Draft Employment Rights Act 1996 (Application of Sections 75A, 75B, 75G, 75H, 80A and 80B to Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014
Draft Paternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave (Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014
Draft Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014
Draft Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Adoption from Overseas) Regulations 2014
Draft Employment Rights Act 1996 (Application of Sections 75G and 75H to Adoptions from Overseas) Regulations 2014
Draft Statutory Shared Parental Leave and Paternity and Adoption Leave (Adoptions from Overseas) Regulations 2014
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Burley, Mr Aidan (Cannock Chase) (Con)
† Burns, Mr Simon (Chelmsford) (Con)
Clarke, Mr Tom (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
† Creasy, Stella (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
† Doughty, Stephen (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
† Evans, Jonathan (Cardiff North) (Con)
† Harrington, Richard (Watford) (Con)
† Harris, Mr Tom (Glasgow South) (Lab)
Hendrick, Mark (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
† Horwood, Martin (Cheltenham) (LD)
† McKechin, Ann (Glasgow North) (Lab)
† Robertson, Sir Hugh (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
† Rotheram, Steve (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Simpson, David (Upper Bann) (DUP)
† Simpson, Mr Keith (Broadland) (Con)
† Stride, Mel (Central Devon) (Con)
† Swinson, Jo (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills)
Oliver Coddington, Anne-Marie Griffiths, Committee Clerks
† attended the Committee
Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee
Tuesday 11 November 2014
[Mr Christopher Chope in the Chair]
Draft Employment Rights Act 1996 (Application of Sections 75A, 75B, 75G, 75H, 80A and 80B to Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014
2.30 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 Employment Rights Act 1996 (Application of Sections 75A, 75B, 75G, 75H, 80A and 80B to Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014.
The Chair: With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Paternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave (Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014, the draft Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014, the draft Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Adoption from Overseas) Regulations 2014, the draft Employment Rights Act 1996 (Application of Sections 75G and 75H to Adoptions from Overseas) Regulations 2014 and the draft Shared Parental Leave and Paternity and Adoption Leave (Adoptions from Overseas) Regulations 2014.
Jo Swinson: It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Chope.
We are having the great joy of several debates on shared parental leave. I note that the hon. Member for Walthamstow is in her place today, so the Opposition Front Benchers are sharing out the joy of different debates among different individuals. Last week we debated the main architectural shared parental leave and pay draft regulations and today we are considering other draft regulations.
The draft regulations create a new statutory right to shared parental leave and pay for eligible working parents. They also set out how shared parental leave and pay will operate in practice. Subject to them getting through the parliamentary process, the regulations will apply to working parents who are expecting a baby due on or after 5 April next year, or who have a child placed with them for adoption on or after that date. As is the case with other family-related leave, the new rights will be available to employees who are adopting from overseas, which is permitted by draft regulations that we are debating today. The Government are making the changes to statutory adoption leave and pay to provide adopters with rights that more closely reflect those of birth mothers on maternity leave and pay.
Under the draft regulations that we are considering, we are also extending entitlement to adoption leave and pay to new groups of parents, including those who are having a baby with the help of a surrogate. Again subject to the parliamentary process, the changes will come into force for babies due on or after 5 April next year, to coincide with the introduction of shared parental leave and pay. The proposed changes open up statutory adoption leave and pay to a wider, more diverse group of employees, recognising that modern families take many forms. Indeed, the case for providing family-related
leave to intended parents in surrogacy arrangements is something that both Government and Opposition Members recognise.At this point it is fair to acknowledge the contribution of the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who has campaigned hard on these issues. In particular, he promoted a private Member’s Bill to provide leave and pay to surrogate parents and played a significant role in raising awareness of the subject. Many campaigners up and down the country have raised the challenges faced by surrogate parents, who may be small in number, but who none the less face important challenges. It is right for us to involve them in the regulations.
The changes we are debating today will give more parents and would-be parents more choice about how they manage child care and work. Some of the draft regulations enable overseas adopters and the intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement to convert untaken statutory adoption leave and pay into shared parental leave and pay for the adopter or the adopter’s partner to take. An adopter’s partner who is eligible for shared parental leave and pay may take that while the adopter is still on adoption leave. That concurrency is important for parents, who might want to be together as a family group at the same time. If they prefer, the leave and pay may be staggered, so that one parent is always at home with their child in the first year.
