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7.7 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis): I thank the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) for introducing the subject of child labour. He may not be wholly surprised to find that I do not agree with everything that he has said, but he raised some important and legitimate concerns for the welfare of children in Britain and abroad. I am not here to answer today for children abroad. I merely say that, if some of the countries to which he referred adopted some of Britain's protective legislation, some of the abuses about which he and I share concern might be prevented.
The hon. Gentleman speaks from a purist and honest point of view, which is that no child should be employed. That is a perfectly fair position to take, but it is not the one that most people in Britain would adopt. He would rule out even the paper round. Children often wish to work, and society in general sees work by children as a normal part of a child's life.
Suitable work undertaken by children in controlled circumstances can be beneficial, for instance by developing in them a sense of their own worth,
by developing the discipline of regular attendance, and through the experience of handling money and forging working relationships, not least with people older than themselves. All that can be beneficial to general development, to the rounding of a child as an individual.
We must be careful not to confuse the common experience of children who work, for example, delivering daily newspapers, with the occasional horror stories that we hear of children being exploited, perhaps in dangerous circumstances, by unscrupulous employers. If that occurred, the hon. Gentleman and I would stand shoulder to shoulder to find ways to prevent it and to bring to justice anyone who had perpetrated it.
Let me make the legal position quite clear. Children are prohibited by statute from working except in strictly controlled circumstances. Apart from the general prohibition on children working in any industrial undertaking, contained in the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920, the basic rules are contained in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which stipulates that no child may work below the age of 13 years before 7 am, during school hours or after 7 pm for more than two hours on any school day or Sunday.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the 1973 private Member's Bill, which, as he rightly said, was passed during a Conservative Government. It was considered by the Labour Government of 1976, but they decided not to implement it in that form and instead decided to go for local government byelaws. Subsequent Governments have followed that route, although we are now looking to see whether they need strengthening as a result of the EU directive.
Most important--this is the crux of the control of children's employment--any employer who wishes to employ a child must register the child with the local education authority and obtain an employment card, which will be issued only when the LEA is satisfied that the job involved is legal in terms of the nature of the task to be performed, the hours of work involved and the times when the task is to be performed. The LEA must also be satisfied that the child is fit to do the work and that his or her education and general well-being will not be put at risk.
The measures that I have described provide a sound legal basis for allowing our children, from a suitable age, to gain valuable experience of work while at the same time protecting their well-being.
Mr. Corbyn:
Roughly how many children are registered with local education authorities? What does the Minister's Department think is the rate of non-compliance in that area?
Mr. Bowis:
I shall come to that point in a moment. We do not know the number of children who are registered with employment cards, but there is perfectly clear evidence that a large number of children do not use the cards. That is something that local authorities must look at.
There is, however, much good practice. I have seen booklets produced by local authorities of all political persuasions, in all parts of the country--rural and urban--which set out to ensure that local employers are aware of their duties in that regard. I have seen documents produced by those in the newspaper industry to try to ensure that their people are complying. I have no doubt
that debates such as this will also highlight the need to comply. It is not a case of people being exploited or badly treated; it is a case of children who are not being properly employed within the law. That is not acceptable. There is a £1,000 fine for non-compliance, and we must get that across. As we move towards the implementation of the EU directive, we shall have further opportunities to highlight that.
If we hear of instances--sometimes tragic instances, which are rare--where the system has failed, we do not find that a child has come to harm as a result of a deficiency in the current law. I have heard of calls for central Government to do something about the illegal employment of children, usually from people who are a little short on what to do. As I have described, local authorities have considerable powers to control children's employment sensibly. I stress again that they have had such powers since 1933. There is nothing new in the idea of children working or of protecting them while they do so.
We sometimes hear alarmist figures that up to 1.5 million children work illegally--alarmist because the estimate is due not to any widespread exploitation but rather to the fact that relatively few children, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, possess an employment card. Many authorities are taking positive action to tackle that by visiting schools and so on, and I hope that that will continue.
Suggestions have been made--the hon. Gentleman referred to this--that local authorities have not felt able to allocate the necessary resources to control children's employment effectively, and in particular to enforce the employment card system. It is, as the hon. Gentleman will know, for each local authority to decide on its spending priorities and to devote resources as it sees fit to any sector of its responsibilities. It is not a new responsibility; it goes back more than 60 years, and I should have thought that any authority that thought that children were at risk would ensure that such resources as were necessary were allocated to that area.
Some people may think that the current law is out of date. I do not accept that. Detailed controls are contained in local authority byelaws, which local authorities are responsible for keeping up to date. We propose changes, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The directive on the protection of young people at work, which was produced by the EU in June 1994, calls on member states to bring their domestic legislation into line with the terms of the directive, and we are working towards that. We believe, however, that our current system already provides suitable protection. That does not, of course, mean that we shall not comply with the terms of the directive. Of course we shall. I am concerned that, while we make the few changes to the current rules that are required by the directive, we ensure that we are fully up to date, which we need to be to protect our children.
With regard to children under the minimum school leaving age--the cut-off point where the legislation applies--we have the option, and we shall take it, under the directive of not applying the limit of 12 hours a week during term time. We shall retain our current limits of up to a maximum of 17 hours a week for children up to the age of 15, and 20 hours a week for children of 15 or over. There is no objective evidence to support a lower limit. The current limits have been in place for many years, and I am aware of no evidence that they are in any way inappropriate. I am, of course, aware of the research, notably from the university of Paisley, which suggests that
children working more than 10 or perhaps 12 hours a week perform less well academically, but, as the authors of that research are honest enough to acknowledge, no direct causal link has been established.
I should point out that the directive permits children aged 13 and 14 to work up to seven hours a day and 35 hours a week in their school holidays, and children aged 15 or over to work eight hours a day and 40 hours a week. That is far in excess of our current limit of five hours a day and 25 hours a week for 13 and 14-year-olds, and eight hours a day and 35 hours a week for children over 15. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are not moving towards the directive on that. We are retaining our lower limits, which I hope will please him at least. Another important way in which we are already more protective than the directive requires is on the start and finish times. The directive prohibits children from working between 8 pm and 6 am. Current United Kingdom law prohibits work between 7 pm and 7 am. We shall retain our more protective approach.
Mr. Corbyn:
If, as the Minister says, the EU directive is rather worse than the British Government's position--I take his point about start and finish times--why on earth did the British Government not veto it when they had the opportunity to do so? They veto lots of other things--why not that?
Mr. Bowis:
The veto was not appropriate in that context.
Mr. Bowen Wells (Lord Commissioner to the Treasury):
There is qualified majority voting.
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