Work and Families Bill

The hon. Lady speaks with authority on this matter because she has a very small baby, and it is quite understandable that she will not have time to discuss any matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire because she cannot possibly have time while balancing her duties in the House and in her constituency with such a small baby. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) mentioned some vital aspects of the Bill. Parents’ time with children is an essential part of helping to create and nurture children and therefore the next generation. Parents who have jobs are doing two jobs, especially the mothers of small children who also have a job outside the family, and we should respect that fact, but my hon. Friend is right: looking after a home and children is an important and extremely hard job. In my own humble opinion, it is the hardest job that there is, and I am glad that I do not have to do it full-time. We must respect women who choose to stay at home and look after their families. They must also have rights. The hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. McGovern) gave us a very good historical canter around what used to happen. I am glad that we live in more enlightened times. Much of the Bill is reliant on subsequent regulations that we have not yet seen. This is the third Bill in a month to which I have spoken from the Dispatch Box—I assume therefore that this must apply to many more—for which there has been a very short period, usually eight days, between the debate on Second Reading and the beginning of consideration in Committee and for which the Committee stage will be commenced too early and be rushed. We have had to examine Bills in Committee without the benefit of having the regulations before us. I hope that that will not happen with this Bill. It is hard to imagine why the Government are in such haste to push the Bill through. Another couple of weeks so that we could have the regulations in front of us to give the Bill proper consideration would have been much better. In conclusion, we all want the Bill to work, so it must have flexibility and balance between employer and employee because we only have jobs to talk about in the context that we have been discussing them this evening if we have a successful economy, and we only have a successful economy if we have competitive businesses. So if anything in the Bill undermines the competitiveness of businesses, the Bill will backfire. I do not want that to happen; I want the business community and families to have confidence in the legislation that we have examined this evening. We want to examine the Bill further in Committee. We therefore want it to have a Second Reading. We will not oppose it this evening, but we look forward to improving it.