Employment practices on redundancy and rehiring

That this House notes with alarm the growing number of employers, especially in the retail, hospitality and aviation sectors, who are making employees redundant before re-employing them on less-favourable terms and conditions; believes that these employers are cynically using the covid-19 crisis as cover to reduce staff costs at a time when they should instead be focused on supporting their employees through this pandemic; agrees with Unite the union and others that this fire-and-rehire practice makes a mockery of workers’ rights and goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of UK employment legislation; and calls on the Government to close this legal loophole as a matter of urgency, for example by amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to specify that such redundancies should automatically be regarded as unfair dismissals.