When we debated the draft shared parental leave and pay regulations last week, I outlined some of the benefits, which include more choice and flexibility for working parents and a greater attachment to the labour market for women who want to work. Given those benefits, the Government are keen to make the new shared parental leave and pay system widely available, which is what the draft regulations before us do. They take a further step towards modernising the law on family leave and pay to ensure that it keeps pace with the types of arrangements already being entered into by some parents and would-be parents. The draft regulations put in place the necessary systems to enable shared parental leave and pay to work for parents who are adopting from overseas or who are eligible for and intend to apply for a parental order following a surrogacy arrangement.
I hope that hon. Members will welcome and support the regulations. I commend them to the Committee.
2.34 pm
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op): I echo the Minister’s sentiments: it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.
I am delighted to step in for my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) to discuss these matters. Some might think that is because the regulations will come into play on 5 April, which is an important date for me—my birthday—but it is actually because I want to use the F-word. It is pleasure to use this word, which many in the room use regularly: feminism. In this generation, one of the biggest challenges that we face in making progress towards equality is the idea that child care is a women’s issue when, in fact, it is a parenting issue. We will support the proposals, which challenge those inequalities in our society.
Equalising the labour market participation rates of men and women is good for business; it would increase our economic growth by 0.5% every year—a growth rate that I am sure the right hon. Member for Tatton
(Mr Osborne) can only dream of—with potential gains of 10% by 2030. With more than 800,000 births a year, getting parental leave right is key to our economy and vital for children. After all, children who have both their mothers and their fathers involved in their early years have better developed mental progress than those who do not.The provisions are good for another F-word: fathers. Many fathers in the room tell me great tales of enjoying spending time with their children as well as with other people’s. The labour movement is delighted to see the continual progress of the debate around flexible working and the importance of extending leave to parents. We extended paternity leave to nine months and the right to take maternity leave up to 12 months, and gave fathers new entitlements to paternity leave and pay. That is why we introduced the right to request flexible working. We welcome the somewhat damascene conversion of the Conservatives, who previously voted against the introduction of paternity leave, the extension of maternity leave and the right to request flexible working.
Given our commitment to the issues, I want to ask the Minister five simple questions. We all know that, a bit like with dieting, it is good to have intentions, but it is in actions that we see delivery. The Government’s assessment is that, at most, just 8% of fathers will take up these rights. The contrast is clear. The right to maternity leave is well established, with 96% of new mothers taking more than the statutory two weeks off after the birth of a child. However, the same cannot be said of paternity leave. Fewer than 10% of men take more than two weeks of paternity leave after the adoption or birth of a child. The TUC reports that just one in 172 fathers—less than 1%—takes advantage of the additional paternity leave that they are currently entitled to and which the regulations will extend.
The issue is about how leave is dealt with in leadership positions. The Institute of Leadership and Management tells us that 2% of male managers take only those two weeks of leave, compared with 94% of female managers, showing that there is a great divide between genders. If managers are not doing it, what message does that send to the rest of the work force? We need to understand the reasons, to be confident that when the regulations come into play, they will do what we are all hoping for. We have a mountain to climb.
At the heart of the issue is the gender pay gap that we face; that is still nearly 20%. In fact, from last week, women were basically working for free, because the equal pay date is 4 November. What is more worrying, in the context of the debate, is that unequal pay is rising. That should shame us all. The pay gap between men and women in their 20s—the very age group at which some of the proposals are aimed—has doubled since 2010.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): My hon. Friend makes a strong point. Is she aware that in Wales every woman, on average, earns only 82p for every pound that a man earns? That shows the challenge we face.
Stella Creasy: My hon. Friend is right. Getting the regulations right is crucial, given the impact of unequal pay on the decisions that families will make about paternity and maternity leave, because it is into this trap that expectations about women and child care fall.
