Chamber and committees

I want to hear from some of the other witnesses. Perhaps Mr Cribb could answer first, and then I will come to Mr Zemanik.

We have covered quite a lot of ground, so I might return to one or two issues that we have already touched on.

Ms Allan, you have made the point that “economically inactive” might not be the best phrase. I want to ask you more about that because some people—women especially—are very active, but they are not counted as economically active because they are not paid. Is there a fundamental problem with the way that we calculate those statistics?

While we are talking about flexibility, do you see a difference on that between large and small employers?

That is a good point for me to come to Mr Zemanik. In your area, do you see differences between large and small employers in that respect?

I will come to the other witnesses, but you have raised in my mind various ideas that I would like to pursue. Another element could be support for people whose health is not so good, which might include those suffering from long Covid or other illnesses. Is that also an issue? I would think that employers should be providing more support in order to keep people in the workplace, but I can see that, if someone has only four or five employees it would be difficult to offer them health support. Is there an issue there?

That would be helpful. I read your evidence, and it suggested that some employers are perhaps not adhering to the law, let alone anything else, when it comes to health and safety, which would presumably cover that as well.

It is helpful to make those points because there are many repercussions. We could probably explore that further, but I will leave it at that.

Okay. Thanks.

From a slightly different angle, but on a related point, would you say that some employers are biased against older workers and older recruits? I do not know whether that is too blunt to say.

Ms Klair, from the perspective of the TUC, do you agree with what was just said? Are employers just not doing enough? Should there be some sort of enforcement on employers?

Is it the case that larger employers are perhaps a bit more sympathetic and able to adapt, whereas smaller employers are less tolerant, or is it not as simple as that?