PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Employment Rights Bill: Employment Rates - 17 March 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I meet regularly with Business and Trade Ministers. We are committed to working with businesses to ensure that policy is pro-employer and pro-worker. Boosting wages will increase workforce participation, helping employers fill vacancies and supporting us to reach our ambition of 80% employment.

With many Labour Members claiming that they care about young people being employed, has the Minister’s Department made assessments about the employment impact of the decision to introduce minimum guaranteed hours for students and young people who rely on the flexibility of being able to pick and choose their work hours, particularly those who are working in the hospitality sector, which is being decimated by this Government?

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts, but if somebody wants a flexible hours contract, then that is a good thing, and nothing in the changes prevents that. In fact, since I have been at the DWP, I have found that employers have not had sufficient contact from jobcentres and only one in six employers think about using them. When getting young people a proper range of choices and jobs through the jobcentre, not nearly enough work has been done to serve employers better. That is what a real growth agenda looks like from DWP.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit—a happy St Patrick’s day to you, Mr Speaker, and all your team.

The disability employment gap stands at 30% and countless disabled workers end up out of work because their employers refuse to make simple changes that would help them to do their jobs. Does the Minister agree that the default right to flexible working in Labour’s Employment Rights Bill will help many disabled workers to keep the jobs they love? What else can the Minister’s Department do to help more disabled people to find and keep work?

May I first say how great it is to hear the beautiful language of Irish spoken in this Chamber?

With the increase in conditions that can be variable over time, the flexible working right will help people. The Minister for Social Security and Disability and I are working closely with disabled people’s organisations, charities and others to think about how we can build those pathways into work as we change jobcentres and improve employment support, ensuring that raising disability employment rates is at the heart of those changes.