Work and Families Bill

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will of course adhere to your ruling. I do not wish to digress or to take up the House’s time unnecessarily, but to convince the Secretary of State that I agree with most of what he said. We are thoroughly behind the Bill and its intentions, but I remain concerned about the burdens on small businesses and about the cost to the taxpayer and the business community, large and small, of implementing some of the regulations. I also remain concerned that, if employers do not have confidence in the Bill and feel that they are being forced into a situation that they do not want, the measure might backfire. However, I hope that it does not because in our debates in many forums in the past few months, we have all been trying to achieve equality in society and in the work force. That is not only desirable but necessary. Women have to do two jobs and it is not only desirable but economically necessary that they should do that because we need them in the work force. We need women who are currently in the work force to remain there and it is wrong that a woman who has a child and wants to return to work should sometimes be required to go back at a lower level than that that she had reached before she gave birth. That is wrong socially and because it is unfair, but it is also wrong because of its effect on the economy. I shall repeat the statistic that the Minister for Women and Equality first mentioned. If all the women in our work force worked at the height of their capability instead of doing jobs for which they are over-qualified in order to do part-time work to look after their families, annual GDP would increase by 3 per cent., which is equal to our annual trade with Germany. I have often used that statistic and people have argued against me on many occasions. I cite the Minister as the person who first mentioned it and I therefore hope for my sake as well as hers that it is accurate. However, I should like us to prove its accuracy by enabling the women to whom we refer to work to the limit of their abilities instead of being undervalued because they happen to be mothers as well as important people in the work force. If we require women to do two jobs, we must also require families to support the women and the children involved. For that reason, it is necessary for fathers as well as mothers to have rights. If a family is to work the way that it should, flexibility is required to enable people to look after their elderly parents, their sick relatives and their small children when necessary. Flexibility does not mean not working properly. If the employer and the employee exercise it responsibly, it works in everybody’s best interests. That is why the Bill is so important. I am pleased to be able to support the Bill. It is a big step forward towards a family friendly workplace. If it works properly—I sincerely hope that it will—it will be a huge boost not only to our society but to our economy. As the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) said, it is a pity that we have not seen the regulations. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Employment Relations, Consumers and Fair Markets promised us that we would see them. There was an understanding that we would have them in Committee. The Minister expressed a further hope in Committee that we would have them before Third Reading. We are nearing the conclusion of proceedings on the Bill and we have still not seen the regulations, so I fear that it may be the duty of our colleagues in another place to pursue the argument about their introduction. In Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) said that the Secretary of State was a ““hard taskmaster”” in promising that the regulations would be published soon. That was several weeks ago, and we still have not seen the regulations, which is disappointing. Our consideration of the Bill would have been better informed if the regulations had been published. I cannot make that point strongly enough.