I am grateful for that intervention and do agree with it. If we were to have the single block but there was an exceptional reason to grant an additional day—or even that—at a future point, most employers would be prepared to do so. In most cases, employers will act reasonably as long as a reasonable request is made.
Amendment 8, which was tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), is important as it touches on defining the employment status that someone must have to be eligible for these new rights. Proposed new section 80EB (1)(c) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 states:
“an employee who is absent on leave under that section is entitled to return from leave to a job of a kind prescribed by regulations”.
That prescription therefore relates to the type of employment, with the word “employee” being crucial. The issues arising from the Taylor review and the changing nature of employment have already been mentioned, and we have to discuss the extent to which these rights would be available to employees in those newly growing, ambiguous areas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) referred to the self-employed, but of course we are not talking about a homogenous group. Before the general election, when I served on the Work and Pensions Committee, we held an inquiry on the gig economy—this growing army of the self-employed. We heard evidence about cases in which people are, to all intents and purposes, employees. On this amendment, my question for the Minister is: in defining jobs and defining people as an “employee”, are we able to award these benefits—these rights—to those defined now as
“workers”? I refer to those people in between employment and self-employment. Are we able to do that, or do we need to introduce separate regulations to do so?
That is an important point, so it is handy that I have a copy of the Taylor review. The Bill amends the primary piece of legislation to which it relates—the 1996 Act—and we are dealing with the important distinction between an employee and a worker. I remind the House that the 1996 Act states that an
“‘employee’ means an individual who has entered into or works under…a contract of employment.”
I will not go into the detailed definition in the report, but a worker is someone who has some form of contract.
12.15 pm
The Work and Pensions Committee heard evidence about a key case. Four large firms appeared before us, including Amazon and Hermes. The person giving evidence about gig economy workers at Hermes referred to a case in which a shift worker—someone who was driving delivery vans—had to have somebody available to cover for them if they were unable to work, yet they were meant to be in self-employment.