Work and Families Bill

When speaking in this place, it is always a good rule of thumb to speak about something that one is vaguely acquainted with. That is a personal credo which is not always followed by other Members, but I hope to follow it today, as in a previous life I was a business adviser with Business Link. I well remember the days when I would trudge round Europe’s largest industrial estate at Park Royal. As I would knock on the door and go into those very small micro-businesses, some with fewer than five staff and many with fewer than a dozen staff, the most dread words that I could say were, ““I’m from the Government and I’m here to help your business.”” That was rather unfair, and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the sterling work done by Business Link. It does an excellent job. It is important to recognise the struggle that small businesses face every day to make ends meet. The points about cash flow made by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) are well made. Whether by the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors or the CBI, much comment has been made about the speed and quantity of regulations coming from Government. I should like to explain in a wider context why I support the Bill from a political as well as a personal point of view. To be slightly partisan, I resent the implication that the Labour party—the Government—has a monopoly on concern for working people and on care about work-life balance, that amorphous group of policies dealing with quality of life issues. That is not true. My party should not be pigeon-holed as a party that is not progressive, that is not modern, and that is unwilling to look at Britain as it is today, rather than as it was. I strongly support the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) in that respect. Similarly, I am not speaking today as a mouthpiece of big business. To me, big business has good parts and bad parts. The bad parts are supermarkets and banks, which are my own bugbear. But that is not free enterprise and competition. Free enterprise and competition is the invisible hand of Adam Smith, which my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest no doubt invoked when speaking about her father, a good Fife man. We care about working families and we welcome the Bill because we think that in general it will be successful, it will make an impact and it will help with aspects such as bonding between parents, quality time, and nurturing and protecting family life. I say that not because I am some wishy-washy Liberal, although they are in the news this week, but because that is good, practical, economic common sense. I reiterate the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest that small business people have families too and they want quality time. If they have mortgaged their house or remortgaged their business and gone cap in hand to the bank, their right to have a family life is important too. We should do everything we can to mitigate the pressures on them. I turn to the issue of paternity pay. In Committee the hon. Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) was offended by the fact that men are paid more than women and consequently that paternity pay was an issue. That is a fact of life. There are cultural issues involved in the non-take-up of paternity rights. Men are often at a higher level in the hierarchy and are better paid than women, and they perceive that their careers will be damaged if they take paternity pay and avail themselves of paternity rights. I referred earlier to the dichotomy in the Government’s position, and I sense a slight weakening in resolve on the Minister’s part with regard to new clause 1. The Government are effectively saying, ““We are going ahead with paternity rights. We want more men to have that work-life balance, but there are not many of them, so don’t worry about it.”” If that is the case, the Government should consider new clause 1 with an open mind. We should be careful about the amount and proximity of regulations coming through to small businesses. There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggesting that we should not inadvertently bring about discrimination. If a business is struggling at the margin, business people will look at the legislation coming through and make a judgment about the impact that it will have on them. If the future of the business is a matter of life or death, they may well decide that they do not want to employ a young woman of childbearing age or a younger man. That is discrimination. I make no excuse for it, but if the Government are not sensitive to that degree of regulation and the burden that it places on businesses, they will find that the people they most wish to help—young families, mums and dads who have to work to pay the mortgage and meet the costs—will be discriminated against. I am concerned particularly about paternity rights because I am unsure about the figures. Are they based on social studies, demography or statistics compiled centrally by the Department of Trade and Industry? I am not clear how straightforward and transparent the figures are and what impact they will have on small and medium-sized enterprises. For instance, the indicative estimates of the cost of paternity pay are anywhere between 12 and 21 per cent. That is potentially an 80 per cent. overrun. For the right to request flexible hours, the indicative cost is anywhere between just under £30 million and £120 million, which is a pretty substantial difference. That is a concern to me. One might say flippantly that the figures could have been prepared by the architects of the Scottish Parliament, but I would not go that far. The issue is balance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest said. We must get the balance right. We all care about making sure that the economy is improved, that businesses grow, and that families are not put under stress to the extent that they disintegrate as a result of getting the work-life balance wrong. None of us wants that. Given that 97 per cent. of the UK’s gross domestic product is generated by small businesses, many of which are micro-businesses and innovative businesses, we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater or crack the golden egg. No more similes. I broadly support the Bill. My experience as a business adviser is that where they can, people who run businesses will do their best to comply with regulations if they think they are fair and if they think others are complying with them. If they think the regulations are unfair and that the Government are not listening to them or their representative organisations, they will avoid them, the scheme will not work, and ultimately the Government will not achieve their aims. With that, I give the Bill a broad welcome. I hope that when the Minister speaks later, he will address the concerns that I raised today.