My Lords, these regulations give effect to the 2010 parental leave directive. It is a revised directive, which repeals the 1996 parental leave directive. As the UK has fully implemented the 1996 directive, the regulations under consideration today are confined to giving effect to the changes arising from the revised directive. Before I elaborate on the legislative effect of
the Parental Leave (EU Directive) Regulations 2013, let me state the purpose of the revised directive. It is to lay down minimum requirements designed to help working parents balance their work and family commitments.
The 2013 parental leave regulations do three things. First, they increase the number of weeks of parental leave for all parents from the current 13 weeks to 18 weeks. This transposes the requirement in the revised directive that parental leave should be granted for a period of four months. They make no other changes to the amount of parental leave available. Parental leave will continue to be available per parent per child but an employee will be entitled to 18 weeks rather than 13 weeks. Similarly, there will be no change to the age limits of a child whose parents are entitled to take parental leave—that is, five years old or 18 years old for a disabled child. They make no changes to the arrangements governing the use of parental leave—namely, the 12-month continuous employment qualification, notice requirements and the limit on the amount of leave which can be taken in a 12-month period.
In November, the Government announced a package of changes to leave for parents following the modern workplaces consultation during the previous year. As part of this broad sweep of changes to maternity and adoption leave, and the creation of shared parental leave, we will make parental leave available to all parents of children up to the age of 18.
The Government intend that these changes will be introduced in 2015. However, we are required to increase the number of weeks from 13 to 18 now so as not to be in breach of our EU obligations. We have decided not to make other changes to the age limit at this time but will raise the age to 18 years as part of the broader sweep of changes in 2015. The reason for raising the age later is that we understand from the business community that having the change in age as part of the creation of shared parental leave and pay will be easier in terms of familiarisation costs.
Secondly, the revised parental leave directive requires that parents returning from parental leave must have the right to request flexible working. Many employees who are parents and carers already have this right, but employed agency workers are currently excluded from the right, and this is not permitted by the new directive. The effect of Regulation 2, therefore, is that employed agency workers will have the right to request flexible working on return from a period of parental leave.
Finally, the regulations introduce a review clause and a duty on the Secretary of State to review and report on the workings of the regulations which implement the directive, five years after the regulations come into effect and at least at five-year intervals thereafter. This is not required by the directive but this Government consider that a duty to review the effectiveness of, and ongoing need for, regulations is central to good government and good law.
As part of the review, we will seek views from business and family groups and look to the research on family leave conducted by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. We will place copies of this report in the Library. I commend these regulations to the Committee.