Work and Families Bill

Liberal Democrat Members are not satisfied with the Government’s response and will seek to divide the House on the new clause. The Minister says that our whole position is driven by the CBI, but it is long-standing Liberal Democrat policy and part of our election manifesto. I am delighted that Conservative Members added their names to our new clause and that the CBI supports Liberal Democrat policy, which seems an entirely good thing. We are not responding to any change of position from the CBI—our position has been the same throughout, and we tabled such a proposal in Committee, as the Minister knows. I repeat that we strongly support the Bill, which provides new rights that are thoroughly welcome and will help in achieving a better work-life balance for families. As the Conservative spokesman mentioned, however, it is important to ensure that there is confidence in the changes and reforms introduced, and that the Government bring business with them. The Government must acknowledge that they have a problem. For example, it is not good that the CBI has withdrawn its support, because the Bill ought to be a package of proposals around which everyone can unite. The Government have lost that big tent, to coin a phrase, and they ought to be thinking about how they can recover that position. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) just reiterated a point that I, and others, have already made: this is all about giving employers a right. They might seek to transfer responsibility to the Government if they considered that that was in their interests. Self-evidently, the new clause is directed at the employers who would benefit most in terms of cost savings. I want to deal briefly with what has been described as the incredible disparity between the assessed cost of the Government’s running the scheme—50 million quid—and the assessed savings for employers—£1.1 million. That is based on the regulatory impact assessment. I support the RIA process in principle, but we need to be clear about the severe limitations imposed by the way in which such assessments are conducted. They tend to be self-serving, in that they are prepared by the Departments that seek to benefit from them. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs obviously does not want an additional responsibility, so self-interest is involved in the delivery of an assessment that is discouraging from the point of view of employers. We should bear it in mind that many small employers still make their calculations manually. It seems incredible to me that the saving to employers should amount to only £1 million, while it would cost the Government £50 million to operate the scheme on an automated basis. That simply does not make sense. We believe—as, I think, do the Conservatives—that the employers’ costs have been underestimated, and the Government’s costs have been overstated.