contracts, day-one protections and more. It comes as a blow to the government – which pledged in its 2024 manifesto to end 'exploitative' zero-hours contracts – and sets up a showdown between the Lords and Commons. General secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Paul Nowak said: 'the sight of Hereditary Peers voting to block stronger workers ' rights belongs in another century. It's plain wrong.' 'They are doing the bidding of bad bosses,' he added, and encouraged the government to 'stand firm.' Under the Lords' amendments, the requirement for employers to offer zero-hours workers a contract would be changed to instead require the worker to ask for the arrangement. Protections against unfair dismissal from day one of employment were also amended, instead bringing the time up to six months. Legislation currently ensures the protections after two years of employment. There were also several amendments to trade union laws voted in, including a requirement for members to actively opt into trade union political funds, rather than opt out. This came alongside another amendment to ensure the 50 per cent turnout threshold for industrial action is not repealed in the bill. The amendments were put forward by Tory peers Lord Hunt, shadow business minister, and Lord Sharpe, alongside Liberal Democrat Lord Goddard. Ministers will address the amendments when MPs return to Commons from summer recess at the start of September. The two houses will then continue to vote on the changes in a process known as parliamentary 'ping-pong' before a finalised version of the bill is agreed upon. Responding to criticism, Lord Hunt said: 'All the evidence shows that workers value and support that flexibility and the diverse job opportunities it continues to create. The world of business – which creates the wealth we need – has repeatedly made it very plain that the Government's proposals go too far and jeopardise that vital flexibility. 'In too many respects the Government's Bill aims to give new powers to the trade unions as organisations, not to the workers themselves, but the Lords amendments would create a better balance. They will protect and create more jobs and serve the working people of Britain well.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Zero-hours contracts: peers accused of ‘trying to block stronger UK workers' rights'
Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers have been accused of trying to block stronger rights for millions of workers amid a growing campaign by business leaders to water down Labour's zero-hours contract plans. In a blow for the government, the Lords last week voted to curtail the manifesto promise to give workers a right to a guaranteed hours contract and day-one protections against unfair dismissal. Setting up a showdown with the upper chamber, the Lords passed a series of amendments to the employment rights bill that will must be addressed by ministers when MPs return from their summer break. In an angry intervention on Monday, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Paul Nowak, said the Lords was 'doing the bidding of bad bosses' and ought to 'get out of the way' of the plans. 'The sight of hereditary peers voting to block stronger workers' rights belongs in another century. It's plain wrong,' he said. Under the Lords' amendments, a requirement for employers to offer zero-hours workers a contract covering a guaranteed number of hours would be shifted to place the onus on staff to ask for such an arrangement. Protections against unfair dismissal from the first day of employment – which the government plans to reduce from the current level of two years – would be extended to six months, and changes to free up trade unions would be curtailed. The bill will return to the Commons in September for MPs to consider the amendments. The two houses then continue to vote on the changes in a process known as 'ping-pong' until a way forward is agreed. The amendments were put forward by the Lib Dem Lord Goddard, a former leader of Stockport council, and two Tory peers: Lord Hunt, who is a shadow business minister, and Lord Sharpe, a former investment banker. Hunt did not respond to a request for comment. Sharpe said: 'Keir Starmer's unemployment bill is a disaster for employees as much as it is a threat to business. Labour politicians who have never worked in business are destroying the economy. Only the Conservatives are listening to business and making the case for growth.' Goddard said he feared Labour's 'rushed bill' would be bad for workers in small businesses and on family-owned farms. 'They were badly let down by the Conservatives, and Labour seems to have a blind spot when it comes to farms and small businesses, too. 'We support the bill as a whole and have worked constructively to try to improve it. It's a shame to see the government getting upset that we didn't simply give them a blank cheque.' Employers groups welcomed the changes, saying the Lords was responding to business concerns. Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said: 'Putting forward positive, practical and pragmatic amendments to the employment rights bill [will] help to protect the availability of valuable, local, part-time and entry level jobs up and down the country.' Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Industry chiefs have stepped up lobbying against the workers' rights changes, warning that companies were already slashing jobs and putting up prices in response to tax rises in chancellor Rachel Reeves's autumn budget. Dickinson said there was 'further to go' to curb the employment rights bill. 'Even with these amendments accepted, retailers remain worried about the consequences for jobs from other areas of the bill.' Union leaders have, though, urged ministers to stand firm. A recent mega poll of 21,000 people commissioned by the TUC found a majority of UK voters – including Conservative, Lib Dem and Reform UK supporters – backed a ban on zero-hours contracts. Nowak said the government plan included 'commonsense protections' that a majority of people wanted to see become law. 'These peers are not just out of touch, they are actively defying their own voters – and the public at large. The government must stand firm in the face of cynical attacks and deliver the employment rights bill in full.'
