Pat McFadden
MP for Wolverhampton South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“In his review Alan Milburn considered that issue and said that, “the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years.” As I said earlier, 400,000 more people are in work this year than last year, and the number of young people in employment is up since the election.”
“Since our last DWP questions, both Alan Milburn and the Pensions Commission have published their respective interim reports on young people and on the current state of saving for retirement. I look forward to receiving their final reports later in the year.”
“As Alan Milburn pointed out in his recent report, the UK’s NEET crisis is much more long-term and deep-seated than any decisions taken in the last few years. There are 400,000 more people in work than last year. The number of young people in employment is up by 74,000 since the election.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman and send him commiserations for whatever has left him reliant on his crutches today. I am happy to congratulate the businesses he mentioned in his constituency. He raises a serious point: it is important not only to come up with the right policy, but to make it simple for businesses to use.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and I thank Cardiff football club for being a partner. We are supporting nearly 1 million young people and creating up to half a million opportunities for jobs and training.”
“We are making strong progress on expanding youth hubs, with around 130 already in operation across Great Britain. In March, I announced the locations that we want to open in this year, and I have just announced a further 180 locations for the following two years.”
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“Crucially, that should apply not only when people are made redundant, but in respect of the whole package that they are offered: to help them find a new job and reskill for the future, to ensure that losing a job, while it is a setback and a crisis for every family, is not the end of that family’s opportunity, and to ensure that we stand with people in those circumstances to give them a better second chance in the future.”
“If we find ourselves in the position of increasing redundancy payments, we have a quicker way to do so than we would under the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider the points that I have made and understand that I cannot promise him an increase today. However, I assure him that we will do more to help people affected by the recession. I will remain in dialogue with him about the issues. The dialogue that we have had so far has been constructive and positive. However, I hope that he will understand why, for the reasons that I have set out, I cannot support his Bill today, even if I share his concern that people at work should get a fair deal and the best possible package of support.”
“I do not want us to return to the days when the Conservative party let it waste away, increasing it by only £5 over six years. We have increased the level from £210 to £350 while we have held office and by £40 a week in past two years. However, I question whether the level of average earnings is necessarily the right level for any future increase. The Bill is flawed in its approach, although I share my hon. Friend’s concern for people at work. I would not want anyone to go away from today’s debate thinking that we were not concerned about people at work. We have made many changes to improve the lot of people at work. It would be a great mistake to ignore those changes, some of which come in next month. We should celebrate them and campaign on them. We should point out that those changes would never be granted by the Conservative party.”
“We are not just talking about how much they increase by every year, as we would with the pensions system, which has been referred to; we are talking about setting the weekly limit at the level of average earnings. Is the figure £450, which includes part-time workers, or £585, which refers purely to full-time workers? It is not clear from the Bill which definition my hon. Friend is using. Other elements of the redundancy package would include pay for the notice period to which the worker is entitled, pay for outstanding leave owed to the worker, unemployment benefit, tax and child credits, and retraining to help the worker gain new skills and find work as quickly as possible. There is not necessarily a magic level for redundancy pay within that overall package. However, we should not let the level atrophy, as it did in the past.”
“As I have told him, discussions about the matter are going on in Government, but there is a logical flaw at the heart of the Bill. Either it has the implications for cost to business and to the Government that I outlined or it does not. We already have powers to increase redundancy payment. Of course, that would not be a decision for me, but for Government as a whole, and we would not announce such a decision today, as he knows. Those are the reasons for my reservations about the Bill and for being unable to support it. I want to consider the notion of average earnings as our guiding light. Even if we wanted to do more about redundancy payment, why should average earnings be that guiding light? To begin with, we do not have an agreed definition of what average earnings are.”
