It’s private members’ bill week in Parliament, with lucky backbenchers who won a place in the ballot presenting their proposed laws to the Commons on Wednesday. Labour MP Barry Gardiner, who spent 24 hours in the party’s leadership race last year, is up and planning a bill to outlaw ‘fire and rehire’ tactics used by some employers to drive down pay and conditions. It comes as Unite the Union – Labour’s biggest donor in recent years – runs a major campaign on this issue, coordinating a letter signed by more than 140 MPs and peers to outlaw the ‘abhorrent’ practice which occurs when an employer dismisses an employee and offers to rehire them on new terms.
So Mr S was surprised to obtain figures from IPSA – the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority – which show that Labour’s MPs are the most likely to rehire staff who left their employer. This could, of course, mean they end up on worse terms than they originally agreed to. A Freedom of Information request revealed that 78 members of MPs’ staff left the service of their MP in 2019 and were later reemployed by the same member, in 69 different MPs’ offices. Of the 69 MPs listed, no fewer than 30 were Labour – the same number as the Tories, compared to five for the Liberal Democrats and one apiece for the SNP, Plaid, DUP and Independents.
Given Labour has just 198 representatives in Parliament, this means that 15 per cent – or more than one in seven of the party’s MPs – have rehired a former staff member. Unfortunately IPSA only releases information by political party, in order to prevent identification of the MP or their employees, making it impossible to establish the circumstances in which staff left. But it should be noted that of the ten MPs who have managed to rehire two employees since 2019, Labour had the most of all the parties, implying this is standard office practice.
Steerpike hopes that all the MPs backing Gardiner’s bill have made sure their own house is in order before voicing support in the House.
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