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Mr. King : I have only just started, and I hope that I have not said anything with which any hon. Member would disagree.
Ms. Short : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right that in the uprating statement, when the Government gave a little increase for the first-born child because they were embarrassed about the failure to increase child benefit, something for people in residential homes because elderly, frail people were being evicted and something for poor pensioners--all of which is welcome--the Treasury said that the Department could not have any more money, so something else had to be ripped out of the social security budget. This is it--the low-paid sick are paying for those improvements. Does he agree with that?
Mr. King : No, I do not agree with that. It is a Government Department's task to deal with the Treasury--to wheel and deal within the financial constraints placed upon it--to get the best settlement that it possibly can, and establish a set of priorities as to where that money should be spent.
To my mind, the Bill is a perfectly acceptable piece of legislation, but I make one strong suggestion, which has already been mentioned this evening. The Bill sets out a
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requirement that national insurance contributions will be reduced from 100 per cent. to 80 per cent., and as a consequence the reimbursement rate can in future be reduced or increased, by order. I am a little unhappy about that, but I can accept the principle contained in the Bill to provide assistance for employers. If any adjustments are necessary, I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider further assistance for employers to ensure that no great net disadvantage is passed on to them.If one considers the Bill's financial implications, the reduced amount given to employers is worth about £250 million and is weighted in favour of those employers whose employees are paid less. That is important because, by and large, small businesses pay less than large ones. Therefore, my right hon. Friend has done what he can to help smaller businesses.
The main problem which we face has not been mentioned in the debate--how to resolve the constant difficulty of funding statutory sick pay for about 6 million people. In 1989-90, that amounted to £955 million. One wonders whether such an enormous sum of money--it is growing every year--must necessarily be paid by society to fund the growing incidence of sickness.
There is little incentive for us to stay healthy in this country. The statutory requirements of the health and safety at work legislation are fulfilled by businesses well, but to what extent do companies provide for the health of their work force? Japanese businesses and many continental companies have active health programmes for their employees which reduce the cost of absenteeism and sickness. As a nation, we have been accused of being unhealthy.
Mr. Martlew : I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that those Japanese companies which have occupational health schemes also have the best sick pay policies. The companies with the worst sick pay policies make no provision for occupational health.
Mr. King : To some extent, I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The probable reason why the Japanese can have the best sick pay benefits available is that they are much healthier as a result of the active health programmes that employees enjoy. Some British companies are beginning to consider following the Japanese idea of physical jerks first thing in the morning. There is no doubt that that seems to have ensured better attendance by workers of Japanese manufacturing companies. Perhaps we should consider that idea in more detail.
As a result of passing on a little more of the commitment to provide funding for statutory sick pay, perhaps companies in this country will pay more attention to the welfare of the work force, at very little cost. It is not a question of having to invest vast sums of money.
The average person in this country has often been accused of having a poor diet, eating the wrong things, drinking too much, smoking and having a poor life style. All that is probably to some extent true and many of us are guilty. The trend cannot be easily reversed. Local authorities have launched a programme to acquaint everyone with the risks of being a lounge lizard, of not doing enough exercise, and of eating the wrong things--they can only lead to heart problems and to stress. Many
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people lack exercise. Their only sport may be darts or snooker, which is more evidence that we have an unphysical outlook towards recreation and sport.There is a way forward, if we try to link the sick pay which companies have to provide and their increasingly important role in improving the health of their work force. It should not just be a question of people turning up at work at 7.30 am, starting work and going home in the evening. Companies pay a great deal of attention to their machinery and to the equipment which provides work, but not much to the most vital of production--the employees themselves. I hope that closer attention to the health and welfare of their employees will be a consequence of this legislation. That can be tackled easily.
How many offices have too much heating and are too hot? Some can be found within the Palace of Westminster. Poor ventilation and overheated premises lead to employees becoming unhealthy--they get colds, sickness and flu. Admittedly, it would take a great deal of money to put that right in the Palace, but in many factories, if air conditioning, proper ventilation and heating were introduced, the result would be a saving in carbon dioxide emissions.
