It was a legislation-heavy week in Parliament, as three bills completed very different stages of their parliamentary journey. Alongside this, I got to speak in a debate on the future of English football, and to tell the story (which I for one never tire of!) of the Albion’s journey over the last few decades. But before I get to that, a quick summary of the bills we debated this week.
First, the Government’s flagship Employment Rights Bill, which completed its passage through the Commons. This is a totemic bill for the Labour government – pro-worker and pro-growth and delivering the biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in a generation. It means that an extra 1.
3m people will receive statutory sick pay, it bans fire and rehire and exploitative zero-hour contracts and it extends parental and bereavement rights for millions of workers. It also brings an end to the insecure, short-termist approach that’s characterised our labour market for too long – helping to keep people in work for longer, and to make work pay. At the other end of the Commons journey, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill was published on Tuesday.
This will be central to delivering Labour’s plans to boost growth, including building 1.5 million homes and the infrastructure we need alongside it. As I’ve said in this column before, Britain simply has to get building again.
It’s frankly a national embarrassment that we haven’t built a new reservoir since 1992, a new nuclear power plant since 1995 o.
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