| Draft Working Time Regulations 1999
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Mr. Brian Cotter (Weston-super-Mare): I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench where he is having a baptism of fire with the many questions that are being asked. I also welcome the working time directive. It is important that the measures are introduced because we should be concerned about the impact of the workplace on family life and the general well-being of the family. Many people have expressed concern about the stress that business puts on individuals. However, I also support what the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) said about the rushed way in which the directive was brought into operation almost immediately after last year's recess and the lack of consultation. It is reassuring that the Minister is talking about future consultation. I am encouraged to hear the Minister say that many businesses do not believe that they have been affected too badly by the regulations, which we support, but I hope that that does not imply a complacency on the part of the Minister and his Department and that they will not continue to monitor the effects of these and any future regulations. Perhaps there are other ways of alleviating the burden imposed by the directive. The Minister may know that I run a small business. I received a communication from an organisation that seemed to set itself up as semi-official, about what I should be doing about the new working time regulations. The letter was framed in such a way as to spread alarm among employers by listing the various obligations that they must meet--I shall happily send it to the Minister so that he may see for himself. It somewhat militates against the light touch to which he referred if organisations send communications to employers implying that the regulations impose a massive burden and saying that if they do not do something they will be in trouble. There are basically three regulations before us. I was gratified to learn that regulation 3 will loosen the requirements--which seem to be unnecessary in the first place--for businesses that opt out to keep a lot of false records. That is to be welcomed. Peripherally, there is always some concern--I hope that the Minister's Department will keep an eye on this aspect of the regulations--that there should be no undue intimidation of or pressure on employees to encourage them to opt out when they do not want to. Regulation 4 on unmeasured time is complicated, and I am sure that we should all welcome an expanded explanation and examples of exactly who is covered and how the regulation will be implemented. Turning to regulation 5, as I have already said, I have an interest in small businesses because I run one myself and I am my party's spokesman on small businesses. I must emphasise to the Minister that, in addition to consulting the bodies mentioned in the covering letter that I received--which said that consultation will take place with the health and safety authorities, the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress--it is vital that the Federation of Small Businesses, the Forum of Private Business, the Small Business Bureau, as well as many other small business organisations and individual businesses are properly consulted to assess the impact on businesses of the working time regulations and other regulations. I should have liked to see it in print that small business organisations will be consulted because any regulation has a far greater impact on small businesses, which have fewer resources. However, I conclude by welcoming the Minister's initiatives, in so far as they reduce the burden of regulation, and hope that this will be a continuing process.
5.4 pmMr. Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): I add my welcome to the Minister in his new post. We are both here for the first time, although in markedly different roles. I endorse the opening remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) for endorsing so many of my hon. Friend's remarks, especially about the due process for implementing a directive--it was before my time in the House--that has created so much concern and caused so many questions to be asked. It may become apparent as I make my points that I was not present during the previous rounds on the matter but I was disturbed and disappointed to find that the explanatory note attached to the draft regulations--I assume that it is published by the Department of Trade and Industry--refers to the "two sides of industry", which is something of an anachronism. The phrase was repeated by the Minister when he said that both sides of industry were to be consulted. That does not square well with the tone and, indeed, the actual words of the Prime Minister to the CBI conference where he tried to impress on all who cared to listen that there are no longer two sides of industry. On that point alone I find myself agreeing more with the Prime Minister than with the Minister, because I have 10 years' experience in a large industry, in a company that was in the FTSE 100 until it was taken over by a French multinational. It is clear to me that over the past decade the concept of the two sides of industry has largely broken down. It causes me some misgivings; when I look back at the time when I was at the lower end of things, both as a painter-decorator and then as a solicitor's clerk, I did not ask for pay for longer hours; I was trying to get on. As I moved up through the lower ranks and eventually reached the higher ranks, both in the legal profession and in industry, there was no crying out for those protections from anyone with whom I worked or for whom I had responsibility. Any anxiety appears to have been caused by implementing the directive, because there is a concern that our costs might be more competitive than our European competitors'. I am anxious that management and those who are called workers--I would apply the word to all who work within an enterprise--are to some degree being patronised by the proposal. It would have been better to discover whether there was a wish to implement the proposal and, as a mark of good management and good business, to enable a company to opt in rather than having to seek a derogation out of the regulations. That would have been a better, more consistent