It is important when we pass legislation in this House that we take into account our duty as employers of the staff who will be implementing the legislation. This legislation will abolish the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission, which will be brought together in one body. In the past, legislation—TUPE—has been introduced to ensure that those staff are protected, but TUPE applies only to those staff who are transferred from the public sector into the private sector. Therefore, to cover the situation where there are transfers within the public sector, there was an agreement under the previous Government—a Cabinet Office agreement of principles that was inherited, and supported, by this Government—that recommended that where there were transfers between public sector bodies there would be placed in legislation a commitment that TUPE would be applied. That has not been included in this Bill. It contains a reference to similar conditions to TUPE, but that does not give the guarantees that the staff are expecting; in fact, it jeopardises some of the benefits that have accrued to them over a period of time.
I send the message to the other place that Members of this House and of the other place have a responsibility for the staff whom we employ to implement legislation. Their views should be regarded—their trade unions have made this point to Government and it has been ignored—and they should be protected. I hope that an amendment will be tabled in the other House that gives this protection to the staff.
This is an extremely significant Bill. It undermines our health and safety regime and undermines the employment rights that have been built up over generations, and it means that bad employers will be able to sack, pressurise, bully and victimise staff with impunity.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission, and the legislation that we enacted in 2006 to ensure that it was effective, have had cross-party support, and I thought that that would be maintained even by this Government. However, this Bill, in addition to the 60% cuts in its budget and the 70% cut in staff, now undermines the commission’s legal foundations. In effect, as my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) said, this is leading towards the abolition of the body and therefore undermining equalities work in this country. What really sticks in my craw is the removal of the duty placed on the commission to promote equality for people with disabilities and to prevent discrimination against them. It reflects badly on the Government if this is the direction in which they are going.
The Bill also demonstrates the Government’s absolute incompetence. We are now in a situation where copyright
law is in complete confusion. They cannot even legislate effectively to control estate agents. That is the stage that we have reached with this Bill, and that is why I will oppose it.