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Adoption and Children Act 2002 (Consequential Amendment to Statutory Adoption Pay) Order 2006

I am most grateful to the Minister for his detailed introduction to the regulations and the order. The Explanatory Notes to the adoption and children order highlight that the change will close a potential loophole which could have allowed both members of an unmarried couple to receive statutory adoption pay. The order makes provision for unmarried and married adopters to be brought into line and, as such, will make life easier for employers. This is an order of little controversy to which we have no objection. The maternity and parental leave regulations essentially make welcome changes to the maternity and adoption provisions of the 1999 and 2002 regulations respectively which, as the Minister said, will apply to parents of children expected to be born or placed for adoption on or after 1 April 2007. Among other things, the regulations extend the period of notice that the employee is required to give the employer of her intention to return to work earlier than the end of her additional maternity leave from 28 days to eight weeks. They also increase flexibility by allowing an employee to work for up to 10 days during the statutory maternity leave period without bringing that period to an end as a result of carrying out that work. That is most welcome. I will not rehearse the debates that we had so recently during the passage of the Working Families Bill. Suffice it to say that, welcome though these measures are—we genuinely welcome them—we had and still have some concerns regarding the administration and working of the new arrangements, especially with regard to small businesses. During the passage of the Bill, my noble friend Lady Miller questioned the Government as to why they had seen fit seemingly to back away from agreed proposals with the CBI that, in order to reduce the administrative burden on employers, that function would be returned to the Inland Revenue. I should be most grateful if the Minister could comment on that. My noble friend also pointed out that 95 per cent of small employers have five employees or fewer. They do not have personnel departments or HR resources and the more regulation we put on them, the more difficult their position becomes. We also raised concerns about the complexity of additional paternity leave that we feel could be open to fraud. Therefore, can the Minister tell us what further discussion the Government have held or what representations they have received on the changes following the passage of the Work and Families Bill and whether they are satisfied that they have addressed any concerns raised? As I said, we welcome the changes, but we are conscious of the concerns of various organisations and will take care to keep an eye on the development of these proposals. I very much agree with the Minister that it is essential that we provide families, parents and carers with genuine choice and flexibility, so that they can balance their family life and work commitments as best they possibly can, and, as the Minister said, in a way that allows employers access to the widest pool of talent. But we also need to provide business with legislation that does not tie it up in acres of red tape and does not cost it its competitive edge.