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Sport
- Telegraph
Hobbling Rishabh Pant showed that cricket is in dark ages on substitutes
A few Test batsmen have returned to the wicket when more badly injured than Pant but not many. He re-appeared on the second morning at Old Trafford at 314-6, marked his guard with his left foot, and added two runs off the eight balls he faced before lunch, both of them hobbled singles. Australia's Rick McCosker batted with a broken jaw in the Centenary Test of 1976-7 against England at Melbourne. He would never have passed the concussion Test prescribed now after being hit on the head, helmetless as it was. Lord Cowdrey, or Colin as he was in 1963, walked out to bat with a broken arm in the Lord's Test against West Indies, though he did not actually face a ball, while Malcolm Marshall, with a broken thumb, scored a boundary with one hand against England at Headingley in 1984. But nobody injured has resembled Pant, if only because nobody when fit has resembled Pant, the most maverick of Test cricketers to date. Never mind that the injury was self-inflicted to all intents - any sensible person would not have tried to reverse-sweep Chris Woakes. Still, it was a valiant act when he hobbled out half-an-hour before lunch on day two, his right shoe bigger and more substantially padded than his left. Fainter hearts would not have fancied a bat against Ben Stokes operating at full throttle in grey light. Pant had scored 37 off 48 balls before being carted off to hospital on the first evening, his right foot broken. Chivalrously - and there is a distinct chivalrous streak in Stokes - England's captain pitched the last three balls of his over fullish and widish. Pant had no runner of course: that gentleman's agreement was abused so often that runners are forbidden now in the professional sport. Before the lunch interval, Pant managed to hobble a single when he forced a ball square off Stokes: it would have been two had he been able to run. He somehow pushed another single square of the wicket off Brydon Carse, taking him to 39, before reverting to type and trying his first yahoo. What makes Pant attempt these shots, shots which normal batsmen never attempt in a Test match, even in this era of T20? He might get bored easily: a few dot balls and he indulges in something outrageous. Often a rationale lurks beneath the surface: it was predictable that Carse was going to bowl outside off stump, so a yahoo was a free hit, which Pant happened to miss. But the next ball from Carse was similar, if not identical, and Pant chose to let it pass through to the wicketkeeper. The essential key to Pant being the inimitable Pant is that he is an all-rounder with the licence that his role involves. He can always do a good job for his side by keeping wicket, if he happens to get himself out to something wild - like the shot in the Test series in Australia last winter which had the watching Sunil Gavaskar shouting: 'Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!' If anyone today comes close to Pant in the ambitiousness of his strokes, it has to be England's Harry Brook. Some of his shot-selection in the third Test at Lord's was Pant-ian, but it did not get him beyond 23. And for all his attempts at medium-pace, he is no all-rounder. Joe Root has an imp on his shoulder, but he has kept it under control since being castigated for a reverse-sweep in India against, of all bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah. He only indulges his impulse now when England are in control of a game. And before helmets, nobody was insane enough to attempt such shots as Pant did on the opening day at Old Trafford when he swept Jofra Archer. The right balance between risk and reward, in Pant's case, would probably have been if he had played normally against England's pace bowlers, including Woakes, and gone after the spinners Liam Dawson and Root. Method does lie in Pant's apparent madness. If he is injured in the course of executing some of the most astonishing shots that Test cricket has ever seen - if he suffers an impact injury, that is - then he can be replaced when the time arrives for India to field. In this instance he handed over to Dhuv Jurel, by common consent the better wicketkeeper.
