(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons Chamber2. What steps she is taking to increase the number of female entrepreneurs.
We commissioned the Women’s Business Council to investigate how we can maximise women’s contribution to economic growth as they have a vital role to play. In response to the council’s recent excellent report, the Government will publish an action plan this autumn. It will highlight how we will improve web-based support for entrepreneurs and work with the British Bankers Association to improve women’s awareness of the financial support available to women entrepreneurs.
I thank the Minister for that answer. The Prince’s Trust is doing sterling work to support young entrepreneurs in the north-east, such as Emma Reilly in my constituency who set up a web-based design business with its support. It is worrying, however, that the Government’s new enterprise allowance is reaching only 30% of women. What are the Government going to do to ensure that that help reaches women to help more female entrepreneurs come into the market?
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Lady is being slightly uncharitable in saying that I gave way “eventually”. I took her intervention immediately on finishing my response to her hon. Friends. My approach is to take interventions because the function of Report stage is to ensure that amendments receive proper scrutiny, and I am determined to make sure that hon. Members can have those discussions and receive reassurances where there are concerns.
On the question about settlement agreements and the protections that remain, obviously the agreements should not be used in a way that results in an employee feeling under pressure or that they have to take the agreement. If there is any bullying behaviour or suggestion of discrimination, of course there would be no protection for that conversation. The hon. Lady asks about the definition of “improper”. The consultation on that is under way, and I encourage her to make her views known to it. In general terms, our aim is to reflect, without prejudice, unambiguous impropriety, which would include cases of discrimination and bullying, where there would be no protection for the employer.
The Minister is being very generous. Does she accept that, under the proposed arrangement, the conversation could come out of the blue for employees, with no warning that their performance may not be up to the standard or that they may not be performing in the manner that the employer requires; and that that will itself generate massive insecurity among the UK work force, which will serve to undermine growth, not aid it? No one will feel confident in buying a car or even a fridge if they think that the next day, out of the blue, they might have a conversation about their performance and be offered a settlement agreement which they feel they have no choice but to accept.
I recognise that the hon. Lady is genuine in raising her concern, but I think it is misplaced. Employees will not be forced to accept a settlement agreement; it is purely voluntary. She says the conversation will come out of the blue, but clearly we want employers to behave responsibly, with good employment relations and good human resource management. As I mentioned, we are taking steps to produce guidance to make it easier for employers to act in a proper way. The risk that an employee will go into work and their manager will say that they have issues with some aspect of the employee’s performance exists now. Employers and employees having confidence that they can have these conversations at an early point is better than their fearing the conversations, which allows problems to fester and grow.
The Minister talks about encouraging good and positive behaviour, but I am concerned that the measure encourages precisely the opposite sort of behaviour—that it will encourage an employer to approach an employee for the very first time about their performance with an offer to terminate their employment, rather than help them to improve it. There can be no doubt that there is inequality of arms in that conversation for a vulnerable individual who may be facing unemployment. Has the Minister properly considered that?
It has properly been considered. It is important to repeat that the protection is for conversations relating to a settlement agreement. A settlement agreement, by definition, is a negotiation, so it is unlikely to be a case of take it or leave it. The measure is about starting that conversation and enabling people to say, “We think this is an issue. Is this working out?” I think that enabling employers and employees to have those conversations without the fear described by many within the business community will improve management and not lead to the consequences the hon. Lady fears.
I encourage the hon. Lady to speak to employers in her constituency about the issue, which is raised frequently. As to evidence of employers’ fears of employment tribunals, let us look at the previous Government’s record in office. The fear of employment tribunals can put people off employing staff. If people are more likely to employ staff, they are more likely to grow their businesses and create wealth for this country. But let us look at the record of the Opposition. In 1998 there were 90,000 claims going to employment tribunals. By 2010, despite the measures that the Labour Government apparently took to try to improve that situation, the figure was 236,000—a huge jump in the number of tribunals, which of course has created a concern for businesses.
I would be interested to hear the Minister’s analysis of how many of those employment tribunal cases were equal pay claims that were rightly going through the tribunal system. On the evidence, or the apparent lack of evidence, about the genuine fear of employment tribunals, I wonder whether the hon. Lady is in fact making a case for better business support, rather than legislating to make it easier to sack people, which seems a little counter-productive to growth.
This is not about making it easier to sack people. This is about making it easier for people to come to a mutual agreement, which is, by definition, not sacking.
(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberI absolutely agree, and my hon. Friend makes his point very well indeed.
A large number of my constituents lack any formal educational qualifications. Such individuals, should they be already unemployed or, as is likely to happen in my region, should they be made redundant, will be hugely affected by the cuts announced to the DWP’s job creation and training schemes, which have been widely debated today. They will no longer have the necessary help to prepare themselves to take advantage of new opportunities arising from the eventual recovery, and that is especially concerning in relation to youth unemployment. The future jobs fund has been abandoned, and the £1,000 incentive for businesses to employ a person who has been unemployed for six months or more has been scrapped. Extended periods of unemployment and a lack of appropriate training mean that those vulnerable groups will be dangerously ill equipped to enter the future jobs market. The decision to ask the Department for Education to make huge cuts is also disproportionately damaging. It is clear that, because only 10,000 of the promised 20,000 extra university places are now available, access to higher education for state school pupils will inevitably be restricted.
I am listening to the hon. Lady with great interest. She is clearly making a passionate case, expressing her genuine concerns about the cuts, but she mentioned ideological cuts. Does she really have no ideological problem with the debt interest that this county pays out every year potentially rising to as much as £70 billion? That would mean £70 billion not spent on public services and a debt for the next generation in the north-east and elsewhere to repay.
I do not have an ideological concern about the debt that is the current deficit, although I share the concern of all Labour Members that the deficit needs to be reduced. Fundamentally, however, it needs to be reduced in a way that does not throw thousands or millions of people on to the scrap heap, in the way that they were left there in the 1980s. I know that this is not taken very seriously by Government Members, but generations of people were left on the scrap heap.