Work and Families Bill

I hope to come on to that point later in my speech. However, we do not accept that the proposal that the Tories put forward at the last election would have been of any benefit to either employees or employers. We consulted widely on choice and flexibility. Our aim was to establish and maintain a balanced framework of rights and responsibilities for both employers and employees. As well as providing more choice for employees, we are introducing measures to ease administration burdens for business in line with the Government’s better regulation agenda. The majority of the costs fall to the Government, as the Treasury reimburses business for statutory maternity, adoption or paternity pay at 92 per cent. for large businesses and 104.5 per cent. for smaller businesses. That is worth around £390 million a year. The net cost to business of the package is small once we take into account the savings and the increased productivity as a result of the measures. It will be about £40 million to £90 million in year 1 and £35 million to £70 million in year 2. Throughout the consultation, we considered how we could help business to offset administrative burdens in line with the Government’s better regulation agenda. We set up an external advisory group, made up of people with human resources expertise, to examine how to ease the compliance for employers. As a result of the Bill and subsequent regulations, the notice that mothers must give to their employers when changing the date of their return from maternity leave will be doubled from four weeks to eight weeks, and statutory maternity pay will start on the same day as maternity leave and be calculated on a daily basis, if that suits employers, to ease administration and align payments with employers’ usual business practice. Women will be able to come into work for a few days during their maternity leave without losing a week’s statutory pay and can end their leave early if that is what they and their employer want. That will help them to keep in touch and to ease their return to work. Again, many hon. Members accepted that. It will be explicit in the maternity leave regulations that employers may make reasonable contact during maternity leave. We will improve the guidance provided to employers and employees.