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Mates, Michael

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Mills, Iain

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Mitchell, Sir David

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Morrison, Sir Charles

Moss, Malcolm

Mudd, David

Neale, Gerrard

Neubert, Michael

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Norris, Steve

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Oppenheim, Phillip

Page, Richard

Pawsey, James

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Porter, David (Waveney)

Powell, William (Corby)

Price, Sir David

Raffan, Keith

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Sackville, Hon Tom

Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

Shaw, David (Dover)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Shelton, Sir William

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Speller, Tony

Stanbrook, Ivor

Stern, Michael

Stevens, Lewis

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Temple-Morris, Peter

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Thornton, Malcolm

Thurnham, Peter

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Tracey, Richard

Twinn, Dr Ian

Viggers, Peter

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Walden, George

Ward, John

Watts, John

Wheeler, Sir John

Widdecombe, Ann

Wilkinson, John

Wilshire, David

Winterton, Nicholas

Wood, Timothy

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Yeo, Tim

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Tellers for the Noes

Mr. Tim Boswell and

Mr. Irvine Patnick.

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East) : On a point of order, Miss Boothroyd. Do you know whether the House is to receive a statement later today? Now that the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) has been made Secretary of State for the Environment, he may like to take this opportunity of making real the promises he made in the dying hours of yesterday morning's contest when he said that he intends to abolish the poll tax.

The Second Deputy Chairman : The House is always happy to be kept abreast of the news, but that has nothing to do with our Standing Orders or the Statutory Sick Pay Bill, discussion of which we shall continue.

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) : I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 1, line 14, leave out from of' to and' in line 15 and insert

so much of each of those payments as was made in respect of the first two weeks of

(a) a period of incapacity for work, or

(b) two or more such periods separated by a period of not more than two weeks, and 100 per cent. of the remainder of those payments.'. The Second Deputy Chairman : With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 1- - Limitation on restricted reimbursement of statutory sick pay. --

The provisions of this Act, insofar as they amend section 9 of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982 (recovery by employers of amounts paid by way of statutory sick pay) shall only have effect to the extent of amount paid by an employer in respect of statutory sick pay paid to an employee during the first three weeks of his absence from employment.'.

Mr. Meacher : One of the worst aspects of the Bill is that it puts at risk the employment prospects of those with poor health records. In his reply to the Second Reading debate,

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the Minister of State said that he acknowledged the importance of that point, but he sought to reassure the House about the work of the Department of Employment in trying to promote the job opportunities of the disabled.

That misses the point. All that work, such as it is, is undermined by the Bill. The Bill will act as a greater deterrent to employers taking on disabled or chronically sick people than all the positive efforts of the Department of Employment taken together. That is what we are trying to redress, and it is the reason why we have tabled the amendment.

The amendment will retain the 100 per cent. remimbursement rate for any sick pay period after the first two weeks of sickness. For that purpose, we propose that two spells separated by an interval of two weeks or less will be treated as a single spell--a reasonable proposal--so that the 80 per cent. reimbursement rate would apply for only two weeks.

The amendment does not imply--one must always be careful to meet the procedures of the House, and although we cannot table an amendment to negate the purpose of the Bill we must get as close as possible to doing so while keeping within the rules--that we would be in favour of reducing the reimbursement rate to below 100 per cent. for any period. To prevent that, Parliament would have had to have rejected the whole Bill, but, unwisely, it did not do so on Second Reading. Therefore, we tabled the amendment to draw attention to one of the Bill's worst effects--the fact that employers will be unwilling to employ not only people who have had prolonged or repeated periods of sickness but those whom they believe, rightly or wrongly, may have poor health prospects. In future, such people will clearly be at risk.

6 pm

There is plenty of evidence of job discrimination against disabled persons or those who suffer from poor health. On Second Reading, I quoted the study carried out by the Spastics Society entitled "An Equal Chance for Disabled People? A Study of Discrimination in Employment". I said that its findings were that there was "systematic evidence of the most blatant discrimination by employers."--[ Official Report, 26 November 1990 ; Vol. 181, c. 649.]

Although I did not say this on Second Reading, in the further analysis of this debate I shall quote its report more fully : "Employers were sent identical pairs of applications to jobs advertised, the only difference being that one application was a non-disabled person and the other from someone who mentioned that they had a disability of some kind. It was found that able-bodied applicants were 1.6 times more likely than disabled applicants to be offered an interview. On the basis of these tests, the researchers concluded that disabled applicants had far less than an equal chance.'"

Those are the facts about employers being prepared to offer an interview to disabled persons or to those with chronic ill health. The disparity in offering jobs to disabled or chronically sick people is far greater.

On Second Reading, the Minister of State mentioned a survey entitled "Employment and Handicap" by Patricia Prescott-Clarke of Social and Community Planning Research, which was published this year. It found that there was strong evidence that people who become sick or disabled while in employment are already in a very vulnerable position. For example, nearly one third of those

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who had to leave their job for health reasons had been dismissed or had felt pressurised into leaving because of impairment.

The study found :

"Employers appear to be more likely to dismiss employees of short acquaintance who had acquired an impairment that affects their work than those who have worked for them for several years."

If that is the attitude of employers to disabled or chronically sick people already in their employment, what will be their attitude to those applying for jobs? That is the issue that the amendment addresses. There is clear evidence of substantial discrimination against those already in employment. We believe that the Bill will create a much higher and more difficult recruitment hurdle for disabled people.

Another vulnerable group whom we do not discuss as much as we should is those with a record of mental illness. Many people who have a degree of mental illness are capable of entering at least the fringes of the job market if they have support. Responding to the Government's proposed extension of the statutory sick pay scheme to 28 weeks, the National Association for Mental Health gave this warning :

"Shifting the payment of SSP to employers will add to discriminatory practices and make employees vulnerable to dismissal if the employer chooses to investigate the health records of those with a history of mental illness."

I could go on giving much more evidence, but the picture is perfectly clear : disabled people are at a considerable disadvantage.

It was inveighed on Second Reading that I have it in for employers and that I think that all employers are bad. Many employers take their responsibilities seriously and try to employ people who have a measure of disability, but many are reluctant to do so, and if given any incentive, encouragement or excuse not to do so will be only too pleased to take it. We must give employers an incentive to employ people with chronic health or disability problems, not a disincentive. That is the force of the amendment.

I have been commenting on the position as it is now, but what will be the position for those highly vulnerable people when the Bill gives employers an added real financial deterrent to employing them? Perhaps the Under- Secretary's reply will be along the lines of what the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People said on the last amendment. She may argue that having to bear 20 per cent. of any sick-pay cost will not make very much difference to employers' recruitment practices.

The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People seemed to be saying that the effects of the Bill would be fairly minimal and would not act as much discouragement, even to small employers. We dispute that. It is true that the effect will be fairly small for many employers. One can quote averages, but for every favourable case quoted by the Minister or the Secretary of State on Second Reading, there are many employers who will clearly suffer significant cost disadvantages, and one must take account of the less favourable cases.

The Secretary of State is always fair when he makes these points, so I admit that I am quoting one extreme--the last 10 per cent. for whom sickness lasts more than eight weeks. Adding 20 per cent. of 28 weeks' statutory sick pay at the highest rate comes to £294, which for a small employer is certainly not a negligible sum. Moreover--this is an important point--if the Government are right about a high proportion of employees being covered by

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