Ms Marie Mulholland:

Prior to Covid, I attended a meeting of employers. There is a HR company that looks after smaller employers and we were attending meetings for updates. I was shocked at the number of employers who did not know they were supposed to give their employees contracts. Where do we start if employees do not even have contracts of employment? This is what we are working with. This is the level. I do not think it is out of vindictiveness.

It is just a lack of knowledge and a lack of confidence about being an employer or a lack of training around being an employer. A person sets up a small business for something that he or she is passionate about, people come to help out and are paid a wage, and the person thinks that is the end of the obligation to the workers, when actually it is so much more than that. I often believe that domestic violence services are a bit like trade unions in that people only come looking for us when they need us. I have often felt there is a similarity between the two types of agencies. This is an interesting one because here we are: we need trade unions and we need domestic violence services on this one. This is what makes the Bill so potent; it is because it is looking at the life force of all businesses, which is the workers. It is about protecting those workers. How long have we fought to get women into employment? I note Vodafone has 52% of women in leadership. I took that down. The Bill protects all of the small gains that we have made and makes it more possible in the future for women to stay in employment. That has got to be a plus.