Work-Life Balance

HC Deb 09 March 2000 vol 345 cc231-70WH

Motion made and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Mike Hall.]

2.30 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge)

It is appropriate to have a debate on work-life balance following a night on which many of us stayed up very late in the House. No doubt some hon. Members will refer to that later.

In the wider context, this is an issue whose time has come. Achieving a good balance between work and the rest of our lives is central to the agenda of the Government, and to that of the British public. For the Government, economic success and social inclusion are not two conflicting aspirations, but inextricably linked objectives. Economic prosperity depends on our ability to harness our most valuable resources—the skills of our people—and businesses need to recruit and retain the best people that they can get. If businesses are to be globally competitive and responsive to changing consumer demands, they need to operate flexible working hours, which often involve 24-hour working.

Social inclusion depends on ensuring that work, for those who can, is the best route out of poverty and exclusion. Strong families help children to flourish, which means that parents need time to spend with their children. Flexible working practices support a better balance between work and life. They help businesses to operate flexibly, to recruit from the widest pool of talent and to retain their best people. At the same time, they help individuals to stay in, or return to, the workplace and juggle the competing demands on their lives. That is a win-win agenda, which enhances profitability and competitiveness for business at the same time as enhancing the quality of life for individuals. Our policies are grounded in businesses pursuing their business interests, enabling us to support families, communities and individuals in developing their strengths.

Work-life balance is not only about mothers and children. It is also important for fathers, who should be able to spend more time with their children, and for the changing circumstances in which people find themselves: for example, increasing numbers of people have to look after elderly, sick and disabled relatives, and need time in which to do so. Everybody wants a life outside work. As Members of Parliament, we recognise that as much as, if not more than, others. People may want to play sport, take an evening class, or put something back into their community. The policy is not only about fewer working hours—it can be about working in different ways, at different times, or in different places.

The issue has been driven by the increasing inclusion of women in the labour market. The statistics are stark: in 1971, women comprised about 38 per cent. of the work force; now, they comprise more than half the work force. Interestingly, the number of women with children under five who are active in the labour market has increased rapidly: in 1998, 36 per cent. of such women worked; now, more than 50 per cent. work. Another interesting statistic relates to women who return to work after pregnancy: in 1979, about one in four women who became pregnant while in employment returned to work within nine months of giving birth; now, two out of three return to work within that time. Many women still work part time: 40 per cent. are part-time workers, compared with 8 per cent. of men. Nevertheless, their activity in the labour market has helped to drive the change in work-life balance practices.

It is of interest to the Government that lone mothers are less active than partnered mothers: a third of partnered mothers are not active in the labour market, whereas half of lone mothers are not active. That is largely because we do not have the right work-life balance and flexible working practices to enable lone parents in particular to juggle competing demands.

Women's entering and remaining in the workplace is a change that has driven interest in work-life balance issues, but as I said, men are also involved. Britain has a long hours culture, and our men work the longest hours in Europe: half the 7 million male workers in the European Union who work more than 48 hours a week live in Great Britain. That is bad for families but, as is increasingly being recognised, it also create stress in the workplace, which impacts on companies' bottom line. The Confederation of British Industry has recently calculated that stress costs business about £7 billion a year. The shocking conclusion of a survey undertaken in 1999 was that the quality of the working life of 86 per cent. of managers had an adverse impact on their relationship with their children. We know that the role of fathers in supporting and caring for young children is crucial in ensuring that they grow up to be effective adults. That fact is staring us in the face and the time has come to do something about it.

As I said, the question is not merely one of parenting, but of the growing responsibility to care for relatives. In 1997, there were 8 million people in Britain aged over 65; in 20 years time, that figure will have increased to 11 million. As people live longer, they will need to be cared for by relatives. Two thirds of carers are in paid employment, but one in five care for elderly, sick or disabled relatives for more than 20 hours a week. If they are to provide appropriate care, striking a proper balance between work and life is essential. That is important for relatives and in terms of public expenditure. Informal caring networks would be better, not only for the elderly, sick and disabled, but for society.

There is another dimension to this debate. I have responsibility for trying to break down the massive barriers to disabled people's participation in the labour market. Disabled people are half as likely to be active in the labour market as non-disabled people, and those who are active are twice as likely to be unemployed. Six times as many disabled people are dependent on benefits as non-disabled people. One way to break down those barriers is to achieve greater flexibility in the workplace, so that disabled people can get themselves off benefit, participate in work, work hours appropriate to their particular disability, improve their quality of life and feel that they are valued and important members of society.

Those are the groups of people for whom work-life balance matters most, but it matters to everybody: we all want a life. My own children are beginning to enter the labour market, and they are less likely to tolerate the inflexibility in the workplace that I tolerated when I first went into work. They want time to do other things. If employers are to attract and retain the best people, they must ensure greater flexibility in the workplace.

We have today launched a number of initiatives to make work-life balance issues central to the concerns of business and the political agenda, and to open the debate on changing our behaviour. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and I launched at Downing street this morning a business-led alliance, in which more than 20 leading businesses have come together. They have an interest in the issues, they all have good stories to tell about the way in which they have changed their working practices to the advantage of their business and their employees, and they will use the strength of the alliance to persuade other businesses of the case for a better balance between work and the rest of people's lives. At present, only one in 20 businesses offers the full range of flexible working practices essential to an improvement in work-life balance. We must improve that figure.

We have agreed with the alliance a set of principles, which we have set out in a discussion document published today called "Changing Patterns in a Changing World". I hope that all hon. Members will obtain and read a copy of that report, and give the Department their views on our initiatives to change work-life balance practices in this country. The principles underpin our philosophy. Work-life balance is about bringing benefits to industry and employees. We do not say that one working pattern is better than any other: flexibility means different things to different people. We want businesses, individuals and organisations to value the contribution that their employees make to the business, not focus on their working pattern. The initiative is not necessarily about working less. It may be about how people work, through job sharing, part-time working or term-time working; when they work, through systems of compressed hours, annualised hours or flexi-time; or where they work—home working is now more feasible, with the rapid improvements in information technology.

I hope that the business alliance will be an effective lever for change. I have no doubt that asking business to promote a culture change in the way in which organisations work is the best way to achieve real change in our working practices. As a Government, we want to work in partnership with that business-led alliance. We have a coherent strategy across government. We now have a basic framework of rights, a legislative settlement that will enable people to balance their work and the rest of their life better, with enhanced maternity rights and maternity leave and the benefits of the parental leave directive and the part-time directive, which is about to be introduced. We have introduced a series of fiscal measures, which also support a better balance between work and the rest of one's life. The two that I draw to hon. Members' attention are the recent massive increase in child benefit and the introduction of working families tax credit and child care tax credit.

We are putting in place a supporting infrastructure that will enable individuals to balance work and the rest of their life better. In my Department, I am responsible for rolling out the national child care strategy and the early years education strategy. That is an £8 billion programme, to be implemented during the current comprehensive spending review period, which will enable parents to have high-quality and affordable child care and so allow them to choose between the children that they love and the jobs that they need.

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon)

Before the Minister moves off the question of Government action—much of which is welcome—will she clarify the parental leave arrangements? Is she confident that in this country unpaid parental leave— unlike that in most other European countries, where an element of pay or benefit is attached— will allow low-income parents to take time off under the European directive, or will that option be open only to richer parents?

Ms Hodge

Not all European countries provide paid parental leave. We will have to test how well the new move works.

I would say two things to the hon. Gentleman, the first of which is that low-income families will be entitled to all of the other benefits through income support if they take time off. Secondly, as other parents in this Chamber will agree, the impact of child care responsibilities on the work-life balance does not stop at the age of five. In an odd way, the early years of a child's life are slightly easier because parents can organise their child's response to them from the moment that they come home. The child swiftly switches on to the parent, allowing the parent to give quality child care. I have had more difficulty with my four children as they have grown older and become teenagers. When I come home from work and am ready to spend time with them, they are busy watching "EastEnders" and "Coronation Street". When they do need me, I am tied up in a debate in the House.

My best work-life balance practice has been to carry my pager. It is not how I receive messages from Millbank, but how I receive instant messages from my children, saying "Ring home". My funniest story about that dates from the period in which the Labour party were in opposition. I had managed to secure a place behind my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, during Prime Minister's Question Time, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself, but then my pager went off: it was an urgent message, saying, "Ring home. Desperate to talk to you." I rushed out of the Chamber, thus losing my place, and rang home, thinking "What on earth has happened?" I found that my daughter was testing my pager to see whether it would go off, or whether I had set it to vibrate.

I was talking about the support infrastructure. If we are serious about this matter, we must lead by example. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given Baroness Jay, the Leader of the House of Lords and Minister for Women, the responsibility to examine how better work-life balance policies could be introduced across the public sector. As a provider of services, we should also ensure that we enable people to balance their lives. As other hon. Members will readily understand, one of the worst problems a parent faces is trying to fit in a dentist's or doctor's appointment around one's working life. Flexibility in public services is as important as flexibility in employment practices.

Further announcements were made by the Government today. Employers for Work-Life Balance, the business-led alliance, will work over the coming year to achieve our shared aim. As I said, we have agreed a set of principles, about which I am delighted. Those principles are set out in our document and in the one launched today by the business alliance, in which it sets out its action plan. That plan includes the establishment of a website, which I believe went live today, and a telephone information line. The alliance will also work on accreditation for work-life balance issues in the Investors in People standard. It plans to produce an employers' manual, as well as a guide specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises, and it will hold a series of seminars. Its work will complement ours. We have produced the document to which I have referred today, and I hope that that will encourage debate. I also hope that hon. Members will respond, not only by supporting our ideas, but by suggesting others that the Government might pursue.

I have also announced today a new challenge fund, for which my Department will set aside £1.5 million over two years. This is the first time that the Government have put money aside to support changes in work-life balance policies. The money will provide free consultancy advice to businesses—large and small, in all sectors and across the regions—to make them think about how they organise their work, and about whether that work could be organised in a different way so as to support a better work-life balance. The Government are to become involved in a series of awards in conjunction with Lloyds TSB. We already have the employer of the year awards, but they are national awards, and we hope to have regional awards as well.

My Department will also invest in a new telephone helpline, called Equality Direct—a signposting service, which will provide detailed and comprehensive advice on work-life balance issues, among others, to support employers as they examine paticular problems. If an employee comes to work one day and says that her mother has had a heart attack, or that there has been some other change in her circumstances, that service will support the employer in working through the problem. We shall provide clear, simple information, advice and guidance, and supplement the telephone line that the employers alliance is setting up.

We shall sponsor conferences around the country to discuss these issues, and, most importantly, sponsor a great deal of research. There is to be a baseline study, the results of which will be announced this autumn, which will give us some idea of where our business practices currently stand. We shall follow that up with a study, two or three years hence, to see what impact our campaign has had.

We shall also sponsor other research projects, because using examples of good practice is a key lever in encouraging businesses to think about what they are doing. For example, we have supported a project undertaken by Lucy Cavendish college, Cambridge, which is working with two companies—Marks and Spencer and GEC Marconi—to reconfigure their working practices. It will then compare the results with the practices of two companies in the United States. That will provide interesting analysis and comparisons.

