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Work and Families Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, for her comments. It seems to me that the Government are putting businesses before families. I do not believe that it would do families any good if businesses were put under undue pressure and were to go to the wall because of it. Families would then be left without jobs and incomes. That would not be a good idea. But given all the evidence of how beneficial flexible working and family friendly policies are to the economic success of businesses, I do not believe that the measure would create an undue burden. The Minister and I slightly disagree about the number of fathers who are taking their ordinary paternity leave. He keeps saying that 93 per cent of fathers take time off around the time the baby is born. That is not the same as taking their full two weeks’ paid paternity leave to which they are entitled. We know that a lot of them take paid holiday. To take the leave in individual days or two or three days here and there might be much more convenient for the employer. I noticed a chink of light in what the Minister said about that. He said that he would look again at that aspect of the flexibility for which I am looking to see whether opinion among businesses might change. That is an invitation to me to keep the pressure on. I noted what the Minister said about consequential amendments, but if the Government had been interested in the amendment, they would have proposed the consequential amendments. I would expect them to do so. The need for support for the mother does not diminish after 14 days, and in fact it can be even greater after 14 days, because over the 14 days she has very close attention from health visitors and the medical profession. It is only later that sometimes problems arise, either with breast feeding or coming off breast feeding and going on to other kinds of feeding. The Government are being completely unreasonable about the notice period. The mother can give only eight weeks’ notice of a change of her return to work, and the father can give only four weeks’ notice of a change of his intentions in regard to his ordinary paternity leave. Surely, then, double that amount would allow a business plenty of time to plan and manage that short amount of leave, especially if it was to be taken at times and in day blocks to suit the employer. The Minister and I will not have a meeting of minds on this, and I will not get anywhere because the Conservatives will not support me on it; quite clearly they too are putting business before families, which surprises me very much. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 13 [Annual leave]: