Work and Families Bill

moved Amendment No. 16:"Page 10, line 12, leave out from ““child”” to ““in”” in line 13." The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 16, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 17 and 18 grouped with it. First, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 and deal with Amendment No. 18 later. We deal now with extending the right to request flexible working. Clause 12 amends the Employment Act 2002 in two ways. First, it allows the age of the child to be prescribed by regulations rather than placed on the face of the Bill. Secondly, it extends the right to carers of adults over 18 who meet certain prescribed conditions, such as disabled adults. While we very much welcome the second provision, we are rather worried about the first one. The Government have stated that they intend through regulations to reinstate the age limit of six years for parents of non-disabled children, and I would like to stop them doing that. The amendment would remove the ability to prescribe an age limit in regulations; it would simply allow any carer of a child under the age of 18 the right to request flexible working. This group of amendments has been supported by a galaxy of organisations that have the well-being of children and their families at heart—Working Families, the NSPCC, the National Family and Parenting Institute, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Mothers’ Union, and many others. That is because the need for flexible working arrangements for parents does not stop once the child reaches the age of six. Indeed, parents of older children need the flexibility; in addition, the economic arguments are strong. While the provisions to extend childcare arrangements through extended schools and the changes in the Childcare Bill that is coming to us soon are most welcome, few parents want their own long working hours to be translated into childcare for their children. They would much rather try and share the time when mother and father are at home so the child can be at home more of the time. Making childcare arrangements which fit around the school day can actually be more complex than arranging full-time pre-school care for pre-school children. For example, parents who use the Working Families helpline have reported difficulties with requests to change their shift patterns. I have a couple of examples. A single father called the helpline because he had been given six weeks’ notice of a change in his hours. He had previously worked from 8.30 in the morning and was asked to work from 7.30. He needed to find childcare which started at 7 o’clock and that was proving impossible. Because his children were over the age of six, he did not have the right to request flexible working. It is extremely difficult to get childcare from 7 o’clock in the morning until the school day begins. Another issue arises in relation to parents working at the weekend. A single mother rang the helpline to say she had always worked Monday to Friday at a large supermarket and was now being asked to work Saturdays. As a lone parent, that was impossible for her. She explained that she could not do Saturdays and the supermarket said it could not afford to get in a Saturday worker. Her only option was to leave the job as her child was too old for her to have the right to request flexible working. The Government have rightly emphasised parents’ responsibilities towards their children. Parents need to ensure that children attend school; they offer guidance so that their children can avoid anti-social behaviour. Parents tell us that they want to be present at times of emotional difficulty for their child. Research has shown that young people of secondary school age are much more likely to truant, get involved with drink, drugs or anti-social behaviour than those of primary school age. Dealing with these problems requires someone who really knows and understands the child. Such behaviour is much better dealt with by a parent than by anybody in loco parentis. If a child commits a criminal offence—if it has truanted or received an anti-social behaviour order—a parenting order can be given to the parent or carer. This may include requirements to attend counselling sessions or conditions to ensure that the child does not visit certain places at certain times. Parents can be prosecuted for failing to fulfil such conditions. I think it is only right that if parents are to be penalised for their failures, they should also have the option to adjust their work-life balance in favour of their child’s welfare. The British Association for Adoption and Fostering has told us that adoptive parents and their children would benefit particularly from any move to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of all children, of whatever age. Some children are adopted only when they are already over the age of six, and, even if the maximum period of adoption leave is taken, their special needs—and, indeed, those of all adopted children—may make it very difficult for both parents or a single carer to return to work full time. I mentioned earlier that the economic case is strong. The Government have argued that the change in the law introduced in 2003 has had a positive impact, with 22 per cent of parents of children under the age of six requesting to work flexibly over those last two years. Eighty-one per cent of these have had the request fully or partly accepted, and so there is clear evidence of success. Such flexibility