Employment Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 145, in page 14, line 8, at end insert—
'(4) Regulations under section 75A or 75B shall provide that a person suffer no detriment by virtue of taking ordinary adoption leave but shall not be protected from any detriment that he would have suffered had he not been taking ordinary adoption leave.'.
The amendment deals with a matter that we have before discussed slightly differently. The Bill provides for regulations to deal with resumption of employment, seniority, pension rights and so on, but it does not state what principle will be followed in making those regulations. I understand the principle involved to be that no detriment should be suffered, but equally that being absent should not gain an employee any advantage over colleagues who were present at work and not taking adoption, paternity or maternity leave. An additional subsection has been inserted to allow the Minister to say that that is so and to tell the Committee how, in practice and in principle, the Government expect the provisions to work.