These policies are not about altruism, but about sheer common sense and business interest. They require people who have the imagination to think about the world of work as it is today and as it will be tomorrow, rather than those who are stuck in the world of work of the past. There is a growing array of good practice in the community, and I shall give some examples. Asda did a very simple thing: it found that many of its women staff were leaving at the end of the school summer term because they had to look after their children during the holidays, so it introduced an unpaid six-week leave during the holidays. The company found that the women stayed, and so saved itself £1 million overnight in recruitment costs.

Asda is a big business, but there is a small business in Norfolk called Listawood, which produces mouse mats. It started up in 1987, has a growth rate of 36 per cent. a year, and now employs 100 people. Located in rural Norfolk, it needed to employ local people, mainly women, but found that the women could not balance their work and home lives. The company, by introducing an evening shift from 6 to 10 o'clock during the school holidays, has achieved a massive growth rate.

The Nationwide building society now has 30 per cent. of its staff working part time. Bristol city council undertook an interesting exercise with its workers, who had approached it to say that they could not stand the existing working practices any longer. They worked out in partnership how to reconfigure working practices and ended up with practices which suited individuals better and which allowed the authority to open its libraries on a Sunday. Both the services that were offered and individuals' quality of life were thus improved.

I have given four examples, but many more are contained in the documents. We shall seek to spread good practice through those exemplars. We need to develop working practices for the present and the future, not the past. If we can make progress in this regard, we shall achieve the economic prosperity and success to which we aspire and create a more inclusive society that allows us to give better support to our families.

2.55 pm

Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden)

I greatly appreciate the fact that so many hon. Gentlemen are present for this debate. It would be a mistake to think that the work-life balance is only a woman's problem.

The work-life balance involves the pace of cultural change, which was discussed yesterday by the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) when she introduced her ten-minute Bill. She said that the pace of cultural change was too slow in relation to political power sharing. It can be difficult to achieve a life-work balance because the pace of cultural change is slow. I shall pursue the line of inquiry to which the Minister referred, namely, whether we as a nation have a cultural problem. I draw to the Minister's attention an international global work force management study carried out by Gemini Consulting. It states: When asked which attributes are most important in their working life, respondents from all major geographic areas selected "balance the needs of work and family or personal life" as one of their top three choices. The strength of feeling was strongest in Japan—26.0 per cent. selected balance as the most important attribute in a job, followed by Continental Europe—21.0 per cent., the United States—20 per cent. and then the United Kingdom—19.0 per cent. Only Russia placed balance down the scale—12.0 per cent. of respondents in Russia chose balance compared with 47.0 per cent. who would opt for a good salary above all else. I am sure that hon. Members understand who so many Russians rate a good salary so highly. None the less, the study reveals much about our cultural attitudes towards the work-life balance. Changes in this respect will benefit men and women.

As the Minister said, people in this country work some of the longest hours, and we have some of the least imaginative approaches to child care and employment policies. Change is needed. Women declare themselves more vociferously than men do, often because they feel that they shoulder much more of the burden of domestic duties and caring responsibilities, even when they are in full-time work.

A delightful article that appeared on the BBC Online Network had the headline "Women still tied to kitchen sink". It reported a survey of men's and women's attitudes, and it found that women spend twice as much time cooking as men, five times as long cleaning the house, and— apparently— eight times as long doing the laundry. The survey did report some balance: At least when it comes to doing repairs around the house, men come out on top, with 25 per cent. of couples saying that the man always gets lumbered with unblocking the sink. The struggle to cope with the diverse responsibilities that women and carers shoulder is one of the causes of stress among the British work force.

The article continues: despite the advance of women in the workplace the woman's role in the home has not changed so dramatically from that of her mother—it is still the woman in a partnership who usually has the major responsibility for household chores. The Beijing plus five conclusions make interesting reading five years after the Beijing meeting. One of the conclusions on education is: boys are not taught at school to share responsibility for household chores and childcare, so women still do 70 per cent. of the housework when they grow up. As a nation, we shall have to consider cultural change.

A key to helping men and women in caring roles, especially those who care for young children, is to do more to provide high-quality, accessible child care. Let me make it clear that we share that objective with the Government. However, I want to refer to what the Minister said about provision of child care places. The Government made a pledge in their annual report for 1988–99 to provide up to 1 million new child care places, and that pledge was repeated in the document produced by the women's unit, "Working for women at the heart of Government", in which the Government said that they would provide 1 million child care places over the next four years.

I am a little concerned by what the Minister said about the increasing number of child care places, because the most up-to-date information available to the Opposition, which comes from the House of Commons Library, shows that child care provision fell by 47,248 places last year. Those figures were discussed in a debate in this Chamber on 16 December and were not refuted by the Government then. The Government should be careful about making claims about an expansion in child care places when that might not have occurred. During that debate, we heard that there had been an increase in the number of child care places in what the Minister called "certain settings" and a decline in the number of places in other settings. It is undoubtedly in the more informal environments, particularly playgroups, that the number of places has diminished. Up to 150,000 places have been lost without being counterbalanced by provision in other settings.

In the Government's review of child care provision, which was published under the title "Tomorrow's Children", reasons were given for the closure of preschool playgroups. It is important to read the conclusions of the review because I feel strongly that those matters are not being fully addressed, with the result that places are still being lost. The review states that many groups struggle under what is perceived to be an excessive administrative burden, and that was reflected in the evidence collected by the consultants and widely reported. Playgroups face an excessive administrative burden, and it is possible that recent policies and developments have increased the burden and cost of regulation that they face. I know from my constituency, where two such groups have closed, that that acted as a disincentive to continuing.

I am not saying that additional child care places have not been provided in other settings, but there is a big contrast between a class of 30-plus for nursery provision and a small, informal playgroup where six or fewer children may be catered for. It is important to retain choice in quality of provision, because it is a case of horses for courses. Those of us who have children know that some are bolder than others in large groups, and that shyer children thrive in a smaller, more intimate environment. Statistics show a rise to more than 30 children in nursery classes, which runs contrary to the Government's pledge to limit class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds to 30. Children in that age range need a good ratio of teachers to children. Parents who work need to be satisfied that while they are at work their children have the best available care and are not struggling in an oversized class. They do not want to worry about their local playgroup closing or have to think about where else they can get their children in.

Child care costs money: that is part of the equation for all parents who weigh up the work-life balance. In marginal circumstances, where work is poorly paid, sometimes it barely pays to obtain child care because the weekly take-home pay after paying for it leaves the parent wondering whether it is worth while. I accept that the working families tax credit is designed to provide help with the cost of child care, especially for lone parents; but, unfortunately, it penalises two-parent, single-earner families because, unlike lone parents, they do not qualify for the child care tax credit. It is a couple's choice: if they have both been in work before starting a family, and one parent decides to stay at home as the carer, there is usually a considerable financial knock to their domestic circumstances. It therefore seems harsh to members of my party that they are excluded from child care tax credit, especially as no real account is taken of the cost of rearing a child at home, which is exactly the same as for a lone-parent family.

The American experience has shown that the result can be more family break-ups. It is also a perverse incentive, in that making the child care element of the working families tax credit unavailable to two-parent, one-earner families could encourage people to divorce, or not to formalise their relationship, so that they can continue to receive the tax credits. We should like the Government to revisit those elements.

We feel strongly that helping parents with the work-life balance must not be too prescriptive. There are different attitudes to balancing this important stage of life. Some parents are entirely fulfilled by remaining at home with their children because they see it as a responsible job. It is just unfortunate that that role is often not fully esteemed. Many parents who opt to stay at home suffer considerable loss of self-confidence and self-esteem. They often introduce themselves as "Just a housewife". I am sure that hon. Members find that unfortunate, because such mothers play a vital role, but it is another cultural aspect of the problem. I urge the Government to bear it in mind as they make their big drive to get people who are raising children to go out to work.

Tellingly, I have been asked in my surgeries, "Well, Mrs. Spelman, what do you think is more important: to be stacking the shelves in Safeway or to be outside the school gate to meet my child from school?" It is a hard question to answer and one way round the problem is to persuade companies such as Safeway to alter their shifts so that parents can meet their children from school. However, I understand that parent's legitimate question.

Another concern about the Government's child care provisions is that pledging a pre-school place for every four-year-old means moving away from small-scale provision to more institutionalised provision. Parents at work, wondering how their four-year-old is getting on at nursery, are worried about formal methods being used to teach such young children. The Government's intention to make similar provision for three-year-olds heightens those anxieties. As a working parent, I would find it difficult to come to terms with three-year-olds being in classes as large as 30.

The Minister mentioned several employment settings in which the culture is changing and I shall refer to others where there is good practice. Reading them on to the record is one way of spreading the word to the public domain. There are still many employers who are not very well disposed culturally to striking a good work-life balance. Statistics from the Equal Opportunities Commission, published today by The Express newspaper, show that half of all staff who asked for flexibility in their working life had their request rejected as unacceptable. I stress that statistic, because it illustrates a key cultural point: that a Government may put in place whatever regulations they like, but if people feel that they cannot ask for what they need to balance their lives, little progress will be made.

The same report from the Equal Opportunities Commission shows that one fifth of those who request flexible working are sacked or made redundant. That is a very unenlightened attitude on the part of employers. As the Minister said, good-quality, human resources in the workplace are often what makes the difference between one company and another. Trying to retain good employees becomes all the more important in today's economic situation; there is a shortage of skills and of good-quality employees to fuel the good economic growth that I would argue the Government inherited. It is vital to Britain's competitive place in the global market to encourage good employees to remain in work, not only because of pay, but because account is taken of their families.

Recently, Diana Good, a litigation specialist and a partner of Linklaters and Alliance, was nominated for the award of female lawyer of the year. She spent 18 months researching the work-life balance in her company and found that a uniform and transparent policy was in place, rather than the old ad hoc arrangements. Although more than 50 per cent. of the firm's employees at recruitment level were women there were fewer women further up the ranks. In the preceding 12 years, only one in 10 had become a partner. That is a common average in a City firm, and the pattern is replicated in other professions. Linklaters was concerned about the loss of talented lawyers and thus wasted expenditure; that was the catalyst of the change.

Diana Good suggests presenting a business plan so that the needs of both the employee and the clients are met. Hours should then be drawn up, with some employees having a regular day off, others accruing extra holiday and others seeing a contract through and then having a couple of weeks off. The arrangements depend on the area in which the employee works. That kind of flexibility is practical, practicable and deliverable and Diana Good can prove it.

Asking for what is needed to help the work-life relationship stay in balance should not affect promotion or opportunities to achieve partner status but, all too often, anecdotal evidence reveals that that happens. Flexible working patterns were offered to men and women in Ms Good's company, but the majority of those who took up the offer were women; few men did so. That relates to the cultural problems that have been mentioned. The article appeared in The Times, and it is interesting that inquiries have been received from all over the world about Linklaters' approach, as it is the first City firm to implement such a policy.

