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Rt. Hon. Stephen Byers - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Dec 1998 - Jun 2001)New Ways to Work conference |
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One of the great challenges we face is how we can help parents balance work and life. Today I want to set out what we have done to meet that challenge - and what more we will be doing. In particular I want to look at issues around statutory maternity pay and the issue of parental leave - and to launch a Government review of these areas. Finding ways to support the balance between work and family is part of our programme of modernising Britain. Building a better nation. One which provides opportunities for all. Pushing through reforms which reflect and support a modern, fair society. Laying the foundations of a more competitive economy. The world of work is changing dramatically. There are more women in employment than ever before - double the numbers 25 years ago. And set to grow further. More families depend on a woman's income. More women are returning to work after having a child - and 7 out of 10 say they'd even work if they could afford not to. They value the stimulation and social environment of work. More men want to take time off after the birth of their child or devote more time to looking after their son or daughter. And people are choosing to start families at a later age - and a later stage in their careers. The reality is that in order to get a better balance between the demands of work and family, some people want to work more. Other people want to work less. And others want to work in a more flexible way. No one working pattern is inherently more balanced than any other. It all depends on what will work for a particular employer and their individual employees. The right policies in this area will enable business to recruit and retain skilled staff and so increase productivity. There must be a balance between support for family life and protection of business from undue burdens. But that is a balance that some of the most successful businesses already strike. A survey of the hundred best companies to work for in America showed that these companies had significantly lower staff turnover rates. Higher stock market returns. Lower levels of sickness and absenteeism. And higher levels of productivity and profitability than their competitors. The message is clear. Companies that adopt family friendly employment practices and make their organisations good places to work, are also successful companies. Family friendly arrangements are the key to ensuring we have a motivated workforce. Working productively. Not sagging under the pressure of getting their own personal work-life balance right in a world where choice can not be easily exercised. The tension and struggle within so many families to balance the needs of work with those of children and other aspects of family life is one of the key issues of our day. Parents are having to juggle these responsibilities every single day. Government cannot solve all problems. But we can act to allow the preferences of mothers and fathers to be more effectively realized - to give parents the opportunity of exercising real choice. Choice which benefits families. Maternity pay and flexible working arrangements on return after birth can help to provide that choice - so that families are not faced either by a sharp drop in family finances at a time when they most need money to support children, or by having to forgo spending time with their children. And this is even more crucial for a parent bringing up a child on their own. Choice also benefits children. The first twelve months of a child's life are generally held to be the most formative stage. Proper care and support at this stage provides a sound foundation for future development. To provide this care, some mothers will want the choice of taking extended maternity leave. Other families, where both parents want to share the caring, need the choice of parental leave and flexible working arrangements. For others, choice means having access to a high standard of childcare. Of course it's not just in the first year that parents need parental leave, flexible working and childcare. Kids tend to be demanding throughout their lives! Family friendly policies are part of building a better Britain - ensuring children have the best possible start in lives, ensuring fathers as well as mothers can balance their caring responsibilities with work. We need to be clear that there is a business case for family friendly policies. Policies which can improve productivity and profitability. Let's be clear this an issue which affects the bottom line. Government policies This Government is committed to helping hard working families. That's why we've introduced personal tax and benefit changes which will mean that by 2001 households with children will on average be £850 a year better off. By spending an extra £7 billion a year on support for children, the Government is delivering more for those mothers and fathers who face the hardest choices , giving them more help and more opportunities in bringing up their children. We've introduced measures to support working parents. The Working Families Tax Credit. The Childcare Tax Credit. Our national childcare strategy. Measures to reduce the number of children born into poverty. Giving mothers more support in the choices they make about whether to stay at home and whether and how to return to work. Mothers on paid maternity leave who would otherwise fall into income support will now stay on working families tax credit. All working families - including those where the mother is the sole earner - should now benefit from the Working Families Tax Credit - providing a top-up to maternity pay. These families could be £30 better off in their child's first few week. Ensuring mothers are able to afford to take their maternity leave. The new Sure-Start maternity grant, provide £300 pounds for over 200,000 low income mothers. Uprating child benefit by record levels. We introduced the National Minimum Wage. Over two thirds of those benefiting are women - helping to reduce the pay gap between men and women to its narrowest ever; and two thirds of the beneficiaries are part-timers. New Working Time Regulations. Introducing paid annual leave, which we extended from three to four weeks last November. Extending the