‘Paid work’ or underpaid labour? The labour exploitation of detainees within immigration detention

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By Dr Katie Bales, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School) and Dr Lucy Mayblin, Assistant Professor in Sociology (Department of Sociology, Warwick University).*

© Chloe Juyon

In June 2017, ten immigration detainees launched a judicial review action against the Home Office challenging the payment of ‘slave’ like wages for labour undertaken within immigration detention.

This practice, termed ‘paid work’ by the Government, is remunerated at a rate of £1.00 or £1.25 per hour and includes work as cleaners, cooks, hairdressers, gym orderlies and gardeners – roles that are essential to the running of the immigration removal centres. In 2014 this practice resulted in 44,832 hours’ worth of work.

In this blog, we argue that this work is exploitative and ‘unfree’. In recognition that many detainees wish to work however, we do not call for an end to this practice; rather we highlight the structural conditions that render detainees more likely to accept exploitative conditions of work (including but not restricted to low pay), and argue that, at the very least, detainees should be provided with the national minimum wage. (more…)

Half-hearted, half-baked and stuck in the rut of business as usual: The Government’s Response to the Green Paper Consultation on Corporate Governance Reform

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By Prof Charlotte Villiers, Professor of Company Law and Corporate Governance (University of Bristol Law School).

The UK currently faces huge economic and political challenges. The Brexit negotiations are clearly of central importance and the outcome will strongly influence our country’s future as a trading nation. Our economic prospects will also be dependent on the strength of our corporate governance system. During the past couple of years, a number of corporate scandals and failures such as the demise of BHS with its huge pension losses and the worker exploitation at Sports Direct as well as continued publicity of ‘fat cat’ executive pay have threatened the reputation of the UKs corporate governance framework. In light of these negative reports a corporate governance inquiry was launched by the House of Commons Committee of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Government published a Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform in November 2016. Despite a busy schedule with Brexit and a slimmed down Queen’s Speech, the Government continues to pursue its plans for corporate governance reform with its publication of a Government Response to the Green Paper in August 2017.

When Theresa May made her speech launching her campaign to become Prime Minister in July 2016 she announced her intention to ‘have not just consumers represented on company boards, but employees as well.’ She repeated the promise as Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference in the same year. In that same campaign speech in July Theresa May also noted that during the previous eighteen years executive pay had more than trebled and there was ‘an irrational, unhealthy and growing gap between what these companies pay their workers and what they pay their bosses’. She said that she wanted ‘to make shareholder votes on corporate pay not just advisory but binding’ and ‘to see more transparency, including the full disclosure of bonus targets and the publication of “pay multiple” data: that is, the ratio between the CEO’s pay and the average company worker’s pay’ and ‘to simplify the way bonuses are paid so that the bosses’ incentives are better aligned with the long-term interests of the company and its shareholders.’

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Cowboys of the wild west? — Some context on the influence of fee-charging McKenzie Friends in family law

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By Dr Leanne Smith, Senior Lecturer in Law (School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University) and Dr Emma Hitchings, Senior Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).*

© Christopher Dombres

In mid June 2017, the report of our Bar Council commissioned research on fee-charging McKenzie Friends in private family law cases was published (the full report can be accessed here and an executive summary here).

One of the report’s key messages is that we found little evidence of McKenzie Friends seeking to exercise rights of audience on a regular basis and plenty of evidence that the bulk of the work done by McKenzie Friends is done outside of court. The work McKenzie Friends do in court, we said, is ‘the tip of the iceberg’. This was the finding that the Pink Tape blog outlining Lucy Reed’s perspective on the research focused on, indicating that it was not at all surprising. We hope we can be forgiven here for indulging in a few words in defence of the utility of the research.

We readily accept that many in the legal professions have been aware for some time that paid McKenzie Friends operate predominantly outside court, but research has an important role to play in interrogating anecdotal evidence and providing more systematically derived evidence in order to validate or debunk it.  This is no less true because perceived experience is validated by a set of results. In this instance, our hope is that the findings of the research will function as a turning point for discussion on the subject of fee-charging McKenzie Friends in a way that the observations of some professionals who encounter them has not. In addition there are, of course, some more granular observations that we consider important buried in our report, though we will resist spoilers for those who haven’t yet finished reading it…

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Who Do You Think You Are, Fearne Cotton and her conscientious objector great-grandfather

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By Prof Lois Bibbings, Professor of Law, Gender and History (University of Bristol Law School).

One hot sunny day in the middle of June I set out on the train, bacon butty and extra strong coffee in hand, for an afternoon of secret filming at a location I couldn’t talk about.

Weeks earlier I had been contacted by a production company, researching for possible programme content. It soon became clear that others working in the relevant area had had similar approaches. The company, Wall To Wall, the programme, Who Do You Think You Are.

Each episode of WDYTYA takes a celebrity on a journey, investigating their family history. It seeks to tell historical stories in an engaging, human way, with the featured celebrity discovering a gradually unfolding narrative about some of their ancestors. There have been a fair few surprises and twists in the tales told over the 13 series to date, with Danny Dyer’s shock at uncovering a royal lineage perhaps one of the most memorable for me. At the point I was contacted they were working on series 14 and the celebrity at the centre of their investigations remained unknown. Initially I was asked about my research on WW1 conscientious objectors. Then I was given was a name, Evan Meredith, and a little information about the part of his story Wall to Wall were interested in.

Having conducted some initial research, looked at some documents and been sounded/sussed out in person by the director and assistant producer, I was signed up to appear. I was to cover some aspect of one of the stories investigated. It was at this point that everything became pretty clandestine – I signed a scary non-disclosure agreement and, as if by magic, was sent the name of the celebrity.

