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Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): I am genuinely intrigued to know the reasons that have driven the Government to allow this exemption from what is, for them, a very important piece of legislation. The Secretary of State said that only about 1,000 people would be affected by the provision; it would very much help the House to know exactly what type of people they are. I have suggested to the Government several times that other exemptions should be made from the national minimum wage legislation. It would be intriguing to know--and it is very important that the House should know before it passes this exemption--what has driven the Secretary of State to accept the logic for this group.

In the past, I have advanced a proposition entirely commensurate with the spirit that underlies what I think is a commendable amendment. It is that quasi volunteers who involve themselves in pre-school playgroups think that they should be exempted from minimum wage legislation. These are people who share a common belief

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about the value of education. They do not live together but they are often people who do not want the money that comes from their work. They have the reward of enjoying the fulfilment that comes from helping young people to develop their skills. Yet the Government have robustly rejected the view that these quasi volunteers should be excluded from the minimum wage legislation.

9.15 pm

I have a high regard for religious communities. In the past, I have been on retreat on many occasions to religious communities, mainly in France. I do not recall having done so in this country. That being so, I do not want to undermine the importance of the exemption. I want to know why the Government have been moved to accept the amendment, which excludes religious communities from minimum wage legislation when there are so many other groups that could argue with equal legitimacy that the cause they espouse and the views and beliefs that they hold about the value of education--for example, pre-school playgroups--are as valid as the religious beliefs held by communities.

The first question that the Secretary of State must answer is why a particular group has been singled out for what seems to be a reasonable exclusion. I would like to know also from the Secretary of State exactly what type of person is affected. He talked of about 1,000 people. These are presumably not the nuns and monks of religious communities and their opposite numbers. They are the--[Interruption.] The Minister said something from a sedentary position and I could not hear what he said. If he genuinely wants to intervene, I shall find it helpful to have clarification.

I am wondering about gardeners, cooks and groundsmen at communities, for example. If they are included, that is fine. Who is the employee? I do not know how the law operates in this respect. We are not dealing with limited liability companies, particularly when talking about religious communities. Apparently, communities will have to have charitable status. Employment by the community is clearly important.

I would be interested to know whether the Secretary of State has received any representations from communities that think that they should be caught by the exemption but that do not qualify for charitable status.

I am particularly worried about clause 2(b), which states:

"a purpose of the community is to practise or advance a belief of a religious or similar nature".

I take up what my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) said from the Opposition Front Bench about environmental groups. If the amendment were genuinely providing an exemption for religious communities, "the principal purpose" and not "a purpose" should be in the Bill. I share all the reservations that have already been expressed about "or similar nature", which flows after religious beliefs. This opens a Pandora's box for not only legitimate religious groups from the Roman Catholic and the Anglican monastic traditions, which I assume will be the principal beneficiaries of the exemption, but for all sorts of dubious religious cults, whose practices I do not think we would want to condone. Often such cults have a community for the practising or the advancing of

"a belief of a religious or similar nature".

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The phrase "or similar nature" takes a particular salience because the rather dubious religious cults, on which I am sure the Government have a wary eye, as did the previous Conservative Government, often have much more money than the Anglican and Roman Catholic communities and other religious communities that are entirely properly being exempted under the Bill.

It would seem that cults may be capable of abusing the spirit of the national minimum wage legislation. They have much more resources at their disposal than the Anglican and Roman Catholic communities and many more employees. I am concerned that the amendment may be opening the door not to 1,000 exemptions but many more from the national minimum wage legislation.

Mr. Collins: I understand what my hon. Friend is saying about the potential danger of including cults. Is not that danger reinforced by the fact that many cults try to tell those who fall within their embrace that they are entering a completely different world from the outside world and that they must cut off all contact with it? Exemption from important statutory provisions will only reinforce that sense of being apart from the rest of the world.

Mr. Luff: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I appreciate that, by definition, volunteers cannot be caught by national minimum wage legislation--at least, I hope they cannot--but those who are at the penumbra of such cults, who are employed in some sense by that bigger community, may indeed fall victim to the situation that my hon. Friend describes.

We need to know much more from the Secretary of State about those 1,000 people who he says will be exempted by the measure, welcome though it is in principle.

Subsection (2)(c) states that

"all or some of its members live together for that purpose."

That is exceptionally loose drafting. What, in law, does "some" constitute? Is it a half, a quarter, a third, a fifth, two or three? How many does "some" constitute for this purpose? There is huge scope for creative abuse of the exemption.

I say again that I am not a huge fan of the national minimum wage legislation. Good employers should pay a decent wage, and I condemn those who do not. The Government have no business meddling. I oppose such legislation, and I resent being told when I oppose it that I am not part of the new one-nation strain of new Labourism. However, if we are to have legislation, it must be good legislation. It must not be open to abuse.

There is nothing hypocritical in the Opposition saying that we oppose legislation, but, if it is to be introduced, it must work. I worry that the loose definitions that feature in amendment No. 20 could open the Government's legislation to considerable abuse.

I imagine that the exemption in subsection (3)(a)--

"This section does not apply to a community which--


(a) is an independent school"--

is intended to exempt communities such as Ampleforth. Clearly, where there is large-scale employment of teachers, it is reasonable for the Government to make such an exemption, but I would welcome clarification of that.

I go back to my opening remarks. If we are exempting independent schools, I want to know why we are not exempting other categories, particularly the pre-school

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play groups, which have a common belief and value education. The people who work for them do so not primarily for the money, but for the joy of bringing up children. If the Government are prepared to make an exemption for religious communities--which may be right, subject to the caveats that I have entered--why are they not prepared to consider exemptions for other communities which may not be residential, but have a shared belief and are essentially voluntary in nature?

Mr. Chidgey: I return to the Secretary of State's opening remarks, which seem to have been made quite a long while ago. He mentioned that he had listened carefully to the arguments advanced by a number of groups. He is right. In Committee, there was a great deal of discussion and debate about the exemptions for particular groups which, because of their religious principles, could not continue to organise themselves and the way in which they worked if the law was passed and affected them.

Much of that discussion took place during the debate on employment relations and trade union recognition. Can the Minister tell me--I may have missed it in my reading of the Lords amendments--what has happened to the plea from those groups that they should be exempted from trade union recognition? As I recall, that was one of their principal problems. With their fundamental belief in the Old Testament, which they quoted to many of us, they could not operate their workshops if they had to allow trade union recognition ballots to take place. They could not do that and hold true to their beliefs.

If I recall correctly, the Minister of State said at the time that there would be further discussion and clarification, and that regulations would be produced in due course to address the issue.

I am a little surprised to see a Lords amendment dealing with the national minimum wage, but no mention of the problem of trade union recognition. I should be grateful if the Secretary of State could advise me of the progress that has been made in the negotiations and when we can expect regulations or legislation to satisfy the genuine concerns of those groups.

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