Clause 30 - Flexible working
Employment Relations Bill
10:15 am
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk, Conservative)
I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point and explaining that there was a submission by the trade unions, because, in the documents that I looked at, there was not much mention of that. Will he tell us which trade unions were responsible for the submissions and the essence of their argument?
I am concerned about another point. Subsection (4) adds section 104C of the Employment Rights Act 1996 to the list. To qualify for the right to request flexible working, an employee need only have 26 weeks of continuous employment. I am not clear whether the right to flexible contracts comes into this at all. The Government have recently given employees the right to flexible working, or is that a totally separate matter? If it is a separate matter, are the Government saying that they are going to reduce the one-year qualifying period for flexible workers to 26 weeks simply because they feel that those flexible employees deserve more rights? If that is the case, I submit that it is not necessarily fair on many small and medium-sized enterprises and will lead to a greater burden on them.
That point has been debated on several occasions in this Committee. Conservative Members generally support much of what is in the Bill, but every now and again one comes across a provision that will make life more difficult for SMEs. Are employees pushing hard to have flexible working rights extended? Do they expect such rights to come into play after only 26 weeks? Employees have known for a long time that after one year they collect the full array of rights; that is something that we all support. Unless the Minister can convince me otherwise, it appears that changing the period to 26 weeks is not being introduced on the basis of substantial representation. I would like to know exactly which trade unions have been involved and exactly how the consultation took place.
The clause proposes a substantial extension of rights. We support the bulk of the clause, but we are not happy with subsection (4). That is why we tabled the amendment. We are concerned about extra burdens being put on SMEs, which the clause undoubtedly will do. There will be extra stress and strain for a substantial number of companies if rights are claimed in cases of a breakdown in relations between the employer and the employee. That is the essence of the amendment.