Clause 49
ordered
to
stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
50
Crown
employment
Mr.
Gibb:
I beg to move amendment No. 90, in
clause 50, page 27, line 10, leave
out ‘persons working in either of those ways’ and
insert
‘service as a
member of the armed forces of the
Crown’.
Clause
50 deals with Crown employment and how Crown employees are treated in
relation to the duties in the Bill. Amendment No. 90 is a probing
amendment, designed to ascertain why there are regulations that
institute exceptions and special rules for civil servants that do not
apply to 16 and 17-year-olds in other employment. I understand why we
need special arrangements for those serving in the armed forces. The
amendment has therefore been drafted to keep the regulation-making
powers in place as far as service as a member of the armed forces is
concerned, but to take out reference to Crown employment. A simple
explanation from the Minister would be
helpful.
Jim
Knight:
We need the power to modify the provisions of
chapter 1 in relation to Crown employment. As the hon. Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, those in Crown employment are
essentially civil servants, and there are various people who have been
hugely helpful to us in our deliberations who would count, and we must
look after that valuable body of employees. There is some doubt as to
whether, as a matter of law, Crown employees such as civil servants in
this valuable central Government work, are under a contract of
employment and therefore included in references to working in this way.
We do, of course, want this kind of work to count for the purposes of
the duty to participate. The clause makes that clear, and it removes
the legal doubt about the status of Crown employees. However, the
definition of normal weekly working hours in clause 5 needs to be
modified in relation to Crown employees, as they do not have a contract
of employment. Regulations under subsection (2) will enable us to do
so, and it is appropriate that this kind of technical detail is dealt
with in secondary legislation. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to
withdraw his amendment accordingly.
4.30
pm
Mr.
Gibb:
I was intrigued by the Minister’s praise of
civil servants—I wonder who drafted that particular speaking
note?
Jim
Knight:
I would want it to be placed on record that those
words were not drafted by anybody else: they came spontaneously to my
mind.
Mr.
Gibb:
I am delighted to hear it. I was interested in what
the Minister had to say. He will correct me if I interpreted him
incorrectly, but it appears that the purpose of the clause so far as
Crown employment is concerned is to ensure that Crown employees are
included in the duty, as opposed to finding a way of exempting them
from the duty.
Jim
Knight
indicated
assent.
Mr.
Gibb:
I see the Minister nodding. I am happy with his
explanation and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
50 ordered to stand Part of the Bill.
Clause
51
Parliamentary
staff
Mr.
Hayes:
I beg to move amendment No. 91, in
clause 51, page 27, line 33, leave
out subsection
(2).
Clause 51 sets out
the way in which parliamentary staff are to be treated in relation to
part 1 of the Bill. Clause 51 (2) states:
“Regulations may provide
for Chapter 1 to have effect subject to modifications in relation to
persons working in that
way.”
Amendment
No. 91 is essentially a probing amendment, intended to give the
Government the opportunity to explain why parliamentary staff may be
treated differently, and to outline how the provisions set out in
chapter 1 may be modified by regulation in respect of parliamentary
staff.
Jim
Knight:
Much as I am hugely grateful for the work of Crown
employees, we are all equally grateful for the job that the House of
Commons staff do for us. The Committee may be interested to learn,
however, that the House of Commons staff, and indeed, those employed in
the other place, do not, as a matter of law,
work under a contract of employment and are not therefore automatically
included in references to working in that way, bizarre as that may
sound.
I am sure that
the Committee will agree that we want working in the House to count as
employment for the purpose of the duty to participate, and the clause
makes that clear. Furthermore, the definition of normal weekly working
hours in clause 5 needs to be modified in relation to the staff of this
House, as they do not work under a contract of employment. Regulations
under subsection (2) will enable us to do so, and it is appropriate
that such technical detail is dealt with in secondary legislation,
which will be laid before the House. I therefore ask the hon. Member
for South Holland and The Deepings to withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Hayes:
Given the Minister’s immensely persuasive
comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause 51 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
Clause
52
Financial
penalties
Mr.
Gibb:
I beg to move amendment No. 92, in
clause 52, page 28, line 18, leave
out from beginning to ‘must’ in line
19.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 100, in clause 52, page 28, line 20, leave out
‘to’ and insert ‘made
by’.
Mr.
Gibb:
Given that this is likely to be my last contribution
to the debate under your chairmanship, Mr. Bercow, may I say
how fair, objective and precise you have been in chairing our
proceedings and how grateful we are for the time that you have devoted
to them? We wish you all the best in your future endeavours in the days
ahead.
Mr.
Gibb:
Indeed—the weeks, months and years ahead. I
meant your remaining time in Committee, Mr.
Bercow.
The
purpose of the amendments is to remove a conflict of interest that
would be created if the local authority received the proceeds of any
financial penalties rather than the Treasury direct. The old adage of
administrative law is that he who levies the fine should not benefit
from the proceeds of that fine. Alas, it is an adage that has been
honoured more in the breach than in observance in recent decades. If a
body benefits from the proceeds of its own fines and penalties, there
is an inbuilt incentive and pressure to impose those penalties that
removes impartiality from the process. It makes it less objective and
opens up the authority to accusations that it is simply revenue-
raising.
The classic example is parking
fines. When the power to levy parking fines was transferred to local
authorities, together with the proceeds, we started to see parking
attendants patrolling quiet residential streets at 8.31 am waiting to
catch residents who had not moved cars that had been left overnight on
parking meters. Westminster council raised £38 million through
parking fines that way last year. I do not contend that penalty notices
under the Bill will be issued solely for revenue-raising purposes or
that they will raise hundreds of thousands of pounds—or even
millions—for local authorities. I am just arguing that, as a
matter of principle, all fines should be remitted directly to the
Treasury with no re-remittance back to the body that levied them in the
first place. It is an important principle that Governments of both
parties have ignored during the past 20 years to the chagrin of the
hard-pressed public.
The
Chairman:
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his
generous remarks.
Mr.
Heald:
I support my hon. Friend’s amendment. Those
of us on the Back Benches, too, are grateful for the way in which you
have allowed us to intervene, Mr. Bercow, and to take part
in the proceedings even when we were a bit lengthy. It might be of
interest to you that the subtitle of William Morris’s book,
“News from Nowhere”, to which my hon. Friend the Member
for South Holland and The Deepings referred is what you are about to
enjoy—“An Epoch of
Rest”.
Jim
Knight:
It would be wrong of me not to take this
opportunity to thank you for your stewardship of the Committee over the
past few weeks, Mr. Bercow. I, too, hope that you have a
restful time next week while we wrestle with the rest of the Bill.
However, if you miss our musings on Proust, liberalism and William
Morris, your presence in the Public Gallery to observe our proceedings
would be more than
welcome.
Amendment No.
92 would require all money received by local authorities as a result of
penalty notices to be paid directly to the Secretary of State and could
risk funding being diverted from other local authority services to
cover the cost of penalty notices. The effect of amendment No. 100
would be to leave it unclear to whom any money received by a local
authority and not used for the purpose of administering the penalty
notice should be paid, but I accept that it is a probing amendment that
sets out a few things and asks a few
questions.
Should the
financial penalties that we have provided for under the Bill ever be
used, it is important that the money received from them can be used to
cover the costs of administering the notices, so that funding is not
diverted from other services to cover those costs. It is usual practice
for money received by the Government from the payment of fines to be
used in that way. It is also important that money received from
financial penalties can be used only for the purposes of administering
the process, and not used by local authorities in the way in which the
hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton described. That is why
we will specify in regulations that the only function for which the
money can be used is the administering of penalty notices themselves. I
hope that the hon.
Gentleman will welcome and celebrate those regulations when they are
published, perhaps through an early-day motion. The clause, as drafted,
therefore requires any money not used for that purpose to be paid
directly to the Secretary of State in accordance with regulations. That
is entirely consistent with the way in which unused funds from penalty
notices issued in respect of unauthorised absence from school have been
handled since 2004. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Gibb:
On the basis of those assurances, I beg to ask leave
to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
52 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 53
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Further
consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Michael
Foster.]
Adjour
ned
accordingly at twenty minute
s to Five o’clock till
Tuesday 26 February at half-past Ten
o’clock
.
