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11.41 am
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate): There is no doubt that it is proper to have regulation and legislation to protect children. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond) is to be congratulated on introducing the Bill, because one great problem is ignorance of existing legislation and regulation. That is why so many of the people who employ children are in violation of the laws and regulations as they stand. However, in seeking to address that problem and the inconsistency of regulation across the country, with local authorities having different byelaws which they largely do not enforce, the Bill, as currently drafted, goes too far. It is a classic case of overcorrection.
People who take systematic advantage of children in the workplace will be in breach of any standard that hon. Members could happily enact. The system of licensing proposed in the Bill will not address the central problem of people taking advantage of children in employment. Hon. Members have already spoken about the burden of licensing. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) mentioned a figure of £40 million. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) pointed out that if additional burdens are to be placed on local authorities, resources must be made available to them.
The licensing regime proposed in the Bill will cause worse problems. I do not believe that many local authorities, as they are currently managed, are capable of managing a licensing regime that could produce licences in four weeks. Employers who wish to behave properly and get licences will apply for them but find that, after four weeks, the opportunity that they have given to a child to do some part-time work must end because they have not received a licence. Many employers who wish to employ children on paper rounds or whatever will not bother to try to get licences. We shall drive out of the area of regulation probably the majority of people who want to give opportunities to children. That will have two effects. First, people will say that it is not worth going through the burden of trying to get a licence. The opportunities for children to do paper rounds, or other work that the House agrees that they should be able to do, will disappear. Secondly, employers who do not get licences will be in violation of the standards. They might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so there will be greater abuse of children.
The proper way to regulate is to establish standards in the House, and there are some points on standards in the Bill. It should then be for police and local authorities, in the normal way, if cases are brought to their attention, to prosecute people guilty of abuse. If we overlay the matter with a massive regulatory regime involving every local authority, we shall bring it into disrepute. We want to identify the people who take unfair advantage of children beyond the standards that we set, and then properly prosecute and punish them. Such behaviour is so scandalous that there is a clear case for them to be properly punished with serious penalties in the courts.
The hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) saw the priority wholly in terms of education. I agree with other hon. Members that training and work experience are an important part of education. The opportunity for children to work should be encouraged, in a part-time way at the margin, as they grow towards adulthood, as part of their education and of preparing them for adult life.
Mr. Hopkins:
Will the hon. Gentleman distinguish between child employment outside school hours and work experience as part of the curriculum in school hours?
Mr. Blunt:
I agree that work experience in school hours is welcome, but I would not want to deny work experience to children who want to take opportunities for it on their own, outside school hours, organised by people outside schools and the formal education system. There is a role for more informal experience outside the school authorities.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are some children who are antipathetic to school for whom it is important to have experiences that are not related to school? If everything that they do is tied to school, it might be counter-productive and serve only to antagonise them in regard to the process into which we are trying to pull them.
Mr. Blunt:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We should be seeking to enrich the experience of children in the sense of horses for courses. All children are different and develop in different ways. For some, work experience might be more important than formal education. We should not try to establish set standards to try to force children to fit a particular framework. I fear that the Bill's licensing regime will significantly reduce opportunities for child employment, while imposing standards honoured in the breach rather than the observance.
Mrs. Christine Butler (Castle Point):
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond) on presenting such an important Bill. The debate is indeed timely, after 66 years. I was amazed to hear the comments of some Opposition Members, who seemed only to want a deregulatory regime.
Let us refocus on the main issue, which is the vulnerability of children who may or may not be employed, legally or illegally, in today's Britain. They are vulnerable because they are young: because they are young, they are all too easily exploited. That is central to the Bill, and we should not forget it.
I welcome the Bill. I should like it to go further and to be broader in its scope, but I understand the reasons behind it. It is not dramatic; it does not ask for a great deal. It simply suggests that there should be a better regulatory framework--a framework that is consistent
across the country, that is better enforced and that protects the welfare and well-being of young people more effectively. For the purposes of the Bill, children may be defined as those who are under the upper school leaving age limit. I also welcome the Government's proposed review, which I believe is already under way. I hope that it will be all-embracing, and that it will go beyond the Bill in increasing protection for children at work.
I accept that we must consider the technicalities, but I denounce the way in which some Opposition Members gave technical reasons for not supporting the Bill--or, indeed, the principle of the Bill. I abhor that, because I think that we should all support the principle.
Mr. Blunt:
I have heard no Opposition Member oppose the principle of the Bill. Opposition Members are keen to make legislation and regulation effective, respected and known about, and for that legislation and regulation to work.
Mrs. Butler:
That is not how I understood the comments of Opposition Members, who argued against nearly all the Bill's proposals and seemed to want provisions that had more to do with the free market and deregulation. They support the interests of children, however, and the two positions strike me as incompatible. Perhaps it is up to those who will wind up the debate to explain: I shall be interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister--as well as the Opposition spokesman--has to say.
I should like all employers and putative employers of children to be licensed or registered, although dialogue between home, employers and school is essential, whatever precise form it takes. It is never too soon to start talking about the issue. Indeed, let us start now: let us not wait until the end of the year. I want to see a significant improvement in registration, consistent across the country. Employers should be certified as fit and proper people to employ children, and should be able to convince authorities that conditions in the workplace are suitable for children. Such an extra provision in the Bill might mitigate some of the complexities involved in processing permits quickly. At least parents, children and councils would know who were likely to be fit and proper employers, and which establishments had suitable conditions. That is the main point that I wanted to make.
I agree with all who have said that our main concern should be children's health, welfare, training and education. I could not disagree more with Opposition Members who suggested that training and education could take place in a laissez-faire context. I have much sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Audrey Wise), who referred to the ILO agreement and suggested that we should prohibit all child employment; but I know from my experience as a parent, and my experience of other people's children, that many children would be aggrieved if we were too prescriptive and prevented them from taking part-time work on a reasonable basis that could be properly regulated. That is the crux of many of the Bill's provisions. We have no such enforcement now; we seem to have a complete disregard for, and almost complete ignorance of, the current legislation. It is entirely ignored, and I was not aware of the details until a short time ago.
Ms Ruth Kelly (Bolton, West):
Is not one of the reasons for the high level of non-compliance with the law
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