“There is a logical flaw in that argument. The Bill either commits us to increasing redundancy payment in line with average earnings, and to introducing a new formula to increase it in line with future average earnings after the one-off increase, or it does not. If it does not, what is the point? What is the point of legislation that is simply declaratory when we already have a power on the statute book to increase redundancy payment quicker than the Bill would? There is a logical flaw in arguing that the Bill would have no impact on spending because it would leave all power in the hands of Ministers. We have that power anyway under the Work and Families Act 2006, and we do not need the Bill. My hon. Friend has made his point. He wants redundancy payment to be addressed—that is a fair point.”
“We have a formula that has worked well in recent years and we also have a power to uprate, which would act considerably more quickly than the mechanism for which the Bill provides. If we intended to use any improvement to redundancy payments to help those affected by the recession, the existing power to uprate the formula would be a much quicker mechanism for doing that than the method that the measure sets out. I ask hon. Members to keep that point in mind, although, as I said earlier, I cannot make spending announcements today. There is also the question of whom we should help if money were made available or if we asked business to make a contribution in the way that the Bill sets out. My hon. Friend claimed that there was no spending commitment and that the measure is merely a guide to the Government.”
“As colleagues know, we plan to lift the education and training leaving age to 18 by 2015. Schools are also critical and we have made a historic commitment to raise the participation age to 17 by 2013 and to 18, as I said. That is an important part of our approach. My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley is motivated by the impact of recession and job losses on his constituency and others. The Bill is well intentioned and we certainly need to do more to help those who need it most. However, I do not believe that the measure is the right way to achieve that goal and I have set out reasons for that. Some of my reservations are about the formula and how it would work.”
“It highlighted the importance of investing in skills to maximise economic growth, productivity and social justice in a globalised economy. Hard skills matter, as do, in a world where services are more important economically, soft skills and people skills. In the economy of the future, we will find that many people facing redundancy have to find new jobs in new areas. That was the original motivation behind the statutory redundancy scheme, and it remains the motivation behind the scheme today. Our response to all this is a major investment programme. More than £11 billion a year will be invested in education, employment and training. We have expanded apprenticeships, with more than £1 billion in Government funding to increase overall places by more than 400,000 by 2010-11.”
“We have increased it by £40 per week in the past two years, compared with an overall increase of £5 per week in the last six years of the Conservative Government. We have introduced a new formula, with the provision that it not only increases by the level of RPI but is rounded up by £10 per week. That has resulted in an increase in payments at the weekly limit of beyond-average earnings in recent years. That is a completely legitimate thing to do, but it would be wrong to say that it is purely where we should concentrate our efforts. In saying that, I do not mean that we should rule out further action, but I do mean that we should see it in a wider context of help for the unemployed, retraining and skills for the future. That is precisely the challenge that was put before us in the Leitch review several years ago.”
“It is a mistake simply to view this issue in isolation without taking into account the doubling of the budget for the rapid response service or the £1.3 billion that has been made available to the Train to Gain scheme, which means that it is available for shorter-term courses and available to people who already have qualifications. They are not excluded from taking part in it because they have already had some training. The scheme is now much more flexible, and it is there precisely so that people who may be affected by redundancy or by short-time working are equipped for the jobs and industries of the future. Our response to the recession and to the problems created by rising unemployment and rising redundancy is to ensure that a fair system of statutory redundancy payments is available.”
“That is why I believe that, in debating these issues, we should concentrate not solely on the financial payment available to people but on the real and practical help that they get from the Government in terms of retraining, new skills, and so on. Several years ago, we published the Leitch report, which identified the skills shortages in this country. If we think back to Harold Wilson’s motivation for introducing the statutory redundancy scheme in the first place, we see that it was about labour mobility. It was about giving people that second chance, not just about the perfectly legitimate concern to ensure that people were rewarded for their years of service.”
“That does not mean that we are going to try to pick winning companies, but it means that we see those affected by redundancy as needing to be equipped for industries in which we know this country will have to succeed in future. For example, my noble Friend Lord Carter has published a strategy to help to ensure the provision of broadband throughout the country, knowing that the information and creative economy is critically dependent on a modern communication infrastructure. Similarly, we know that the way we heat our homes and offices, transport ourselves and manufacture our goods will change radically in future so that Britain is at the forefront of the skills and jobs needed in an ever-expanding green collar labour market.”
