Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, Amendment 27 raises an issue with which we are familiar, which has been considered in Committee in this House and in another place. It proposes providing employers with an additional reason to refuse a request made under new Section 63D of the Employment Rights Act 1996 where they have discussed and reached a decision on an employee’s training needs in the previous 12 months. While I recognise the intention to minimise the burden on the best employers who already have processes in place to discuss their employees’ training needs, I do not believe that the amendment proposed would serve that intention. It could allow some employers who do not take their training responsibilities seriously to hide behind inadequate training policies and processes, and reject legitimate requests out of hand. Our clear intention in establishing the new right is to reflect what the best employers are doing. I fully expect employers who are already engaging in a regular, systematic and meaningful dialogue with their employees about their skills needs to receive far fewer requests under these provisions than those employers who are not yet taking skills and training seriously. Furthermore, the legislation as we have proposed it—without this amendment—gives the best employers ample reasons to turn down requests that they receive where they consider they must do so for sound business reasons. I said in Committee that after the new provisions have been in force for a year, we will carry out a review, with stakeholders, to examine whether we need to augment the list of reasons for employers to refuse a request. So, we have recognised the need for a review process. Since Committee stage we have announced that we plan to phase the introduction of these provisions to give businesses with fewer than 250 employees an extra year to prepare for their introduction. I am happy to commit today that we will complete that review and consider its conclusions before extending the new right to all qualifying employees in 2011. On that basis, I would be grateful if the noble Baroness would withdraw her amendment.