Despite the biology lessons that I remember from school telling me that it required both the birds and the bees, the British social attitudes survey tells us that the majority of people still think that women should be responsible for child care. We have progressed as a society: only 11% of us think that women should not be soldiers and just 16% of us think that men should not be midwives. However, there is 0% support from the British public in the recent British social attitudes survey that women should be working more than their male counterparts. Frankly, if we think that women are discriminated against in the workplace, it is because they are. An experiment by university found that childless job-hunting women received twice as many positive responses to applications as women with children.
The Minister will say that the proposals we are debating will help to address that attitude, by making it equally likely that mums and dads will take leave. But the BSA research shows that 59% of us think that women should take most or all of the parental leave entitlement, while only 22% think it should be shared equally. Again, 0% think that dads should take all or most of the parental leave, despite evidence from the Fatherhood Institute that more than a fifth of men wish they had looked after their children rather than returning to work. In a survey by the institute, more than a third of men who worked full time said that they were offered no flexibility at all by their employer.
It is little wonder that the Government’s own research shows that their plans for extending parental leave could have little impact. Women will therefore still be struggling with the impact of inequality on their lives. It worries me that the National Childbirth Trust has said that more than half of mothers return to work sooner than they want to, and half of those say that that is because of worries about job security. Indeed, 40% said they would not even consider splitting parental leave because they needed their partner’s pay.
It is worth recognising that such pressures will be felt most keenly by those with the lowest incomes. We know that child poverty is likely to rise in the next Parliament as a result of the changes the Government have made to tax credits and benefits. The pressure on family incomes, the unequal situation that women already face and the difficulties of making the proposals for parental leave a reality are all paramount when looking at the regulations. We know, too, that policies such as the mummy tax will not help make maternity pay a possible option for people.
The issue of cash is not just a problem for women. The current rate of paternity pay is equivalent to £3.45 an hour for a 40-hour working week, which is little more than half the minimum wage. For families on low incomes, such a drop in wages, if only for two weeks, can be critical. It is little wonder that a third of fathers do not even use their statutory leave at present, preferring to use stored-up holiday.
Employers will not be required to enhance paternity pay to the same level as enhanced maternity pay as part of the Government’s changes, although they can choose to do so. However, in reality that is not likely to happen. Indeed, a study from Working Families, published in advance of the proposals, showed that only 20% of the 60% of employers who had updated their policies to reflect the already changed paternity leave requirements had planned to pay fathers six weeks on full pay when they took time off. My question for the Minister is this:
given the evidence from Nordic countries that, as well as a dedicated entitlement for fathers, better paid paternity leave makes all the difference, how will she be encouraging firms to give equal pay to men?An Institute of Management study has shown that just 37% of employees and 45% of managers believe their employer is supportive of the idea of leave being shared between mothers and fathers, and 25% think their employer is actively opposed. It seems unlikely that employers will want to make the proposals more of a realistic possibility for parents. Does the Minister think it is time for daddy days to be daddy-only days?
Another issue is whether the regulations will help some other types of families. Welcome as the proposals are, they will do little to help single mothers who would like to see an increase in work flexibility, or indeed self-employed fathers, who will have no access to rights to leave or pay.
We also have some questions about how maternity and paternity leave can be taken under the proposals. In particular, the Government opposed our proposals to try to make that more flexible. At the moment, the blocks of leave have to be taken together and leave can be taken only three times. Although an employer cannot refuse leave, they can insist that someone takes it as a single block. We have put forward proposals to make it easier to take leave on a part-time basis to help mothers and fathers return to work and to help phased returns to work. That idea was supported by Maternity Action, the Fatherhood Institute, Working Families and the TUC. Will the Minister tell us whether she has had a rethink on that issue?
Finally, I want to ask the Minister about the replacement of the statutory process with the new code of practice. After all, what matters is that parents are able to have that conversation with their employers and have the process looked at if they do not feel they have had a fair answer. We know that the cultural attitudes to taking paternity leave could affect that process. Research shows that employers might be broadly supportive of mothers taking extended maternity leave, but are less supportive of paternity leave, so how will the Minister address situations where employers have not considered a request for flexible working in a reasonable way? Given that 19% of employees think their employer is actively unsupportive of the two weeks of paternity leave, how will she challenge those behaviours?