“The Government must have an eye on the future and on ensuring that those affected by redundancy take their second chance by reskilling, upskilling and giving themselves a better opportunity to find a job in future. The economy that emerges from this recession will not be based simply on pressing the rewind button to 2006 before the sub-prime crisis, the troubles at Northern Rock, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the other traumatic events of the past couple of years. As we navigate the downturn, we must also ensure that those affected by redundancy can compete in the British economy in years to come. My Department has talked of industrial activism.”
“It is incumbent on us to consider that matter as well as the timing of the Bill. As I have said, I cannot promise that there is money available to do any of that, as the House will understand. However, whether we help those earning above £350 or below, it is a legitimate issue for debate, as are all the other matters that I have mentioned. It is absolutely right and fair for us to consider redundancy payment, but it is important that we do not see it in isolation. Our response to the recession should also take into account the other things that we are doing to help people. When people are faced with redundancy, what matters is not just the redundancy payment, although that is very important. It is also what we can do to help them to find a new job and give them a second chance. We wish to do more than simply pay benefits as in the past.”
“From a nationwide point of view, about 7.2 million workers in the UK earn below £250 per week. About 5 million of these are people working part time. Three quarters of them are women. A further 2 million people are earning between £200 and £250 a week—in other words, at or perhaps just above the national minimum wage level. As I have said, I am not in a position today to announce extra help for redundancy pay. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley would like me to do that, but I pose this question: if we were in a position to identify extra Government resources and ask business to contribute more to redundancy pay, should we not also ask where it was best to direct that help? Should it be directed to lifting the upper limit or to concentrating help more on the low-paid? That is at least a legitimate question for debate.”
“I am not arguing that £350 a week is a huge amount of money because it is not, but as well as considering how the formula would have impacted in recent years and how long it would take for the Bill to come into effect, we have to consider content. If we had a limited amount of money and we wanted to do something about redundancy pay, would the Bill be the best way to do it? Would it concentrate help on those who needed it most? It has been a significant and justified part of our Government’s approach to try to concentrate help on the lowest paid and we have done that. The hon. Member for Solihull referred to pensions, and we took such an approach to pensions during our early years in government. We took the same approach with the minimum wage, and that is a perfectly understandable and fair principle.”
“I am not pretending that £350 a week is high earnings, but that would be the effect of concentrating purely on the weekly limit. The lower-paid half of workers in the constituency would not see a rise in their redundancy pay. That issue should be considered when we take a sectoral view. My hon. Friend mentioned workers in the hotel and catering sector. In that sector, around 22 per cent. of workers earn above the weekly limit, which would mean that only the better paid 22 per cent. of people working in that sector would benefit from a measure that was focused on the upper weekly limit. The 78 per cent. who earned below the weekly limit would not benefit.”
“Workers earning below that limit would not be affected by the changes proposed in the Bill. Let us look at an example of how that might work. In the supporting papers for the Bill, my hon. Friend circulated tables of constituencies and employment rates, which showed how many people in each constituency earned above the £350 limit. If we take his constituency of Chorley, the figures showed that 47 per cent. of people earn above the weekly limit—roughly half. So half of his constituents are earning above the current weekly limit, and half earning below. If we had a limited amount of money and we concentrated it purely on increasing the upper limit, we would benefit the better-off half of the workers in his constituency. That is not an ignoble thing to do.”
“I now come to the third matter to which I wish to draw the House’s attention. If we were increasing statutory redundancy pay, would the formula in my hon. Friend’s Bill be the right way to do so? Under the statutory scheme, everyone earning above the weekly limit would receive a redundancy payment based on the limit. Someone earning £400, £500 or even £1,000 a week would receive, if they were dependent on the statutory scheme, a redundancy payment based on the figure of £350. However, anyone earning below the weekly limit receives a redundancy payment calculated using their actual pay. If we concentrate all our efforts on increasing the upper limit from £350 to whatever it may be—the average earnings of £450 a week including part-time workers or average full-time earnings set at £585 a week—only those earning £350 a week will benefit.”
