New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill

Graeme Downie Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson]

I take the hon. Member’s point on board entirely, and agree with him. This Bill is limited to residential new builds; I was very conscious that in the public sector, the cost of initial installation would be borne by the taxpayer. He was right to reference schools. In my constituency, Bournside school is installing a huge ground source heat pump. That is a national, leading case study. He is right that it is important that young people understand what is going on. With regard to industry standards, we need to make sure that there is an industry-wide regulator and a certification scheme. The industry needs proper regulation to give consumers confidence in the product.

Supply chains were mentioned. To give supply chains, the construction industry and developers time to adjust, the Bill proposes that the regulations apply from 1 October 2026. Ministers may have comments on whether that is a realistic timescale—they might want to make it longer. I am sure that there will be a discussion.

Reasonable exemptions need to apply, including for very tall buildings; for buildings on which it would not be economical to install solar panels, due to roof size or other factors; and for buildings that had other forms of renewable energy generation installed that were more appropriate for that setting. Where buildings cannot physically accommodate solar panels that cover at least 40% of the building’s ground-floor area, the Bill requires that solar panels are installed to the maximum extent possible.

It is important to take part in some myth busting. To dispel one big myth about solar panels, they do not always need a clear, sunny day to work; they will continue to work in overcast, cloudy conditions. I think we can all agree that that is good news for this country. To dispel another myth, solar panels can be installed to good effect on north-facing roofs, although efficiency will be a little lower.

The overwhelming strength of the case for the measure means that the sunshine Bill has gathered support from industry. Over Christmas, several businesses and industry organisations signed an open letter to the Government in which they declared their support for the Bill. I am grateful for the support of the MCS Foundation, Solar Energy UK, Eco2Solar, E.ON Next and Ecotricity. I am particularly grateful to the MCS Foundation for its assistance and advice on technical matters in these last few months.

[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for letting me interrupt his excellent speech, which is loaded with fantastic puns that I would be very proud of. What discussions has he had with industry on making sure that we have the correct skills pipeline, so that we have enough installers and other people required to ensure that solar panels are installed efficiently and effectively, and to maximise the economic benefit to this country?

[Max Wilkinson]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. He will recall that if we go back more than a decade, there was a thriving solar energy industry in this country. Sadly, we have taken steps back over the last few years when it comes to the skills pipeline. I know that issue is on this Government’s agenda, and I welcome that. On the date on which we might look at this, we hope that further education colleges will put on courses to train people up, and that there would be more industry work, too.

Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill

Graeme Downie Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Ensuring that electors can vote is fundamental to our democracy. Although most of us choose to vote in person, many people face barriers that prevent them from doing so. In October 2023, the online absent voting application services were launched, giving voters the option to apply online for their postal or proxy vote for the first time. The services allowed people the choice to apply online or to use the existing option to apply through a traditional paper application, should they wish. The services are currently available for electors in Great Britain for United Kingdom Parliament elections and for police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales. In England, voters can also use the services to apply for a postal or proxy vote in all local elections.

The value of the new online absent voting application services was made very clear in the 2024 general election, not long after their launch. Data published by the Government show that over 1.5 million people in Great Britain made an application to vote by post or by proxy vote in the run-up to the general election last year. Between 22 May—the day the election was called—and the deadline for absent vote applications, 84% of postal vote applications and 93% of proxy vote applications were made using the online service. It is clear that electors found it effective, with over 90% of those using it during that period recording that they were satisfied with the service.

For voters in Scotland and Wales, the option to use the digital route for absent voting arrangements is limited. An elector in Scotland or Wales who wants a postal or proxy vote for a devolved Parliament or local election is still required to fill out a paper application form and physically send it in to be processed. The Bill would end the inconsistency and give voters in Scotland and Wales an equal choice in how they apply for an absent vote for use in the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and local elections.

[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does she agree that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Please be seated, both of you. Ms Gilbert, when you take an intervention, which is your choice, you must sit down.

[Graeme Downie]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is vital to ensuring that everyone in Scotland, Wales and across the UK has every opportunity to vote in elections, and that we must continue to do all we can through schools and other means of encouragement to make sure that people fully understand the democratic process and that it is accessible at all times and in all ways?

[Tracy Gilbert]

Yes, I do agree. The Gould review and report made it clear that making voting accessible to everyone, particularly young and disabled people, is critical to encouraging as many people as possible to vote.

The Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru are both holding their parliamentary elections in May 2026, and it would be a great benefit to voters and electoral administrators alike if access to the online services were to be provided in time for those polls. This is not about forcing electors down a specific route to apply; all electors would continue to be able to make an absent vote application on paper if they wished. All the Bill would do is give them an additional option to apply online.