To recap on the questions that we want to ask the Minister, does she recognise that at the heart of this matter are issues connected to unequal pay for women and men? If so, what will she do about that? Will she try to change the minds of those in the Treasury who think that the mummy tax will help? Will she set out the Government’s view on paternity pay and the evidence that, for fathers, it is the cut in income, not the lack of interest in their children, that prevents them taking even the two weeks, let alone any longer period of leave? Where does she stand on those daddy-only days and will the Government put their money where their mouth is on this? What are the Government doing for single parents and those who are self-employed? Will she rethink the opposition to allowing part-time leave use to allow people to phase their return to work? Above all, what can she do to reassure us that, given the current cultural difference in attitudes to men and women
taking leave, that employees asking for parental leave will get a positive response whether they are a man or a woman?I realise that this is a long list that cannot be captured by one, simple answer, but I take note of what her colleague in the Lords said yesterday:
“We want to facilitate a cultural shift towards the removal of outdated beliefs about the role of fathers and partners in caring for their children”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 November 2014; Vol. 757, c. GC8.]
Given that, the question for us, above all, is what is she going to do to get those taking parental leave at least into double figures? Does she think that an 8% take-up of this is good enough? Is that the cultural shift they mean, or are these simply the shifting sands on which we expect our children, our equality and our economy to live?
2.46 pm
Jo Swinson: I am delighted that as these regulations relate to babies due on or after 5 April, they will be a little birthday present for the hon. Member for Walthamstow. It is worth pointing out to the Committee that these regulations should be in force before then—we are hoping for 1 December—but will apply to babies due on or after 5 April.
The reason is quite technical: we decided that it did not make sense to apply the change to babies born after a particular date, because it is obviously quite difficult to predict whether they will actually arrive on that date. If an employer or a family plan their work arrangements around a particular type of pay, whether it is shared parental pay or the pay available under the previous system, and baby arrives early or late, that could put a cat among the pigeons and change all those nice plans. We have therefore based the changes on the due date, which is at least set in advance. However, as some babies due on 5 April will be born significantly in advance of that date—some of them very prematurely, which will be challenging for their parents—we need to make sure that the regulations are in force sufficiently early to cope with those situations.
The hon. Lady talked about feminism. I am delighted that she did. It is, of course, an important word. I may be the only woman on this side of the Committee at the moment, but I am sure that I am not the only feminist on this side of the Committee. It is a word that we should all embrace. She referred to the Damascene conversion of many on this side of the House. I point out that we have been working very constructively in a coalition Government, and I am delighted that we are bringing forward these policies, which I long argued for in opposition and, indeed, in Liberal Democrat policy papers.
I shall do my best to answer the various questions that the hon. Lady raised. She rightly raised the issue of equal pay, which is particularly important after the focus on equal pay day last week. This is a real concern. It is a gross over-simplification to suggest that unequal pay is rising. The amount of difference last year was 0.1% and that is, of course, in the context of a trend that is generally downwards. She will be aware that, under the previous Government, in both 2001 and 2008 there was a small increase in the pay gap. As for the overall trend, the gap is generally coming down—from about 25% a decade ago to just under 20% today.
There is no room for complacency, because it is still unfair that women are not paid the same as men, and that is why the Government are undertaking a range of activities. The “Think, Act, Report” initiative has more than 260 companies signed up, covering 2.5 million employees. Further initiatives were announced last week to help businesses understand the issues of pay within their organisations; for example, we are making free pay analysis software available to help companies large and small to address the issue.
Stella Creasy: We will disagree on how the Minister interprets the Office for National Statistics research. She is talking about the importance of equal pay. Can I tempt her to say whether she has changed her mind about opposing the introduction of section 75, which would ensure equal pay audits for companies with more than 250 employees, so that we could see whether they are putting their money where their mouth is?
