Inside the making of the Employment Rights Bill | Politics with Anoosh Chakelian
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last October, the government published the Employment Rights Bill, a slate of reforms set to change workers' rights in the UK - from banning “fire and rehire” tactics, to ending exploitative zero-hours contracts, to giving workers employment protection from day one.
The bill has passed through the Commons and is currently on its third reading in the House of Lords - the first changes are expected to be enacted in 2026.
But what does this bill really mean for workers, businesses, and the economy? And could there be unintended consequences that even its biggest supporters are worried about?
Anoosh Chakelian is joined by Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, one of the UK’s leading trade unions representing over 150,000 professionals across science, engineering, and technology.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello, I'm Anous Shekelian and this is the New Statesman podcast. Last October, the government |
| 0:11.3 | published the Employment Rights Bill, a slate of reforms set to change workers' rights in the UK, |
| 0:16.4 | from banning fire and rehire tactics to ending exploitative zero-hours contracts to giving workers' employment |
| 0:22.1 | protection from day one. The bill has passed through the Commons and is currently on its third |
| 0:26.5 | reading in the House of Lords. The first changes are expected to be enacted next year. But what does |
| 0:31.6 | this bill really mean for workers, businesses and the economy? And could there be unintended consequences |
| 0:36.7 | that even its biggest |
| 0:37.6 | supporters are concerned about? I'm joined today by Mike Clancy, General Secretary of Prospect, |
| 0:42.7 | one of the UK's leading trade unions representing over 150,000 professionals across science, |
| 0:47.9 | engineering and technology. Mike, welcome. It's great to have you here. |
| 0:51.6 | Thanks for having me on. |
| 0:52.4 | Yeah. Well, before we get into the meet of this bill, can you maybe tell our listeners what your involvement has been in shaping it so far? Okay, well, as you kind of said, prospects, one of the major trade unions affiliated to the Trade Union Congress. We don't affiliate to the Labour Party, but we have a wide lobbying and political engagement strategy. |
| 1:14.1 | We've been talking to government and influencing the political process as the bill has passed through Parliament. |
| 1:22.5 | I myself, I'm on the ACAS Council and I'm also involved with the business department. |
| 1:27.5 | So I'm able to bring a perspective and, you know, a commentary to that. |
| 1:34.5 | And I think what we are seeing is the biggest legislative change in the world of employment for 14, 15 years. |
| 1:44.0 | So not surprisingly, it's got both its |
| 1:46.8 | major supporters and it's got its challenges as well. Yeah, and I'm glad that you put it in that |
| 1:52.3 | context because, you know, when was the last time in your experience, you know, of representing |
| 1:55.6 | your members and working in this area was the last time that we had a government intervention |
| 2:00.4 | on employment rights on this scale? Well, the last time that we had a government intervention on employment rights on this scale? |
... |
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