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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman is not able to address the amendment more directly, he should consider drawing his remarks to a close.
Mr. Key: I should be delighted to draw my remarks to a close, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I question the purpose of the amendment. I ask Ministers seriously to address this issue. My predecessor, Sir Michael Hamilton, regularly stood up in the House and was gently chided, perhaps mocked, for drawing attention to the problems each year at Stonehenge, which always made the national headlines during the summer solstice. Eventually, someone saw what was going on down there--people were being killed and murdered--and the House came to its senses and passed the required legislation.
I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your forbearance in hearing me out. The amendment will do no good for real people in real communities. We may think that we are legislating for completely rational, legally minded people, but lawyers and courts will have to interpret the legislation, and the police will have to
decide how to enforce it on the ground in the height of summer, among serried ranks of people with conflicting religious beliefs. That is not fair. We must get answers to the questions that I have raised.
Mr. Collins:
I shall be brief, but I should like to make some important points. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) in welcoming the fact that the Government have introduced the proposals for exemptions. However, it is not that long since the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 was passed. At the time of its passage, Conservative Members warned the then Secretary of State that the Government would need a general power to exempt some categories of persons and activities from the national minimum wage. That idea was pooh-poohed by Labour Members. This is the second time in barely a year that the Government have had the chance to introduce special legislation to exempt categories of people from the national minimum wage. First it was au pairs, and now it is workers in residence in religious communities.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) asked about religious communities, and the position of those who have sought exemption from the requirement for trade union recognition. The hon. Gentleman and I served on the Standing Committee that considered the relevant parts of the Bill, which related in particular to those who describe themselves as members of the Plymouth Brethren. I suspect that the Secretary of State will say that they would not fall into the categories specified by the amendment, because most of those who work for the Plymouth Brethren are not residential members of the community. Nevertheless, I feel that the hon. Member for Eastleigh has identified an important issue of principle.
Mr. Chidgey:
The amendment says that "some" can be residents. Does that not cover such people?
Mr. Collins:
The hon. Gentleman is right, but I really want to deal with what I consider to be the heart of the point that he was making. We are dealing with an issue of principle. In Committee, the Minister of State was quite generous, expressing a strong commitment to people's right to follow their religious beliefs. However, he said that it was wrong for those religious beliefs to remove the rights of employees. It was on that basis that the Government rejected the amendments relating to the Plymouth Brethren, tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson).
If that principle applies across the board--not least in other parts of the Bill--surely it ought to apply in this case. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the Government recognise that there are religious grounds on which exemptions should be made--and I welcome any such recognition--why, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh has said, should that not apply to trade union recognition? If the Government now believe that religious considerations provide legitimate grounds for the changing of employment rights, why does that not apply throughout the Bill?
The Government may say that the issue involves not just religious issues, but the residential members of the community who are mentioned in new section 44A(1). The residential principle is at heart here. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire said
about certain groups--including, perhaps, the Pre-School Learning Alliance--but I think particularly of people in my constituency. I think of the secretary of the national training centre of the YMCA at Lakeside in my constituency, on the shores of Lake Windermere, who wants residential training courses there to be exempted from the national minimum wage provisions. I also think of Mr. Michael Berry, proprietor and managing director of the excellent English Lakes hotel chain in my constituency, who says that the provisions do not take enough account of the fact that most employees in the tourist industry are provided with residential accommodation. That ought to be considered in the assessment of their eligibility for the national minimum wage, and the amount that they receive.
I want the Secretary of State to explain the principles that apply. If there are to be religious exemptions, why do they not apply elsewhere? If there are to be residential exemptions, why do they not apply elsewhere? If the Government are simply acting in response to popular pressure, will the Secretary of State please listen to some of the points made by the Pre-School Learning Alliance, and by others who feel that the Government's actions, although doubtless embarked on with the best of motives, will have damaging consequences?
Mr. Byers:
Although a number of the points that have been made touched on the amendment, a much larger number did not. I shall confine my remarks to those that are relevant to it.
For the benefit of hon. Members, I make the position clear. The minimum wage does not apply to volunteers, to nuns or to monks; they are exempt from the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. When the issue was debated in both Houses in the context of the national minimum wage, most people felt that intentional communities would not be considered as workers within the definition of the Act. What people were unaware of at the time was that individuals in intentional communities are often given employment contracts as best practice. Although, in the classic definition, they are not employees, they are given contracts of employment because that is regarded as best practice, so they fall within the definition of the Act.
Lords amendment No. 20 focuses particularly on those with a religious ethos who are resident. To qualify for exemption, the community must be a charity, or founded by a charity and--as hon. Members have said--all or some of the members must reside together for the purpose
of practising or advancing a belief of "a religious or similar nature". I will talk about "religious or similar nature" because it has been dwelt on by several Members.
Examples of the type of communities that will be covered by amendment No. 20 are the Iona Community, the Society of Mary and Martha, the Community for Reconciliation and the Quiet Waters Christian retreat house. The amendment has been drawn up in consultation with those bodies. There is, effectively, a network of intentional communities in the United Kingdom. We were conscious that it was an identifiable group. We took the view that it could be exempt from the National Minimum Wage Act.
I reassure hon. Members: the protesters whom we have heard about would not come within the definition. The reason is that, when a court considers the interpretation of "religious or similar nature", it will apply a rule of statutory interpretation which is known as the ejusdem generis rule, which means that the general comment about "similar" will be restricted to the specific, which is religious. I am sure that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) was aware of that rule of statutory interpretation. Therefore, the reference to "similar nature" will be constrained by the use of the word "religious". In the context of those assurances, I hope that we can make progress.
A number of issues have been raised by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) had concerns about the wording:
"all or some of its members live together".
In that context, "some" means more than one. Although we talk about all living together, there will be circumstances in which 50 people may be engaged, but only 35 are living together, so that definition of "some" has been used. In that context, those 35 will be the ones who come within the provisions of the exemption to which I have referred and which is being dealt with by amendment No. 20.
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