Jo Swinson: I think the hon. Lady is referring to section 78 of the Equality Act 2010. If she is an avid follower of the libdems.org.uk website, she might be aware that my party has published future manifesto commitments to enacting section 78 and requiring large companies to publish and provide transparency in what they pay their men and women employees. That is not agreed coalition Government policy, but the Liberal Democrats think that it should happen, and I am glad that the Labour party now agrees with my party and has made that commitment as well.
The cultural issues that the hon. Lady talked about go to the heart of some of the changes that we are trying to make. It is quite right that we change the legislation and legal framework, but as with so many things—drink-driving and equality for same-sex couples, for example—we also have to deal with cultural change.
The statistics that the hon. Lady gave from the British social attitudes survey outline some of the difficulties that we are dealing with. It is great that 22% of people think that men and women should share care of children equally, but that is only 22%, and the fact that, as she said, 59% think that women should take most or all of the leave shows that we still have some way to go. However, this is the first step in that process, and all of us involved in politics have a communications challenge: we need to make available information about the benefits to children of their fathers being involved at those early stages. Her close neighbour and colleague, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), has done a great deal of work on this issue through the all-party group on fatherhood, and has made that case.
Shared parental leave is partly about equality in the workplace and in domestic environments, but it is also about supporting child development. That is why we are so enthusiastic about making these changes, and about ensuring that employers are aware of the advantages for them.
A lot of research shows just how many people—men and women—leave their jobs and change employers after having children; they feel that they do not have enough flexibility to juggle their responsibilities, and they seek employment elsewhere. When businesses lose a talented member of staff who has been trained up, it creates significant cost in recruitment and in getting someone else up to speed.
Businesses should recognise that that transitional moment in their employees’ lives is an opportunity for them. By offering small amounts of flexibility, businesses can make a huge difference in how an individual can juggle their work and caring responsibilities; that will make the individual much more loyal to them and will improve motivation and productivity.
The hon. Lady mentioned paternity pay. Other than for the first six weeks, maternity and paternity pay are at the same level. That is definitely something that people take into account when making their decisions, so we cannot ignore that economic element. In about three in 10 couples, the woman earns more, so for those couples, one would imagine that the economic imperative might lead to a greater take-up of shared parental leave; paternity pay is not always the issue. However, we do recognise that key factor. That is why the Government are leading the way.
We are encouraging companies to enhance their paternity pay, and indeed parental pay under the shared parental leave system, in the same way that many do for maternity pay. The civil service is doing that and is providing great leadership, as was announced just a couple of weeks ago.
Stella Creasy: “Enhance” is an interesting word. Will the Minister set out what she means by that, and what measures the Government will take to track and review progress? For example, will we have an annual report on the number of companies that offer equal pay for maternity and paternity leave?
Jo Swinson: I hope that a lot of companies will offer the same arrangements to those taking shared parental leave and pay as they do to those taking maternity leave and pay. That is exactly what the civil service will do. I do not have chapter and verse on its exact policy—on how many months that is, and what the rate is—at the moment, but I will happily write to the Committee with that information.
The key thing, however, is parity between the maternity leave and shared parental leave circumstances. We hope that more companies will provide that. We are working closely with organisations such as the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce to ensure that we get the details of the regulations right, to ensure that the changes are simple to administer, and to emphasise the importance of this for employees. Companies should embrace shared parental leave and enhance the pay.
The hon. Lady asked about daddy-only time. Again, extended paternity leave has been embraced by my party—that is set out clearly in our future manifesto plans. I am sure that that will be an issue at the election. She asked about single parents and the self-employed. The partners of self-employed women will be eligible for shared parental leave, which should be a particular advantage. She mentioned single parents. The whole debate is about shared parental leave and pay. While I appreciate that there are calls from some quarters for leave to be extended to, for example, grandparents, the policy intention is to get more involvement from both parents. I fear that if leave were opened up much more widely, that policy objective could be undermined. That is one of the difficulties in going further.
