Clause 3 - Adoption Leave
Employment Bill
12:45 pm
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Employment and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
We thought that we were to have a re-run of the argument about excluding parents who adopt from overseas. The hon. Gentleman has rather thrown me because we had prepared for that argument. I shall dwell on that a little and perhaps inspiration will hit me. If I understand him correctly, he accepts that faulty wording has raised the issue of overseas adoptions, but he wants to know why conditions cannot be prescribed in the Bill, instead of using the wording:
''An employee who satisfies prescribed conditions''.
We need to retain flexibility on those conditions, not least because the Adoption and Children Bill is now passing through the House and it may lead to changes that need to be introduced into this legislation. A strict definition might therefore not be appropriate at this stage; we just need a licence that states ''satisfies prescribed conditions''.