Poor lighting is another problem which needs to be considered. Not only too little light, but too much can cause sickness and absenteeism from the work place, with increased costs to the community and the company.
Other, more high-tech, problems are being encountered by visual display unit operators and computer programmers who stare at screens all day long, and more research is being carried out in that area. Such employees are encountering problems with headaches. Companies shrug their shoulders and put it down as a fact of life, because someone else will pick up the bill when employees are off sick. If we pass on a little more of the burden to employers, perhaps they will consider working conditions more carefully. Although working conditions might pass a health inspection, as technology and techniques move on they probably need to be reconsidered.
Mrs. Mahon : Has the hon. Gentleman considered the effect of Government policies and privatisation? For example, domestic workers at the health authority for which I work were privatised. The work force was cut by half but was expected to achieve impossible performance targets. Those people, who were mainly women, suffered from stress, anxiety and sheer tiredness in trying to achieve the impossible targets, and within 12 months there had been a 100 per cent. turnover in staff. Will he consider such problems in speaking on what employers can do for employees?
Mr. King : The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I would not try to defend any get-rich-quick organisation that sought to undercut an established operation by using labour in the way that the hon. Lady mentioned. There is no doubt that many excesses and problems have resulted from that splurge of privatisation. No management or company director can operate successfully in that way. There is nothing worse than a high turnover of staff or than signing a contract with a health authority or school only to discover that no one shows up because they are not well or because they have walked out. The private sector can operate only if its employees are prepared to work with
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it. Businesses will not last long unless there is confidence between management and the work force and pay and conditions are right to ensure continuity of commitment.Employees of the National Freight Corporation and of other business benefited considerably from the Government's privatisation policy. We all welcome the improvement in working standards and pay that privatisation has produced.
Mr. Martin Redmond (Don Valley) : I must correct the hon. Gentleman. He suggested that only private sector employees are capable of continuous work. Many public sector employees give total commitment to their employer, and many, such as nurses, are committed to the care of the elderly. I wish that he would withdraw his slur that public sector employees do not give full commitment.
Mr. King : If I said that, and I am quite sure that I did not, the hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. I have not cast a slur on any national health service workers or on anyone else. I do not doubt that they have the utmost commitment to their jobs. I would not dream of saying that a public sector employee does not work efficiently, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that private companies are capable of ensuring greater employee loyalty and efficiency than are some parts of the public sector because the profit motive drives that efficiency forward. Nothing better illustrates that than housing repairs, which are carried out in Birmingham by direct labour oganisations and the private sector. Direct labour organisations work less effectively and are paid less than the private sector.
Mr. Battle : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Probably more than most hon. Members, I should dearly like to debate housing policy, which we do not debate sufficiently. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to raise housing in a debate on the Statutory Sick Pay Bill?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Second Reading debates lend themselves to fairly wide subjects. I have not yet heard anything out of order, but were the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) to pursue that point I should begin to become worried.
Mr. King : I hear what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have clearly touched a sensitive nerve. I gave a lucid explanation of the differences between public sector and private sector organisations. I accept that public sector organisations can be, and are, as efficient as private organisations, but the private sector, with its desire to operate efficiently, should not be branded as uncaring and inconsiderate of its work force.
The Bill should result in healthier workplaces. Employers will want to ensure that they provide facilities and opportunities for their employees to turn up every day and to fulfil the duties for which they are employed.
By ensuring that employees are correctly seated at work, we could eliminate one of the most appalling consequences of manufacturing and commercial illness--backache and back trouble. That is the No. 1 problem facing us and is the primary cause of absenteeism. Little is done to address the causes of sickness, but the Bill will make employers redouble their efforts to make the workplace more attractive and healthier for their employees. To that extent, it is a step forward that we should welcome.
