HC Deb 08 July 2004 vol 423 cc991-2
1. Mr. John MacDougall (Central Fife) (Lab)

What further changes to workplace rights she expects to be in place by 2007. [182677]

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt)

The Government will continue to find the right balance between establishing fair standards for workers and creating more jobs. As we have already announced, we will introduce regulations on age discrimination and implement the information and consultation framework, on which we published a draft for consultation yesterday. We are committed to reviewing our family-friendly package of laws in 2006.

Mr. MacDougall

I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. She mentions family-friendly rights; how successful have such initiatives been, and what progress has been made on issues such as age?

Ms Hewitt

The new law that we introduced last year, which gives parents with young children the right to request a change in their hours, has already been enormously successful. Nearly 1 million parents—about a quarter of all parents with children under six—asked for a change in their working hours. Eight out of 10 of those requests have been granted in full, and a compromise was agreed in respect of a further one in 10. That is extremely encouraging, and we now want to extend much greater choice to older workers, who all too often are locked out of the labour market. This is not about "work till you drop", as the press likes to suggest, but about "choose when you stop". My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I will invite employers, employees and their unions, and others with a direct interest, to sit down with us and agree a way forward that will promote choice for older workers without imposing burdens on employers.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)

Conservative Members are enthusiastic supporters of developing the work-life balance, as I told the general secretary of the TUC when I met him recently, but unlike the right hon. Lady we recognise that it has to be paid for. Does she not understand that the plethora of directives, consultations and burdens under which British business is groaning today will be paid for in jobs, time and competitiveness?

Ms Hewitt

As the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have made it clear that they would cut public spending, the one thing of which we can be certain is that they would not pay for maternity pay and leave, and that they would not keep the rights that we have already introduced. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) shows that he simply does not understand that it is the Government and taxpayers who pay for statutory maternity pay. What is more, at the request of small businesses we compensate them for more than the cost of maternity pay, in order to help them cover the administrative costs. There are no burdens from us; instead, there are better rights for parents at work. If the Conservatives were in government, they would cut them.

Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge) (Lab)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that high-performance workplaces are those in which employers look very carefully at staff flexibility and make every attempt to allow staff to cope with their domestic, as well as their professional, responsibilities? Does that not reduce stress and absenteeism and mean that staff are more productive in the long term?

Ms Hewitt

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Businesses, particularly public sector employers, who organise their work flexibly are increasingly finding that doing so is good not only for their employees but for their organisation. So there is a very strong business case for family-friendly working, and that is the basis on which we have introduced the law.