Work and Families Bill

I entirely agree. There must be an element of independence in the RIA process, for, without it, the figures simply cannot be robust enough. There should also be a reassessment once the regulation has been introduced. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that that will happen. He said that he would keep the matter under review in response to an intervention, and, a year on, we ought to establish what the actual costs have been. A number of factors have led us to conclude that this assessment is wrong. I heard what the Minister said at the end of his speech, but I still believe that, for many employers statutory, maternity and paternity pay has cash flow implications which could be avoided if the payments were made directly by the Government. We should also bear in mind the time taken away from wealth generation. The time spent on completing a manual declaration could be spent on making money—generating wealth for the business. I bet that the assessors did not calculate that loss adequately.