benefits to a total of 3.1 million people. Last week I announced new rights for part-time workers - 80% of whom are women. Ending discrimination on pay, pensions, training and holidays. In introducing these regulations, I have paid particular attention to the needs of families. I have extended the new rights to include all workers. This will ensure that some of the most vulnerable groups like homeworkers and agency workers will now receive full protection. And full-time workers who start working part-time will now be able to compare their new terms and conditions with their previous package. Helping women returning to work part-time after maternity leave. We've extended maternity leave by four weeks and reduced the qualifying period from two years to one year. A right to time off work to deal with a family emergency, starting from day one of employment. No longer will a working parent have to worry about losing their job if they are called away to care for a sick son or daughter or an ailing parent. We've introduced statutory rights to decent, minimum standards. But we can't just rely on legislation to provide a better work/life balance. We must develop more flexible approaches to solving these common problems. Imaginative ways of achieving our goals. Partnership Fund We need successful partnerships in which employers and employees recognise their common interest in the success of the business, and develop creative and co-operative ways of working towards common goals. That's the aim of our Partnership Fund, providing £5 million to support projects which foster partnership in the workplace and promote good practice. The Daycare Trust in partnership with the Maternity Alliance and New Ways to Work are one of the successful bidders in the first round of the Partnership Fund. I wish them well in their project to develop a training and consultancy programme to support employees and employers in balancing priorities at work and home. I can announce today the opening of the second round of the Partnership Fund. I will be particularly looking for projects which support work/life balance. This is one way of encouraging companies to support more flexible ways of working which match the wishes and circumstances of their staff with the needs and demands of their work. Best practice Not all companies need encouraging. More and more employers already see the legal the framework as a minimum - a basis on which to build arrangements which go further in allowing staff to balance work and home life. They don't do so through some sense of charity but because it makes good business sense. In a 1998 survey, 60 per cent of employers provided at least one form of flexible working arrangements. The benefits are clear. Ensuring that all staff can fulfil their potential; enabling the business to maximise the contribution of all; Ensuring the more effective use of resources, by tailoring the needs of the job and the individual more closely, and by using part time working imaginatively; Creating a more motivated, committed workforce; Promoting a forward looking working environment which helps to attract the best new recruits; Helping to retain the experience and expertise of staff who may otherwise leave; And reducing levels of stress - which in turn reduces absence rates and improves performance. These benefits are not just theoretical. They're real benefits which forward thinking employers are realising. And not just large employers. Many small firms may not have formal policy statements, but in practice they often have flexible working arrangements which are family friendly. Research in the UK and elsewhere has shown that family leave policies increase the likelihood of women returning to the same company after childbirth. The longer the period of leave and the greater the level of maternity pay women are entitled to, the more likely they are to return to work. Which means that companies do not lose the investment they have made in skills and training. Family friendly practices create a win-win situation. They benefit parents and their children. They benefit employers. And at minimal costs. In a 1998 survey, around three-quarters of managers said that having flexible working arrangements had only minimal - or zero - additional costs. 84 per cent said the arrangements were cost effective. And with the introduction of new technology, opportunities for flexible working, such as homeworking, are now greater than ever and costs lower. International Comparison Many UK businesses are realising the benefits of supporting women through maternity and enabling parents to balance their work with family commitments. For example, many of our firms support more flexible working hours. But we still lag behind other countries in many respects. Today I am issuing a comparison of entitlements across Europe. In the UK the entitlement to maternity leave at full pay works out at an average of 8.6 weeks - well below the average elsewhere in Europe. More importantly, there are big differences in the proportion of women returning to work after childbirth. The number of women who don't work because of family responsibilities is much higher in the UK than it is in Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and France. And in the UK the proportion of the female workforce who stop working if they have children under the age of two is higher than in Italy, Germany, Holland, Austria and France. Review of maternity pay and parental leave We need to look at what more we can do to help people to balance their work and family commitments. To take stock of where we are now - and consider how we can offer help and support to parents that will make a real difference. That's why, on behalf of the Government, I am undertaking a review of statutory maternity pay and parental leave and looking at flexible ways of working. I am working closely with Margaret Jay, the Minister for Women, on this. This will be a wide ranging review. Looking at new ways of doing things. Our objective must be to see how we can maximise choice for parents and provide support for business. Policies that underpin parents' choice, support the health and well being of families, improve the lives of children and support UK competitiveness. That promote equality and work/life balance and improve the functioning of the labour market. A recognition of the greater demand from women for a balance between work and life. And of the need to