HC Deb 21 July 1965 vol 716 cc1653-5

In Schedule 2 to the Contracts of Employment Act 1963, after sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph 2 there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraphs:— (4A) Where, in arriving at the said average hourly rate of remuneration, account has to be taken of remuneration payable for, or apportionable to, work done in hours other than normal working hours, and the amount of that remuneration was greater than it would have been if the work had been done in normal working hours, account shall be taken of that remuneration as if—

  1. (a) the work had been done in normal working hours, and
  2. (b) the amount of that remuneration had been reduced accordingly.
(4B) For the purposes of the application of the last preceding sub-paragraph to a case falling within paragraph 1(2) of this Schedule, the last preceding sub-paragraph shall be construed as if, for the words 'had been done in normal working hours', in each place where those words occur, there were substituted the words 'had been done in normal working hours falling within the number of hours without overtime (as defined by paragraph 1 of this Schedule)'".—[Mr. Thornton.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Thornton

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

The changes provided by new Clause No. 2 were foreshadowed in Standing Committee and the main objective is to bring the calculation of a week's pay in the case of piece workers more closely into line with that for workers on straight time days. It excludes the element of overtime premium from the calculation of a week's pay for purposes of the Bill in cases of piece workers.

A week's pay as it is to be defined in the Bill will have two bases. The first will be the basis for computing the amount of redundancy payment relevant to recourse under paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 and the second will be the basis for deciding whether a particular week's pay was sufficiently reduced for that week to count as short time. The relevant paragraph is paragraph 2 of Schedule 2.

The effect of the Clause will be to exclude overtime premiums from earnings which are taken into account for both these purposes and also, by amending the Contracts of Employment Act, we shall be making the sum additional in respect of calculations of the guaranteed weekly minimum by notice under Schedule 2.

Mr. Ronald Bell

This is a splendidly complicated Clause, but, after spending the appropriate amount of time on it, I understand it—for the moment—and it seems to me to be admirable in conception and execution. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for dealing with this further defect in the original Bill and support the Clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.