“He spoke with great skill and passion on behalf of the people about whom he is concerned. I simply ask him to think about whether, if we increased redundancy payments, the Bill would be the vehicle for doing so. He has perhaps underplayed the fact that the Government already have a power that they can use to make such an increase, if we judge that that is the right thing to do in the current circumstances. If we used that power, any increase would, in all likelihood, come into force more quickly than it would under the process set out in his Bill, which would be required to undergo the full, normal parliamentary procedure of a Committee stage and so on. That would be followed by the 12-month consultation mentioned in his Bill. So there are issues of content, effect and timing.”
“In fact, there is already a measure on the stocks that could be used, if the Government made a decision on the subject. I stress again that I am not making any announcement about an increase today. He knows that I am not able to do that. The issue of timing, and whether the Bill is the right vehicle, is perfectly legitimate, as is the issue of the uprating, which is at the heart of his Bill. If the Bill was passed, it would in practice be 12 months before any changes could be introduced—and it would first have to complete all its parliamentary stages. My hon. Friend has quite fairly raised the issue of redundancy payments today. He knows that the issue is under discussion in Government. He has made his point; he has explored the issues and laid them before the House.”
“There is a timing issue involved, if we want to increase redundancy payments. My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley will understand that I am not in a position to make promises about public spending today. I cannot suddenly tell him what will happen in future. If we were to increase redundancy payments, it might be quicker to do so through the measure in the Work and Families Act 2006, which has already passed through the House. That way, we would not have to pilot a new Bill through the House—we can never predict quite how long that will take—and carry out a 12-month consultation after that. I suspect that my hon. Friend wants urgency and speed on the issue, but I am not sure that the Bill would give him urgency and speed.”
“We are always happy to do that, and the quality of the responses to those consultations makes a valuable contribution to Government policy. However, if we did that for the Bill, the responses to such consultation would be fairly predictable. The unions, for reasons I understand, would call for the limit to be increased substantially. Employers, for reasons I also understand, would argue that they could not afford such an increase. They would say that we were in the middle of a recession and the Government should understand that we should not impose new costs at such a time, and so on. In the end, the Government would have to square the circle and make a judgment. We could make such a change at any point, but if we took a further year to do so, there would be more redundancies during that year.”
“Friend the Member for Chorley is not just to increase the statutory redundancy payment limit but to do so quite quickly—probably in the context of the current recession. In two or three years’ time, we hope that the country will have turned the corner and be pulling out of recession and on the road to recovery. I think my hon. Friend’s aim is that his measure should be part of our response to the recession, but in terms of timing, how would the Bill work in practice? He says that within 12 months we should come forward with a proposal, and that in the meantime the Government should consult the CBI and the TUC. My Department regularly consults not only the CBI but other employers organisations, and not only the TUC but other trade unions.”
“As I said, that is because the Government are obliged to meet the cost of redundancy payments when employers become insolvent. The average full-time earnings figure of £585 would leave the state carrying an annual burden of something more than £100 million. Apart from costs, we have to consider another factor that arises from the Bill: the question of time. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) raised the question of urgency. Timing is a legitimate factor. We have already raised the limit. In the Work and Families Act 2006, we took the power to make a one-off increase to the limit. The Bill offers an alternative road for doing that, but we have to consider the timing. I suspect that the motivation of my hon.”
“At present there is sometimes confusion, because people hear about the big numbers involved in bank rescues, with the Government underwriting loans of many billions of pounds, and indeed sometimes underwriting loan books stretching to hundreds of billions of pounds; but that is not the same as spending hundreds of billions of pounds. Acting as an insurer is very different from one-off expenditure on a school or a hospital. It is certainly not the case that the Government are free to spend taxpayers’ money without limit. There are implications for public spending, too. Even in the first scenario, where we did not introduce the rebate and carried on with the present system, the Government would still have to bear a proportion of the costs.”