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Challenge to ‘Prevent duty’ in universities rejected in judicial review proceedings

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By Prof Steven Greer, Professor of Human Rights (University of Bristol Law School).

On 3rd August 2017 it was announced that, a week before, the High Court had rejected a claim, brought in judicial review proceedings by Dr Salman Butt, that the inclusion of his name in an official press release about tackling extremism in universities and colleges was unlawful and in breach of his human rights (Salman Butt v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 1930 (Admin)). Relying on information provided by the Home Office Extremism Analysis Unit (EAU), which had opposed the publication of any names, the press release referred to 70 events on university premises in 2014 featuring ‘hate speakers’. However, as the result of an ‘oversight’, six people including Dr Butt, were also identified as ‘expressing views contrary to British values’ on campus. The judgment in this case is the first significant judicial contribution to the debate about the ‘Prevent duty’ created by s.26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (CTSA) which requires schools, universities, the NHS and other institutions to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. (more…)

A new duty of care for banks and other financial institutions? The Financial Services Consumer Panel’s proposal

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By Dr Holly Powley, Lecturer in Law, and Prof Keith Stanton, Professor of Law (University of Bristol Law School).

© Chris Brown

The past few years have witnessed a debate in the field of banking and broader financial services law: should the law relating to the duty of care owed by financial services firms to their customers be reformed? The Financial Services Consumer Panel (FSCP) argues that the answer to this question is yes; the current law does not provide consumers with adequate levels of protection, and thus the law needs to be. The current regulatory regime requires firms to treat their customers fairly, however the FSCP believes that banks and other financial services firms should be held to a higher standard and for this reason have advanced reform proposals to address this issue.

The purpose of this blog post is to analyse the content of the reform proposals and assess the viability of any reform, in light of the existing legal regime. It will be argued that, as indicated by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the proposal advanced by the FSCP is unlikely to improve the law in this area. (more…)

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill: Paving the way towards a very uncertain future

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By Prof Phil Syrpis, Professor of EU Law (University of Bristol Law School).

The stated aim of the, then Great, Repeal Bill was to provide clarity and certainty for citizens and businesses, and to ensure a functioning statute book on exit from the EU. The key statement of principle in the White Paper was as follows: ‘In order to achieve a stable and smooth transition, the Government’s overall approach is to convert the body of existing EU law into domestic law, after which Parliament (and, where appropriate, the devolved legislatures) will be able to decide which elements of that law to keep, amend or repeal once we have left the EU. This ensures that, as a general rule, the same rules and laws will apply after we leave the EU as they did before’ (for analysis, see here).

However, the continuity provided by what is now the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, published last week, must be seen in the context of the reality that leaving the EU will also require major constitutional and policy changes in a relatively short, and currently uncertain, time frame (see here). After all, the Government’s aim is that, as a result of Brexit, the UK will be able to decide which parts of EU-derived law to keep, and which to amend or repeal. A number of Brexit Bills, which will change the law in relation to, among others, immigration, trade, customs, agriculture and fisheries, were promised in the Queen’s speech. The clarity and certainty promised in the White Paper, which at first glance appear to provide comfort to citizens and businesses concerned over the effects of Brexit, are more elusive than ever. (more…)

New Challenges for European Comparative Law

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By Dr Jule Mulder, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

Dr Jule Mulder has published an article on European comparative law methodology entitled New Challenges for European Comparative Law: The Judicial Reception of EU Non-Discrimination Law and a turn to a Multilayered Culturally-informed Comparative Law Method for a better Understanding of the EU Harmonization.[1] This article argues that comparative law needs to explore its critical potential when engaging with the European harmonization process and its effects on the law of the Member States. (more…)

Grenfell Tower – learning from air accident investigations

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By Prof Chris Willmore, Professor of Sustainability and Law (University of Bristol Law School).

When accidents happen, supporting those affected should be everyone’s first step. But then, rapidly, we need to ask two further questions:

  • how can we prevent future accidents (causation)?
  • who is responsible (liability)?

This blog suggests we are not effectively distinguishing between these two questions, and this may undermine the effectiveness of the investigations now under way. (more…)

Scoping the impact of Brexit for NHS procurement

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By Dr Albert Sanchez-Graells, Senior Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School).

NHS England spends over £20 billion every year on goods and services, which typically accounts for around 30% of the operating costs of each hospital. A significant part of the remainder of NHS non-salary budget involves the commissioning of health care services. This expenditure and commissioning is controlled by NHS procurement rules, which in part derive from EU law. Different procurement rules apply in different countries within the UK, and both Scotland and Northern Ireland both have separate regulatory schemes. Even though this post only focuses on the situation in England, some issues reflect broader concerns in the UK context. Generally, NHS procurement rules are regularly criticised for imposing excessive red tape and compliance costs on the NHS, and calls for NHS procurement reform to free it from such strictures are common.

In this context, Brexit could be seen as an opportunity to overhaul NHS procurement and to move away from the perceived excesses of EU law (see eg Cram: 2016). However, I think that it is far from clear that such reform could not fit within the blueprint of EU law, and that most of the constraints on NHS procurement rather derive from independent decisions adopted by the UK over the last 25 years. Moreover, from an economic perspective, Brexit will probably hurt the functioning of the NHS (including its procurement), with or without significant regulatory reforms.

This post is based on my presentation at the event Brexit, Regulation and Society, held by ManReg on 13 June 2017, and concentrates on two issues. First, does EU law prevent significant reforms of NHS procurement and, if so, can Brexit suppress such constraints? Second, is the way the Brexit process is unfolding conducive to an improvement of NHS procurement, both from an economic and a regulatory perspective? (more…)