widen opportunities for fathers to play a greater role in home life. In particular, we will look at ways of increasing opportunities for women to rejoin the labour market. A majority of mothers want to work. Most employers want to retain their skilled staff. But - as the international comparisons show - we still have a lower level of women actually returning to work. We need to identify the barriers and ways of removing them. Evidence shows that the least well off, least educated women are least likely to return to work after having a baby. That the longer the period of leave women are entitled to, the greater their propensity to return to work. That maternity benefits have an impact on the likelihood of women returning to work and can contribute to women returning to lower-skill jobs and reduced pay levels - wasting skills and talent. And that women who return to the same employer are more likely to return to jobs at a level and status comparable to their previous job and end up with higher lifetime incomes. We need to clearly identify the barriers there are to women returning to work after childbirth. What the benefits are, for women, for their children and for their employer of returning part-time, working from home or on flexible hours. In addressing these issues we need to look at how we can provide more choice - choice when a baby is born and choice for those with young children. We must look at maternity and paternity leave and pay, and more flexible working arrangements. Looking at these issues alongside the measures we are already putting in place on childcare and benefits. We will take the same approach with paternity leave. We need a clear picture of were we are now: how many firms provide paid and unpaid paternity leave; how many fathers take paternity leave or take leave as holiday. And we need to understand how paternity leave can improve a father's relationship with their daughter or son. Some have made a case for paid paternity leave for different periods of time and using different payment methods. We will assess the likely merits and impact of these. And for those with young children, we need to look at parental leave. To consider how we can increase opportunities for parents to have time off with their children. The issue of paid parental leave has been raised recently; we will assess the merits of this and what the different options might be. And we need to consider what flexible working practices can best support mothers and fathers to balance work with their family. In all these areas our aim will be to identify how we can give parents more choice and promote the business benefits of flexible working and family friendly practices. In considering these options, a key principle will be to avoid putting any undue burdens on business - especially small firms. Parental leave, paid for by the State, for instance, would raise issues for firms - issues like finding cover and dealing with the administration. We will need to deal with such concerns. We need to win over hearts and minds - showing companies the business benefits of parental leave and maternity pay. We will look at how we can work with employers - to reduce administrative costs, help smaller firms, and support employer assisted childcare. We will look at all the options. Identify and maximise good practice. And look at international experience. As a former Chief Secretary at the Treasury, I feel duty-bound to point out that of course any changes to benefits would have to be paid for, within public expenditure restrictions. We do not have a blank cheque. But before we rule out anything we need to explore all the options. Our aim is to develop policies which address parents and employers' priorities. The only way to achieve this is through a wide ranging, open process . I want to involve as many people as possible in the review. I will be seeking ways of involving people across the country. This is crucial. In practice we can only make a difference if our proposals are based on consensus. A consensus between employers and parents. One that meets business's needs - large and small - and increases choice for families. My aim is to bring forward proposals developed with all interested parties which will provide choice for parents and also help business. Conclusion Gone are the days when most women stayed at home to look after children and men were the main bread earners. Today, for each family, the best options will differ - whether one or both partners work; whether they work shorter hours. Most parents want to be able to work and provide the best start for their children. Being able to choose what is best for their circumstances and for their children is important for parents. In a knowledge driven economy, with a tight labour market, it's also important for employers. Skilled staff are a business's greatest asset. An asset which employers can't afford to lose. That means offering greater flexibility to their employees. Flexibility which can help businesses to be more productive, more competitive, more innovative. In this new economy, Government's role is to enable people to make the choices which are best for them. To provide a framework which supports flexible working. To ensure affordable childcare. To make work pay. To provide minimum, decent rights at work. And to ensure that legislation doesn't hinder but actually supports flexible working. A framework which enables people and business to find new ways to work. Which supports the progressive companies who are already finding new ways to work, and encourages others to follow their example. Not telling parents what choices they should make. But ensuring they have the freedom to make the choices that they feel are right for them and their families. Not telling businesses what choices they should make. But enabling employers to maximise the benefits of a flexible workforce. No false choice between family and work. But real choice to ensure that being a caring and responsible parent can be combined effectively with the world of work. That is the Government's objective and I am confident that by working together it is one which we will achieve. |
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Other speeches by Rt. Hon. Stephen Byers - Former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Dec 1998 - Jun 2001)
(the following are available from the archive) |
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