That said, the Government have committed to reviewing this, so that we can look at the issues relating to self-employment that the hon. Lady raised. This is definitely
a great first step to improving things, but I do not think anybody would suggest that it is the final point. I hope that in 10 or 15 years, we have a society where it is much more the norm for dads to take significant amounts of time. It may well be that, as we progress towards that kind of society, amendments to the legislation need to be made.In terms of blocks and flexibility, if employers are happy, there can be endless flexibility. We wanted to provide some certainty for employers about the patterns of leave. That is why the employer’s agreement is needed if people want to go beyond three separate blocks. I think that most people who use the system will want to sit down with their employer and think through how it might operate for them, as well as for the family. The additional flexibility, compared to the additional paternity leave, which enables parents to take time together, is one of the reasons why the uptake should be higher; the arrangements give couples a welcome amount of flexibility.
On the part time issue, I am very sympathetic to the view that it would be helpful in many ways to be able to take leave on a part-time basis. The practicalities of doing that are where the issue becomes difficult. We worked very closely with various stakeholder groups to try to see how that could be made to work, when so many payroll systems work on a weekly basis. It was not possible to find a way through that. We may return to this issue in the future, but in the interim it is important to recognise that the regulations allow for the kind of keeping-in-touch that apply to maternity leave. An individual can come back to work, perhaps a day at a time, for up to 10 days while on maternity leave to get back into the swing of things, to refresh their skills, and to get back to speed on what they may have missed. That allowance will be enhanced to 20 days for shared parental leave. These will be called SPLIT days—shared parental leave in-touch days—and will be in addition to existing maternity leave days.
If employees want to, they may for the first few weeks be able to use those days to work on a part-time basis, while still on shared parental leave. For example, for a period of 10 weeks, employees can take two shared parental leave in-touch days, and therefore have three days on leave and two days back in the workplace, as they ease back in. I think that should give reassurance that there will be some flexibility in the system, despite the challenges that we encountered in terms of payroll and so on. I think that answers the questions that the hon. Lady rightly raised about this important change.
Stella Creasy: I thank the Minister for her obvious and genuine passion for this issue. I feel sorry for her, given the clear roadblocks to progress that she must face. I asked specifically about companies offering paternity pay and the rates of pay. She mentioned in-touch days and said that the Government will review the policy. Can she confirm that the review will also provide data on which companies are providing paternity pay, at what rates, and for what levels of leave, and say how many in-touch days there will be? That way, we can really see who is putting their money where their mouth is and whether these policies will take us into double figures, rather than having just 8% take-up.
Jo Swinson: The hon. Lady asks a fair question. We will obviously have discussions with stakeholders on the issue. I cannot promise an audit for every single company in the UK. I suspect that it is much more likely that there will be survey data on what kind of policies employers are offering, so that we can get a good idea of what is happening among small employers versus large employers, and what types of policies they are offering. Equally, I do not think that we have data on the exact maternity policy of every single employer in the UK. We are keen to collect information, within reasonable bounds, so that we can make informed policy decisions. We will work with business organisations to understand what is happening. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
DRAFT PATERNITY, ADOPTION AND SHARED PARENTAL LEAVE (PARENTAL ORDER CASES) REGULATIONS 2014
That the Committee has considered the draft Paternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave (Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014.—(Jo Swinson.)
DRAFT STATUTORY SHARED PARENTAL PAY (PARENTAL ORDER CASES) REGULATIONS 2014
That the Committee has considered the draft Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Parental Order Cases) Regulations 2014.—(Jo Swinson.)
DRAFT STATUTORY SHARED PARENTAL PAY (ADOPTION FROM OVERSEAS) REGULATIONS 2014
That the Committee has considered the draft Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Adoption from Overseas) Regulations 2014.—(Jo Swinson.)
DRAFT EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS ACT 1996 (APPLICATION OF SECTIONS 75G AND 75H TO ADOPTIONS FROM OVERSEAS) REGULATIONS 2014
That the Committee has considered the draft Employment Rights Act 1996 (Application of Sections 75G and 75H to Adoptions from Overseas) Regulations 2014.—(Jo Swinson.)
DRAFT SHARED PARENTAL LEAVE AND PATERNITY AND ADOPTION LEAVE (ADOPTIONS FROM OVERSEAS) REGULATIONS 2014
That the Committee has considered the draft Shared Parental Leave and Paternity and Adoption Leave (Adoptions from Overseas) Regulations 2014.—(Jo Swinson.)