§ Lords Amendment: No. 29, in page 29, line 13, leave out "if he so requests".
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Harold Walker)I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The substance of this amendment was a matter debated in Standing Committee and about which I think that we may now have reached some degree of understanding across the Floor of the House. We understand that in Committee the Opposition had reservations. Among other reasons, let me say briefly that perhaps the principal reason for our disagreement is that a requirement of this kind would make it possible for an employee to be denied either maternity pay or reinstatement for a purely technical reason. For example, in a situation in which both sides clearly understood that she was going on maternity leave and wished to claim her rights under the Bill, the fact that she had not put it in writing would mean that an employer could later refuse to reinstate or pay her, purely on a technicality.
It is for that reason and other reasons with which I shall not now bore the House that I ask the House to disagree with the Lords in this amendment.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.