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Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I am grateful tomy hon. Friend because she highlights an important consideration, which is the exponential rise in regulation that this country has had to contend with since 1 May 1997. Has she made any assessment of the likely increase in the net number of regulations that we face as a result of the new clause? Does she think that that is important, given that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has already said that the Government have not got it right on regulations?
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Mrs. Lait: I assure my hon. Friend that we would be happy to work that out, but, because of the speed with which the new clause was tabled, it has been impossible to do so yet.
I am sure that employers' organisations will rapidly make their views clear. No regulatory impact assessment has yet been produced. I hope that the Government will give us an assurance that they intend to produce one, because otherwise we shall oppose the Bill on the basis of the costs to business.
Many hon. Members have been lobbied by the Pre-School Learning Alliance, which held a reception in our Dining Room last week. I have visited many playgroups in my constituency. Every single one of them has pointed out to me the difficulties that it is experiencing with Government regulations. Playgroups are paying the minimum wage, but their objection is that the people who run them are turning from good-hearted volunteers who want to help children into unpaid form-filling slaves. They must deal with the working time directive, they will potentially have to deal with the stakeholder pension, as laid out in the Bill, and now they are likely to have to deal with the maternity allowance forms.
The maternity allowance will affect primarily women who have been out of work, who are desperate to get back into work and who can work only part-time, either because they are not qualified or because they have children. Those are the very women who are likely to find employers less willing to employ them. As the Minister said, about 14,000 women are excluded--14,000 women who could potentially get further jobs, but whom employers are likely to find it difficult to employ. We are speaking of a relatively small sum in the overall total of social security spending.
Kali Mountford (Colne Valley):
I am trying desperately to follow the argument, now that we have finally got on to the clause. Is the hon. Lady telling the House that the Conservative party is opposed to extending maternity allowance on the basis of filling in forms?
Mrs. Lait:
If the hon. Lady listened to my earlier points, she would realise that the crucial point is that there is no time for us to consider the proposal, and there has been no consultation. Our concern is that, with the best will in the world, employers will be unable to employ precisely the sort of women whom the hon. Lady is trying to help. The inability to balance the two interests is the focus of our discussion and, probably, our opposition.
Some 14,000 women are excluded because they have been earning too little. The sum involved is relatively small compared to the overall total of social security spending, but weekend figures from the Library show that the Government's social security control total is spinning out of control. They promised to reduce social security spending, but it is increasing at a rate of 3.2 per cent. a year, which is more than inflation. Hence, the relatively small sum will add to social security control problems.
I asked the Library to find out why it would take16 months to introduce the changes. The answer was illuminating. Let us count back from 20 August 2000. Women are eligible for the allowance from the 11th week before the baby is due. It is also payable if the baby is born prematurely. That can be as early as 19 weeks before the expected week of birth. That takes the date back to April 2000. However, if the rules were to come into force in April 2000 to cover women who give birth to premature babies, women could claim from November this year.
The interesting comment was that November this year is too early for the necessary legislative and administrative arrangements to be put in place. It cannot be too difficult or time consuming for the Benefits
Agency to extend a known benefit. Do I detect a concern that the Bill will be delayed either here or in the other place? With the Government's majority, I can hardly believe that, but perhaps that it what they fear.
As the Minister said, changes to maternity leave are going through the House, so it is not clear what the final pattern will be, but we must look at the interaction of this extended benefit with maternity leave. I should like the vulnerable women who would need to get back into the workplace to be encouraged to do so. We need to ensure that low-paid, self-employed women have the opportunity to have children, if that is what they want.
The effect of the national minimum wage is that women who work for between eight and three-quarter and 18 and a third hours a week will receive this allowance, which is the point of the figure of £30 to £66 a week.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Can the hon. Lady make the position absolutely clear? Is she for or against the extension of the maternity allowance?
Mrs. Lait:
As I have said time and again, the Bill is the wrong place in which to put that allowance without full consultation.
We want the single mums who need to get back into the workplace, or those who have few qualifications, to be working, and they are the ones who will be working part-time. Even if, as the Government have said, the initial regulation is minimal--because the Benefits Agency carries out the work on the basis of wage slips--and if maternity leave is extended, it will, over time and taking those two together, be much less attractive for employers and charities to employ women who could bear children. [Interruption.]
The Minister may disagree--he looks at though he does--but small employers have to ask themselves whether they need this hassle. There will be no clear decision, but it will gently emerge that employers will choose to employ mature women or young men, who also need jobs. That could be damaging to the sort of women who everyone in the House would like to get back into the workplace.
The Government say that they want a flexible, modern work force. The measure will make it much harder for women to get back into that flexible, modern work force. We cannot see the need for the new clause to be rushed through the House. There has not been proper time to consider it and to get the views of interested bodies. Tabling it at the very last moment was not the best way to help women; it is a shoddy attempt to cover up the splits between Labour Members, which shows their contempt for the House. We will oppose the new clause.
Mrs. Browning:
The Minister was kind enough to take an intervention from me specifically on the tax position and the claims of self-employed women. I should like to expand a little on my intervention.
The Minister will be aware of the position under self-assessment for self-employed people--men and women. For example, a self-employed woman who needed to make a claim for the new benefit during this year would have to rely on her income from her filed accounts for the 1997-98 tax year. People will be looking to file their returns for the present tax year with the Inland Revenue at the end of September, if they want it to
calculate the tax liability, or by 31 January next year, if they are doing that themselves. There will also be a period in which the Inland Revenue will examine and agree those returns.
For self-employed women, we are therefore looking at a time scale in which income would not be immediately available, even to themselves, because it would have to be confirmed by the Inland Revenue. One factor differentiates self-employed women from self-employed men when they first set up a business: the income from the new business is often the second income in the household. Thus, many women start up a business in a modest way, perhaps working from home, so the income that they draw from the business in the first year or two is minimal because they want the business to grow before deriving a bigger income from it. The Minister's colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry will confirm that pattern.
Earlier, I asked the Minister about how such women would make a claim under this new provision. I am also concerned that, in the first or second year of a new business, it might be extremely difficult for some women to qualify for the benefit because of the way in which self-employed accounts are prepared. I do not imply that there is any irregularity in their preparation, but the owner of the business will have forgone earnings. To compare the earnings of such a person with those of someone under the PAYE system would be complex.
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