can be successful and there is a need to extend it. According to the work-life balance survey from the Department of Trade and Industry, 18 per cent of employees with children aged between six and 12 and 15 per cent of employees with children aged between 12 and 16 have made requests to work flexibly. But, of course, unless the Bill is amended by my amendments, they will have no rights in the matter. A recent report from the Equal Opportunities Commission showed that many mothers continue to work part-time beyond the present cut-off point for eligibility to the right to request flexible working—that is, with a child at age six. The proportion of mothers working part-time if their children are of primary school age is 65 per cent—the same as for pre-school-age children—and 48 per cent of mothers with a youngest child aged over the age of 11 also continue to work part-time as their children grow older. The Government’s strategy is to promote a culture where flexible working is the norm across the workforce. Yet, they say that in the Bill they are proposing to limit the extension of the right to request because of concerns that employers may find it difficult, despite the evidence of success that I have just cited. I should like to see a change in the working culture of this country that recognises that children’s well-being is an important and relevant consideration in the wider debate about employment matters. The Government say that they are keen to support parents and families. I believe that the single most useful thing that the Government can do is to support parents with the rights that they need and to back them when they go to their employers with a reasonable request to work flexible hours. I turn to Amendment No. 18. Only yesterday, last month’s report by the Women and Work Commission was debated in your Lordships’ House at Question Time. One recommendation in it was number 16, which states:"““The right to request flexible working should be extended over time to cover a wider group of employees””." I know that the commission was referring not only to women who are carers—to whom the Government have, in the Bill, extended those rights—nor to the mothers of older children; I think that it was referring to women workers in general. Amendment No. 18 would extend the right to ask for flexible working to other workers, beyond parents of children, whether the age limit is six or 18, and even beyond carers, as long as they could make a reasonable business case and show that it would contribute to a better work-life balance. The people I have in mind are not just working women but men, too—husbands and fathers. I call to mind a very striking image in the film ““Brassed Off””—a film that I very much enjoyed—about the characters in a northern brass band. In the scene that I have in mind, the husband is walking up his front path early in the morning at the end of his night shift at the colliery just as his wife is walking down the path on her way to work. They exchange grunts. That family in the film broke up, to the great heartbreak of both the parents and children. That was a fictional family, but too many marriages today are put under the strain of spending little or no time together. The wife works from early in the morning until the afternoon, and the husband starts a little later and works well into the evening. There is no time to work at their relationship, which far too often breaks down. The rate of divorce in this country is a matter of great concern to all of us. I also have in mind fathers who leave for work at seven in the morning and arrive home after the children have gone to bed, as well as absent or separate fathers who do not live with the family any more but may want to have flexible hours in order to pick up the child from school on weekdays and do something normal, such as cooking their tea, instead of having to rely on the artificial Saturday afternoon contact meeting sitting in the park or going to McDonald’s. Fathers need an opportunity to form proper parenting relationships with their children. I also have in mind carers who fall beyond the definition of carers in the Bill. Several organisations speaking for carers have contacted us saying that they are worried that many genuine carers, whose relationship with the cared-for person is beyond the definition, would not get the right to ask for flexible working given to some carers by the Bill. My Amendment No. 18 would deal with that, rather than trying to fiddle about with the definition of a carer. I also have in mind the fact that, in this country, we have long working hours and high levels of stress and mental health problems. I think that if people feel that changing their working hours would contribute to their quality of life, reduce their stress and thereby prevent mental illness, they should have every right to ask for it and negotiate a mutually satisfactory arrangement with their employer. The Equal Opportunities Commission supports this amendment. It has found that Britain’s current flexible and part-time arrangements are failing to meet the needs of working women and men, leaving 5.6 million people—four out of five of Britain’s 7 million part-time workers—working in jobs that do not use their potential. This is grossly wasteful to the economy and it blights the lives of many individuals and their families. So I hope that the Minister will look kindly on these three amendments, which I believe have enormous support in the country. I beg to move.