Schedule 2 (Hansard, 24 July 1973)

§ Mr. Chichester-Clark
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this we shall take the following Lords Amendments: No. 8, in page 32, line 4, leave out "all" and insert "the employers". No. 10, in page 39, line 1, leave out any of it "and" insert "levy". No. 13, in page 45, line 43, leave out "all" and insert "the employers".

§ Mr. Chichester-Clark
At an earlier stage in the Bill, while speaking to an amendment which I might describe as the non-exemption levy amendment, I said that I wanted to make it clear that such proposals might cover a whole industry or only part of it. It may apply to the whole of a levy or only part of it.
Reflection on the wording of Section 7(1B) and on the wording of a related section cast doubts on whether it was sufficiently clear that proposals of this kind could cover all, and not just some, of the employers in the industry. These amendments seek to clear up any doubts in that respect and put the matter beyond doubt.

§ Mr. Chichester-Clark
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this we shall take the following Lords Amendments: No. 7, in page 26, line 11, leave out "employees of his" and insert: or in respect of persons employed. No. 11, in page 39, line 22, after "emoluments" insert: and payments intended to be disbursed as emoluments which are". 1488 No. 12, in page 39, line 23, leave out "employees of his" and insert: or in respect of persons employed".

§ Mr. Chichester-Clark
As the Bill stands, a training board can impose a levy of up to 1 per cent. of an employer's payments to employees in the industry. If the levy is above 1 per cent., affirmative resolution is required. "Employees" is defined to mean not only employees under a contract of service but also persons employed under a contract for services—for example, self-employed labour-only sub-contractors—and others.
Therefore, a board can make a levy, without affirmative resolution, as long as it is not more than 1 per cent. of an employer's payments of wages to his employees and his payments to self-employed labour-only sub-contractors, and so on. That is clearly desirable. Without it, boards might not be able to make their levies bite on payments to these self-employed people without inadvertently going over the 1 per cent. limit.
There is another case which the Bill as it stands may not cover. An employer may engage workers through the agency of a labour-only sub-contracting firm and pay the firm instead of paying the workers direct. In this case, legally speaking, I am advised that there may be no employment relationship between the employer and the workers concerned—neither a contract of service nor a contract for services. So they are not "employees of his" in the terms of the Bill as it stands.
The amendments make the necessary changes to ensure that a board will be able to take into account, when calculating its levy rate, not only the employer's payments to his employees and his payments to self-employed labour-only subcontractors but also any payments to a labour-only sub-contracting firm in respect of workers engaged by him through the agency of the firm.