Clause 2 - Statutory paternity pay
Employment Bill
11:00 am
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Employment and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
We have debated that question in respect of several clauses. We have to cater for all eventualities, and it is right to give ourselves some flexibility. At the moment, I cannot think of any circumstances in which we would move away from such a link, but it would be dangerous to cut off the option.
Amendment No. 147 tries to do two separate things, the first of which is to define the phrase ''average weekly earnings''. I hope that I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman that the amendment is unnecessary in that respect. Clause 4, which will insert a new section in the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, defines ''normal weekly earnings'' in a manner almost identical to the amendment. I know that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is concerned about the difference between ''normal'' and ''average'', and I shall return to that issue when I deal with amendment No. 138.
Hon. Members might also be concerned about ''earnings''. For the purposes of statutory paternity pay, that word will be construed in exactly the same way as for statutory maternity pay. As with statutory maternity pay, the definition will be set out in regulations, and will define earnings as gross earnings including any remuneration or profit derived from an employee's employment.
The second part of the amendment is opaque, but the hon. Gentleman clarified it when he spoke. He suggested that employers should include any earnings that their employees may have gained from self-employment in calculating and administering statutory paternity pay, which would be a significant departure from the precedent set by maternity pay. If the man in question is or has been genuinely self-employed—he would be an employed earner but would also be self-employed in another capacity—it is difficult to see how his employer could know his earnings from self-employment and make the calculations necessary to account for them.
The hon. Gentleman proposes that employers should be responsible for administering the entirety of their employees' pay, and that would be burdensome on business. Most likely, it would also be totally unnecessary because we are discussing calculations for people who qualify for the lower 90 per cent., and they must earn less than £111 at current rates. The amendment would add many complex burdens to address a small, if not entirely absent, problem.