I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill has two fundamental purposes, one of which is to help small businesses grow and succeed, and the other is to ensure that the UK continues to be regarded as a trusted and fair place in which to do business. It is an extensive Bill, and I fear that if I talked through the 12 parts, 149 clauses and 10 schedules, we would have a speech of Fidel Castro-like proportions from me now, and I do not want to stray in that direction. I apologise to the House in advance that I may therefore have to gloss rather superficially over what are some very complex and meaty issues. There will, as a consequence, be many happy hours spent in Committee. I am pleased to say that the Minister for Business, Energy and Enterprise, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who has just enjoyed a welcome and deserved promotion, will be leading our team in Committee.
I thought that the most useful way of introducing the Bill is not to follow through the mechanics of the Bill itself, but to dwell on four big themes that flow through it in different ways. The first relates to employment. We want to make changes to the legislation in a way that benefits both employees and employers to ensure that employees are not disadvantaged by unacceptable practices, be they exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts or underpayment of the national minimum wage.