and more principled approach. I visited a furniture manufacturer in my constituency during the by-election campaign, who explained to me that not only does he have to cope with difficult bureaucracy and red tape in order to monitor the minimum wage regulations, but he will have the worry of implementing the working time directive. He employs a large number of low-skilled but very dedicated and committed people. The most admirable thing about the company is that 85 per cent. of his work force are registered disabled. Because the business is making furniture, a lot of his employees can be seated while at work and many of them are thus capable of earning a living, which they would not otherwise be able to do. The employer said that although the regulations would not change employees' working patterns, he would have to take on an additional person in the personnel department--much more highly paid than those on the manufacturing floor of his enterprise--just to look after the minimum wage regulations and the anticipated working time regulations. That has added to his costs; it is part of the £1.9 billion to which my hon. Friend the Surprising though it may seem to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, people who want a decent and meaningful job also want a fulfilled life outside the workplace. Most employers are finding that that is an important part of working life, and are going out of their way to remind people periodically that promotion will not be gained by staying at work until the early hours in an attempt to suggest that their lives revolve around the workplace. I have news for the Opposition: these days, promotion is usually based on merit and not on time serving. It is important to get rid of that long-hours culture. The hon. Member for Eddisbury, who made other points with which I shall deal in due course, asked why the Government had adopted this approach and said that most people in the company that he visited did not see a need for it. One reason for our approach is the clear evidence showing that cardiovascular problems, in particular, are caused by long hours. It is not just that we in Britain work longer hours than anybody else in the European Union; we work horrendously longer hours. I remind the Committee that in Austria, 3.6 per cent. of the working population work 48 hours plus per week. In Finland, the figure is 2.9 per cent., and in the Netherlands, which has a good economic record, 1.5 per cent. In the United Kingdom, however, 26.2 per cent. of the working population work more than 48 hours a week. Politicians must tackle that problem. Ignoring it and hoping that it would go away was a mistake that led to the current horrendous situation. Mr. Ben Bradshaw (Exeter): While my hon. Friend the Minister is speaking about long hours and competitiveness, will he disabuse the hon. Member for Eddisbury in respect of his notion that the regulations are some sort of plot from Europe to rob Britain of its competitiveness? As my hon. Friend has just said, competitiveness and hours worked have no relationship whatever. Britain is still in the bottom half of the competitiveness league in Europe, while its workers work longer hours. If France was so uncompetitive, a French company might not have taken over the company for which the hon. Member for Eddisbury used to work. Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend makes his point eloquently. There are apparently plots in Millbank affecting Bognor Regis, and now plots in Europe are affecting the working time directive. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton also asked about overtime, and spoke of his time as a chartered accountant. If overtime is being paid, it will apply to measured hours that do not come under the terms of the regulations, whether in chartered accountancy or in any other profession. He asked about the individual opt-out. Britain is the only country in Europe with the opt-out, apart from the Republic of Ireland, which is gradually reducing its working hours down to 48 a week by 2000. The opt-out will not go in 2003, but is due to be reviewed at that time. We will obviously want to see the result of the Commission's review then, but we believe that workers should have a choice on the hours that they work. I very much appreciated the comments of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare. There is no complacency in the Government. We are moving into a brave new world. This country has never had basic, civilised, minimum decent standards for people at work. The previous Government took us backwards during the 18 years that they were in power; we used to have Shops and Factories Acts, as well as wages councils, but the previous Government removed them all. If we go back beyond that, even the trade union movement in this country was iffy about introducing basic minimum standards. This is the first time that such standards have been introduced, and we are convinced that, if they are to continue, they must have the support of people on both sides of business. It is still early days, but we are finding out that businesses appreciate the regulations. The time will come when the Conservative party will stop being the only decent--I say decent, and I mean that--mainstream right-of-centre political party in Europe that is opposed to minimum standards. No other Conservative party in Europe would even suggest that such protections should be removed from vulnerable workers. I hope that I have tackled most of the points raised by the hon. Member for Eddisbury. He asked a question about average hours. The hours are averaged over 17 weeks. They can be averaged over a longer period--26 weeks, if there is a seasonal problem in the company, or as much as a year, if the company reaches either a work force agreement, if there is no trade union, or a collective agreement, if there is. That brings me to the other point raised by the hon. Member for Eddisbury about my reference to "both sides of industry". I used that term because it is used in the directive. I would much rather reach an agreement with Her Majesty's loyal Opposition that we both refer to them as the "social partners"--that is my favoured term--but we need to repeat the words that are in the directive.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 1999 | Prepared 2 November 1999 |
