Clause 7 - funding of employers' liabilities
Employment Bill
6:15 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The Minister has made the best argument for leaving the subsection as it is—that it is consistent with what is already there. I have had that argument with many other Ministers in debating Bills. There is a point in saying, that a broad, permissive power will be exercised in certain ways, but there is no point in simply reiterating specific cases that the Secretary of State may use his powers to address, because he is being granted substantial and all-embracing powers.
I do not know why that provision was included in the original maternity pay provisions, but it seems to me to be merely a statement of intent of the kind that, for much of the Bill, has been made in the explanatory notes. A provision could say that regulations under some other subsection ''may'' make provision for the statutory rate of pay to be £X or ''may'' make provision for the number of qualifying weeks of employment to be 26, but it could say something else. That gets us nowhere, except to give us an indication of the Government's broad thinking.
I think that that makes the point in relation to the general ''shall'' or ''may'' debate. As soon as the word becomes ''shall'', it has a structural purpose. I think that the Minister has answered the point that I was addressing in amendment No. 175. Because penalties are attached to failure to produce records later on, and I have a later amendment limiting that to records that are required to be kept, I wanted to be sure that the Government intend to make regulations to define the records that are to be kept, so that there is not open-ended jeopardy with regard to record-keeping and production. If I have understood the Minister correctly, he is confirming that the Government intend to define the records that will need to be kept under the provisions of this part of the Act.
I have got into the habit of speaking to clause stand part debates, and had forgotten that this was an amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 8 and 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.