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The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, it is a privilege to welcome the overarching aim of the Bill—to ensure that care givers in our society can better balance their home and work commitments. As a report of the Church of England on the family in 1995 states:
"The modern view of the family is sometimes dominated by economic concerns, according to which the home is either an escape from work or a base from which people do other work or go out to work. The Christian understanding"—
indeed, the Judaeo-Christian understanding—
"is different. The role of the family is not, in the first instance, to produce workers. Rather the role of the family is to produce healthy, mature and creative human beings".
Parents and carers play a fundamental role in society through the nurturing of family members—a role that should be valued and actively affirmed. The Bill makes strides to do exactly that. Provisions that must be especially applauded include the extension of maternity leave to one year, as noble Lords have mentioned, and the possibility for fathers to take additional paternity leave if their partner returns to work.
This recognition that fathers, like mothers, need time to bond with their baby will reinforce the growing understanding that child rearing is not solely the responsibility of the mother. By enabling mothers and fathers to balance their work and caring responsibilities between them, they, their children and, indeed, wider society, will undoubtedly benefit.
I strongly support the Government's intention to extend that right to carers. Many of the approximately 4 million carers of working age in the United Kingdom struggle to balance their work and
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caring roles. Some are forced to give up work altogether. The new right will make it possible for carers—for whom I urge as wide a definition as possible to be applied—to spend the time that they need to do with people who rely on them for care, and also to stay in work. However, I must take the opportunity to express my concerns that despite these generous leave extensions, many parents may be unable to take them up. It is important when discussing work and families to consider the real choices that people have. A female home worker living on little money is unlikely to be able to make a real choice about whether to take time off when her income is all that keeps the family from living in poverty. A man who is in an unstable position at work, say in an area of high unemployment, is unlikely to ask for time off to look after a new child in case his job is threatened.
The Bill needs to address the concerns of families at all income levels. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, pointed out, the low level of statutory pay currently stands at £106 a week—much lower than a week's pay on the national minimum wage. Research shows that seven in 10 mothers returned to work during their leave period for financial reasons. Yet only one of them would say that she was ready or wanted to do so. In addition, fathers whose partners do not work before pregnancy or who do not want to go back to work will not be entitled to additional paternity leave. Statistics show that four in 10 new mothers are not in paid work before the birth of their child. These two factors limit the choice of families and could undermine the commendable provisions for new parents that the Government are introducing in the Bill.
Taking into consideration the overwhelming support for the right to request for carers, it seems to me that the scope of such a right has the potential to go much further. Many people have been disappointed that the Bill does not extend the right to request to parents of older children and teenagers. Indeed, the Mothers' Union, which has a constituency of 120,000 people in the United Kingdom who were widely consulted on the Bill, particularly supports this idea. One Mothers' Union member wrote:
"All children are in need of support from and quality time with their parents. Older children warrant their parents' support as much as small children and babies, if not more. Whereas a baby or a small child tends to adapt easily to being cared for by new people, the same cannot be said for teenagers who are experiencing transitional difficulties such as puberty, changing from childhood to adulthood, changing from primary to secondary schools, trying to find out and understand their own identity".
It strikes me that to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of teenagers would, to echo a previous speaker, be in keeping with the recently published Respect Action Plan, particularly in the light of the new obligation on parents to take more responsibility for the behaviour of their children and to act in a supervisory capacity for a defined period during an exclusion from school.
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Parents should have the option to change their working lives in favour of their children's welfare if the need arises. I would argue that the right to request flexible working arrangements for parents of children and young people up to 18 is essential for this. Again, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said in support of this.
In conclusion, if one thing could be done to enhance this imaginative and innovative Bill, I would urge that all parents, regardless of the age of their children, should be able to request flexible working hours if this is what their family needs.
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, as an advocate of some years' standing for equal opportunities in the workplace, I am sure the House will not be surprised to learn that I very largely support the Government's Work and Families Bill. This Bill, in tandem with the Childcare Bill, which we will no doubt see later, sets out the next steps towards creating the more genuinely equal-opportunity and family-friendly workplace that we saw developed in the Government's 2004 report, Choice for parents, the best start for children: a ten year strategy for childcare.
Thus, in addition to the laudable number of family-friendly measures already introduced by this Government, these Bills will help to provide the essential flexibility and encouragement that women, and increasingly men, must have if they are to balance successfully the equally important demands of family and career.
It is, alas, all too self evident that women and mothers, much more than men and fathers, are still seen, and see themselves, as the primary carers of young children. By placing a duty on local authorities to see that there is sufficient and flexible childcare provision in each local area, it will at least initially be women—currently the substantially disadvantaged half of the working population—who will benefit from this legislation.