One consideration that I must emphasise is the importance of devolution. It is absolutely right that responsibility for local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru is devolved to those bodies. The Bill was carefully drafted to respect that, and the requirements for legislative consent in respect of relevant parts of the Bill will duly be followed. The Bill would give the Welsh and Scottish Governments powers to enable applications for postal and proxy votes for devolved elections to be made digitally through the new online services.

There are two further aspects to the Bill. First, regulations made under the Bill would require electors applying for an absent vote for devolved elections in Scotland and Wales to provide their national insurance number as part of their application. To be clear, that identity checking requirement is not the same as voter identification at polling stations, where photographic identification must be produced. Instead, it is an up-front check at the point the postal or proxy vote application is made, and simply requires the applicant to provide their national insurance number. The same requirement applies to absent voting applications for reserved elections and has been in place for applications to register to vote for devolved and reserved elections since 2014.

Secondly, the Bill would align the renewal cycles for devolved elections with the three-year cycles in place for reserved elections. Instead of having to refresh their signature every five years, electors would instead have to reapply for their postal voting arrangement every three years. That is done to avoid confusing electors and to ensure that the signature held on file is recent.

The measures in the Bill have been discussed with Scottish and Welsh Ministers, who have agreed to every element. Through the Bill, we can end the divergence and remove burdens on voters in Scotland and Wales. The Bill will remove inconsistencies across our democracy and ensure that it is modern, secure, transparent and fair. I commend the Bill to the House.

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[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

rose—

[Graeme Downie]

rose—

[Patricia Ferguson]

I give way.

[Patricia Ferguson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention—I was rather spoilt for choice. I absolutely agree: young people will think that. Young people are particularly used to signing up online and think that once they have done something online, it is probably there in perpetuity. In most cases, they are correct; in this, they are not. The Bill will help to resolve that issue.

I mentioned that we are going to have Scottish Parliament and Welsh parliamentary elections in 2026, but in Scotland, those elections will be quickly followed by local authority elections in 2027, so it is very important that the Bill is enacted in time for those elections to use this new system. This is a crucial step towards ensuring a consistent and straightforward voting process for people in Scotland and Wales.

[Graeme Downie]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—and other Members for not asking her to give way at the same time. During the most recent general election campaign, an awful lot of time was spent explaining to voters exactly which elections they were signed up for, which ones they had postal votes for, where they had to sign up again, whether that could be done online, which confirmation they had to wait for and various other things. That caused extra complexity for returning officers and deputy returning officers in Fife, where there were many conversations, wasting a lot of time for candidates of all parties, to ensure that we all understood the process. Does she agree that this will make the process much simpler for everyone?

[Patricia Ferguson]

I agree that this will make it simpler. I think back to a number of conversations I heard or had on the doorstep on the issue. I thought I had begun to get my head around the situation, but I then heard colleagues who were knocking doors with me trying to explain it to citizens on the doorstep, and it became clear to me that perhaps I had not explained it properly to them. We all have a role to play, and anything we can do to make this process more obvious, more accessible and simpler will be very helpful.

I know from last year’s general election, Deputy Presiding Officer—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; old habits die hard—how important postal and proxy votes are to voters in my communities of Glasgow West, which had the largest number of registered postal voters in the city of Glasgow. As I said earlier, that perhaps reflects the ageing demographic in parts of my constituency. Voters should never be hindered in casting their vote by an overly complicated system, and this Bill is a major step forward in reducing that complexity. It is vital that every eligible voter has easy access to the democratic process, and this Bill will help to achieve that.

I was first elected in 1999 to another Parliament, and over the years I have worked with many returning officers and seen for myself the work that they and their staff do, year in, year out. Even when there are not elections on, they are preparing, and ensuring that electoral registers are up to date and the processes for postal and proxy votes are in place. I thank all the returning officers I have worked with over the years and their staff for everything they do to make the process as efficient as possible. Hopefully, today, with the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith and her Bill, we will help them to make that process even better.

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

I commend the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) to ensure that we debated this issue today. We must continue to break down the barriers to voting, to ensure increased engagement with and turnout at every form of election in all the nations of the UK. In my first speech in the House, I referred to the issue of turnout at the general election. We all have a duty to look, across all the systems we have in place, at how we can increase engagement with the political process, and with voting.

I am acutely aware of the importance of increasing engagement with our elections. My constituency of Glasgow North saw a turnout of around 50% at the last general election. That may have been in part due to a summer election in a constituency that contains a large amount of student accommodation, at which people are registered but not present. It remains incumbent on the House to continue to look at the electoral system to promote greater engagement in every election.

