Child Poverty Bill

I am grateful for the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. However, that is not the point I seek to make; I apologise if I have not made it clear. The main areas where people have gone on to three or four-day weeks are in high-end jobs and the manufacturing sector, normally at a cost to the employee, although there has been some support from employers. The process in Europe, including in Belgium and Germany, is that the subsidies are provided by the Government. This Government have not supported that process and I congratulate them on that because it has saved a lot of money. That has happened more flexibly here than in any other European country and is a testament to a relatively flexible labour market. There has been a substantial difference—I do not mean to go on and on about this—between this recession and past recessions. I do not know how to quantify the absolute effects of the process but it has been a substantial element. The worry is that we may be slower coming out of the recession as the economy reabsorbs all those part-time workers rather than taking on new ones, which is an interesting economic issue.