Clause 45 - Fixed-term work
Employment
4:30 pm
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Employment and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
Yes. I was just going to mention that. If it were not in a fixed-term employee's interests to join an occupational pension scheme, he or she might not wish to join, because of the probable need to make employee contributions. The regulations will require
employers to offer access to occupational pension schemes to fixed-term employees on the same basis as permanent ones unless different treatment is objectively justified. They will not require an alternative reward to be offered if the employee chooses not to join. In the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman described, that will often be the case. There is no question of a package approach or offering alternative arrangements. The employee has simply chosen not to join the scheme for good reasons.
The draft regulations provide that less favourable treatment in relation to particular contractual terms will always be justified where the fixed-term employee's overall package of terms and conditions is no less favourable than that of the comparable permanent employee. Providing that that is the case, employers will be able to balance a less favourable condition against a more favourable one. An employer and a fixed-term employee could therefore agree an employment package in which other benefits compensated the employee for lack of access to an occupational pension scheme.
The same qualifying period for employment benefits will have to apply to fixed-term as to permanent employees unless different periods can objectively be justified. If permanent employees have to serve a waiting period before they have access to occupational pension schemes, the same period may be applied to fixed-term employees, unless a longer period is objectively justified. That gives some explanations of how that will work in practice.
I cannot resist making some comments in answer to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), who, in making a point about gold-plating, said that we were acting at the behest of the Trades Union Congress. I want to put it on the record that in the summer we were accused by the Confederation of British Industry of being too close to the TUC. Indeed, the president of the CBI said that there were reds under the bed at the Department of Trade and Industry, and that the same bed was being shared with the TUC. We were also accused recently of being the provisional wing of the CBI. Given that we are being attacked from both sides, we must be getting matters just about right.