Clause 2 - Statutory paternity pay
Employment Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Charles Hendry (Wealden, Conservative)
I had not intended to speak, but have been moved to do so in response to the eloquent contributions of Labour Members. They obviously focused on issues in their own constituencies, but it is a wider national issue. The Library recently published the gross domestic product statistics for local authority areas. East Sussex was revealed as the third poorest in the whole country. That is because it depends on tourism, retail, farming and small engineering companies for the main source of employment within the county area. Areas seen to be prosperous—often wrongly—can be affected as much as inner city areas.
I shall not detain the Committee long because I want to hear the Minister's response, but I want to argue that certain groups of people will be inadvertently hit by this measure. A father who stays at home part-time to look after a disabled child or a son who looks after an invalid parent is classed as a carer and works fewer hours on account of it. If such people are working part-time on low wages, they could fall below the threshold. Similarly, a disabled person may fall below it because his ability to work a full week is impaired.
When I was in this place before, I was joint-chair of the all-party group on homelessness and enjoyed many hours of discussion with the hon. Member for Manchester, Central. I am still vice president of the Big Issue foundation. When one is trying to get people back into work who have been homeless one cannot expect them to go into full-time work straight away. There is a gradual progression as they work their way back, building up a few hours, starting on low paid work and getting better employment as they progress. Those who have been the most vulnerable people in society would fall foul of this measure.
The Bill specifically refers to the eight-week period. Someone's hours might have been cut for reasons such as economic downturn. They may have been earning well above the lower earnings limit but for that particular period of misfortune may fall foul of the measure simply because of an economic downturn. Finally, I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify what normal weekly earnings are. Does that exclude overtime? My assessment is that normal weekly earnings are the base income and so would not take account of overtime earnings. If someone has been off sick over that period it would bring down his earnings levels. There are many categories; it is not just people living in deprived areas. People who have
suffered all sorts of misfortune and difficult circumstances could suffer as a result of these measures.