Part of Export Licensing: High Court Judgment – in the House of Commons at 5:19 pm on 10 July 2017.
Tracy Brabin
Shadow Minister (Education)
5:19,
10 July 2017
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the most recent session of questions to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I raised the case of local employers misleading workers about their right to holiday pay. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Margot James, assured me that the Government
“have increased the powers open to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enforce those rights.”—[Official Report,
However, I subsequently received a written answer from the same Minister stating:
“HM Revenue and Customs has no powers to sanction companies for withholding holiday pay.”
The Minister has given me two answers stating the complete opposite of each other, in the space of a few days. Clearly, one or other of those answers must be wrong, and, although I am relatively new to this place, I was given to understand that Ministers were under a particular obligation not to mislead the House, even if inadvertently. More important, this leaves us unable to say for certain what the Government are actually going to do about the problem that I raised. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, on whether there is any way of bringing the Minister back to the House to tell us which of her answers is final?
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