“We must consider the need to do everything we can to help keep people in work as well as the package that should be made available to them if they lose their jobs. Of course, it could be argued—perhaps by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley—that the Government could deal with the problem of costs to business by shouldering more of those costs and reintroducing the rebate. His Bill is silent on whether the state should carry more of the burden of the cost of redundancy payments but, even if we went down that road, it would not be an easy answer. Pressures on spending exist in that area too.”
“We have done so when we thought that that was right, and it is not always wrong, but it is a legitimate factor to take into account, especially at a time of economic difficulty such as now. The cost is one factor that it is important to consider. If we raise the limit, about three quarters of the cost will be borne by employers. There is clearly a case for providing additional help to employees, as I have said. I went through some of the measures that we are taking in response to the recession. I have talked about the measures that Jobcentre Plus and the rapid response service are taking when people are faced with redundancy. We also need to be conscious that businesses are struggling to keep their heads above water.”
“Friend the Member for Chorley intends to include part-time workers in his calculation of average weekly earnings or whether he would just include full-time workers, but the figures are different. The average for purely full-time workers is £585, but if part-time workers were included the average would be £450 a week. The current weekly limit represents about 73 per cent. of average earnings as things stand, if we include part-time workers in the calculation. Even if we took that figure as our baseline, raising the weekly limit to £450 would increase the cost of redundancy by about £260 million a year. Again, we have to consider the impact on contractual redundancy pay to get a full insight into the costs. That is an important factor to consider. I am not arguing that we can never impose costs on employers.”
“Taking all those factors into account, we think that the cost will be about £500 million, without also taking into account the contractual redundancy pay. That will tend to apply more in the better organised workplaces and the union-organised workplaces. Unlike the Opposition, I can see the benefits of being in a union-organised workplace where a contract with such a provision might be negotiated. One would always hope to avoid redundancy, but if one could not and the company was not in an insolvency situation, the worker would benefit from such a contractual provision. How the exact costs worked out would depend on how we defined average weekly earnings. I believe that £585 is the average for full-time weekly earnings. The figure does not include part-time workers and if we included them it would fall. I do not know whether my hon.”
“The state’s role in this is not restricted to the point after which insolvencies have happened; it can also play a role in lending money to businesses to pay for redundancies when not to do so might result in an otherwise avoidable insolvency situation. Even taking both aspects of the state’s role into account, most of the cost of raising the limit will fall on business. The effect of the Bill may in fact be greater, because it is not uncommon for contractual redundancy pay to be based on a multiple of the statutory rate. A fairly common feature of employment contracts is that the contractual redundancy pay will be set at one and a half or two times the statutory weekly limit, so any increase in the limit—as I say, we have increased it in recent years—will have an on-cost in terms of contractual redundancy pay, too.”
“Most of that cost would fall on business, and as I have said, one of the features of the redundancy system since its introduction has been the gradual transfer in the burden of payment from the state to employers, save in those cases in which insolvency is a factor, or when a business is threatened with insolvency and applies to the Insolvency Service for a loan to cover redundancy payments that might otherwise tip it into insolvency. Such a feature is an important part of the system, because we are trying to avoid businesses going into insolvency if they do not have to do so. If we keep employers in business, they can continue to employ people and keep redundancies to a minimum.”
“Friend may argue differently, but the natural reading of the Bill is that the Government should set the weekly limit at average weekly earnings. Much of the supporting material and publicity has been clear on that point. The figure for average weekly earnings has varied, depending on the supporting material. Some people have talked of £500 a week, and there has also been talk of £585 a week. It is important that we examine the costs of setting redundancy pay at such a level. Let us take at face value the claim that average weekly wages are £585 a week. If we raised the limit from the current £350 a week to £585, it would increase the cost of redundancy by approximately £500 million a year.”