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8.17 pmMr. Frank Haynes (Ashfield) : I am not surprised by the speeches of Conservative Members. The Bill is bent and it has been produced by a bent Government. [Laughter.] That is what it amounts to. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) can laugh. I listened to what he had to say and I am clear in my mind that I agree with one comment that he made on the workplace : it should be healthy for employees, but he knows as well as me that in the past 11 years the Opposition have been trying to convince the Government that the workplace is not right. One of the reasons for that is the cuts--I am not talking about money, but it relates to money--in Her Majesty's inspectorate, which has been reduced and reduced. How can inspectors do their job in the workplace when those cuts have been made? I came from the mining industry and know only too well that there were not enough inspectors on the job. Full-time trade union officials, without political interference, told us quite clearly that we must make the Government do something about the mines inspectorate. What did the Government do? They reduced the number of inspectors. We kept banging the Dispatch Box, but the Minister still did not take any notice. The hon. Member for Northfield mentioned backache. That is the worst thing in the mining industry, and it is the same in the factories. If inspectors do not get round to factories, that suffering goes on.
People are sick and are getting injured because in many cases the employer could not care less ; as long as he is getting his production and his profit, he does not care about the workers. The hon. Member for Northfield can grin--he sits on the management side. Conservative Members sit there-- there are not many here at the moment--and they are all connected to Lloyd's. [Laughter.] Oh, yes, I hit the nail right on the head there. A number of hon. Members have connections with insurance companies when it comes to sick pay, so there is a rake-off for them.
Members of Parliament do not have to bother about sick pay. It is nice and cushy to sit on these green Benches and talk about what workers should have.
Mr. Quentin Davies rose--
Mr. Haynes : Hey-up, here comes Stamford and Spalding again ; he is always at it, but I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Davies : I apologise for intruding during the hon. Gentleman's characteristic performance, but does he agree with me in principle that to weight the national insurance system towards the lower-paid so that they derive the greatest benefit from it is a laudable aim? Does he welcome my right hon. Friend's proposal fully to index the lower rate of statutory sick pay, thereby favouring the lower-paid as against other groups of workers?
Mr. Haynes : I do not understand this fellow. When we were considering a Bill in Committee, one day I saw him downstairs in the cafeteria where he was studying share prices to see how much money he had made. He talks about sick pay and the lower-paid, but how does he know what we are talking about when it comes to sick pay and low-paid workers? He and many other Conservative
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Members have been living off the backs of the low-paid. It is high time we got to power and turned things round the other way. I am pleased that the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People is still here. He was sitting on the Back Benches just now, but he is down there again. That may be because he wants to hear what I have to say. He ought to be ashamed of himself ; he is supposed to represent the disabled. I see that he nods in agreement. He knows that there is a measure on the statute book that states that businesses should employ 3.5 per cent. of disabled people in their work force. He has never done his job. Many firms do not employ any disabled people, never mind 3.5 per cent. The Bill will lead to businesses taking on fewer and fewer disabled people. They will be looked on as a burden. Small businesses have something to shout about, and I am doing that on their behalf.Mr. Redmond : The Bill will undoubtedly make employers reconsider the number of disabled people they employ. The Minister could announce that he intends to take steps against those employers who do not fulfil their quota. My hon. Friend ought to be aware that the Coal Board does not employ its full quota. Before Ministers look at what happens outside this place, they ought to consider the number of disabled people who are employed here and find out whether we are meeting the quota.
Mr. Haynes : We do not. Months ago, I tabled a question about the number of disabled people who are employed in this building. The Government are not meeting the quota. The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People ought to be ashamed of himself ; he is not doing his flaming job. It is time that he came over to this side, or did not even come back to this place. He ought to let someone else get on with the job of looking after the disabled.
We have got this leadership election [ Hon. Members :-- "We have."] There are three of them.
Mr. Quentin Davies : The hon. Gentleman needs a leader.
Ms. Short : The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Quentin Davies) is trying to cover his own embarrassment.
Mr. Haynes : I will tell the hon. Gentleman-- [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It is very unfair to try to intimidate the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Haynes : That one there does not intimidate me. With a voice like that, how could he work in a pit?
Mr. Davies : The hon. Gentleman may have detected, from the sound of my voice, that I am suffering from bronchitis, but he may have noticed that I am not claiming statutory sick pay.
