§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 11, in clause 7, page 5, line 30, leave out from 'in' to 'qualifying' in line 31 and insert 'which that day falls'.
§ Mr. JohnI shall be astonished if the Government do not accept the amendment because they have indicated that they will do so. It relates to a highly technical part of the Bill concerned with the qualifying days. It arises out of cases that have been brought to the attention of the Minister where a person works a three-day week, but the days may be different days in the week. As the Bill is drafted, it is the qualifying days in the first week that stand as the qualifying days for the whole of the time.
If a person worked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in one week and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in 563 another, it would be possible for him to be absent for a week from Thursday to Wednesday and have only qualifying days in the first part of that occasion. That is clearly wrong. After examining the point, the Minister invited me to put down an amendment which I tabled at the Committee stage to leave out subsection (4). I have done so and hope that it will be accepted.
§ Mr. Richard Alexander (Newark)I am happy to follow the comments of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John). Amendment No. 11 standing in my name is consequential upon the hoped-for deletion of clause 4(4). My amendment has two effects. First, it makes more legible and understandable a rather obscurely worded clause—the sort of stuff that hon. Members always say that they try not to put before the public. Secondly, it provides that the daily rate of sick pay would be calculated by dividing the weekly rate by the number of qualifying days in the week in which the day in question falls. It is right that both employers and employees should be able to agree that qualifying days can vary from week to week during the period of the entitlement and the daily rate should therefore vary to reflect that.
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If in one week there are four qualifying days, the daily rate is one-quarter of the weekly rate. If the next week contains five qualifying days, the daily rate for that week would be one-fifth of the weekly rate. Therefore, for each complete week of incapacity, once those waiting days are served, the effect of my amendment would be that the full weekly rate, no more and no less, is payable. I trust that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept my amendment.
§ Mr. NewtonI am happy to assure hon. Members that we accept the amendments that have been proposed. The purpose of the amendments and their implications have been adequately dealt with and I do not think that it is necessary for me to elaborate further.
Although I was not on the Committee myself, may I say that the Department is grateful to hon. Gentlemen who have moved these amendments for alerting us to the problems which they have described in Committee. It has given us the opportunity to make sure that the Bill will be that much better when, as we hope, it soon becomes an Act, than it would otherwise have been. That is as it should be and I am glad to play my small part tonight by accepting these two amendments.
§ Amendment agreed to.