The Bill is important for making it easier to engage with our democracy for groups in Scotland and Wales who face barriers of accessibility to the voting system. I have mentioned the summer election happening while students were away, but when they are in student accommodation, they are away from their home, which may be where they are registered. Encouraging their access to proxy and postal voting is important in engaging them.

[Graeme Downie]

The point my hon. Friend makes about students during the summer is absolutely correct. Did he find on the doorstep, during the most recent general election, isolated incidents of families in Scotland having gone away on holiday, as it was during the Scottish school holidays, which are different from those in other parts of the United Kingdom? Does he also agree that the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) would help us to deal with that problem, as well as helping to deal with the issue in places where there are increased numbers of students?

[Martin Rhodes]

I agree with my hon. Friend. An issue raised during the election was that the period for applying did not allow much time for many families to apply who had booked to go away at the beginning of the school holidays. The Bill would make online applications easier and speedier.

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[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for introducing the Bill, and for the work that has gone in to it, which I welcome, particularly as a Welsh MP for a rural constituency.

Thinking about the history of parliamentary reform, my hon. Friend is a modern-day Chartist woman. She is a fantastic woman in this place, and she is absolutely right that voting—the mechanism by which people exercise their electoral preference or express their sense of civic duty—is the backbone of our democracy. Ensuring that electors can exercise that democratic right is essential, and an important part of it is recognising that many people face barriers that prevent them from voting in person.

Thanks to the online absent vote application services enabled by changes in the Elections Act 2022, voters have the option to apply online for a postal or proxy vote in Great Britain for UK parliamentary elections, police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales, and local elections in England. If electors do not wish to apply online for an absent voting arrangement, the existing option to apply via a traditional paper application remains available to them. These services allow people to choose whichever route they find easier.

However, as has already been pointed out, there is an anomaly for voters in Wales and Scotland, which limits the extent of the digital application option for absent voting arrangements. While electors living in Scotland or Wales can apply online for a postal or proxy vote for general elections, they cannot do so for devolved parliamentary or local elections. I feel very strongly about that. In the Senedd parliamentary reform is happening and a great deal of change will come about, and I feel that there should be equality for everyone in the United Kingdom in respect of devolution.

[Graeme Downie]

I think we both hope that this fantastic Bill is passed today and continues its parliamentary journey, but will my hon. Friend join me in urging both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Senedd to do all that they can to provide additional education and accessibility so that everyone can access the voting arrangements correctly?

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I welcome that intervention, especially because we are talking about many groups who do not access their right to vote. I am proud of the fact that in Wales and Scotland people can vote from the age of 16. I used to be a schoolteacher, and I know how important it is to have that democratic conversation with young people so that they understand their rights. It is important for a strong message to come from both the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Government, because their voices need to be heard, and the same applies to people who are unable to vote because of a disability. It is incumbent on our other Parliaments to proceed with what is a very big piece of work.

As it stands, my constituents in Gower—a rural constituency containing many remote areas—who wish to vote via post or proxy in the upcoming Senedd elections in 2026 will still be required to fill out a paper application form and physically send it to be processed. That is time-consuming and people do not always do it. This lack of parity is unfair to electors in Wales and Scotland who should have the option of a digital route for absent voting arrangements in their devolved parliamentary or local elections. It is also not good for overall democratic health. We know that some people are deterred from voting if they encounter barriers in the run-up to an election or polling day.

That inconsistency presents a barrier to voting that would, in some cases, contribute to people not voting at all. I welcome the Bill because it seeks to end that disparity and give voters in Wales and Scotland equal choice in how they can apply for an absent vote in devolved and local elections. With both the Senedd Cymru and Scottish Parliament elections coming up in May 2026, we should be doing all that we can to remove disincentivising barriers and to make the process of electors exercising their right to vote as smooth as possible.

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[Ruth Cadbury]

I know that the RNIB has campaigned for many years to improve accessibility to elections for people with sight loss. I do not know whether this Bill will actually make the change that my hon. Friend desires, because it brings the Scottish and Welsh systems up to the standard that we have in England, and I know that the RNIB is not yet satisfied with the process. If people have chosen not to have a postal vote, a lot depends on whether the polling clerks at the election centre feel confident enough to help those with sight loss to vote if they do not want to do so with a family member, neighbour or friend.

