Work and Families Bill

It sounds like my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) is rather too easily gratified. In my role as shadow Secretary of State for the family, I have opened both debates for the official Opposition, which shows that we are more interested than the Government in joined-up thinking. The fact that I have been joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who is a member of our Department of Trade and Industry Front-Bench team, shows that we want to achieve a balance between family and business needs. I urge the Government to ensure that while they are going through interesting and difficult times—the leadership, pensions reform and education reform—they do not lose sight of delivering the important aims of both this Bill and the Childcare Bill, which will have a significant impact on both families and businesses across the country. The Secretary of State has referred to the movement among many businesses up and down the country to understand and deliver on the need for more flexible working practices. Small businesses often find it difficult to enact such provisions, but they often provide flexible working, although they would not perceive it as such—they perceive it as ensuring that long-standing or expert members of their work force can be kept within the workplace. Conservative Members recognise that for many families, balancing the demands of family and career is incredibly difficult. Recent polling by the Equal Opportunities Commission found that nearly seven in 10 women and men agreed or agreed strongly that women’s and men’s lives are becoming more alike in terms of their need to balance work and family life. The poll also found that 70 per cent. of people were concerned about what family life would be like for their children and grandchildren, and more than six in 10 were concerned about spending enough time with their family. Indeed, the EOC polling showed that people were more concerned about those issues than they were about the state of the health service or crime in their local area. Many families simply have no choice about whether one or both parents goes out to work, and the kind of support that we were discussing last week on the Childcare Bill and now on this Bill can make the difference for families between coping and not. Many new mothers want to get back to work as quickly as possible. They want to enjoy a good career and a good relationship with their children, but they sometimes find it hard to do so, because of the prohibitive costs of child care. Other mothers would like to take longer off work to care for their newborn child, but simply do not feel that they can afford the absence from work. Both are equally valid choices, and both put mothers under enormous strain. We all recognise that the early months in a child’s life are incredibly important and that the positive effects on a child’s development from time spent at home with their mother can be hugely beneficial in many cases, which is why we support the Government’s intention to extend the period of maternity pay to 39 weeks. Measures which give parents more choice will continue to gain our backing, but many parents will still feel unable to take so long off work. Sometimes they do not want to be away from their jobs for such a long time, but in many cases they are forced back to work earlier than they might wish because they cannot afford to stay at home on the current provision. We have always said that new parents should have a real choice about whether and for how long they stay at home with their newborn child. All families are different, and their needs and priorities are different, and the system of maternity pay should be as flexible as possible to meet those needs. Many families will find that the pay offered over the nine-month period is still not enough, which is why we announced plans at the last election to give mothers the option of receiving the total sum that the Government propose to pay over nine months over six months instead. They would thereby have had a significantly increased sum of maternity pay over those six months. We wanted to offer parents a real choice between that significantly increased maternity pay for six months and the current level of maternity pay over nine months and to put them back in control of whether and when they go back to work. Earlier this year, in an article in The HouseMagazine, my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) set out several proposals that he believed that the Government should be pursuing in order to ensure that businesses were protected as regards maternity and paternity pay. He cited:"““An increase to the current 28 days notice period for all women returning to work . . . Central administration of maternity benefits with the opportunity for larger businesses to opt out of a central scheme””" and"““clearer guidelines for communication between employers and employees during the maternity leave period.””" I am pleased that the Secretary of State said that the Government will move on at least two of those points, notably on the increased period of notice, which will be welcomed by all employers, and on communication between employers and employers during the maternity leave period. For many mothers, it is extremely important to continue to have contact with the workplace, not only to keep abreast of developments but to feel that they are still in touch with the workplace and have not been forgotten and left to one side. I note that those matters are to be taken up in regulations instead of being covered in the Bill. I return to the point that was ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), who cited several clauses that refer to regulations. A significant amount of the Bill’s detail is subject to regulations. I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to publishing draft regulations as soon as possible. It would be preferable if that could be dealt with in Committee, but at least we should be able to look at the detail when the Bill returns on Report. This is a short Bill, and an awful lot of it will be subject to what those regulations say.