Work and Families Bill

This amendment is intended to facilitate contact between employer and employee during maternity and paternity leave. Under current regulations, a whole week’s statutory pay is lost if one day is given up to the employer. That so-called day, may in fact, just involve popping into work for a couple of hours. The Minister was good enough to concede at Second Reading, that,"““the existing regulations can sometimes have the effect of preventing contact between employer and employee during maternity and paternity leave””." We entirely agree that employers should not,"““use these opportunities to harass people to try to get them to return to work””.—[Official Report, 14/2/06; col. 1118.]" However, we are confident that the employee’s statutory rights are sufficiently clear to protect any employee against such harassment. When there is a good relationship between employer and employee, which is in the vast majority of cases, it will be beneficial to both sides if the employer can call on an employee who is on leave to come in to help out with a problem, whether it is to help find a missing file, solve a computer problem, deal with a particular customer with whom the employee has a special relationship, and so on. From the employee’s point of view, the main advantage is keeping a foot in the door, keeping up with current affairs in the business, maintaining contact with colleagues, and even marking out a territorial claim to seniority. This is all about ensuring that where employer and employee enjoy a friendly relationship, they can co-operate to their mutual advantage without the employee being savagely penalised, as under the present regulations. We welcome the sympathy shown by the Minister at Second Reading and the assurance that he gave about changing the law to rectify the problem. However, that change in the law is probably some distance in the future, due to the time scale under parliamentary procedures for making regulations. That is the problem. Indeed, the Government could already have put the machinery in motion without waiting for the passage of the Bill. Accepting this very moderate clause and stating what the situation should be will not in any way impinge on further formal statutory provisions that the Government may seek to introduce at some unspecified time. Equally, the guidance that the Secretary of State is required to give will not take the place of future regulations. It will complement those regulations; indeed, that guidance may well form part of those future regulations. This problem is here and now; it is not something to be deferred. This new clause would give the Government the opportunity to resolve what they have conceded is an anomaly that needs rectifying. I beg to move.