Draft Shared Parental Leave and Leave Curtailment (Amendment) Regulations 2015
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Barker, Gregory (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
† Bebb, Guto (Aberconwy) (Con)
† Birtwistle, Gordon (Burnley) (LD)
† Burns, Mr Simon (Chelmsford) (Con)
† Clwyd, Ann (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
† Doughty, Stephen (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
† Hendry, Charles (Wealden) (Con)
† Knight, Sir Greg (East Yorkshire) (Con)
McDonnell, John (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
† Murphy, Paul (Torfaen) (Lab)
Robinson, Mr Geoffrey (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Simpson, David (Upper Bann) (DUP)
† Stride, Mel (Central Devon) (Con)
† Swinson, Jo ( Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills )
† Wharton, James (Stockton South) (Con)
† Wright, Mr Iain (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Fergus Reid, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Third Delegated Legislation Committee
Monday 2 February 2015
[Annette Brooke in the Chair]
Draft Shared Parental Leave and Leave Curtailment (Amendment) Regulations 2015
4.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Shared Parental Leave and Leave Curtailment (Amendment) Regulations 2015.
As hon. Members may recall, we debated the Maternity and Adoption Leave (Curtailment of Statutory Rights to Leave) Regulations 2014 and the Shared Parental Leave Regulations 2014 in Committee last year to enable eligible working parents to opt into shared parental leave and pay where they want to share caring responsibility for their child, as well as the time available to take off work in the first year. Today, we are debating amendments to those regulations. The amendments correct drafting errors and provide clarification of the intended effect of the previous regulations where there is scope for ambiguity. They do not reflect any change of policy or substance; in essence, we are just tidying up the legislation to remove the scope for doubt.
The amendments are consistent with the Government’s policy on shared parental leave, which the House has debated at length, and on which we have published guidance. The amending regulations make the policy intent clearer. To sum up, the amendments are needed to give correct effect to our intention concerning the curtailment of maternity and adoption leave, as well as the entitlement to, and the correct calculation of, shared parental leave.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): Can the Minister tell us whether any procedures are being put in place in her Department to, we hope, alleviate any further such tidying-up events after regulations have been brought into force?
Jo Swinson: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. It is important that legislation is correct when it is presented. That said, although there are significant checks in place to make sure that that is the case, there is always the capacity for human error when a large number of regulations are made, and we have seen that on a couple of occasions with the large number of regulations that have been brought forward on this issue. In one case, the word “father” appeared, when the text should have referred to mothers. In another, the text referred to mothers and to the mother’s partner when it should have referred to adopters and the adopter’s partner. Those are small differences, but it is none the less important that we get these things right, and I am glad that any issues were identified at an early stage, so that we could bring forward the amendments promptly. With that, I hope the Committee will be happy to accept them.
4.32 pm
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab): May I say that it is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke?
I have three brief points. First, the Opposition fully support the policy position, and we do not want to divide the Committee on this administrative procedure. The Labour Government extended the right to flexible working for parents with children up to the age of 16. We introduced flexible working for people with caring responsibilities for disabled or elderly relatives. The provisions we are discussing seem to be very much in the same vein. My second point, which picks up the point from the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, is this. Does the Minister anticipate that we will need any further procedures or Committees to amend what she said was a large list of regulations? Obviously, we want to tidy up any regulations that need it before Dissolution.
Thirdly, I would be interested to hear what the Government will do to promote shared parenting leave. From data on the first two years of additional parental leave, we know that only an estimated 1% of eligible dads have taken APL since it was introduced several years ago. In her impact assessment, the Minister thinks the figure for shared parental leave will be between 2% and 8%. We are not even getting to the low end of what the Government anticipate, so their estimate looks somewhat optimistic. I would be grateful if she quickly said what she intends to do to ensure greater uptake of shared parental leave under the changes introduced through the Children and Families Act 2014, so that the regulations can be full realised—something Members on both sides of the House would support.
4.34 pm
Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con): I am grateful to you, Mrs. Brooke, for allowing me to speak briefly. I want to ask the Minister a little about the impact assessment, which relates to the original regulations. It says that these regulations are an “in” and that there is an “out”. Can she say what the “out” is? Do the regulations also apply to micro-businesses? The impact assessment says “Yes/No”, but it does not identify which. It might be helpful to have that clarified.
4.35 pm
Jo Swinson: I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Hartlepool. Our policy of creating more modern and flexible workplaces will enable both mothers and fathers to play a full role in their family life, as well as in their working lives, if they wish to do so. In answer to the second question, I do not anticipate any further Committees on such regulations. We have said that in future we should review the policy so that we can see how it is working. That will happen in the next Parliament, and the policy may evolve. For example, the additional paternity leave that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, which has an uptake of 1%, was one of the things that we considered in the modern workplaces consultation and in the development of this policy to see what lessons could be learnt, so I am sure that this policy area will continue. We have also identified some regulations that need to be changed by statutory instrument under the negative procedure, but they will therefore not necessarily need to be debated in Committee.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that promoting shared parental leave is crucial. I spend a great deal of energy on that, and the cultural side that goes alongside the legislation is vital. We have a marketing campaign through a wide range of organisations and there are publications that parents-to-be will be looking at. We have held events with organisations such as Working Families and the National Childbirth Trust. We are working with partners through the NHS and using a wide range of channels to promote this. There is a large amount of PR activity ongoing; indeed, the hon. Gentleman may have seen some of the interviews undertaken by Ben Foden, the rugby star, who has talked movingly and openly about how he is a hands-on dad and how he sees that as in no way contradictory to being manly. He memorably talks about sweat, blood and mud on the rugby pitch and about how getting one’s hands dirty with mucky nappies is not something that anyone needs to be worried about. We are starting to see more dads talking about their role as fathers in a straightforward way and about how they value that in their life.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden asked about the “ins” and “outs”. Clearly, there is a familiarisation cost for employers. Those who will see their male employees taking time out of the labour market will obviously see that there will be an “in” from that perspective. Many employers will benefit from their female employees returning to work earlier. It depends on the individual make-up of a particular business, but there will be business benefits from the contribution of women in the labour market following the changes.
Let me confirm that this measure applies to micro-businesses. We are not going to say to parents, “Sorry, because you work for a very small company, you’re not able to take maternity or shared parental leave.” We recognise that this is important across the economy as a whole.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con): The Minister has shared with the Committee what the “ins” are, but she has not said what the “outs” are. Are the “ins” greater than the “outs”?
Jo Swinson: I suspect that, in my right hon. Friend’s enthusiasm to intervene, he was perhaps not listening to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden. I pointed out that many businesses that employ women will get the benefit of the women being back in the workplace at an earlier stage, which of course will mean less cost to their business, so there are “outs” as well as “ins”. As he can read in the impact assessment himself, overall this is an “in”, but we recognise that the measure will be important for families, for businesses and also for the role of women in the workplace.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con) rose—
The Chair: Order. May I remind hon. Members of the scope of today’s instrument?
Gregory Barker: The Minister is making a good defence of this excellent piece of legislation, but we are keen to understand not the impact of the measure itself, which she has explained very clearly, but whether there is another, unrelated piece legislation, the “out”, that has been cancelled to offset the new legislation, the “in”? As she knows, to put something on the statute book, something else has to be made redundant.
Jo Swinson: I thank my right hon. Friend for that clarification. I misunderstood the point that was being made; I thought it was about the impact assessment of these regulations.
Although there is an “in” associated with these regulations, the overall Business, Innovation and Skills budget for regulations is in a good place, because it has found more regulatory “outs” than “ins”. That budget is published at least annually, and possibly more frequently, by each Department, and a final analysis will be published at the end of the Parliament. It is not calculated on the basis of having a corresponding hypothecation—in other words, there does not need to be an “out” for every “in”. Rather, it is calculated across the whole Department, and BIS’s balance is healthy.
Mr Wright: Following on from the line of questioning of the Minister’s hon. Friends—
Mr Wright: I apologise. The right hon. Gentleman was talking about the one-in, two-out challenge. Have two regulations been identified in relation to these regulations?
Jo Swinson: To clarify, the “ins” and “outs” are not calculated on a quantitative basis. It is not to do with the number of regulations. Some regulations do not place a great burden on business, and others place a significant burden. We base our calculation not on the number of regulations, but on the overall cost to business. We need to find double the amount of regulatory “outs” than regulatory “ins”, in terms of the cost to business, and on that basis BIS is over-performing.
As I have said, “outs” are not hypothecated for every “in”; they are counted up across the whole Department. For example, we introduced regulatory changes for employment agencies, and the flexible working arrangements contained “outs” because we got rid of the statutory process and created a more straightforward and reasonable means for businesses to assess them. The range of “ins” and “outs” are added up in our budget and published in the overall regulation statutory form—I forget its exact name. That report is published regularly, and one will be published at the end of the Parliament. With that, I hope the Committee will accept these minor amending regulations.
Charles Hendry: Before my hon. Friend the Minister concludes, I have one point that directly relates to that issue. The measures came into force in December. Therefore, firms that misunderstood them due to the inaccurate drafting may inadvertently have not been adhering to them. Will she clarify that firms that are affected will not be prosecuted or deemed to have broken the rules?
Jo Swinson: I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend on that matter. Although the regulations came into force on 1 December, they pertain only to babies due from 5 April this year. Therefore, they affect only the tiny number of cases that involve babies that were due on 5 April, but were born more than two months prematurely. Some parents who indicated a wish to take up shared parental leave may be affected, but the numbers will be very small. Most are unlikely to be affected, particularly given that one of the issues is about notice periods,
which would already have been in place for the first period of leave, because that relates to the date of the birth, and for maternity leave—for obvious reasons—the notice requirement of eight weeks is waived if the baby suddenly arrives early. Therefore, I do not think there is a major problem. However, as soon as we recognised that there was an issue, we dealt with it swiftly, because we want to ensure that, as we approach 5 April, the regulations are as they should be for the bulk of the people who will be affected by them.