I should like to refer to other examples of good practice, but first I reiterate that people will not be able to make progress unless they feel that they can ask for what they need. Despite the topicality of flexible working and family-friendly policies, the employee survey published in "First Findings" showed that the extent of personal access to flexible working provision was limited. A third of all employees said that they could work flexi-time, only 16 per cent. said that they could job share if necessary, and 9 per cent. said that they could work from home or at home.

I stumbled on a development during the spring recess. When I met a Foreign Office diplomat from the embassy in The Hague, I was astonished to discover that she was taking part in a job share with another woman. I remember not applying to the Foreign Office because I thought that it would be impossible to manage family life or even to get married. It was encouraging to discover that job sharing was possible even in the diplomatic service.

Only a quarter of employees said that they could take parental leave and a mere 4 per cent. of employees said that help with child care was available to them, either in the form of a workplace nursery or through help with meeting the cost of child care. However, fewer than half of employees said that none of those arrangements was available to them. The response in the marketplace to the genuine problem that many people have balancing their working lives with the demands of family life is still patchy. The bias is in women's favour, because they are much more likely than men to report on flexible working arrangements or even to ask for them in the first place.

It is Thursday afternoon, we are in Westminster Hall and it was a long night last night, so I should like to say that, although we are busy criticising employers who are not so enlightened and praising those who are more enlightened, we have to take the plank out of our own eye. It stikes me as a relatively new parliamentarian that high hopes were raised about modernising the working practices of the House, given the advent of a relatively young Government with a substantial majority. Indeed, their majority is so substantial that it exceeds the total number of official Opposition Members, so they can do whatever they want. However, I have been disappointed by the scale of change—although I hasten to add that even our Chief Whip, who is a family man, supported the changes to Thursday sittings. It is obvious that many Members have benefited from the revision in the timing of Thursday sittings, but that leads one to hope that it might be possible on other days.

Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford)

Many of us would endorse the sentiments that the hon. Lady expresses. If I am able to make a speech later, I shall mention them further. I hope that she will repeat those sentiments to her colleagues on the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons and that we shall gain the support of all Members from each party to introduce further modernisation arrangements.

Mrs. Spelman

There are forces of conservatism on both sides. That is worth saying. We will not get 100 per cent. of Members of Parliament in favour of a change that would support work-life balances. I have a horrible feeling that the longer one remains here, the more one gets used to it and adapts. My own motivation in seeking a change concerns not only the work-life balance—I am a mother of three relatively young children—but the esteem in which Parliament is held as an institution.

One of our problems is that, out there in the wider country, it was expected that Parliament would change in some way and modernise. Certainly one of our practical problems with the sitting hours is that they are poorly synchronised with the media day; therefore it is hard to get our work reported into media. If there was more coverage of Parliament, it would help to raise the esteem in which the institution is held. The more business that can be done before the lunchtime news, or the 6 pm news, the more chance there is of translating our efforts—sometimes very prolonged efforts—into good media coverage. That is a further reason for changing the way Parliament operates.

I should also like to speak for those hon. Members—none of them Conservative as far as I know, so I shall speak for Labour Members—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) laughs, but he is over-hasty: he has not seen where I am going. I wish to speak for Labour Back Benchers who have had the good fortune to produce a child while they have been Members of Parliament. I would like to put it on the record that the Palace authorities could do more to enable mothers, especially nursing mothers, to carry out their duties to the best of their ability and with peace of mind about the security and needs of a new-born infant. Perhaps the happy event expected by the Prime Minister and his wife in May will give a lead in that direction.

There is one other way in which Parliament works that makes it very difficult for the work-life balance.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody)

Order. The hon. Lady is in danger of straying out of order.

Mrs. Spelman

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to relate this to the subject.

The synchronisation of parliamentary terms—they are not called that, but many working parents think of them as that—with school terms would be useful to hon. Members. The way in which Westminster sittings are organised is especially difficult for Scottish Members, as their children's school holidays start much earlier in the summer than ours, so they see less of their children at that time. Something could be done in that respect. I have mentioned the working situation in Parliament only because it would be hypocritical to criticise working practices in other sectors of the economy without touching on the life-work balances here.

Finally, the main points that come out of the debate are about changing the culture towards a healthy balance between life and work. There is no question that, economically speaking, it is disastrous for companies when employees go sick for long periods because of unacceptable stresses in their work-life balance. If changes can be achieved culturally in that domain, there would be an overall benefit to the economy. Because of the good practice that it offers, I shall refer to the Parents at Work employer of the year awards. A number of companies tendered for the title and as I examined the bids, several themes emerged that are relevant to our debate. For example, the Automobile Association offered a teleworking initiative, which it launched in 1997, consisting of call centre staff moving from an office-based environment to working in the home. That was an interesting nomination, which would help a working parent with the work-life balance, by allowing work to be built around domestic responsibilities.

Under BP Amoco's initiative, a parental advisory networking service was set up for employees. It is staffed by two part-timers who provide information on child care options and parenting issues. That was another good initiative. British Telecom tried to achieve culture change—its term, not mine—by encouraging employees to talk about balancing work and home. The theme that employees find it difficult to talk about home even to fellow employees, let alone to the employer, comes through over and over again.

The winner of employer of the year award was Littlewoods, on the basis of its "making policy work in practice" bid. The company aimed to create a culture in which people felt comfortable talking about work-life issues that could have an impact on performance. As well as one-to-one discussions with line managers, there were focus groups, employee climate surveys, open forums and sessions held with the chief executive—no less a person than the boss, which is revealing. The award was won for making that policy work in practice.

When today's debate enters the public domain, I hope that it will inspire others to adopt more flexible working practices without their being forced to do so, which might create resentment and slow down the process of change. I hope that it will change the cultural attitude in our society, because we seem to lag behind other countries in rating the importance of the work-life balance. Finally, I hope that it will help us to get away from a state of affairs described by no less a person than Germaine Greer who, offering advice to other women, said: Oh yes, you can have equality, but you have to find the man to pay for it.

3.27 pm

Mr. Tony Colman (Putney)

May I declare an interest? I am a trustee of the Daycare Trust and a spokesperson for the Institute of Management. One of my 60,000 constituents is Shirley Conran. I am pleased that, as chair of Mothers in Management, she sits on the ministerial advisory committee on work-life balance. Those of us were are old enough will remember her book "Superwoman", which set the agenda some 30 years ago. As a result, men and women who cared about parenting felt that there was a basis for working too. I am very pleased that Shirley is serving on the advisory committee.

I welcome the discussion paper on family-friendly policies, but I was disappointed to discover that it was launched at a business breakfast. It is important to ensure that fathers or mothers can take their children to school, make breakfast and have a good time at the start of the day. One of the aspects of parliamentary life that I enjoy, which I never had in business life, is that we start around 10 o'clock in the morning, so I can give my wife some breakfast, before she goes off to work, and take the children to school. It is more difficult on a Thursday, when we have to be here for 9 o'clock.

As a former director of a large company, I am pleased that we now have Employers for Work-Life Balance and that some of my former colleagues are on the list—Barry Gibson, for example, who does marvellous work at Littlewoods, and Margaret Salmon at the BBC. I noticed in today's newspaper the listing of new companies coming into the FTSE-100—primarily dot.com, technology and telecom companies such as Freeserve, the telecoms company Thus, the digital television and telecoms business Cable & Wireless Communications, and Baltimore Technologies. None of those companies is on the list. E-commerce companies should be encouraged to join the initiative, so that is is not seen as the preserve of companies representing old industry and the old economy.

I am pleased that the list includes PricewaterhouseCoopers, which audits e-commerce companies. The recent Turnbull report on corporate governance examined reputation, and how health and safety at work were scrutinised in internal and external aspects of the company report. As part of its involvement in the initiative, I hope that PricewaterhouseCoopers will be asked to ensure that it takes account of that in its audit of many major UK companies.

I am pleased that the Ministry's advisory committee included Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses, whom I know. It is often said that large companies can make progress on this issue, but small companies cannot. In a previous debate, I drew attention to research that my wife, in her company capacity, did as part of her masters degree at Kingston university—an institution that has done a lot of work on the subject. The £1.5 million research fund will put to rest the canard about small firms not being family friendly.

The House takes a different line, and the discussion document encourages a flexible approach. It is inappropriate for such concerns to apply only to large companies. I am sure that Mr. Alambritis will ensure that the concerns of small companies are not undermined, but enhanced. Certainly, research that I have studied shows that family-friendly policies have huge benefits for companies.

I have previously mentioned the tremendous campaign mounted by the Institute of Management on work-life policy. Its most recent research "Taking the Strain" was written by Ruth Wheatley. Hon. Members were surely shocked to hear the Minister say that more than 50 per cent. of people in the European Union working more than 48 hours a week work in Britain. That is borne out by Ruth Wheatley's research which shows that almost 37 per cent. of those studied had a working week of more than 48 hours. One hopes that that was before the regulations were introduced and is not the present position.

Almost half the respondents regularly took work home at the weekend and four people in 10 worked through most weekends. Almost 72 per cent. of managers received criticism from family and friends about their long hours of work. Nevertheless, 73 per cent. claimed that they did not take any time off during the previous year because of stress. Only 8 per cent. of respondents said that a stress audit had been conducted in their organisation in the past year. Audit companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers have an important role in ensuring that companies keep health and safety and company reputation up to the mark.

Of course, the contra-view has been expressed. I picked out of my wife's post the 29 February issue of Personnel Today. An article headed "Do family-friendly policies keep parents at work?" cites the research of the Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild, who has discovered that family-friendly policies and creche facilities result in people being happier at work than at home and preferring to work on.

Parenting is the most difficult thing to do in the world; it is much harder than earning a living. One learns that over time. Having raised eight children now aged six to 34, I can testify that it does not get any easier. We should pursue and support family-friendly policies, but that does not mean that parents should automatically spend more time at home than they do at present. Some parents are good at parenting, but some are, frankly, awful. It is important for the child or elderly person to have a choice as to who provides the care, and that may not necessarily be the parent or the adult who is looking after an elderly parent.

As the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) said, there is an equal number of men and women in this Chamber. I may still be smarting from international women's day, which was yesterday, but it is equally important to ensure that men are able to take an equal place in society. Perhaps there should be an international men's day.

The ministerial advisory committee lacks balance when considering the issues involved in caring for elderly relatives or dependents. I should like Age Concern to be represented as well as the Carers National Association. Problems arise not only in looking after the children of a family, but its elderly relatives. That dimension is missing.

Taking a blue-sky approach, I should like the Government to continue what they are doing, keep trumpeting it, and keep industry up to the mark. As the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) said, paid parental leave must be kept on the agenda as a priority, and be available for all income groups in society, not only as a perk for those who earn enough to be able to take upaid parental leave.

Companies should receive more tax help in implementing work-life balance policies. We have heard about the life-long learning contract between Government and the individual. Perhaps a company could have an account with Government, whereby if it adopted polices that promoted work-life balance, which is what all of us, as a community of stakeholders in that company, want, it would qualify for a tax credit.

