Lords Hansard text for 8 May 2006 (60508-04)

Business

3.06 pm

Lord Grocott: My Lords, perhaps I may say a few words about business later today. First, as has already been shown on the annunciator, with the leave of the House, my noble friend Lord Drayson will repeat a Statement on Iraq, on the Basra incident. We will take it immediately following consideration of the Work and Families Bill. Secondly, as the House will know, the Northern Ireland Bill will, we hope, go through its remaining stages. The intention is that any information that the House will need between the Committee, Report and Third Reading stages will be placed on the annunciator during the time that we consider the Electoral Administration Bill.

Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill [HL]

Report received.

Work and Families Bill

3.08 pm

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Work and Families Bill, has consented to place her Interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Bill read a third time.

Clause 3 [Additional paternity leave: birth]:

Baroness Miller of Hendon moved Amendment No. 1:

Page 2, line 46, at end insert—

"( ) Regulations under this section shall provide for—
(a) the mother to provide written confirmation that the person claiming additional paternity leave has satisfied the conditions in subsection (1)(b) and (c) and is the only person claiming it;
(b) the mothers' employer to provide written confirmation that the mother was entitled to maternity leave, with or without pay, and has taken such leave and has notified her intention to return to work,
and the employer concerned shall be entitled to rely on those confirmations without being required to make further enquiries as to the matters in subsection (1)(b) and (c)."

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, it is with some disappointment—indeed, with quite a lot of regret—that I have to take up your Lordships' time by bringing back this amendment for the third time. I am compelled to do so simply because I have been unable to extract from the Government any firm commitment about the practicalities of the operation of this new concept of additional paternity leave, both for the protection both of the employers of the putative father, who will be required to provide the facilities for such leave, and, no less important, of the Inland Revenue, which will be able to finance it. What I find curious about the Government's attitude is that each time I have raised this matter in previous stages, they

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have unequivocally accepted the principle of what I seek to do. My objective is to substantially reduce the possibility of fraudulent claims, although of course they can never be entirely eliminated; to provide the employer of the person claiming additional paternity leave with the right to assume that he is entitled to it without having to conduct difficult and intrusive investigations; and to ensure that an employer who meets such a claim in good faith is not later penalised by the Inland Revenue if a double claim is made on more than one employer.

In the consultation Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility, which took place in February 2005, some 15 months ago, the Government offered three choices: first, self-certification by the mother and father; secondly, self-certification by the parents combined with confirmation by the mother's employer; and, thirdly, compliance checks made by the Inland Revenue. In repeating those three options to the Grand Committee, the Minister told noble Lords that:

"From that consultation, it became clear that self-certification from the mother and father . . . with confirmation from the mother's employer that the mother was entitled to maternity leave and/or pay and has notified her intention to return to work was the preferred option".—[Official Report, 9/3/06; cols. GC342-43.]

Noble Lords can compare the unequivocal wording of the Minister's statement with that used in my amendment. I simply cannot understand why that should not be the end of the matter.

However, by the time the Bill was reported to your Lordships' House, the Minister had given no indication that that is how the proposed regulations would be framed. I therefore brought the amendment back on Report. The Minister again provided warm words of assurance, or reassurance, by saying in almost identical terms:

"From that consultation it became clear that self-certification by the mother and father of their eligibility, with confirmation from the mother's employer . . . was the preferred the option".

He went on to say that the option,

"keeps bureaucracy to a minimum while limiting the potential for errors in payment or abuse of the system".—[Official Report, 25/4/06; col. 109.]

So I assumed, once again, that the matter was settled. But after Report I was again told by the department in a conversation held on 4 May—I thank the Minister for arranging it—that it was still consulting on this matter with such bodies as the TUC, the Mothers' Union, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Engineering Employers' Federation, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Institute of Directors. Incidentally, I was amazed to be told that certification by the Inland Revenue was one of the options still under consideration. How does that conform to the Minister's stated objective, which I have just quoted, of keeping bureaucracy to a minimum?

I am sure that the Government are not seriously suggesting that the Commissioners for Revenue & Customs should send out hordes of inspectors to check whether claimants for additional paternity leave are doing their fair share of nappy changing and looking

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after the baby's siblings; I am certain that that is not what is in mind. They would simply ask the claimant to fill in a claim form saying that the person concerned is entitled to the benefit. If that is not self-certification, then simple, plain English has lost its meaning. I am at a loss to understand why the Government are still pursuing a policy of consulting on the outcome of a consultation which reached a definite conclusion and talked about the preferred option, as the Minister has twice reported during the progress of the Bill through this House. It is therefore totally puzzling why the Government refuse to climb down from the fence on which they appear to be impaled.

It is not for me to impute motives; I would not do so anyway, as the saying goes. But if I were to do so, I would say that the reason might be found in the corridors of the usual suspect: the Treasury. It will have to bear the cost of this well-meaning legislation. Consultations about the implementation of the conclusion of extensive consultations and reconsulting consultees sounds very much like kicking the project into touch.

I say at once that I clearly have no desire to impose any kind of timetable on the Government for the implementation of additional paternity leave and its imposition on employers—that, of course, is a matter for the Government—but, to coin a phrase, the smack of firm government is required to end the uncertainty. The Government need to announce a clear, unambiguous decision on how the benefit will be eventually implemented.

3.15 pm

The House may recall that in Committee I called a vote on redundancy pay. In doing so, I said that it was quite shocking that so many Bills are now becoming enabling legislation with huge, long timetables, where consultations take place, more consultations take place and then, when we think we have got there, another consultation takes place. The Bill started 15 months ago; it has finished its passage through the Commons and we are at Third Reading. When the Bill is passed there will be no further chance to deal with these matters. I understand from the meeting with the Minister on 4 May that draft regulations will be published around summer 2007 and, from memory, that the Bill could be implemented by the end of 2007, or perhaps October 2007. That will be four years, which really is too bad. The reason I divided the House previously was to say to the Government that we should not legislate in this way; that when we pass Bills, we should know what we are passing. My amendment would introduce what the Government themselves describe as the preferred option. I beg to move.

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