§ Miss Joan Lestorasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the EEC draft directive on voluntary part-time work.
§ Mr. AlisonThe Government believe that part-time work should be encouraged, but that the draft EEC directive would introduce undesirable rigidities into the labour market and generally decrease the opportunities for part-time work. We are therefore opposed to the EEC proposals. We will, however, continue to participate in the technical discussions of the proposals in the hope that it may be possible to put them into a form which we and other member States could accept.