Clause 2 - Statutory paternity pay
Employment Bill
10:30 am
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Employment and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
The same argument—that 92 per cent. of costs should be recoverable—applies to statutory maternity leave, a provision introduced by a Conservative Government. There are benefits to employers in better staff morale, recruitment, retention and so on. However, the point that I am laboriously repeating—I am boring myself, never mind members of the Committee—is that we have sought to mirror the maternity leave provisions, so that employers faced with a woman seeking to take maternity leave and a man seeking to take paternity leave do not have to comply with two different sets of regulations. We have largely married them up.