Mr. Haynes : The hon. Gentleman knows damned well that he does not have to. I said just now that he already gets his salary, even if he is off work, so it makes no difference. He is as thick as a pudding, and a Christmas pudding at that. Why on earth does he not listen to what is said?
Three Conservative Members are up for the leadership. All three of them, over a period, sat round the Cabinet table with the lady at No. 10 and agreed all the policies.
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What do we hear now? They want to change them all. How dishonest can that be? It is hypocritical. However, they are trying to cadge votes from their colleagues because they want to be leader of the Conservative party, with a view to becoming Prime Minister. The people outside have already seen through that one. Never mind the opinion polls ; they can be forgotten.The hon. Member for Northfield will go. He will be able to return to one of the jobs that he has already got besides being a Member of Parliament. A whole clique of them sitting over there know what they will do when they lose their seats at the next election. They have covered their backs. The hon. Member for Northfield is one of them. So is the hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies). A number of small business men in my constituency are suffering. They have had to lay people off. Many of them have gone out of business. They are a burden on the state ; they have lost everything because of this Government's policies. Here comes another burden that they do not like. It is no use hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) saying that businesses agree and feel that they should be making their contribution. Oh, yes, they will be making their contribution all right by going downhill. What he said was a load of rubbish. Those firms will go out of business if the Government carry on in this way.
The Government have done many other things that have not helped businesses. That is why the nation is in such a mess. We want the Minister of State to say tonight that he intends to withdraw the Bill. It is a complete waste of time. It will also be a complete waste of time to have the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. Let us get on with something that is really important--for example, the leadership campaign for the next Prime Minister. While I am at it, let me point out that we have a first-class leader and I am right behind him. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding really has got a cough ; hark at him. He is not at all well. I do not know what he has been doing.
Mr. Martlew : He has been out shooting.
Mr. Haynes : He has been out shooting, has he? It is no wonder, in this weather, that he has bronchitis.
We do not support the Bill. We hope sincerely that it will be withdrawn. I agree completely with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). Since 1979, the Government have been adamant that they will destroy the welfare state. This is another step towards that destruction. The sooner we have the next election, to turn things around and put my party on the other side of the Chamber so that we can run the country in the interests of all the people in the nation, the better off we shall all be.
8.29 pm
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent) : I anticipate the next election with no anxiety about its outcome, but with some sorrow, because I know that the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) does not intend to stand. I think that we shall all miss his robust form of pantomime. He expresses, in a way that none of his colleagues can match, the heart of the Labour party's philosophy--the view that at no
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time and in no manner should a party re- examine the policies that it has devised : indeed, he claimed that it was hypocritical to do so.Mr. Redmond : That is simply not true. Opposition Members are constantly reviewing policies, on the ground that what is good enough for today may well not be good enough for tomorrow. We are always looking at the problems facing the country. Regrettably, Conservative Members are not doing the same : we see no change of policy until a leadership election, when each candidate names the policies that he would like to alter.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could approach the three leadership candidates and ask them to consider whether the Bill is worth passing, in view of the tremendous damage that it will do to industry. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the main problem with social security policies is the fact that, since 1979, they have been continually altered.
Mr. Rowe : I shall certainly include that in the list of questions that I shall be asking the three candidates. I should, however, be interested to know how many Opposition Members agree with the hon. Member for Ashfield--who clearly considers it positively hypocritical for Cabinet Ministers, and former Cabinet Ministers, to reconsider policies--and how many agree with the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond). The hon. Member for Don Valley was, of course, right to remind us that Labour's views on nuclear disarmament, membership of Europe and, indeed, the sale of council houses have undergone a number of changes--which we welcome, as they have now adopted in substantial measure the policies that we have consistently advocated.
Ms. Short : Although the Labour view on council house sales has been divided in that some Labour councils have always sold them, there is complete agreement that it is sinful to sell them and not replace them, which is what has been done under the present Administration. We favour council house sales to tenants who want them, but they should always be replaced to avoid the increasing homelessness that we have seen in Birmingham as a result of the Government's refusal to allow councils to build.
