| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe): Have an Adjournment debate.
Mr. Garnier:
I have had one of those, and the Minister's response was wholly inadequate. I want the Secretary of State here to answer to the House for this
2 Mar 2005 : Column 974
decision, which has been taken undemocratically and without the opportunity for Labour and Conservative Members representing Leicestershire to deal with it.
Mr. Speaker: I am not encouraging this—far from it—but Members can also apply for an urgent question. But that does not mean to say that I will agree to it.
BILLS PRESENTED
Mr. Alex Salmond, supported by Mr. Roy Beggs, Mr. Alistair Carmichael, Mr. Nigel Dodds, Mr. Kelvin Hopkins, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Mr. Eddie McGrady, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Angus Robertson, Mr. Anthony Steen, Mr. Michael Weir and Ann Winterton, presented a Bill to make provision for withdrawal from the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union; to amend the Fishery Limits Act 1976; to make provision about the exercise of functions under that Act by Scottish Ministers, the National Assembly for Wales, Northern Ireland Ministers and the Secretary of State; to provide that that Act shall have effect regardless of the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972; to define English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish waters; and for connected purposes. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 13 May, and to be printed. [Bill 73].
Mr. Michael Foster, supported by Peter Bradley, Mr. Alan Campbell, Mr. Parmjit Dhanda, Mr. David Drew, Mr. James Plaskitt, Mr. Patrick Hall and Mrs. Janet Dean presented a Bill to make provision about concessionary fares on buses for elderly persons. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 22 April, and to be printed. [Bill 74].
2 Mar 2005 : Column 973
2 Mar 2005 : Column 975
Annual Leave Entitlement (Enforcement)
1.34 pm
Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen, South) (Lab): I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the enforcement of entitlements to annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998 and to amend the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 in that connection; and for connected purposes.
The news that the national minimum wage is to be raised to more than £5 an hour in October this year hit all the national headlines last week. Seven years after the introduction of a national minimum wage, most people know about it. The work of the Inland Revenue national minimum wage enforcement agency's compliance officers has been effective. They are able to ensure that an employer is paying the whole work force the correct amount, and not just the worker who made the complaint. They can also visit some employers at random and target sectors and businesses that are notorious for low pay, such as restaurants, whose workers may be unwilling or unlikely to complain.
However, enforcement officers will often find that failure to pay the minimum wage is not the whole story. The employer who keeps his workers on illegal poverty wages is highly unlikely to be fulfilling the provisions of the working time directive, and in particular the right to four weeks paid holiday. Yet as things stand, national minimum wage compliance officers are unable to take action against employers who fail to give workers their proper holiday entitlement by, for example, not paying them the full rate or by not giving the full four weeks holiday. My Bill aims to extend the powers already exercised by the compliance officers in order to allow them to pursue an employer for failure to provide annual leave entitlement.
There are no definitive figures on the number of workers currently not receiving the paid holiday to which they are legally entitled. However, a 2002 TUC study of labour force survey data found that 400,000 full-time workers were receiving fewer than 12 days' paid leave, which means that even if they were receiving all eight bank holidays as additional paid leave, they were still not getting their statutory entitlement. More recently, a National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux report entitled "Still Wish You Were Here", published in December 2004, stated that tens of thousands of the employment-related inquiries dealt with by their bureaux involve non-compliance with the right to paid holiday. This is likely to be a gross underestimate of the true numbers, because the right to paid holiday is not as well known or understood as the right to the national minimum wage. Those most likely to be losing out are probably in part-time or temporary work or in low-paid sectors, which are often non-unionised. Many of them will be women.
A study commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry in November 2004, entitled "A survey of workers' experiences of the Working Time Regulations", found that 13 per cent. of a sample of workers were not receiving four weeks' paid leave. Only a third of that sample had any awareness of the right to paid holiday, and most of those did not know the actual law.
2 Mar 2005 : Column 976
Some workers get no paid holiday at all because their employer tells them that they do not qualify, or that they have to have a particular length of service. In Aberdeen, where there are a large number of "temp" agency workers, there is a particular problem in respect of those who are told that they are receiving a slightly higher hourly rate for the hours that they work to cover their paid holiday entitlement. The GMB union, which I thank for raising this issue with me, has found examples of members who are not paid the full rate for their holiday. In one case, restaurant workers received a basic hourly rate that was below the national minimum wage, but which was made up through tips paid via the payroll. When staff were on holiday, they received only the basic hourly rate. In a furniture factory in Grantham, piece-workers queried their holiday pay because it was lower than what they earned in a normal week, and therefore fell below the national minimum wage.
