Given the lateness of the hour, 4 o’clock having come and gone, I can almost hear you wondering, Mr. Bercow, whether there is “honey still for tea”, or whether we have missed tea altogether. Notwithstanding the time, we will not be deflected from our determination to examine the matters with proper diligence.

Clause 49 raises an important issue. The explanatory notes say:

“For the purposes of Part 1, clause 49 enables regulations to state who is to be treated as the employer in relation to ways of working prescribed under clause 5, and to modify provisions in their application to these prescribed ways of working, to reflect different circumstances. One effect of this clause is that persons who are not normally regarded as employers (for example, the person in charge of a young person’s voluntary work)” would be liable to the same treatment as a more conventional employer, even though they might not be fitted or suited to deal with matters in an equivalent way. My probing series of comments is therefore designed to establish the circumstances in which organisations might be affected in an way that would not be equitable.