Mr. Rowe : There is considerable merit in a policy of increasing the number of houses available to those on low incomes. I welcome the moves to strengthen the housing associations ; I do not, however, believe that many councils' record of administration, maintenance and organisation of housing stock is nearly good enough for us to welcome the prospect of their returning to large-scale building and management.
I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) has left the Chamber. I listened to her speech with interest, and found it extraordinary that one of her arguments against the Bill should be the fact that employers constantly cheat on legislation. In my view, there is something inherent in the system of 100 per cent. reimbursement that will encourage malevolent and fraudulent employers to cheat : with or without the connivance of the work force, it will be perfectly possible for them to claim a state payment amounting to 100 per cent. of what has been claimed from them.
Small businesses genuinely fear that another burden will be placed on them, at a time when they are not very well placed to deal with such burdens. I hope that my right
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hon. Friend will consider carefully before any decision is made to change the 80 per cent. arrangement. Ultimately, however, I think that the whole national insurance scheme should be re- examined. It has never--from the day of its introduction--worked as Beveridge intended : it has never been properly funded, and has therefore always been subject to the vicissitudes of the national economy. Whenever a Government of any colour have found themselves in any kind of difficulty, they have used the national insurance system as a regulator for the economy generally, and the nation as a whole has had a pretty bad deal as a result. Any private insurance scheme that was run in such a way would be regarded by those who paid into it as a pretty duff show. It is high time that the way in which we meet people's needs was radically overhauled.As many of my hon. Friends know, I have long advocated the introduction of a national minimum income, although I also consider that the national minimum wage is either enormously destructive of jobs or ineffective. We already have the rudiments of such a system : with the exception of married people who do not work but whose spouses do, not a single group does not receive what could be described as the beginnings of a national minimum income.
Mr. Martlew : The hon. Gentleman appears to be saying that employers can pay very low wages and the state can top them up. I do not think that the state should get into the habit of subsidising poor employers ; that militates against the employers who pay a reasonable rate.
Mr. Rowe : One of the difficulties of a national minimum income scheme is exactly that. I believe that we need a system whereby people's incomes cannot fall below a certain level, and any amount that employers contribute above that minimum should not necessarily be accompanied by a 100 per cent. reduction : they should not lose £1 every time they add £1. The country has got itself into a real mess. This is not a party political or partisan point. Any Government must face the fact that it is now almost impossible to organise the paying out of benefits and the meeting of specific needs without a large group of people losing out every time the boundaries are changed.
Mr. Redmond : I thank the hon. Gentleman for clearing up the confusion on that point.
Regrettably, the Government have pursued a policy that has tended to depress minimum rates of pay. One of the problems is that sickness benefit has also been eroded. I understood sick pay to be a safety net to stop people from falling into poverty, but unfortunately that does not appear to be the case. I agree that there should be a national minimum wage and sick pay to match it. Pundits, academics and experts are all agreed on that.
Given the advice from all sides that a minimum rate should be set other than what the Government decree, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a vast difference between what the Government state and what people outside state? As the Government are not interested in a safety net for sick pay or in a minimum rate of pay, could the hon. Gentleman convince his colleagues that a safety net is desperately needed to eliminate poverty at the sharp end where people feel it?
Mr. Rowe : The hon. Gentleman misunderstands my point. A national minimum wage would destroy jobs because many individuals and businesses would be unable
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or unwilling to pay that wage. Either it would be enforced by inspectors, in which case many jobs would go, or, as in many mainland European countries, it would simply be ignored.I am interested in the definition of a national minimum income.
Ms. Short : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rowe : If the hon. Lady will forgive me, no.
There should be a sum below which no one, whether in or out of work, should be expected to operate. Clearly, if a person were in work, any contribution that the state had to make would reduce on a taper.
Mr. Redmond : I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. I thought that he was advocating a national minimum wage. If he is saying that there should not be a national minimum wage but that there should be statutory sick pay, which stops people falling to a desperate level of poverty, he is arguing that the state should continue to subsidise firms that pay horrendously low wages. Taxpayers' money should not be used to subsidise bad employers.
