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Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I believe that Hansard will have these automatically and immediately and people will be able to see them.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: I am most grateful to the Minister, for those new amendments, which certainly have dealt with most of the amendments that I have put down in this group. The Minister may be interested to know that, through a technical hitch, and it is no more than that, I asked for Amendments Nos. 5, 9, 15 and 36 to be withdrawn, but somehow that was not done and they are still on the Marshalled List. I have no intention of moving them.
However, in this group, I still have Amendment No. 30. Unless I am very mistaken, I do not think the Minister has quite dealt with that problem for me. With the leave of the Committee, I would like to mention my concern about Amendment No. 30. This is a probing amendment to enable us to find out exactly what the Government mean by a phrase. On page 8, line 34, we have asked them to leave out:
- "Except in such cases as may be prescribed"
My honourable friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge asked the identical question in the other place, but no answer came there at all. We believe that clarification is needed on the issue of when the Secretary of State expects to prescribe what statutory paternity pay should be payable to a person who works under a contract of service. Conversely, perhaps the Minister can explain why statutory paternity pay will therefore not be payable in those circumstances, whatever they might happen to be. That is not at all clear.
The Minister for Employment Relations and the Regions said that the Government have an amendment on that issue somewhere down the line. I have not been able to find it. It may very well be there and would make my amendment unnecessary. I would therefore agree with the noble Lord, if that is what he said. However, I have to say that I have not seen it and, looking at the clause, it is still in its original state with those words.
The Minister said that a person cannot work and receive benefit at the same time. Precisely. So why are the Government asking for power to make an exception to that common sense statement by the words,
- "in such cases as may be prescribed"?
The Government want powers to make exceptions against the financial interests of employers in certain circumstances but they cannot even give us the most fanciful examples that the entire department's fertile imagination could dream up; such examples might have indicated to us in some way what that was supposed to mean. I believe that the truth is that the draftsman let his pen run away with him when he put these words in the clause without specifically knowing what he had in mind. There is enough waffling on this subject in the other place—it went on for quite some time—and I was hoping that in this House we might have a little more precision from the Minister.
The Government did not come up with the amendment that they predicted, presumably by way of clarification, perhaps because they cannot. Two months have passed since the debate in the other place and the time has come for the Government either to come up with something else or to drop these words.
Lord Henley: Perhaps I may pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn. The Minister said that all the amendments in this group would be printed in Hansard together with Amendment No. 4. The normal form would in fact be that Amendment No. 4 would be printed just before the Minister's speech. Amendments Nos. 5 to 26, excluding those that are not going to be moved by my noble friend, would appear when they were moved; that is, after the debate on this amendment. Amendments Nos. 28 to 32 would then have to be moved after our debate on Amendment No. 27; that is when they would appear. Amendment No. 36 would obviously come after the debate on Amendment Nos. 33 and 35. Is he suggesting that he will depart from the usual procedure and, as the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, asked, print them together, before they were moved, with Amendment No. 4? That would be helpful and make the position much easier to understand. That is the relevant procedure. Is that what he was implying?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, I said that those employers who wanted to look through Hansard and see what had been said would be able to go through the amendments and see them in that context. That was all.
Lord McCarthy: Employers will not be able to do that unless we do not do what my noble friend Lord Wedderburn was told would be done and the Government also do not do what the noble Lord, Lord
Henley, suggested. Is the Minister saying that the amendments will be moved at the end of this debate, as is done in the other place?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes, is the answer.
Lord Henley: The answer is that the amendments will appear in Hansard but that they will be quite difficult to find. They will not appear in the easy manner that was asked for by my noble friend Lord Wedderburn although we seemed to get a response suggesting that they would all appear with Amendment No. 4.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Within two weeks the Bill will be reprinted for Report with the amendments as agreed in Committee. That is what people outside will be looking for and that will be much easier to understand.
Lord Henley: We were seeking clarity for those listening to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, to make sure that we all understood exactly what was going to appear in Hansard.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The drafting is entirely consistent on this point. The noble Baroness referred to the maternity provisions, which relate to a woman who has two part-time jobs and qualifies for pay from both. In some circumstances she is able to work for an employer while getting maternity pay from the other, and we are replicating that point here.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendments Nos. 6 to 8:
- Page 5, line 37, leave out ", or expected,"
- Page 5, line 42, leave out from first "the" to end of line 43 and insert "relevant week;"
- Page 5, leave out lines 44 and 45.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendments Nos. 10 to 14:
- Page 6, line 2, leave out from first "the" to "are" in line 3 and insert "relevant week"
- Page 6, leave out lines 5 and 6 and insert "at the end of the relevant week;"
- Page 6, line 6, at end insert "; and
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendments Nos. 16 to 26:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 27:
The noble Lord said: We can deal with this amendment briefly. I wish to seek some assurances from the Government, but I also want to point them in another direction. First, now that we are dealing with the section of the Bill concerned with paternity pay, am I correct in saying that it can only be paid, as the Bill sets out, for a period of either two weeks or one week, as the employee wishes? If that is true of statutory paternity pay, I presume that the same must be true of paternity leave. I also presume that that leave can be taken only at the same time as the paternity pay is given and that it cannot be taken, as was suggested earlier, in a series of 10 days spread out over 56 days. I should be grateful for an assurance from the Minister on that point because we need to have it on the record.
The second point behind the amendment is that this is another extra, and I would argue unnecessary, burden on the employer. It is one of those occasions where one might give the employer a little back in return and suggest that his agreement be sought if paternity leave and paternity pay were to be taken over two non-consecutive weeks rather than two weeks at a time. That might make a difference to him. Again, I am thinking of a small employer who may lose a key employee. It is one of those occasions where a degree of consultation between employer and employee might be the answer. If the words "if agreed with the employer" were included, that might at least give the right message about how this new burden should be interpreted in terms of relations between employer and employee. I beg to move.
(da) that he has been in employed earner's employment with the employer by reference to whom the condition in paragraph (b) above is satisfied for a continuous period beginning with the end of the relevant week and ending with the day on which the child is born."
Page 6, line 6, at end insert—
"( ) The references in subsection (2) above to the relevant week are to the week immediately preceding the 14th week before the expected week of the child's birth."
Page 6, line 13, leave out "who is, or has been, an employee"
Page 6, line 19, after "child" insert "who is".
Page 6, line 19, leave out ", or expected to be placed,".
Page 6, line 23, leave out ", or is expected to be,".
Page 6, leave out lines 27 and 28.
Page 6, line 32, after "week;" insert—
"(da) that he has been in employed earner's employment with the employer by reference to whom the condition in paragraph (b) above is satisfied for a continuous period beginning with the end of the relevant week and ending with the day on which the child is placed for adoption; and".
Page 6, line 33, leave out ", or is expected to be,".
Page 6, line 36, leave out "paragraphs (b) and (d) of".
Page 6, line 45, leave out ", or expected placement,".
Page 7, line 15, leave out "(c) or".
Page 7, line 15, after "(d)" insert "or (da)".
Page 8, line 2, after "(2)(b)" insert "and (da)".
Page 8, line 23, at end insert "if agreed with the employer".
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