In preparing for my speech, I went to the Department for Education and Employment, where I was disappointed to find that the management goals set out in its "1999–2000 Workplan" contained no mention of work-life balance. I suggest that, when the 2000–01 document is produced, you may want to be seen as a model employer promoting work-life balance. I agree with the hon. Member for Meriden that it is important to take the mote out of one's own eye first.

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. I am sure that I am a model employer, but I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would address himself to the Minister, not to me.

Mr. Colman

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was of course referring to the Minister and her role at the Department.

I lauded the fact that I am able to deal with early-morning chores, but it is absurd that we have to work through the night. As Back Benchers, some of us wonder why that is. It is a bit of a cheek for the hon. Member for Meriden to mention late sittings, given that it is usually the Opposition who decide, for one reason or another, to keep us here all night. Many of us would like more timetabled debates to ensure that we get home at a reasonable hour. When we score own goals in that way, we make ourselves appear extremely foolish to our constituents and the media. That is a matter not only for the Modernisation Committee, but for the Government and Opposition whips, who could get together and decide that, as the House has operated in this way for the past 600 years, it might be time to have a rethink. Timetabled motions that would enable debates at reasonable times—for example, not in the middle of the night, when we are half asleep—would be a move towards a work-life balance.

I welcome the discussion document and strongly recommend it. I have banged on about the matter during my 30 years in business and, to be frank, it is good to see business taking a lead over Parliament. When we return to the matter in, say, a year's time, I hope that significant progress will have been made throughout the country, and in the way in which parliamentary business is conducted.

3.40 pm

Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon)

I agree with most of the comments made so far and I shall briefly add to them. I am still getting used to the term "work-life balance", which implies that work is not part of life. I want people to enjoy work, and too few do. The Government want to tackle that issue by providing the skills and training to enable people in all trades and professions to have the confidence to enjoy their working lives.

There remains too much of the British macho culture. In a previous career, I was as guilty as others of wanting always to be the last person to leave the office, thereby encouraging others to stay longer than they should. Of course, working longer does not necessarily mean working better, and hon. Members will be aware that tiredness reduces efficiency.

There are lessons to be learned in the public and private sectors. At a hospital in which I worked, a senior staff post came up for renewal, and I suggested to the director of nursing services that it be made a part-time post. That would have enabled many senior women nurses to apply for it, and it would have been filled in an unusual way. A woman—or, indeed, a man—could thereby have had a part-time job that would have enabled the balancing of family life with work. However, my suggestion met with enormous opposition. I found it strange that a so-called full-time post that involved working 37 hours in a week was regarded as particularly precious. Why was it so important to work those particular hours, given that the hospital worked 24 hours a day? I never received a proper answer to that question. That issue is part of the general change in culture that we need to create.

I welcome the Government's efforts to get the balance right for everyone. The Minister rightly pointed out that proportionally fewer lone parents work outside the home. I should stress that it is work undertaken inside the home that often presents the biggest challenge. Some of the most impressive people that I have met in Swindon are the mothers, especially lone parents, who raise four or five children incredibly well on the smallest of incomes. This week, the chairman of Unilever said that, if one wants to employ the best project manager, one should find a mum who has combined bringing up children with working outside the home. We should remember that when discussing work inside and outside the home. Some lone parents in Swindon have been greatly helped by the Government's new deal for lone parents. It has enabled them to work outside their homes, and there have been some fantastic and inspiring projects. One lone parent in my constituency has set up a hairdressing business. She cuts hair in people's own homes, which enables her to fit work around her children and her spare time.

Similarly, the working families tax credit is helping people to strike the right balance between work outside and inside the home, and it is ensuring that they are rewarded for working outside the home. A Labour councillor recently stood outside a school and handed out leaflets advertising the working families tax credit. He went back a week later to hand out more leaflets and was accosted by a woman who gave him the biggest bear hug he had had in a long time, saying, "I have realised that this will give me £40 a week extra. That will make a huge difference to my family." The credit would make her work outside the home pay and enable her to support her family better.

I want to pursue a point relating to the working families tax credit that has been raised with me by constituents. It relates particularly to shift workers. The Minister rightly said she expects more and more people—people who cannot find a child-minder or other types of child care and are covered by working families tax credit—to work on a 24-hour, shift-work basis. Many of them are solving the problem by using nannies, but nannies are not covered by working families tax credit, and the Government should look at that. A range of quality child care initiatives should be available.

Mrs. Spelman

In its newsletter "Cascade", published on 8 March, the National Childminding Association says: childminders are getting a raw deal in some areas, where parents are trying to get the new childcare tax credit but are then not using spaces which they have agreed to use. That is another concern that I have been made aware of.

Ms. Drown

I am aware of that issue, which has also been raised with me.

I want to refer, as other hon. Members have done, to an issue raised by the Minister. Baroness Jay has been asked to make sure that the public sector leads by example and to look across the public sector with a view to enhancing family-friendly policies. Clearly, the House of Commons must lead by example. When we talk about changing our own practices, the question of consensus always comes up, but that is a recipe for staying as we are. Various surveys have been carried out into sittings in the House. There was a majority in favour of changing the times of sittings, but, because people chose slightly different times, the conclusion was "We can't change, because we can't agree on one way forward." We know that the whole House will never agree on one way forward, so this might be an occasion for abandoning consensus. I support the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), who said that she would like the Government to use their majority in this case. Let us use the majority and change the House for the better.

When I began talking to colleagues and constituents about this issue, they all said, "Stop worrying about it. You are being selfish. All these other things in the country need dealing with." I agree, but I am surprised how many constituents come to me and say, "No, this is important. You need to sort that place out. We don't admire it as much as we should. How can we be sure that the best people will stand for Parliament when it is run so inefficiently and does not allow you to balance your work and your family life?" They are absolutely right. We have a duty to improve the House. Therefore, let us consider doing away with consensus in the search for a system that we can make work. I remember that, in discussions about Thursdays, hon. Members said, "It won't work. Nobody will turn up for the Thursday morning debate." Yet for Treasury questions this morning the Chamber was packed. We can and we must do it.

We must also look at child care. We are not asking for free child care, or provision reserved for Members of Parliament. Ten thousand people work in and around the House of Commons, so it makes sense. We should lead the way.

We must keep trying to get the balance right. There are too many people in paid work who work far too many hours and there are too many people out of paid work. That is an equation that we should be able to resolve in the interests of everybody and their families.

I congratulate the Government on everything that they are doing in this respect and I look forward to seeing the results, some of which may take a long time to work their way through. We need to do more work, but the Government's initiatives will be good for families, good for employees and good for business.

3.49 pm

Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford)

I did not come with a prepared speech, but I want to join in what I think is proving to be a consensus in this Chamber. I especially welcome the announcements that my hon. Friend the Minister has made. They are good news, and they represent a win-win scenario, for which we are extremely grateful. It is immensely important that business is to lead the endeavour, because that is where the experience lies and that is the place from which the cultural change can come.

We are not talking only about very large companies. Many of those already have the resources, the consultants and the facilities to do the sums and to work out how much it costs to recruit a new worker when they have lost one—a prime example being that of losing a woman from the work force after maternity. They have been able to prove the business case—the financial case. However, the majority of our businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises, which have much greater difficulty understanding the case and in making the appropriate calculations. I especially welcome what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said about the Government's funding of consultancy advice, and I hope that it will be used to promote the message in the sector that experiences greater difficulties, and so get it on board.

Managers need advice if they are to be able to work out a proper strategy. Often, a well meaning employer will be able to deal with a one-off situation, but it is important to have a plan that is fair to employees and can be documented. Middle management in many companies have learned lessons, many of them applicable to themselves: I am not suggesting that they are always off at the golf course, but they have tended to work out over the years a way of balancing what they deem the important aspects of work and life.

However, the same considerations are often not applied to ordinary workers. My constituency—Lewisham, Deptford—is a very deprived part of the United Kingdom, in which there are still many unemployed people, although the number has halved since the Labour Government took office. There are also many low-paid workers, whose conditions of work are already unsatisfactory before we even start to take into account the issues before us today.

I ask the Under-Secretary to pay attention to the progress, or lackof it, being made in factories and service industries—places where some of the best modern management practices have yet to be applied, and where people may be experiencing a less than adequate quality of life, both in the home and in the community. They are likely to be the most deprived both at work and in terms of their life prospects.

I also draw the Minsiter's attention to the fact that for many of those workers, flexibility means insecurity. We must take into account the great sense of worry in many people's minds. We understand that the culture is changing and that young people are aware that they will have to change their jobs more frequently than their parents, but we must help people to feel that that is a challenge that can be met without experiencing desperate insecurity. That insecurity can lead to the circumstances described by the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), in which a lack of confidence inhibits people from asking the quesiton "Can I have time off?", even when they have good, pressing reasons for so doing.

Trade unions have fought for many years for the rights of ordinary people to have time off for public duties. That is another aspect of the satisfactory, rounded lives that many professional people and managers at the top have secured for themselves. Why should not the ordinary worker enjoy similar rights? I heard a discussion on the radio earlier this week about the magistracy. I suspect that other hon. Members may not have heard it because they were in the Chamber; I, however, was elsewhere and able to listen. I heard a man talking about his home city, where, 20 years ago, many ordinary working people came forward to be magistrates. Today, that is not happening, which is exactly the reverse of what we would expect. As society has changed and become less class-structured, we would expect more ordinary people to come forward. I cannot provide a national example, but that man's experience was that although more and more women, people from ethnic minorities and younger people were coming forward to be magistrates, they were primarily from the professional classes. We must be careful to ensure that that kind of work-life balance, for private or public duty, or just because people want to add an extra dimension to their lives, is considered through the eyes of all our people—the many not the few, as the Labour party is wont to say.

I want to bring a little of my experience to hon. Members' attention. When I was Minister for Women, I began some of the work that has resulted in the programme outlined by the Government today. I went around different Government Departments to see what each could contribute. Employers were brought together to provide advice, and to hear what kind of experiences could be used as the basis of policy. One manager told me about a lowly woman worker who had to give in her notice because—this harks back to a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman)—she had to become a carer for her elderly mother. When the woman's case was discussed, her employer found that all she needed to do was go home at lunchtime to administer some medicine. That was all, but she felt that she had to give up her job. As she saw it, that would ruin her life, because she got huge satisfaction from her job, and was valuable to her company.

The strategy adopted was simple. The woman was given the managing director's car space, because, by being able to park her car outside the office, she was able to get home to her mother and return to the office within her normal lunch hour. Such an imaginative approach is a good example of what can be done. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will use such examples to encourage and enthuse people, and to demonstrate what can be done.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a manager of a voluntary organisation. I was in control—the top person—albeit with a committee to refer to. I took on a public responsibility that just grew and grew, and I needed to adjust my working time. As I was a manager, I was well placed to make an argument; but I went in trepidation to my board of management to propose that my deputy manager would benefit enormously from working one day a week as the manager of the enterprise, while I had one day a week off. I changed from a five-day week to a four-day working week. That was revolutionary at the time, and, as my employers saw it, a huge risk, but it worked absolutely brilliantly. The woman who worked as a deputy four days a week gained tremendously from being completely in control: it is refreshing for someone who is a deputy most of the time to have control for one day of the week. It worked splendidly for both of us, and, as is so often the case, the organisation received double the value from us.

As Members of Parliament, we are all small employers. Six people have worked for me during a 13-year period. Two of the women out of those six have had children while in my employ. If one has just two full-time members of staff, it is not easy when one of them is away. Many small employers say that that is why they cannot cope with women employees. However, the appropriate attitude is to recognise that to have children is a woman's right, and to see that she is a valuable employee.

I know from my experience that it is possible to work around the problem and I have benefited enormously from the loyalty of those employees and their commitment to our work. Not only have I had to make adjustments to cover maternity leave, I have had a woman employee decide that she had to have fixed hours. We do not have fixed hours in this place, but she had to have fixed hours to continue in her job. It was not convenient for me, but I decided that she was so valuable that I would say yes; she then decided that she needed to reduce her hours from five days to four days. We accommodated all that and if I, as a small employer could do that, any employer in the country could do the same. However, help is needed and I strongly endorse the proposal that consultants should be provided free of charge and that there should be help in sharing experience and learning.

I want to endorse a couple of comments that have been made today and which are not currently Government policy. More work must be done on aspects of child care and financial support. More work must also be done to assist lone parents who want to work, particularly with training, to enable them to have more appropriate career paths and a better work-life balance and ensure that they are not stuck at one level of employment. I support an element of paid parental leave and, again, I am conscious of people in my constituency who can least afford to take the time off that they most need because of the financial penalties.

I endorse wholeheartedly what has been said about the Government setting a good example. One of my tasks as Minister for Women was to examine the position in Government Departments and I was particularly interested in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence. The hon. Member for Meriden mentioned her surprise at finding a diplomat with a job share. Matters have improved enormously, particularly under the current Government. It was only in the 1970s that we raised the ban on married women remaining in the foreign service, and it is extraordinary that it should have been as late as that. The families association within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office pressed the Government, who responded, to ensure that men and women could serve overseas in our embassies and high commissions without having to send their children away to boarding school for the whole of their young lives. Now, parents often keep their children with them, or opt for home leave in the United Kingdom. They can have proper jobs and do what is necessary for their children. However, there are still problems with serving soldiers who become pregnant and the Ministry of Defence has a little more work to do.

I am proud that my Government have looked across the board at how to ensure that we are the exemplary employer that we should be, but that brings us to this place. A charge of hypocrisy is properly levelled at our Parliament, which is the only Parliament in the world that has no fixed hours. We are the only Parliament in which people habitually say that women and men with children cannot enter the House because the difficulties they would face would mean that they could not care for their children at the same time. It is nonsense and it must end. We must modernise ourselves. If we are not to suffer continually the charge of hypocrisy and lack of respect to which other hon. Members referred, we must modernise this place and bring it in line with the philosophy of a proper work-life balance that the Government have announced today.

4.4 pm

Mr. David Drew (Stroud)

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for missing the first couple of minutes of the debate. I was supposed to be in Committee, but, thankfully, it was cancelled, so I was able to listen to this interesting debate.

I start by saying mea culpa, because I was a member of the Modernisation Committee for some 18 months. I can only say that one tends to travel at the speed of the slowest wagon in the convoy. I sometimes wondered whether we were going forwards or backwards, but the fact that we are able to be here today to discuss the issue—which we would not have had the opportunity to do if we had had to wait for a debate on the Floor of the House—proves that some progress has been made, even if it is not enough, and has not been fast enough.

My main reason for speaking today is to explain some of the different structures at work and their impact on the work-life balance. I shall relate a couple of anecdotes that show how serious the problem is: it is getting better, but we have come from a long way back.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary gave us some fairly frightening statistics. By pure chance, I have been involved in direct negotiations between employers and employees in one of the major firms in my constituency. It has been a real eye-opener. We tend to parody both sides in a company for conspiring to increase overtime, but we must recognise that that is what they have done for many years. Employers have almost condoned employees who go slow during the normal week so as to be able to do overtime, and employees have made it clear that overtime is a sacred cow. Employers could touch everything else about the work, but they could not touch overtime, because that was paid at an additional rate and it enabled employees to choose how long they wanted to work. Things are changing, but it is depressing that at the beginning of the new millennium we have to pick our way through these fairly negative attitudes and for no good reason. It is clear that if production were reorganised so as to get the work done in a normal week, not only could employers save money but everybody's lifestyle would improve. However, it is hard going, because it leads to stress.

An enormous number people in all types of work increasingly face stress. The 48-hour working week is important because it makes a statement about our expectation of the maximum working week. However, there is still a long way to go. We must not fool ourselves about that.

I want to talk about the structures of work, and consider the definition of work. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) touched on this. She kindly came to my constituency when she was Minister for Women for what I hope was an interesting, enlightening day.

What has not been brought out so far is that when we talk about work, we do not mean only paid work. Carers have been mentioned, and we have spoken about people who have to compensate for the other things that they do with their lives. I shall talk about volunteer work, which is also important. Last week the time bank was formally launched, and during Prime Minister's questions the Prime Minister offered to do a day's voluntary work. Last Thursday I addressed Prohelp in Gloucestershire, which is an offshoot of Business in the Community. Prohelp involves smaller professional businesses that offer their time to various Gloucestershire community and neighbourhood groups—my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham-Deptford is aware of its work. It provides assistance and advice which otherwise would not be available because there would be no money to pay for it and no time to do so.

It is sad that we often take volunteer work for granted: it has always been so. However, if we emphasise it enough, we can begin to change the culture. I have always used the silly term "compulsory volunteering"—an oxymoron. I believe that everybody should volunteer, not only for the benefit of the people whom they help but for their own self-esteem. Volunteering is one of the most rewarding things that people do. Many are unable to volunteer because they are too busy with work or children, but we should examine ways of opening up volunteering.

From the 1970s onwards people began to live longer, which is a jolly good thing, and began to retire slightly earlier: they did not go for the 60 to 65 age restriction. Many companies put on pre-retirement courses. I spoke to Judith Taylor of the Gloucestershire Women's Royal Voluntary Service about six months ago. She was worried that so few major companies now ran such courses. There are several reasons for that. Perhaps only a huge number of people leaving at the same time made them viable. Nuclear Electric, in my constituency, laid off hundreds of people within a reasonably short time.

It is important to encourage companies to run courses. I asked the business link group in Gloucestershire to write to companies who used to run such courses asking them to start them up again, because they are an important way of contacting people in the prime age group of 60 to early 70s. It will make an enormous difference. It is sad that in my constituency 80-year-olds are driving 90-year-olds around: a few more 60-year-olds would not come amiss in rural areas. There is a definite shortage of "younger" people, which may be because there is more demand on their time as many are grandparents and child carers. Although there has been a tremendous growth in the voluntary sector, we will be missing an enormous opportunity if we do not encourage more people to take part. I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to look into the matter and try to do something about it.

I live in Stonehouse in my constituency, which has a time donor scheme for caring initiated by Edgar Khan. For the first time in this country, people can give their time in exchange for services. Such initiatives are important. One of the new stuctures of work is portfolio working, which is a lovely term, although I am not quite sure what it means. It enables people to be more flexible in how they work and who they work for, or to choose to work for themselves. There has been much innovation; there are many ways for people at the end of their working lives to be more flexible about how they apply themselves. However, employment rights need to be extended, because often people in those areas of work are vulnerable and need help. I have been involved in collective portfolio schemes in which people share the costs of equipment, advice and so on. Such arrangements are not easy when people choose to operate more flexibly, but if we do not try to help, opportunities will be lost and many people will be more vulnerable. As a Co-operative Member of Parliament, I think that it is important to look for genuinely co-operative solutions such as portfolio working. Such good practice should be extended to the whole country and to different types of work.

Politicians went through a learning curve recently in the IR35 debate. I shall not dwell on the matter, but whether one thinks that the Government are right or wrong, we would all be taken aback by the definition of a contractor, and how it affects insurance and tax. I shall be honest and say that I am not sure that the Government have got it right, but I am worried about the increase in contractorisation. There are some big issues at play; we all have examples of that, and some of us, although not I, have been directly affected by people being made redundant. They have had to find a way back into the work force, and have often returned as contractors. It is not unknown for them to return to the same workplace, which may be what firms and individuals want. The people who are most angry about IR35 are those who have been made redundant, as they see it, through no fault of their own, and who are being hit again due to changes outside their control. That has certainly left an indelible mark on my mind.

There is much to be done and many negotiations to be had. I do not want to spend any longer on that issue, except to say that the structure of our work force affects not only how people work, but how they find time to do other things. We must understand that.

Mr. Colman

Does my hon. Friend agree that many individuals involved in contractorisation operate according to standard company practice and work as sole traders or within a company scheme? Currently, those people are disadvantaged because of the tax haven system. IR35 seems to have covered that up.

Mr. Drew

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There are many bizarre practices. It was drawn to my attention today that lecturers may be caught by IR35. I have never previously come across that. They may work in a succession of colleges. It is clear that some funny things are going on. I would like to know how a lecturer sets up his company so that he can sell his labour on the basis that he is a contractor. However, nothing surprises me in this regard. As I said, I do not want to get hung up on that issue, except to relate it to other experiences that we have had and to what has been done.

I do not know whether I should say that I am young enough or old enough to remember that, about 10 years ago, we bought out an enormous number of people in the public sector, especially in teaching, but in other areas as well, which has resulted in some skewing in employment. What has that got to do with work-life balance? Well, an awful lot—if we could get those people to do other things. However, it has caused some bitterness in the public sector, because employees who have previously seen people retire at 50 will have to work for the normal 40 years into their 60s. There are very few enhanced schemes, unless employees make their own contributions, and that has an impact.

How do we map out our careers? It is a question of life episodes. Will we work continuously for 40 years, or will we have breaks? Traditionally, women have had such breaks; increasingly, men are doing so. It is about what we do not only during the week, but during life. That is linked to volunteering, among other things. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister would deal with that important issue.

I shall now consider the other side of the issue. I have written down the word "leisure"—not very cleverly—as an alternative to working life. When we are not working, the idea is that we are enjoying leisure time. I leave to hon. Members' imaginations whether bringing up children constitutes leisure, but that is how it is regarded.

People frequently refer to the notion of the income rich and time poor and the time rich and income poor. However, many of my constituents are both income poor and time poor, and there are two aspects to that. First, many people are employed in multiple part-time jobs, which means that their working time is much greater than it would be if they had only one job. That needs to be factored in. Again, it is a question of flexibility and what people can choose to do. The level of exploitation must be reduced.

I am especially interested in the second element: how people are affected by being so busy that they do not have any leisure time or, more importantly, time to spend with their family. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on that. We are doing good work in this area, and the Government deserve a glowing tribute for that. However, people increasingly have to consider the costs of taking part in leisure activities. It is not cheap to take three or four children to the cinema or leisure centre. The summer play schemes run in many areas are highly laudable. Kids want to take part in them during those six weeks of holiday, and many parents want them to because it gives them more time to themselves. It is good that such schemes exist, but they are costly.

Mrs. Spelman

The hon. Gentleman is making some good points, but one of the problems with holiday schemes is that they often last only one week; they do not cover the whole holiday period. Even parents who work part-time find that those schemes do not cover the critical period when many child care providers are unavailable.

Mr. Drew

I thank the hon. Lady. Several schemes that originally lasted a week now last two. The duration of the schemes is gradually being increased, but the money needed to do so must come from somewhere. People need to organise such schemes carefully. They cannot be fully funded, because that would mean that they would be offered in fewer areas.

How can we offer access to leisure activities to low-income families without being patronising? I know that people often turn a blind eye and let others go on trips for nothing, but doing so can be difficult. Those who are poor but in work are often unable to afford leisure activities either for themselves or, more especially, for their children.

I hope that we can be creative. I am a great believer in local solutions. Schemes cannot be imposed from on high. Summer play schemes cannot be centralised; funding and flexibility are needed. I hope that my hon Friend the Under-Secretary will deal with those matters.

4.21 pm

Caroline Flint (Don Valley)

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for not being here from the start of the debate. I was juggling my own work-life balance: I spent most of the day waiting for a surveyor to inspect some plastering work at my house. I am very frustrated that the person did not show up. All of us who work and have families deal with similar experiences. I shall refer not only to family-friendly employment, but to family-friendly services, which are another aspect of the debate.

I was pleased to take part in the debate on child care that the Department for Education and Employment initiated before Christmas, in which my hon. Friend Under-Secretary spoke. She is here today, pushing forward the debate yet again on issues that are important to families and working people. As many hon. Members have said, we must consider not only children, but the fact that many families care for elderly relatives; such care needs will grow in future. It is important to discuss the work-life balance, but it involves much more than child care places; it is the framework in which we live and raise our children, which takes into account the pressures of work, caring for elderly relatives, waiting at home for plumbers who never turn up, and everything else. It is right that we should start to bring those issues together.

I suggest that my hon. Friend considers extending the excellent early years and child care partnerships that the Department has established beyond providing child care places, although places are important. I say that as chair of the all-party child care group, I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) is here, because she is the vice-chair of that group.

The issues go beyond child care and involve the way in which employers structure work to provide the best opportunities for local partnerships. In the next phase, we need to consider how to make businesses play a much more dynamic role in those partnerships.

Many parents and those who care for others want to work flexibly. It is interesting that the women's unit in its "listening to women" survey, found that more than 90 per cent. of women said that the unit would encourage the Government to do more to promote family-friendly practices. That is a pretty ringing endorsement. The women who spoke were practical; they understood that it was difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to achieve flexibility, but it came through loud and clear that flexibility was wanted.

Some years ago when I worked in local government in London I was pleased to be part of a cross-London working group that looked at shift working in different organisations from the underground to local authorities and other agencies. The issue of how people organise their hours was being discussed 10 years ago, and it has continued to be a subject of debate. What I have always found interesting, both as a former shop steward and in my work in human resources, were the arguments about part-time workers. Both trade unionists and employers put part-time workers down: it was too much trouble to organise a work pattern around them because they were used to the traditional work patterns that everyone else followed. One employer doubted whether he was getting as much productivity out of his part-time workers, but my experience has been that their productivity is likely to be much higher.

I remember discussing this with someone from the gas industry and we looked at an example of a gas showroom. A new manager came in and looked at working hours. She found that the problem was that everyone was working nine to five, which meant that there was not much flexibility for anyone who did not want to do those hours. She stepped back for a moment and thought about who used the gas showroom and when its peak hours were. The peak weekday hours were between 10 am and 2 pm: that was the time when people came in to pay their gas bills and to look at the products on show. At that stage, the showroom was not open on a Saturday morning, which was another crucial period for people who could not get out of work during the week to visit the gas showroom.

When the manager had a few vacancies, rather than issuing a job description that gave the usual hours that everyone did, she asked for people who could work from 10 am to 2 pm. That was an ideal job for parents with children at school: they could drop the kids at 9 am, go to the gas showroom and be out by 2 pm, ready to pick up at 3.30 pm. She also asked for extra people for Saturday mornings—she offered a contract for one day a week. My hon. Friend the Minister has been looking hard at employment issues facing people with disabilities and I would suggest that such contracts would be ideal for someone who may not be able to sustain a job over a full week or traditional part-time hours.

The starting point is to look at the services that people want as consumers and to kill two birds with one stone: a solution can be found that meets the needs of different people who demand different working patterns and provides a better service for those who want to use it. There is so much scope for imagination in that area that it is worth looking at.

Another development that needs to be addressed is shift parenting. The majority of parents do not use any formal paid child care: they cobble together different systems of parents, families and friends to look after their children. In shift parenting, mum goes off during the day, comes back and dad goes off during the evening. That is an issue that must be looked at. Remembering my experience of the working party in London, talking to staff on the underground, it occurs to me that some single people without dependants would be willing to do the more anti-social shift hours, possibly with a premium in recognition of that. If it were organised managerially, it would enable parents to take a common-sense approach to their family life.

I am a parent myself and I know that as children age, so child care changes. I have teenagers now, and the need to have parents around all the time lessens. There is scope for flexibility management and trade unions now regard it as part of the negotiating agenda that they operate.

I know how keen you are, Madam Deputy Speaker, on debating transport issues, so let me mention a conference about transport and work that took place last year in Don Valley, which I attended with my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Mr. Ennis). It dealt with creating a dynamic between transport providers and employers in a local area. For example, when new buildings are being constructed, employers can be encouraged to create a turn-around for buses, enabling them to approach the factory or office gate instead of stopping half a mile down the road; that encourages workers to use the bus. I sought to bring child care into the picture and to promote thinking about the best places for buses to stop to assist child care providers. Ideally, there would be a seamless stream of people getting on buses, dropping off their children, getting back on them, travelling to work and so forth.

The potentially enormous resources around train stations are often overlooked. I have mentioned it in several previous debates, but it is a missing link in all our discussions. We know how many buildings around train stations are underused. St. Pancras is a good example—I use King's Cross every week to travel up to Doncaster. There are many underused buildings there, so what better place is there to create a nursery, so that commuters can drop their young children there on the way to work?

Mr. Colman

My youngest two children attended Buffer Bear nurseries, which were created by British Rail, though spun off as a separate company. I understand that there are only around six of them in the country, so I agree with my hon. Friend about the need to expand them.

Caroline Flint

I thank my hon. Friend. I am not talking off the top of my head: there are real practical examples of where the private sector sees an opportunity. My hon. Friend the Minister should talk with her colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions—joined-up government, as they say—to examine where permissions are granted to establish new interchanges, as in Doncaster. Such interchanges can provide opportunities to set up child care provision, which will help people who want to leave their children in order to go to work; it might also prove an attractive option for shoppers. Creche facilities may encourage people to come and spend their money in the wonderful shops in places like Doncaster. There are real opportunities there.

Some interesting projects have been set up in America to deal with sick children. Having time off when children are sick is important. My three children have been through chicken pox and the like. Once the main part of their illness is over, children are recuperating. They cannot go back to school, but child care services will often not accept them, thus creating additional problems for parents. An American association has sprung up to examine the extent to which child care services can meet people's needs—either at home or through establishments with staff properly qualified to deal with health and other matters.

The other day I encountered a company that provides employers with maternity packages. We have a fantastic ante-natal system of support in this country, which operates across every community and social class and is widely taken up, yet when women return to work, provision is still too patchy. A few weeks ago, I read an article about women's rates of return to work after maternity leave. I was worried because it showed how often women found the experience of returning to work overwhelming—in terms of the inflexibility of adjusting hours of work to suit their needs. Many of them left.

I put a question to every Department in Whitehall about the return of women to work after pregnancy. I have been told that the information is not readily to hand and that it would cost too much to answer my question. That might be part of the answer to my question: not enough research is being done into the terms on which women return to work and whether, 12 months down the line, they are at the same workplace.

Many important issues are involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) mentioned holiday play schemes. My hon. Friend the Minister and I have spoken about the way in which the school year is structured. It always seems daft to me. At one point in my parenting, I had to drop my children off at my child minder's at half-past eight in the morning for her to walk them round to school for quarter to nine. She was a wonderful child minder, but it seems ridiculous that many parents should have to arrange that on top of everything else. I welcome the breakfast clubs, but we must deal with the issue about schools. I understand their educational role, but we should make the most of school buildings by allowing them to be used by other care providers, so that parents have less stress.

We want to take the stress off mums, who undoubtedly bear the largest burden of child care. Only today, on my way in on the tube, I saw a report saying that, even where a mother and a father work full time, the mother does twice as much domestic work as the father. However, there has been an encouraging increase in the contribution made by men.

Mr. Colman

One in five single parents are single fathers. I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that they also need the help that she is suggesting.

Caroline Flint

Absolutely. I welcome the fact that so many fathers in the House have not only attended their children's birth, but support the review of the working of the House and its facilities. They are a new generation of fathers who want to undo the old perception of fatherhood and the man's role. However, women are still doing far more than their fair share of the domestic work, and we must address that issue.

There must be less stress for mum, and we must create more space for dad. Men have said to me that when women colleagues have asked for time off from work it has been granted, but when men do, the request is not considered in the same light, because it is seen as something that they should not be asking for. That view needs to be changed. If we are to create confidence in child care, it must be of higher quality, but we must involve business more and allow the family-friendly employment agenda to play a larger part in our local partnerships to develop child care.

I have recently written to the Chairman of the Administration Committee seeking support for the issue of child care in the House to be discussed again. Many hon. Members support that request, and it is time for a debate. There is no simple solution, but we must have a discussion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) said, the Government are doing their job, but it is for the Members of the House to decide how the House is run.

4.37 pm

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon)

This has been a fascinating debate and I am delighted to be able to contribute to it from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench.

One of the Minister's first remarks was that the issue of work-life balance did not concern only women. Clearly, I am not a woman. [Laughter.] I can assure you that that is clear, Madam Deputy Speaker. The debate has shown that the issues span both genders. It would have been disappointing if the debate had attracted only women Members, and I am delighted that there has almost been parity between the genders.

We must ensure that men are involved in the discussions on this issue, as on many others. Many of the barriers to a good work-life balance that are put up by employers or the establishment are down to men. The danger is that, however brillantly and incisively they do so, only women in public life will discuss this issue, based on their own experience, while those who should change their practices and thought processes may switch off.

That is why I pay sincere tribute to my party leader, who took a mould-breaking step in challenging stereotypes when he asked me to speak for the Liberal Democrats on issues of special but not exclusive interest or relevance to women. Someone in the Labour party said at the time that it was a retrograde step—a comment that was attributed to the Minister who is here today. I give her the opportunity to say that she welcomes the diversity that appointments such as mine bring.

I would not criticise a party for insisting that, in general, a woman should speak on these issues, but we need to breakdown stereotypes, so it is helpful for men to speak on them as well. I have received many faxes and letters from men who heard me speak on issues of particular interest to women, saying that they realised for the first time that some of their attitudes were not progressive. On that occasion, they did not switch off the television because I was speaking. Sadly, many people would, and no doubt do.

I am neither a woman nor a parent, but many work-life balance issues apply to potential parents as well. Moreover, I recognise those issues as an employer. One of the first people that I employed in my office was a single parent, fresh from university. Her contribution was first class and in no way impaired by the parental responsiblities that she retained once she had paid for child care from what I admit was not a wonderful salary. I am pleased to say that I did not consider whether a person with such responsibilities could do the job, and I can say from experience that people who have to juggle the hours of their day work very efficiently. The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) recently described parents, particularly single parents, as experienced project managers, and that is certainly true in my experience.

The discussion document looks interesting, but given that it was not available before today, it is difficult for hon. Members to respond to it. Had it been released earlier, we could have read it properly and discussed with the Minister those matters with which it deals, and those it omits. Alternatively, the Minister could have made the document available after the debate, and explained to us during the debate this very important initiative. I do not want to nitpick, but it has been difficult fully to engage with the subject, and I hope that we will be able to discuss it again in the near future.

Mrs. Spelman

I should like to place on record the fact that I could not obtain a copy of the document and, as Opposition spokesman, I was unclear about the relationship between its launch and this debate. I endorse the hon. Gentleman's view that the debate would have benefited by our being furnished with copies of it.

Dr. Harris

I should like to mention a feature of the document that is well known. People feel that they must work, and are prevented from getting right the work-life balance. They are dissuaded from taking certain jobs by the scourge—that is the right word—of presenteeism, which obliges them to work over and above the requirements of their job. Presenteeism could be described as the Lemsip phenomenon. Hon. Members will have seen the dreadful advertisement in which a macho man with flu struggles into work to find another macho man in his seat, trying to clinch the deal. The first macho man says that he was able to struggle in because his symptoms were alleviated by Lemsip and he wanted to stop his position being taken by another person. He appears to be happy to spread his germs left, right and centre and to delay his recovery in order to ensure that he is not usurped. I wrote to the manufacturer to ask whether that is the image that it wants to give. I am sure that the product is reasonable, but the macho work culture does not appeal.

The Government's consultation document states that people should be judged not on their working pattern but on the contribution that they make to business. They should also feel that working their contracted hours is what counts, and that if they only work those hours that should not affect their career. The medical profession, in which I worked, has an incredibly macho culture. The expectation of junior doctors was that when they had done their weekly hours, they should head straight to the library and then return to the wards in an effort to be spotted working beyond their contracted hours, which were already long enough. As I shall explain, that made it difficult to maintain a family life. The break up of my marriage was partly due to that regime. I was contracted to work 72 hours a week—I had contractual presenteeism. My wife at the time had non-contractual presenteeism of about 72 hours a week as a management consultant in a new business sector. The marriages of several of my medical cohorts also broke down either because the partner—it did not matter whether it was a man or woman—could not understand why his or her partner was not there, or because work demands meant that the couple never saw each other.

I inform Conservative Members that the working time directive is important—it protects people against employers' attempts to exploit them and against their own attempts to comply with opportunities to exploit themselves. As a Liberal, I have no qualms about introducing legislative controls over people's freedom to work long hours, for their own health and for the health of those who depend on them and who are in relationships with them.

There is a culture in the workplace that involves the need to lie to employers to get time off for family activities. We are all familiar with anecdotes about people who are not allowed the time off that they require—that applies in particular to men, and feeds into the macho culture.

Caroline Flint

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of research that was conducted into women's sick leave patterns? It showed that women quite often said that they were sick when they were tending to family matters. That creates a huge imbalance and distorts women's patterns of sick leave. It is terrible that women feel forced to take such steps.

Dr. Harris

I have heard of that research, and I agree that the situation is wrong. I am reminded of the old joke in a workplace notice that stated, "Employeers who wish to take time off to attend their grandmother's funeral should inform management at least three days before the day of the match." One can appreciate the humour of using one's grandmother's funeral as an excuse to attend a football match—the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) discussed the need for leisure. However, as the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said, people often lie about being ill in order to get time off to look after children or older relatives.

The Minister and other hon. Members rightly stressed that care for older people can be provided by their relations or by other people. I am glad to say that my parents are still in good health, although they have had recent health scares. I am their only close relative living in this country, and the pager messages to which I respond most quickly are those from my parents. I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I receive a message from them during this debate. The arrangement brought home, for the first time, the inevitably limited lifespan of one's parents. I am now of the age when I notice that my parents are getting older, and I think that they are aware that in future there will be a need for closer contact.

The Government would move the debate on if they responded to the royal commission on long-term care. Many insurance companies are waiting to develop policies, and individuals are finding it difficult to plan their caring careers—sometimes it can be a career—because they do not know what they will be entitled to. The Government's response to the royal commission is long overdue, and I hope they will take into account the issues that we have discussed today.

The Minister said that parents need time to nurture their children. When I pressed her on the question of parental leave, I was pleased to receive support from Labour Members. A parental leave system was much needed, and I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced it. However, the leave is unpaid. The Minister correctly said that not all European countries provide paid leave. However, the majority do so. Research shows that take-up of parental leave, especially among low-income groups, is higher if it is paid. I pay tribute to the work that has been done in that area by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Colman), other Labour Members and the Select Committee. The right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has, in many respects, led the way.

Given that the research shows that take-up among low-income families is greater when leave is paid, it would be embarrassing for the Government to find that the UK is among the minority of countries that do not provide it. Countries that provide some form of payment include Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France—although it is unpaid for the first child—Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, Finland and Sweden. As the Minister is probably aware, the Swedes have paid great attention to the issue of whether parental leave increases the role of the man in bringing up children in a relationship. Research by the European Network, "Family and Work and New Ways to Work", revealed that Sweden has undergone significant changes in the attitude of Swedish men to their families. It is commonplace in Sweden to see almost as many men pushing prams as women, which is a positive development. The researchers recognised that the high level of parental leave—and the compulsion to take it, because otherwise it will be lost, even to the other partner—has contributed to that situation. Will the Minister tell us whether her Department is considering that sort of model? Nobody could describe Sweden as uncompetitive, historically speaking.

This can be viewed positively in respect of the private sector. From what I have seen of the worked examples in the consultation document, businesses can accrue huge advantages from ensuring that they have family-friendly policies. Those business benefits can be assessed from the research that the DfEE commissioned from the Institute for Employment Studies. For example, casual sickness absence has been reduced. That echoes the point that was made by the hon. Member for Don Valley. Employers felt that sickness absence due to employees' caring responsibilities had been reduced. That was reinforced by employees, who felt more able to be honest about absence due to dependents' illness. There were also benefits in terms of improved retention. That is logical, as people stay with firms longer because of access to family-friendly provision. As the labour supply is tight in many skill areas in the job market, that will be increasingly important.

Improved productivity was a third benefit. Many firms were convinced that employees working flexible hours were more productive than those working traditional hours. A routine is not as inspiring as enabling people to work flexibly and contribute the most that they can. The status of home working should be raised. People who have worked for me from home are at least as productive as those who come into a workplace. Home working has the extra advantage of ensuring greater opportunities for disabled people, although, clearly, such opportunities should not be restricted to working from home.

A fourth benefit is improved recruitment. Firms felt that offering family-friendly practices can attract recruits, and assist them in making comparative judgments of job offers. That underlines the point about it being a prospective employee's market, in which an individual can choose between firms.

The fifth benefit is improved morale and commitment, because people can regard traditional working practices as restrictive. Various approaches can be taken in the public and private sector: innovative work organisation, examples of which are in the Government's document; employee development; leave provision, about which I have spoken; employee backup support; and, importantly, encouraging take-up. We need a workplace culture in which taking advantage of family-friendly policies is not seen as a cop-out, but as something to be positively encouraged.

The importance of a good work-life balance is, and continues to be, important for women. I am grateful to Cherie Booth QC for her speech on the "allerednic" syndrome, which is Cinderella in reverse. I heard the speech at an event organised by the Fawcett Society in commemoration of a woman's suffrage anniversary. In that syndrome, the princess marries the prince and becomes the scullery maid. The analogy is with a woman who is able to progress in her career and become a high earner and high achiever as a single woman, but who subsequently marries and has children. She then finds no way to continue with her former role or status because of the lack of opportunities in her chosen field to take the necessary time off to maintain a family and work life to the degree that she would like. Some women who have such difficulties never achieve their former high earning potential. Having been the highest earner when they became married, they never catch up with the earnings and status of the man in the relationship. I am not saying that earnings and work status are everything, but it is wrong to discriminate against a group of people who have to take time off at least to bear children, if not to look after those children in the early parts of their lives.

I think that Cherie Booth said—I scribbled it down during her speech—that the introduction of parental leave as a bridge between returning to work and nurturing one's family would be an important step in ensuring that the "allerednic" sydrome is not allowed to take off. I hope that the Prime Minister's household is not split on the matter. Unless the Government change their policy on paid parental leave, however, I fear that such a split will exist.

I want to refer to one area of the public sector where there are still major problems. This is an example from my own experience in the health service. It is a Government responsibility, which cannot be achieved through partnership with the private sector, however laudable. I want the Minister to reflect on the situation that I am about to describe and to reply to me at a later date with some ideas for solutions, as it is not reasonable to expect her to have the prescription now.

Clearly we are aware of the issues facing nurses. In no way do I denigrate those, and I acknowledge the Government's words and the fact that proposals are being made to ensure family-friendly practices for nurses. Another important group of health service workers, though not necessarily the most important, is doctors, particularly, doctors in training. About a third of a million pounds is needed to train a doctor, and it would be a terrible financial loss to the public sector, if not a personal tragedy, if we wasted doctors by not allowing those, particularly junior doctors, who want to have families to train flexibly and appropriately. The NHS has been behind the times in this respect, and continues to be behind the times.

When I first began as a medical student and junior doctor, which was not long ago, the flexible training scheme, as it is now known, was called the married women's part-time scheme. I need not explain how the grossly misplaced assumptions arising from the name of the scheme can put many people off seeking to train part-time. However, I should stress what flexible training as a junior doctor means for men and women who wish to combine their training with having a family.

Does the Minister know that flexible trainees in the medical work force are expected to work 40 hours, which is not part time in any sense? They are expected to do around five sessions between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm and then do half the on-call work of other doctors. The standard rate is 72 hours and around 32 hours on call—16 hours on top of about 24 a week. Those extra hours are paid at half rate, so this is compulsory overtime in unfriendly hours—weekends and evenings—at half-rate pay of about £4 an hour, which is less than one would have to pay for child care. Therefore, doctors seeking to train flexibly, who have to do the on-call commitment, are forced to be net losers from employment.

I know that the Government are in protracted—extremely protracted—negotiations with junior doctors about out-of-hours pay and I do not expect the Minister to pre-empt that, although I should like her to, but I want to draw her attention to other problems faced by doctors who wish to train flexibly, most of whom are women.

The first is the lack of child care in the NHS. Clearly it would be sensible if all resident doctors who needed it—this also applies to resident nurses—had on-site affordable child care, so that people do not lose out from working in the health service. Hon. Members will agree that we desperately need to retain people in the system.

The fact that one has to offer well-founded reasons for seeking to train flexibly is a great deterrent, particularly to men with family commitments, who feel that they will not be given permission to train flexibly and will therefore spend even longer in the training grade than those working full time. There have been cases where people who wished to work flexibly have been turned down, although there would be no obvious disadvantage to the health service if they were allowed to do so.

There is an automatic assumption that if one works less than full time, one's training will have to be extended pro rata. In other words, if a person wishes to work half time, instead of training for five years, he is expected to train for 10 years, regardless of the level of competence reached in the time or whether the ratio of training to service in part-time work is higher, as it should be, than for full-timers. The blame for that cannot be placed exclusively at this Government's door or even, as the health service tends say, at the previous Government's door, because European Community rules state that training must increase pro rata for those working less than full time. If we are to achieve work-life balance in the health service, that issue must be tackled.

Finally, the issue applies to older people. I know older people in the health service who cannot function at 4 am, but otherwise work well as, for example, breast surgeons. They have a choice either to give up work altogether or work full time, including on-call time. That is unreasonable. Will the Minister examine the matter with the Department of Health in a joined-up way and make specific proposals on non-pay issues? Otherwise, we shall be in danger of losing valuable resources. Our debate has been useful and I look forward to the Minister's response.

5.6 pm

Ms Hodge

With your leave, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall reply to the debate. This is my second debate in Westminster Hall, and it is a joy to have an informed and intelligent debate. The open exchange of views and ideas is preferable to being entrenched in political banter, which is the style on the Floor of the House.

I shall respond briefly to the matters raised in the debate. I offer apologies if I do not cover everything but, in the interests of work-life balance, I shall keep my response short. The hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) spoke about the culture change that we are attempting to achieve by our campaign. The Government will act in partnership with others. As my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) mentioned, a committee will support our work and a comprehensive range of initiatives will be undertaken, the key to which is the employers alliance.

The hon. Member for Meriden made a number of points about child care. We shall deliver child care places for a million children. This week, I received quarterly figures on the progress of the national child care strategy. The figures are always way behind, but those for the first three quarters of last year show that more than 107,000 new places were created, greatly exceeding the annual target of 82,000. In the first 18 months of the strategy, we have created three times as many child care places as the previous Government achieved in 18 years.

Mrs. Spelman

So that I am clear about the pledge, will the Minister confirm that it is for a million new places in four years, of which eighteen months have elapsed? The women's unit document certainly states that. If that is correct, the figures that the Minister just gave are not quite on target.

Ms Hodge

The pledge offers places for a million children: many children will not require a full-time place. This issue also relates to parents. As we have discussed, 40 per cent. of women working with children are part-timers, so will require part-time places.

Contrary to what the hon. Lady said, there is an expansion of places. We accept that there is a reconfiguration of available places, and are anxious to encourage child minders to provide child care. That is especially important in relation to provision for children up to the age of three, where there is currently a big gap. We are taking steps to recruit many more child minders.

Playgroups are closing. However, the Government have taken positive steps to support pre-schools that wish to remain open. Under the present Government, more money has gone into the pre-school sector than under any previous Government. Resources are generous: we have provided a two-year grant of £500,000 for places for three and four-year-olds and money to the Pre-School Learning Alliance. Much work has to be done to ensure that pre-schools meet the changing needs of parents and families. I am engaged in that work now with the Pre-School Learning Alliance.

Let me correct the hon. Member for Meriden. There is no way that any three-year-old will be in a reception class. The expansion of provision for three-year-olds will take place in appropriate settings with appropriate adult-child ratios. It is interesting that 80 per cent. of the places created in the first phase of expansion have been in the private and voluntary sector. I must also tell the hon. Lady that this is all about choice—not about valuing work outside the home more than work inside it. It is about recognising the changing patterns of our world, in which 70 per cent. of mothers are now in the labour market. We must ensure that they have proper choices to enable them to balance their work and their life. Part of that choice is the provision of high-quality child care.

I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney for his contribution. Shirley Conran is certainly making a forceful contribution to the work of the advisory committee. Both my hon. Friends the Member for Putney and for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) raised the issue of small and medium-sized enterprises. We are conscious that we have a great deal to do in that sector. The research to which the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) referred dealt specifically with small and medium-sized enterprises. It showed that there are some examples of good practice in that sector.

In my view—as yet untested, but we shall undertake the necessary research—many SMEs have good flexible work-life practices to meet the needs of the employee and the job, they just do not call it that: they do not formalise it, and it may not be offered to all employees within the organisation. It is operated more formally by bigger firms. We need to capture the good practice that undoubtedly exists within the SME sector, spread it and support it in attempting to do more. The Government and the employers alliance are conscious of how important that is,

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney also asked whether those who care for the elderly were sufficiently represented on the advisory committee. I intentionally kept it small, so it can be a good working committee that can genuinely brainstorm new ideas in this new area of public policy. We have one representative for the elderly, but there is a range of initiatives. I have worked closely with my colleagues in the Department of Health on this, and I should like to draw my hon. Friend's attention to awards for caring about carers, which my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. Hutton) has conferred in the past week or two.

Some hon. Members referred to the Government putting their own house in order. Ironically, the Department for Education and Employment launched its own "right balance" campaign today, and it will be examining work-life issues. The document that we produced today refers to some Departments, such as the Lord Chancellor's Department, that are not traditionally viewed as being at the forefront of public policy developments.

The Lord Chancellor's Department has three senior civil service posts that are filled by job sharers. One has been job shared since 1988 and the pair head up a policy division that advises the Lord Chancellor on reforming the justice system in respect of families, children and divorce. Their last job dealt with the appointment of senior judiciary—I ought to declare an interest—and Queen's Counsel. Another pair of job sharers head the personnel management division and are responsible for human resource strategy. We are beginning to make progress in that area, and I know that Baroness Jay, with her new responsibilities across Government, is determined to advance it further.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) asked why we use the term "work-life". We discussed that extensively. We no longer use the term "family-friendly"—though some hon. Members have used it in our debate—because it tends to make most people think about women and children, and we wanted to extend the parameters beyond that. We thought about "work-home", but many people work at home, such as those with flexible working practices, given the development of information and communication technologies. We ended up with the term "work-life" because it embraced the concept more fully. It meant that we could respond to the needs of carers as well as parents and everyone who wants a life. I should like to pay a warm tribute to the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford did during her time as Minister for Women in furthering this agenda. I like to think that I am building on the firm foundations that she established when she held that office.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said that we should look across all sectors at those organisations and businesses that do not have a tradition of progress in this area. We have commissioned a broad-based study to give us that information from all sectors and all sizes of business, so that we can consider what measures we can undertake to pursue that agenda. She talked, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), about flexibility being traditionally associated with insecurity.

We need to recapture the term "flexibility". It should not be associated, as it has been in the past, with insecurity but with a sensible range of working practices that enable people to manage their lives and get the most they can out of life. Part of the campaign must be to recapture that term and refocus it in a much more positive way. The story that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford told about the individual who had to care for her mother and was thinking about giving up work when all she needed was a car parking space was poignant and true; I come across such stories every day in my work. We are not talking about big expenditure—often we are not talking about any expenditure. We are talking about a lot of imagination and basic common sense. If imagination and common sense can inform thinking in this area we will be able to make enormous progress to the benefit of both business and the community.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned volunteering. I have responsibility for that as well. One of the reasons that we are pursuing the policy is to encourage people to give to their communities. That is why we are trying to take the focus away from parenting. Another document that hon. Members will not have seen was launched today by the employers alliance. It gives an example from Prudential plc of a woman called Rosy Harris—the head of the independent financial advice service centre—who for the past seven years has worked flexible hours to enable her to balance work and other commitments—not only bringing up her family but, until recently, working in a voluntary and fund-raising capacity as deputy chairman for an NHS hospital. That is another good example of the sort of flexibility that we are trying to encourage so that people can volunteer within their communities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud talked about work-poor and income-poor families. The number of holiday play schemes that we are encouraging is growing, and we have introduced a new accreditation of such schemes. Indeed, at the annual conference of Kids Club Network this morning, I was able to announce the first three organisations to be accredited by the Secretary of State to accredit those holiday play schemes that cater for children in the eight-to-14 age group. Kids Club Network received that accreditation, which means that parents who use those facilities are eligible for child care tax credit. We therefore hope that those schemes will be available even for low-income families.

I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) who throughout her time as a Member of Parliament, and before—she helped me when we were in opposition—has worked hard on all these issues. I completely agree with her that this debate is not just about employment policies, but about family-friendly services. There is a convergence of interests on which we need to build, and that is what we are doing. I also agree that we need to engage businesses more positively in the national child care strategy. My hon. Friend will be interested to know that I have met employers several times recently to find out what further steps we can take to bring them into the strategy. I will attend another brainstorming session next week with a group of more progressive employers to discover what issues they want us to raise.

My hon. Friend raised some interesting issues that we need to consider, such as shift parenting. I am talking to colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions about how we can work together to ensure that child care is considered not only in managing railway stations but in granting planning approvals, which will release some potential.

I have recently spoken to child care providers. A growing number of employers pay for back-up care, so an instant response is provided if children become sick, thus enabling employees to stay in work. The issues that my hon. Friend raised about school buildings are close to my heart, as she knows. School buildings are a central resource in our communities. We want to raise educational standards and ensure that those resources are used in the best way possible.

The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon said that such issues involves men. Most of those at the breakfast held this morning with my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education were men, which was deliberate. Company chief executives attended the breakfast, and they have now signed up to thinking about work-life balance. That is an important step forward in ensuring that they lead the cultural change that we desire. Incidentally, I apologise to those hon. members who have not seen the document. The timing of the launch in the Prime Minister's diary took place long ago, but the date of the debate was determined only a few days ago.

The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon referred to presenteeism. The document contains several cartoons, which is probably a first for a Government publication. There are two Dot cartoons. I am sure that hon. Members are familiar with Dot cartoons; they are good fun. A further cartoon shows a boss talking to an employee: the employee asks the boss, "I finished all my work. Can I go home early?" to which the boss replies, "No. You're an 'exempt' employee. That means you're exempt from having a life." The employee then says, "I guess I could clutch an unimportant document and shuffle around in quiet desperation", to which the boss replies, "That's the spirit!" We want to change that culture in partnership with business, trade unions and employees because we believe that business, individuals, families and society will benefit from better work-life balance.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Five o'clock.