By providing for an increase in the period of statutory maternity pay and leave to 39 weeks by April 2007 and to 52 weeks by the end of the Parliament, the Government's provisions can be seen as especially important for improving the likelihood of women continuing their careers. In maintaining the inclusion of women in the workforce, we not only increase the potential overall productivity of the economy, we also reduce recruitment and training costs that would inevitably be incurred by employers if these women were to leave the workforce and had to be replaced. As your Lordships will know, these costs have increased considerably as women tend to have babies much later, having previously acquired skills and experience that is costly for employers to replace.
Moreover, I would argue that introducing the opportunity for a transfer of a proportion of paid maternity leave to the father is also a step in the right direction for equal opportunities. As the EOC points out on this and other issues, the younger the parents, the more likely they are to support measures which
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recognise that women and men's lives are becoming more alike in terms of their need to balance work and family. As the right reverend Prelate has pointed out, more and more fathers want to play a more active role in the family and have time to enjoy their children, as well as accepting their practical and financial responsibilities in helping to bring up the next generation as thoroughly responsible citizens.
Of course, we have not yet reached what I would call an ideal situation, where availability of family leave or flexible working is seen as equally applicable to either sex and automatically built into the way in which employers organise work patterns. But, nevertheless, these steps, and the encouragement to employers to agree to keep-in-touch days with those on parental leave, are further steps in the right direction, for which the Government deserve considerable credit.
There is another important reason to encourage women as well as men to remain in the workforce. The recent Turner report has drawn our attention to the impending pensions' crisis that Britain will face with an increasing ageing population. In encouraging women to maintain their careers, they will be able to continue contributing to their pensions, rather than, as now, facing an inadequate pension on retirement due to an interrupted career from having taken time out to have children.
However, much as I commend the thrust of this Bill, I have in mind, like other noble Lords, the CBI's withdrawal of its initial support for the Bill and the quite substantial chorus of complaints, particularly from the SME's, at the growing complexity of the law which appears to be necessary to spell out these benefits—for example, the provision for sharing between parents of a new-born child their rights to parental leave and parental pay.
Your Lordships have already had the complexity of a number of the Bill's clauses pointed out. The primary legislation for this single innovation, without providing for adoptions—an equally important and welcome provision but inevitably another complexity—occupies five pages of the Bill, spelt out in almost three dozen paragraphs. The regulations, yet to come, will need to be very extensive. We are glad to hear from the Minister that there will be plenty of consultation. That is no wonder, because not just two parents will be involved. In most cases, there will be two employers as well, both of whom will need to be satisfied on whether each parent is off work at the times claimed. They will also need to be satisfied on the legitimacy—even perhaps the existence—of the child.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House some very positive reassurance on these matters. Will every effort be made to produce clear and intelligible regulations and, even more important, clear guidance notes for employers as well as employees? Lastly on this point, can the Minister assure us that small businesses in particular will be adequately supported and duly reimbursed for their efforts in administering the scheme? There seems to have been some backtracking on what was originally promised.
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I turn to my final points on carers. The Government are indeed to be congratulated on their decision to give all carers, those who take responsibility for disabled or elderly family members or friends, the right to ask their employers for flexible working. This is an enormously important step towards equal opportunities for a strongly disadvantaged group. Carers are an oft-forgotten sector of society, but by no means an insignificant one. I am glad to say that some employers are already offering flexible working to carers. Businesses such as BP, Centrica, Listawood and HSBC already appreciate and are acting upon the strong business case for giving carers this important option. Moreover, helping carers in this way produces positive returns for the economy in the form of reduced absenteeism and increased productivity, and from retaining carers' knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, carers themselves are able to continue with their unpaid caring work. Employers will also benefit greatly from these cost savings by increasing staff loyalty and widening the skills available to them.
Of the estimated 6 million carers in the UK, some 3 million are working. With an increasing ageing population, not only will Britain need 60 per cent more carers over the next 35 to 40 years, but also 2.5 million more people in the workforce over the next eight years. Evidence suggests that the right to request flexible working would encourage more carers to enter paid employment. Non-employed carers inevitably impose a substantial burden on the economy in terms of lost tax and national insurance revenue, and additional costs in terms of benefits and pension costs. But add to that what the cost would be to the state if carers were no longer willing or able to perform their caring role, the benefit of extending such a right to carers really becomes irresistible. It is estimated that the unpaid work undertaken by carers and parents is worth around £277 billion.
Finally, for the reasons I have already advanced, I hope the Minister can reassure us that the definition of "carer", along with any other definition, will be clear and simple, and as inclusive as possible. Perhaps it could also include the parents of children eventually up to school leaving age so that all possible relationships that carers might have with the people they care for are covered. Further, caring responsibilities almost certainly become more onerous over time, and one request for flexible working per year may not in fact be adequate if circumstances change.
The Work and Families Bill is a substantial step in the right direction for equal opportunities for both sexes, as well as opportunities for more continuous careers for women. For carers it provides, at last, some recognition of the invaluable role they play in all our lives. And for employers, whose co-operation will be essential if these blessings are to be sure to arrive, as simple a scheme as possible is absolutely essential.
4.49 pm
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