Employment Bill
9:30 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I add my welcome to you as Chairman, Mr. Benton, and to your co-Chairmen, Mr. Amess and Mr. Conway. I have had the pleasure of serving under you before, but I have not yet served in a Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess). I am more used to hearing him behind me than listening to his admonitions from the Chair, but I look forward to those when the time comes.
The Minister described the Front-Bench members of the Committee as the crème de la crème. I am interested to hear that description. I wonder whether he will feel the same way about all his hon. Friends when they have given him their thoughts and comments on the Bill that he is charged with pushing through the Committee.
It might be convenient if I declare an interest; I noticed that the Minister did not. I am a director of two companies that employ people and, to that extent, have an interest in the Bill. I know that the Minister and many Government Members have affiliations with trade unions and, therefore, may be considered to have interests. It might be helpful to the Committee if you would give us some guidance, Mr. Benton, as to whether a general declaration of a broad interest will be sufficient or whether we should each declare specific interests. Members could have a specific interest because they have a financial involvement in a law practice engaged in employment matters. How do the advocacy rules apply in that case? I would be grateful, Mr. Benton, for any guidance.
The Minister explained the programme resolution and the timetabling of the Bill. The Opposition object in principle to the timetabling of Committee proceedings. We want to scrutinise the Bill properly and make good progress, but we object to fixed time scales and intermediate mileposts. The Bill illustrates the problems of timetabling. It is difficult to know how much time is needed to scrutinise all aspects of the Bill.
As so often happens, the wording of the Bill explains little. Many of its effects will become apparent only when regulations are published. We have not seen any draft regulations. The Minister may tell us whether he hopes to produce draft regulations pertaining to specific provisions. Although the explanatory notes partly demonstrate the Government's intentions, several working parties will affect the final regulations, especially those which relate to parts 2 and 3 of the Bill, so it may be difficult for the Minister to explain what he expects to be in the regulations.
To scrutinise the Bill properly, the Opposition—and I hope, Government Back Benchers—should probe the Minister. We will table a series of amendments, more than we would like—certainly more than you would like, Mr. Benton—in order to add the regulations to the Bill. We do not expect the Minister to accept the amendments because specifics are better handled by regulations, but he will be able to reassure us about them. Without such reassurances, Committee members will find it difficult to understand what the Bill will implement.
The detail of the regulations is important because the Bill is a package. We have thankfully moved on from the days when industrial relations were adversarial and it was fashionable to talk about the two sides of industry, but two interests are clear: the interests of employers and the interests of employees represented by the trade union movement. Often those interests can coincide and much of the Bill will allow that process to develop. Sometimes they will not coincide, and a balancing process is necessary. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable)—disappointingly, he is not a member of this Committee—described the Bill as a balance between the interests and agenda of employers and those of employees and the trade unions.
The Bill is a delicately balanced package. It is important that we are assured in Committee that the proposed regulations will be made available, and that the package will not be rebalanced behind closed doors between completion of parliamentary scrutiny of the primary legislation and publication of the draft regulations. I make that point to explain why we may at times appear to be pursuing more persistently than would otherwise be necessary the detail of the final regulations. I hope that the Committee will appreciate that.
The intention behind most of our amendments is to tease out of the Minister a commitment on the exact contents of the regulations. We will explore how the work being undertaken outside Parliament—the Leggatt review of tribunal procedures, and the taskforce that was set up yesterday by the Secretary of State to assess employment tribunal practice—will interact with the Bill. We will also explore the influence of that work on the proposed regulations, and to what effect it introduces an element of uncertainty to the Minister's assurances in Committee.
All of those factors make it difficult for us to know exactly how much time will be needed for each stage of the Bill. I suspect that that will depend on how clearly the regulations are formulated in the Government's collective mind—that mythical entity that may or may not exist. Where the Minister has a clear set of regulations in mind, he will be able clearly to answer Committee members' questions, even though he may not be able to circulate draft regulations to them, and business will rapidly be dispatched.
However, where the Minister is unclear about the exact form of the regulations, and work is continuing that will influence their shape, we will need to explore the Bill in more depth. Unlike many Standing Committees on which I have served, I expect that Government Members will actively participate in the debate, which will allow us to explore the issues in greater depth.