Did you mean Skipton and rippon?
Norman Lamb: ...of the CBI told the Committee: “We very much welcome the proposed merger...It should help to reduce duplication, in particular, which is our members’ key frustration with the current system”, and Mike Cherry from the FSB said: “We would very much welcome the merging of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission.”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory...
Ian Murray: ...fee: it gives me some comfort that this additional hurdle of fees will not be inserted if a settlement agreement is refused in that process. Employers will have to be well educated on these issues and given support and encouragement to make sure that they are used correctly. The last thing we would want would be to put this mechanism in place and for employees then to fall foul of not...
Norman Lamb: ...grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will try to reassure him on how we envisage the measure working. I think that he will see that it is intended to be the exception, not the rule, and that its design fully recognises the position of small businesses, particularly those without an HR function. I will deal with that during the course of my comments. The hon. Member for...
Ian Murray: ...Minister for his reassurances. He has said that non-payment is a problem. We would all agree with that. He has also said that non-payment is an unresolved problem. I know that the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon will want to blame the Labour Government for that. We have tried a fast-track system, which is working to a certain extent, but not to the full extent that we would wish. There...
John Cryer: ...Minister has said many times that we have been spending far too much time with lawyers. In my case, he is probably right, because I am married to one. The fact is that there are many decent lawyers and trade union officers, as my hon. Friend mentioned, who represent people in very difficult circumstances and get compensation for them. I want to clarify a point I made in an earlier...
Ian Murray: ...Browne-Wilkinson, who was the President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. It may well appear in other documentation from the TUC, but that particular piece of information came from a long-standing lay member of the EAT system—he has been a member for 16 years—and I will circulate that information to the Committee for the sake of clarity and confidence. [Interruption.] He does have an...
Norman Lamb: First of all, I will pick up one or two of the points that the shadow Minister has raised. I want to clear up a possible misunderstanding. The rapid resolution process would be confined—of course, everything will go through consultation before any scheme is introduced—to a subset of simple claims that currently go to the employment tribunal, including “wages at” claims and holiday...
Ian Murray: It is wonderful that we have modern technology and that a constituent from a neighbouring constituency has made contact. In accordance with parliamentary protocol, I could not possibly comment on a constituent of my colleague and hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore). Again, I challenge the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon. If he can send us the information, which we...
Norman Baker: ...Penning), might take that pint rather than me, although I am always happy to have a pint of Theakston’s—or anything else for that matter. I agree that early involvement with business is helpful and desirable, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon on the work he has done on the issue. I know that my colleague, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead, wrote to...
Ian Murray: ...absolutely delighted by that intervention, because it is exactly the point that I am coming to. While the hon. Gentleman was enthralled by my contribution, he did not see that the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon was nodding in agreement at what I said. He said earlier that if claimants refuse, it should be made clear on the form what the refusal was in order for that to be able to...
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: ...requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply. Letter from Stephen Penneck, Director General for ONS, to Lord Roberts of Llandudno, dated June 2012. As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Questions asking how many job vacancies for those aged between 16 and...
Iain Wright: The Minister, as ever, has been incredibly eloquent in defending his position, but I am somewhat disappointed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale said, it sends out a clear message to small and medium-sized businesses. In an enterprise Bill, one of the key things that it could do is ensure that the legislative framework is as conducive to supporting SMEs and the general enterprising...
Julian Smith: With all due respect, you are so living in a parallel universe on what small businesses in this country need. You can come to Skipton and Ripon any day you want and I will introduce you to risk takers who definitely need this burden lifted. Can I clarify very clearly the points you made about settlement agreements? To summarise, you are all positive about settling pre-tribunal, whether...
Norman Lamb: I am afraid I do not have time. I need to get through the responses. This Government are determined to support parties to resolve their disputes between themselves, rather than relying on a costly and time-consuming employment tribunal. A tribunal is an admission of failure and everything must be done, where practical, to prevent having to resort to it. The mediation of disputes retains...
John Hayes: The following table shows the number of apprenticeship programme starts aged under 19 in (i) Harrogate and Knaresborough, Selby and Ainsty, and Skipton and Ripon parliamentary constituencies which comprise Harrogate district, (ii) North Yorkshire local authority and (iii) England for academic year 2010/11, the latest full year for which final data are available. Apprenticeship programme...
Danny Alexander: This has been a good debate, with many contributions from all parts of the House. I would particularly single out the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Solihull (Lorely Burt) and for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), and of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who I see in his place. Towards the end of the debate, the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said how...
James Brokenshire: I welcome you to the Chair, Ms Clark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on raising a number of significant and important questions relating to the Association of Chief Police Officers to which I will respond. My hon. Friend has made a number of criticisms about the leadership of the police service in England and Wales, but I welcome his positive...
Anne McGuire: Does my hon. Friend recognise that although the investments mentioned by the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) are welcome, increased growth in jobs will come from the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, where there is a complete depression in confidence and job growth? It is all very well to comment on the large investments, but the stimulation should come from those...
Helen Goodman: Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer found extra money to extend superfast broadband to small cities, but, as the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) said, the real digital divide today is between those with broadband and those without. Peter Cochrane, former chief technical officer at BT, giving evidence in the other place, described access as “a fundamental human...
Mark Prisk: ...on whether Birmingham city council should lead in this field, as part of the LEP. That delayed it by six or eight weeks. We wanted to ensure that we did not just do something from Whitehall and ignore that local expertise. It has now agreed to take on a core of the initiative and will be able to mount something very shortly. There has been a little delay, which I think is rightly because...