Mr. Rowe : I am a great believer in a high-wage, high-skill economy. Good and successful companies have good working conditions, pay good wages, have good redundancy arrangements and so on. That is the way forward. Do not let anybody be under any misunderstanding about that. A national minimum income would remove substantially the danger of subsidising low wages because people would not be forced into taking low wages. I do not want to go too far from the main thrust of the Bill.
The national insurance system does not operate anything like as smoothly as it should. There may well be a great deal of advantage in having a system that is fully funded. The Government may be able to contribute to that funding for those who cannot make their contribution from their low wage. We have a pay-as-you-go system, which is completely sensitive to the Government's handling of the economy and it does not work well. I am anxious to have a contributory system, which would be fully funded. It would probably be operated by a private organisation, although it would not worry me unduly if it were operated by a national organisation that was wholly separate, fenced round and properly audited.
I accept that there is the difficulty of exclusions. There are those whose state of disability or health record is such that a private insurance company will not accept them easily. The Government have a responsibility to help those people make the necessary additional premium contributions that allow them to remain beneficiaries of the insurance system. Hon. Members on both sides have pointed to the real danger that in the short term the Bill may make it harder for disabled people to be employed because many employers do not understand that the loyalty of disabled people frequently outweighs the illness quota that they must have over and above the average. The way to handle that is not to have a national statutory sick pay scheme such as we have now, but for disabled people to be able to lay claim to whatever additional resource they need to make it possible for an employer to take them on. There may be considerable advantages in exploring that line.
I am prepared to accept the measure at its 80 per cent. level now, but before we go much further, we need to incorporate the statutory sick pay arrangements in a much
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wider review of the way in which we meet national insurance-type needs. The present national insurance scheme has never worked as Beveridge intended. It has never been properly funded. We need a radical review. I am much more willing to talk to the three candidates for the Conservative party leadership about that than about the detail of the Bill.8.47 pm
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) : I was impressed by the flamboyance of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) in telling the Minister to come to the Dispatch Box and withdraw the Bill. I can suggest a replacement. Indeed, today I wrote to the Prime Minister on the matter. I addressed it, "To Whom it May Concern" and put a second-class stamp on the envelope. My suggestion is that the Government should replace this Bill quickly with a Bill to eradicate the poll tax. Tory Members are as opposed to the poll tax as we are. If the Government put such a Bill before the House, I am sure that the Labour party would accept it, it would pass through both Houses quickly and be on the statute book just after Christmas. In that way this year's poll tax bills would be the last and we would not fight a fraudulent election on whether the legislation should be amended. As that could be classified as a digression, I shall now turn to the Bill.
The Government introduced statutory sick pay in 1981. I was one of the unfortunate people who had to implement it in industry and it was not a popular measure. It is bureaucratic. The Government's idea was to redeploy 5,000 civil servants. They redeployed 5,000, and probably had to employ a further 2,000 in the private sector to calculate the system of statutory sick pay. There was no saving in manpower. It is just a way of shifting expenditure from the Exchequer to the private sector. That is what the Bill will do. It will not save money ; it will merely place the burden on the private sector. Given high interest rates and the number of bankruptcies that we face, it seems ridiculous to place such extra burdens on industry. We should reduce those burdens, principally by reducing interest rates.
The introduction of SSP was partly the result of self-certification which, in turn, was brought about by pressure from the British Medical Association --when it was still speaking to the Government. The doctors said, "It is not our job merely to provide medical certificates." Human nature being what it is, the number of days lost through sickness was bound to increase. The hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) gave us a disgraceful example which emphasised the point : the number of days lost through sickness has increased, but we are refusing to take responsibility for it. Self-certification did three things. First, it delayed the moment at which a sick person went to the doctor. In some cases, that delayed the person's recovery. On that point, we must remember the pernicious tax that the Government have levied on sick people in the form of prescription charges. Many low-paid workers cannot afford to pay prescription charges and that, too, delays their recovery. Secondly, self-certification destroyed confidentiality between doctor and patient--
Mr. Quentin Davies : Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the previous certification procedures sometimes
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involved wasting a great deal of the GP's valuable time? Doctors could have been treating patients who needed treatment instead of filling in forms for people in respects of whose ailments no medical attention was necessary.Mr. Martlew : There is no evidence to suggest that we are now a healthier society. The general practitioners argued that, following self- certification, they would be able to spend more time with sick people and so reduce the amount of sickness. The reverse has proved to be the case, although the result probably has more to do with the Government's economic and social policies than with the medical care offered by general practitioners.
