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Pat McFadden MP, Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills
London, 12 November 2007
I know your organisation has had excellent relationships with my predecessors and we have worked together on taking forward the Government’s employment relations agenda.
I look forward to that relationship continuing in the future as we tackle the challenges ahead. And of course this agenda now resides in a new and refocused Department, where we must aim to be the Voice for Business at the Cabinet table. I hope you have seen the documents we published on 1 November, setting out the Department’s priorities and commitment.
What hasn’t changed is that economic success and long term prosperity depend on the success of fully functioning markets. Markets provide new, innovative and cheaper products and services, full and fulfilling employment and rising living standards. They drive productivity growth. Government has a role in helping people respond to the change that markets can bring, for example helping the vulnerable in society respond to increased globalisation.
We have to maintain fair and flexible labour markets and protect the vulnerable, because we see economic prosperity and fairness going hand in hand. But I acknowledge it is always a challenge to maintain a balanced approach.
On the domestic agenda, we have made a great deal of progress on implementing the measures contained in Success at Work. This sought to establish a balanced package for this Parliament and it remains our strategy.
Last month saw the legislation increasing annual leave entitlement coming into effect - bringing the lowest paid into line with the majority of the workforce. I am grateful for the EEF’s help in making this policy workable, and in ensuring that good employers that already give their staff generous holiday entitlements were not unduly burdened by the regulations. My Vulnerable Workers Enforcement Forum is looking at ways in which the enforcement of basic employment rights might be improved so that we can be more effective in targeting and tackling the rogues who undercut basic standards.
The main regulatory changes from Success at Work are now in place. That said, we have just announced our intention to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of older children. And we’ve appointed Imelda Walsh, the Director of HR at J Sainsbury, to lead an independent review on what the age cut-off for older children should be.
We also have more to do, and most crucially for you, on our ambitious programme of work looking at simplification of employment law. This has now reached an important stage with the confirmation, alongside last week’s Queen’s Speech, of our intention to introduce an Employment Bill.
The purpose of the Bill will be to simplify, clarify and build a stronger enforcement regime for key aspects of employment law.
The main benefits will be:
We will be publishing our response to the dispute resolution consultation shortly. With a fair wind, we hope to be in a position to introduce the Bill into Parliament in early December.
During the Simplification Review, our discussions with stakeholders revealed major concerns from lack of understanding of employment law. We identified that clear, succinct and well-publicised advice, guidance and on-line tools could go a long way to addressing this.
So for example, we have made available two new online tools:
But the level of ‘take up’ will be crucial. So alongside this, I am pleased that we have been given the resources over the next four years to promote employment law guidance, to market strategically what is available and to ensure those who need it are aware of it and can access it. We will also aim to ensure there is a strong element of customer feedback into future guidance.
We will continue to improve the content, delivery, awareness and management of government guidance and tools on employment law generally, in order to reduce costs, increase confidence and encourage compliance.
Turning now to the EU agenda, as many of you may be aware, the Agency Workers Directive is now back on the EU agenda under the Portuguese Presidency.
The Government’s position has not changed. We have made it clear on many occasions that we continue to support the underlying principles of the draft Directive and are committed to working with the European Commission to introduce appropriate rules to protect agency workers.
Proper implementation of the Directive's provisions in Europe is the only way to ensure a level playing field in agency legislation across the EU and the only way to ensure protectionist barriers to UK agencies and agency workers are dismantled.
With Working Time, I can assure you that here too the UK’s negotiating priorities have not changed. We will continue to fight for the retention of the individual opt-out and a solution to the problems caused by SiMAP/Jaeger.
It is not clear what the next steps on this dossier are. Portugal has indicated that they are keen to take forward negotiations, but only if they see a possibility for progress. They have taken soundings from Ministers around Europe but are yet to table a text for consideration – and are still to confirm categorically that they will actually do so.
We will of course continue to work hard with the Presidency, Other Member States and the Commission to ensure that all of our concerns are heard.
I would also like to thank you for your continued support on the Working Time Directive negotiations.