Spectator
6 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
The best deer deterrent? Radio 4
Behind the latest push for recognition of a Palestinian state – even though there is no agreement of what it is that might be recognised – is a sort of impersonation of the story of Israel. Palestinian activists want their own Balfour Declaration. President Macron wants France and Britain to come up with their own Sykes-Picot agreement, but pro-Palestinian. You might think that the clamour would have been shamed into silence by the massacres and hostage-taking committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023. On the contrary, these have somehow empowered the mimicry in wilder and more horrible ways. The genocide, we are now told, is being committed not by Hamas, but by Israel's response. The 'concentration camps' are being set up by Israel in Gaza. And back here in Britain, where it might seem to the unprejudiced observer that anti-Semitism is now almost literally running riot, it is 'Islamophobia' which is being defined as an enemy so great that only one of our many religions must be protected by law, despite the cost to free speech. 'Zionists', by which is now meant Jews (note this change of nomenclature between the Hamas Charter of 1988 and that of 2017), are painted as the murderous classes, so Britain must be 'de-zionised'. Does David Lammy realise where his new rhetoric is leading him and his party? One reason why nothing gets done in this country is that bureaucratic power lies in delay. A business or a private individual needs to get on because his time is his money: the bureaucracy's time is our money, so it has all the time in the world. This is an acute problem in relation to payouts for infected blood, the Post Office scandal etc. A faithful reader, Keith Miles, has an idea. Reverse the process, he says. Force the civil service to pay out £1 million to each acknowledged victim within three months unless it can be proved in that time that the money is not owed. Then the boot will be on the other foot. On Monday, the House of Lords agreed that the bill to remove all hereditary peers from the House of Lords 'do now pass'. The thing will not be complete until the Commons has considered amendments in September, but the death sentence has now been pronounced on the practice of more than 700 years. One or two speeches noted the melancholy historical significance of the change. The House is becoming a rump, though admittedly a large one. But I was interested by a rather more basic point made by the departing Earl of Caithness. When he had first taken his seat 50 years ago, he said, the daily allowance for attending the Lords was £4.73, which is £105.14 in current values. After Labour got rid of most hereditaries and brought in more of its own appointments at the turn of this century, the allowances 'increased hugely', the maximum daily allowance going up by 50 per cent. Today, peers can claim an allowance of £371 a day. As many of us have complained, Labour is jettisoning the hereditaries without reforming the Lords on a new basis, but I think we can be perfectly confident that, as it becomes predominant there, the allowances will rise higher still. The Nationwide, by far the country's biggest building society, is trying to be like a bank, and its customers are unhappy. Its chief executive, Dame Debbie Crosbie, earns £7 million a year and board candidates proposed by its members never get chosen. I suspect the members' fears are well founded. In the market town near us, all the high-street banks have closed, but the Nationwide branch continues. I go there from time to time because my mother is now too frail to manage the journey and so I transact her Nationwide account for her. My visits have impressed me with the social utility of the place. Almost every customer is either old or, like me, acting on behalf of the old. There is a lot of fiddling with spectacles and hearing aids and struggling with forgotten passwords. Old ladies try to sort out their late husband's financial affairs or transfer money to their daughter in New Zealand. Everything moves slowly. The staff are completely patient and, unlike the computer, very rarely say no. I can see why Dame Debbie might feel she has bigger fish to fry. And I agree with the members who therefore suspect her. What is a building society building by paying £7 million to anyone? In the early 1970s, I used to stay with a schoolfriend whose parents lived in Old Church Street, Chelsea. In the same street was the rectory of Chelsea Old Church which was, believe it or not, occupied by the rector, and parish children could play in its two-acre garden. Not long afterwards, the Church Commissioners sold it off. Now it is offered for sale by its non-dom owner who is fleeing the Reeves-Starmer Terror. The reported price is £250 million. I sometimes wonder if anything has done more than house prices to damage our social fabric. Although for professional reasons I feel I must sometimes listen to the Today programme, I almost never listen to anything else on Radio 4. This is a wrench for me since it was the staple of my parents and my boyhood but, like so many, I cannot stand being preached at. However, I keep in touch with the station because my wife has erected a sort of alarm to keep deer out of our garden. As the fallow or roe jump in, they trigger a burst of whatever is playing on Radio 4. My sister's partner uses the same contraption in their garden, but he tunes the alarm to Radio 2 and has much less success in frightening off the marauders. I wonder why. When I go past the alarm myself, setting it off, I do notice that most snatches of dialogue are, even now, conducted in the tones of educated men and women. Perhaps the deer are more in awe of voices 'born to command' than of popular songs.
Times
22-07-2025
- Sport
- Times
Shubman Gill: England's time-wasting was not in spirit of the game
Shubman Gill has accused England of not playing within the spirit of cricket after employing what the India captain believes were deliberate time-wasting tactics on the third evening of the Lord's Test match. India were bowled out for 387 late on day three of the third Test, leaving England with eight minutes to bat that evening, which should have been enough time for India to bowl two overs at Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett. However only one over was possible because of delays, which included Crawley twice pulling out of his stance while Jasprit Bumrah was at the top of his mark and then calling for treatment from the England physiotherapist after being hit on his hand. Gill also accused England of being late to come out to the middle. The combination of delays resulted in Gill telling Crawley to 'grow some f***ing balls' in an incident that sparked several other heated moments throughout the rest of the match, which England won by 22 runs to take a 2-1 lead in the series.