Self-certification also destroyed confidentiality. A doctor who did not want to disclose to an employer the ailment from which a person was suffering would merely write on the certificate "debility", and that was good enough for both management and the state. That is no longer the case. The employee has to say what he is suffering from. The word "debility" will not be accepted by management and it will certainly not be accepted by the Department. It would be very difficult for someone suffering from AIDS to say so on his self-certification form, but that is what the rules require ; there is no argument about that.
Thirdly, self-certification has enabled people to pretend that they are ill, and there is no doubt that that sometimes happens.
Mr. Redmond : Does my hon. Friend agree that the trouble with self- certification is that someone may diagnose himself wrongly? The beauty of going to a doctor and explaining one's symptoms is that the doctor may be able to detect a severe disabling illness in its early stages. If the person is suffering from nothing more than a hangover, the doctor can say, "I'm sorry : you ain't getting a note." That means that the person will think twice before trying to mislead his employer again. I agree with my hon. Friend that if someone goes to a doctor and explains his problem, his life may be saved.
Mr. Martlew : I could not agree more. Moreover, self-certification may put public health at risk. Under the old system, someone suffering from food poisoning who worked in a food factory could have his problem identified immediately. The doctor would tell the environmental health officers and the person would be excluded from work. That no longer happens and, as we know, there has been a threefold increase in food poisoning since self-certification and the statutory sick pay scheme came into effect.
As I was saying, there is the odd person who will not play the game--who will skive. In my experience, the entrepreneurial people tended to come back with a sun tan because six days' leave plus a weekend had enabled them to spend a week in Spain. They were a small minority, but it happened nevertheless. We have had a perfect example this week. People who are masquerading as Ministers have in fact been running an election campaign. They are not working. I understand that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who was here a moment ago, is the campaign manager for one of the contestants in the leadership election. I bet he has not done much work today. If we had self-certification in the House, the right hon. Gentleman would probably have certified himself sick so that he could get on with his other job.
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Mr. Rowe : Some of the hon. Gentleman's post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments are a little loose. It seems to me likely that food poisoning has increased because of the widespread use of microwave ovens rather than because of self-certification. The hon. Gentleman's argument is somewhat dangerous.Mr. Martlew : I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should say that, as many people's jobs depend on the manufacture of microwave ovens and such a slur could affect them badly. I am a member of the Select Committee on Agriculture, which is looking into the problem of microwave ovens. We have yet to be given any evidence to suggest that that is a major cause of food poisoning.
Mr. Rowe : I did not suggest that microwave ovens were the cause of food poisoning but, rather, that food poisoning is caused by people who do not understand how to use microwave ovens.
Mr. Martlew : I am surprised that Conservative Members should not have learnt the lessons of imprecision. One Minister lost her job because she implied that there was something wrong with eggs. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not lose any influence that he may have by suggesting that there is something wrong with microwave ovens. Statutory sick pay was a very bureaucratic system, which transferred the costs to industry. I fear that we shall have a problem with disabled people. At present, we do not meet our quota, although I am not sure that a quota system is the right way to get disabled people into employment. Many companies employ people who are disabled but who are not registered as such because there is no need for them to register. I am saying not that the Government have anything other than a diabolical record on the recruitment and employment of disabled people but that the Bill will encourage employers to sack people who are sick. An employer who does so will make a saving. No civilised Government should create such an incentive, yet that is exactly what the Bill does. It will also transfer the cost to the state.
Mr. Quentin Davies : Will the hon. Gentleman reconsider that allegation? No tribunal would accept a genuine illness as a valid ground for dismissal. To sack someone on that basis would result in the employer having to pay redundancy or other compensation charges far greater than any notional saving under the SSP arrangements contained in the Bill.
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