Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many businesses have been fined for underpaying staff in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Enforcement of the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage (NMW) is a priority for this Government. HMRC enforce the NMW on behalf of BEIS; in 2018/19 we increased HMRC’s enforcement budget to a record high of £26.3 million. HMRC responds to 100% of worker complaints.
In the financial year 2017/18, HMRC closed 2,402 cases and identified £15.6 million in arrears of wages for over 200,000 workers. This is the largest amount of money recovered for the highest number of workers since the NMW came into force. HMRC issued financial penalties in 810 of these cases, with a record total value of just under £14.1 million.
Further details are available in the published document below:
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of statutory leave and pay provisions for parents whose baby is admitted to neonatal care; and whether the Government plans to extend those provisions to cover the entirety of the baby's stay in hospital.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Department is conducting a short, focussed internal review of the provisions for parents of premature babies and sick babies and those that experience multiple births. The purpose of this work is to obtain a high-level understanding of the barriers to participating in the labour market that these parents can face. It would not be appropriate to announce future policy without first establishing an appropriate evidence base.
BEIS officials are working with organisations who represent the interests of these parents (The Smallest Things, Bliss, and TAMBA) to better understand the issues that parents can face and have also held focus groups with a small number of parents themselves. This will inform our policy consideration.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when his Department plans to publish its evaluation of shared parental leave.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
We intend to publish the findings from the evaluation later in 2019.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if his Department has plans to undertake a review of the effectiveness of shared parental leave.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is currently evaluating the Shared Parental Leave and Pay scheme. Amongst other things the evaluation will look at take up rates for the scheme, barriers to take up and how the scheme is being used in practice. Based on this information, the evaluation will assess whether the scheme has met its objectives.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the proportion of men that have taken up full statutory paternity leave in each year for which information is available.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The most recent official data on length of family-related leave taken by parents is from the Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey in 2009, which collected data from parents of children born in 2008 across Great Britain.
This shows that in 2008, 73% of fathers who took some time off used paternity leave. Of fathers who took paternity leave, 50% took two weeks of leave, 16 per cent took more than two weeks and 34 per cent took less than two weeks.
We are currently commissioning a new survey which will provide updated information on family related leave and pay entitlements including Paternity Leave.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to encourage more fathers to take shared parental leave.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Between February and April 2018, we ran a £1.5m paid for communications campaign to promote Shared Parental Leave and Pay to eligible parents. This was supported by the publication of revised tools and guidance which make it easier for parents to understand and access the scheme.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what proportion of men entitled to shared parental leave have taken such leave since its introduction.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
The Government does not routinely collect data on the take up of Shared Parental Leave. However, we have started to evaluate the Shared Parental Leave and Pay schemes and, subject to the progress of data collection, we anticipate publishing findings in Spring 2019.
In the Impact Assessment published in 2013, the Government estimated that 285,000 working couples would be eligible for Shared Parental Leave in each year.
Based on information provided by employers to HM Revenue & Customs, Statutory Shared Parental Pay was claimed by the following numbers of individual male employees between April 2015 and January 2018:
Tax Year | Number of male recipients of Statutory Shared Parental Pay |
2015- 2016 | 4770* |
2016-2017 | 6140 |
2017-2018** | 5610 |
Notes:
*Data collected for 2015-16 does not distinguish between claims for Statutory Shared Parental Pay and Additional Statutory Paternity Pay (its predecessor).
**Figure for 2017-2018 does not include data for February and March 2018.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many photovoltaics installations through Green Deal plans provided by Home Energy Lifestyle Management Systems were undertaken in Lanark and Hamilton East constituency.
Answered by Claire Perry
Since the start of the Green Deal in 2013, the following number of homes received photovoltaics through Green Deal plans provided by Home Energy Lifestyle Management Systems in the constituencies requested:
Lanark and Hamilton East | 30 |
Rutherglen and Hamilton West | 227 |
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many photovoltaics installations through Green Deal plans provided by Home Energy Lifestyle Management Systems were undertaken in Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency.
Answered by Claire Perry
Since the start of the Green Deal in 2013, the following number of homes received photovoltaics through Green Deal plans provided by Home Energy Lifestyle Management Systems in the constituencies requested:
Lanark and Hamilton East | 30 |
Rutherglen and Hamilton West | 227 |