“The Bill says that the Government shall review the limit and come back within 12 months to introduce a mechanism that links the weekly limit to average earnings. It also provides that the Government will ensure that the limit is increased in line with average earnings in subsequent years. I hope that what I have said today has left no one in doubt about the Government’s commitment to supporting those who have been made redundant through no fault of their own. The underlying intention of the Bill—to provide more help and to ensure that workers get a fair deal—is one that we share, but although I have much sympathy with its intentions, there are some specific reasons why I believe that the Bill, as drafted, is flawed and would not be the best solution. The first of those reasons revolves around cost and affordability. My hon.”
“That is how the redundancy scheme operates and has been uprated in recent years, and the £40 a week increase over the past two years is the benefit that people have seen from the current uprating formula. We share a concern with my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley for a fair deal for people who are made redundant, and I believe that most of us would agree that much progress has been made in recent years, particularly because of how the formula has operated. Let us consider some of the specifics of my hon. Friend’s Bill and whether such further changes would be appropriate, were we in a position to make them. As I said, I share much of the motivation of my hon. Friend and the many supporters of the Bill.”
“The Government also looked again at the link between length of service and the final redundancy settlement. We believe that the burden of providing a safety net for those made redundant should fall, in part, on the employers whom they have served. That is the way that the scheme works, so it seems sensible that redundancy payments should reflect the level of commitment demonstrated by a worker to his or her employer throughout the length of their service. We carried out a consultation on this issue as part of the age review in 2005, and we found that our approach was recognised and supported by the vast majority of those who responded to that consultation; just under 90 per cent. of people agreed with the principle that length of service should be reflected in such a way, and we decided to retain that element of the scheme.”
“We also found that young workers tend to find work more quickly and experience a smaller drop in their pay when switching jobs or when affected by redundancy, and that older workers are typically out of work between jobs for much longer and experience, on average, an 18 per cent. drop in pay when switching jobs. Those data suggest that older people have a greater need for higher compensation than younger people do. Consequently, after very careful consideration, we concluded that the current rules on age bands in the redundancy scheme were still relevant. After all, one of the recognitions built into the scheme since the beginning has been that it is in place to reward length of service. That seems to be reflected in how we operate the scheme.”
“We removed both the lower and upper age limits in the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, benefiting both younger and older workers. That was an additional important measure of fairness; no doubt, we will be accused of implementing it for reasons other than our belief in benefiting older and younger workers, but such an accusation would be as spurious as the others levelled at us today. We have also reviewed other elements of the existing scheme to ensure that it continues to be fair. I mentioned age bands. Under the scheme, the older someone is, the more pay they receive when they are made redundant for a given length of service. In 2005-06, we reviewed the bands as part of the age review, finding that both younger workers aged up to 24, and older workers aged 50 and above, were the most likely to be made redundant.”
“We have not yet made use of these powers, in part because the weekly limit has grown strongly in recent years. Although I understand the wishes of my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley and the other supporters of the Bill, it is fair to point out the degree to which redundancy payments have been increased in recent years. The Government have done something else to improve the existing redundancy regime, as well as introducing the uprating formula. Under the original scheme, service below the age of 18 did not count towards the redundancy calculation. There was also a taper in the scheme that meant that redundancy payments were progressively reduced from the age of 64 and not payable at all from the age of 65.”
“Gentleman be tempted to attack these measures too much, I add that it has been a significant part of his party’s repositioning over recent years somehow to pretend that they like these measures. That mask appears to be slipping today, however. The Opposition appear to be reverting to type, and I think that people at work who look at the record of this debate will see the signals, and will know that the Conservative party appears to be setting itself up to promise at the next election a reduction in the rights of people at work. I am therefore perfectly happy to talk about what we said and what our motives have been in recent years. I was referring to the Work and Families Act 2006 and the one-off uprating to the limit through affirmative regulations.”
“I am not in denial over anything we said before the last election, and I have just referred to—and, indeed, quoted from—that, so I am hardly in denial over it. What I am saying is that when we act to improve the position of people at work, we do so not to please any sectional interest, but because the Government believe in fairness at work. Sadly, that is not a belief that is shared by the Conservative party, as has been made very clear today. I completely acknowledge our manifesto commitments, and it is because of this belief in fairness that the position of people in work in the UK today is significantly better than when the hon. Gentleman’s party was in power. If he went back to those days, he would find no rights to paid leave, no minimum wage and no right to flexible working. Lest the hon.”
“Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who pointed out that the UK has a very good health and safety record that stands comparison with that of other countries, and which we have maintained during the period for which the opt-out has been in place. In fact, according to survey evidence within the EU, the UK has the lowest rate of work-related fatal injuries and the third lowest rate of non-fatal injuries. The fourth European working conditions survey states that the UK has the lowest proportion of those in employment reporting that their work affects their health or causes them to suffer stress.”
“We believe that the Government should support each individual’s right to rest and holiday, and the right not to be forced to work excessive hours. We believe that that should apply to all workers, regardless of their employment status, including temporary and agency staff. However, the Government also believe that choice and opportunity are important factors in the debate—choice for ourselves and the 14 other member states that use the opt-out, and choice for individual workers, who may choose to work longer hours if they so wish. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) said that there was broad agreement about that, and I am glad to hear it, but some have said that there should not be choice on such a matter, and that it could endanger the health and safety of workers. I agree with my right hon.”
“He talked in detail about the national health service and how we will match our commitments on working time with ensuring that we have the best possible system of health care for the public. I wish to deal more generally with the position of working time for individuals and for the economy as a whole. As the House knows, unemployment is rising, but we still have many more people in work than a decade ago, and all of them enjoy stronger employment rights, including those granted under the working time directive. They enjoy more paid leave, more maternity leave and rights to flexible working. Many of those changes were fought tooth and nail by the Opposition as we sought to create a better balance between family responsibilities and working life.”
“This has been a useful debate on an issue that, as we have heard, is relevant to both our national health service and the economy more widely. I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part. As we debate the matter in the House, it is also being discussed in the European Union, most recently at the Employment and Social Affairs Council, which I attended in Brussels yesterday. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said in his opening remarks, the working time directive gives workers important rights. In implementing it, this Government introduced for the first time legal default limits on working hours and a statutory entitlement to annual leave.”
“Friend the Secretary of State said, there are exceptional circumstances, in which some doctors have less choice than others to work longer hours. That is why we notified the European Commission of our intention to use an extended derogation available under the directive to retain a maximum working week of up to 52 hours for a further three years. That will be limited, but will also provide important flexibility to help make the change.”
“That is another reason for our belief that it is important to build into legislation the sort of flexibility that the opt-out provides. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said, our policy on the NHS is guided, above all, by considerations of patient safety. We know that there is evidence of a link between long hours in the health professions—some of the surveys that have been conducted were mentioned—and the quality of care offered to patients. We are committed to ensuring sensible limits on the hours that health professionals work in the NHS. We have made sustained investment in that commitment, and two thirds of junior doctors already work no more than 48 hours a week. Again, as my right hon.”
“Syms) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) raised the important issue of retained firefighters. The value and importance of the service were rightly highlighted. I want to make it clear that, contrary to what some believe, there are no general exemptions for emergency services in the directive, so an end to the opt-out would have implications for them. In the case of retained firefighters, who give their time and effort, normally on top of doing another full-time job, it is difficult to understand how that valuable and important service, which benefits the whole community, could continue in its current form without the opt-out. Let me reassure the House that the Government fully appreciate the importance of the retained fire service.”
“However, it would be wrong to deprive people of the right to work longer and earn more if they wish, or to deprive businesses of the flexibility that people working longer hours can bring. At the moment, some people have either lost their jobs or are on short-time working, which may have reduced their earning capacity. The Government believe that it would be wrong to say to the partner of such a worker that we wanted to limit their choice to work longer and earn more if they can, thereby perhaps allowing them to continue to pay their mortgage and other family bills. We have made that point to fellow member states in the negotiations. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Moray (Angus Robertson), for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), for Poole (Mr.”