In both cases, the workers raised the issue as a problem with the minimum wage, but when they were told that national minimum wage compliance officers could not take action on their holiday entitlement, they were upset, to say the least. They were told they had to go to an employment tribunal, which is a more complicated process and requires a worker first to raise the issue through the statutory grievance procedure. That is just too intimidating for a vulnerable worker to undertake—that is, if they still have a job at the end of it all. This procedure is not used for minimum wage violations, simply because it would leave an individual worker exposed to victimisation. If it is not appropriate for minimum wage violations, it is not appropriate for violations of paid holiday entitlement.
That is why I believe that the compliance officers who are already working on the national minimum wage should be given the same powers to enforce holiday entitlement. The powers have already proved effective in seeking out and ending poverty pay, so it is sensible to use them to ensure that workers receive their holiday pay entitlement. Compliance officers themselves say that holiday pay fits in well with national minimum wage work, given that to calculate a worker's hourly rate they have to understand how much money paid to the worker represents wages and what counts as holiday pay. If the normal weekly wage is illegally low, the holiday pay will fall short by the same amount. When arrears are due because of underpayment of the national minimum wage, there will inevitably be arrears of holiday pay, too. The simple solution is to extend the powers that national minimum wage compliance officers already have to cover infringements of paid holiday entitlement. That is precisely what my Bill will do.
I also want to highlight a particular problem faced by many of my constituents who work offshore in the oil and gas industry who are not, at present, getting their four weeks holiday entitlement. Despite the incorporation of the EU working time directive for the offshore industry into UK law through the Working Time (Amendment) Regulations, passed by the House on 22 October 2003, many of my constituents are still not getting their full holiday entitlement.
I realise how important the oil and gas industry is to the economic prosperity of my constituency and how much employment it provides. However, I remain
2 Mar 2005 : Column 977
puzzled at the intransigence of operators and contractors in refusing to give their offshore employees the same paid holiday entitlement that is enjoyed by their onshore colleagues. I find it particularly perverse that their lawyers are now arguing in an industrial tribunal that the horizontal amending directive—HAD, as it is more commonly known—which extends the working time directive to the offshore oil and gas exploitation sector, does not apply offshore. I need to repeat that, in case it has not been understood. Despite the fact that the regulations define "offshore work" as
the industry is now arguing that the regulations do not apply offshore. I believe that that does no one any good. Indeed, it risks bringing the oil and gas industry into disrepute—in other respects, I am a great supporter of the industry—as the only industry that does not provide a section of its work force with the right to four weeks paid holiday. That is a disgrace.
This week, the Aberdeen and Grampian chamber of commerce published a report on the skills shortage in the oil and gas industry in the North sea and expressed concern that not enough young people were being attracted into the industry. School leavers who are looking for jobs with not only good prospects but good terms and conditions are unlikely to be impressed by the failure to give offshore workers their full holiday entitlement. This unnecessary battle through the courts sends out a totally wrong message to potential young workers.
I appeal to the Minister for Employment Relations, Consumers and Postal Services—I am pleased to see him in his place—to adopt Order in Council procedure sooner rather than later to enforce compliance with the working time directive, particularly if the industry continues to drag its heels. Of course, if my Bill is passed, the power would rest with the national minimum wage compliance officers to force even the employers in the oil and gas industry to provide full holiday entitlement to offshore workers and not leave people bogged down in an industrial tribunal.
I do not have to tell the House how important holidays are to us all. They help to improve our physical and mental well-being, and paid holiday entitlement means that such holidays can be taken without financial worries. This is a simple Bill, with the potential to improve the lives of thousands of people. I commend it to the House.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Miss Anne Begg, Mr. Frank Doran, Ann Keen, Jim Knight, Ms Dari Taylor, Mr. John Grogan, Kali Mountford, Rob Marris, Lady Hermon, Iain Wright, Mrs. Anne Campbell and Mr. Malcolm Savidge.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |