Clause 8 - Licences to engage in licensable conduct
Private Security Industry Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
I welcome your return to the Chair, Mr. Benton.
The amendments would require employers to pay the registration fee for their employees. As we adjourned this morning, if memory serves me correctly, I was summarising their purport, and saying that they would inevitably impose a cost on business. Equally, it was only fair to make the point, as the right hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) did, that if employers did not pay the employee would have to, which could be burdensome. An issue of principle is involved as well as the practical question of whether it is fair to impose a burden on people who are relatively poorly paid. On balance, it cannot be right for people who are poorly paid to be clobbered in such a way.
It would be helpful if the Minister would give the Committee the latest estimate of the level of the fee, if the Government have one. If the employer paid the fee and the employee then left his employment to start work with another employer, would that not be unfair to the original employer who paid the fee? Although on the face of it the case seems to be fairly open and shut, some questions remain. After all, the licence is for the individual, unless it is granted with the proviso that it would lapse on the occasion of someone transferring employment. I do not think that that is the intention of the Government or of the right hon. Gentleman.