I have stood as a candidate in 11 elections, and I have won every one of them. I have also campaigned in many more general elections, council elections, by-elections and London Assembly elections, and I have helped colleagues in by-elections across the country. When I first started, there was no such thing as online voter registration—in fact, there was no online anything. I attended statistics classes at university, and computing then involved stacks and stacks of cards—I do not know how many Members remember that. It took another 15 years, roughly, for most of us to understand what the internet was. It has only been since 2023, I think, that one can register online for a postal or proxy vote. We cannot underestimate the importance of being able to register for a postal or proxy vote with ease.

[Graeme Downie]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about accessibility and the need for proxy votes. I did some research on this issue prior to today, and I discussed with a constituent the difficulty that people with autistic spectrum disorder experience when voting. They have a lot of anxiety about going into polling stations and the potential complications that they face when making sure that they are able to exercise their democratic voice. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must do everything we can to support those with autistic spectrum disorder, to make voting as accessible as possible?

[Ruth Cadbury]

Absolutely. Many neurodiverse people find the process of voting difficult, and that is one example of why postal voting is so valuable to so many people.

Up until 2001, one needed approval from either a doctor or an employer to be able to get a postal vote. People could not just say that they would prefer, or would find it easier, to vote at home; they had to justify that, which was easier said than done. There were huge discrepancies in whether doctors could sign off such a request, and in whether employers were prepared to say that an employee would be away and unable to vote in person on election day. We have seen a huge improvement. Only 2% of voters had postal votes before the change, but the figure had grown to almost 20% by the time of the 2010 general election. We have, over the years, made postal voting easier.

The variation is quite high: 50% of voters in Sunderland vote by post, while only 8% of voters in Lewisham do so. The most important thing of all—and why postal votes make such a difference to engagement in our democracy—is that 80% of people who have a postal vote use it. Would we not like that kind of overall voter turnout? That is hugely important.

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[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward this wonderful Bill. It is important to say that this Bill is fundamentally about making it easier to vote in Scotland and Wales. It would improve the situation for residents in those areas by allowing them to vote by post and proxy in a way that they would not necessarily be able to at the moment.

I grew up in south Wales, so this issue is close to my heart. I was consistently impressed when I was growing up by the work of the Electoral Commission, or as it would rightly be known in Wales, Y Comisiwn Etholiadol. I must declare that I had a special closeness to the Electoral Commission, because during the noughties my mother was the leader of the Wales office, so the fact that I had great respect for its work is maybe a little close to home.

In the 2000s, the commission had a great advert on television, and it stuck with me. Maybe I was paying a little more attention to adverts put out by the Electoral Commission than many of my teenage colleagues at the time, but this wonderful advert had a series of vignettes of cartoon characters, with two guys going about their daily life and talking about various issues they were coming up against. One of the guys was saying, “You should make sure you vote, man,” and the other one kept saying, “I don’t do politics, me.” They would go into, say, a supermarket, and the guy who says he doesn’t do politics says, “The price of milk’s too high.” The next scene is in a pub, and he says, “The price of beer is too high.” The whole message of this advert was that politics is in everything. It is really important that we, as politicians, drive that message home always. We should be doing everything in our power to expand and improve access to politics. That is why the Bill is really important.

Those adverts—and there were many put out by the Electoral Commission at the time—were focused on making sure that people had access to voting and were going out and voting. I was not so lucky as to get the vote at 16 in Wales—I was too old for that—but when I got the opportunity to vote for the first time aged 19, I remember getting multiple phone calls from my mum shortly before saying, “You make darn sure you sign up for a postal vote in advance,” because I was at university and had to make sure I was signed up.

I am a big proponent of making sure that young people have access to voting and that we do everything we can to encourage them to vote. We should support all young people to vote more easily, and the measures in the Bill are really important in that work. We need to be removing the barriers.

[Graeme Downie]

Although my mum did not work for the Electoral Commission, she was a polling counter both at polling stations during the day and at the count, including for the very first Scottish Parliament election; I remember vividly picking her up from the count at about 5 o’clock in the morning, having stayed up all night to watch it. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we are to improve the smooth running of elections in this country, we must support more people to participate in those vital roles, which involve very long shifts at polling stations followed by the counts, which can go on much longer? Anything we can do to support them would be much appreciated.

[Adam Thompson]

Of course, I completely agree with everything my hon. Friend just said. I am sure that many Members—probably all right hon. and hon. Members—agree that the polling clerks and all the attendants on election day are a vital part of our democracy, and they have our thanks for their work, year in, year out, in all elections.

As I was saying, I am a great fan of doing everything we can as a Government and as Parliament to improve access to elections and to remove barriers. Digital measures of the sort in the Bill are a really important part of that. We have heard Members on both sides of the House talk about the importance of breaking down the barriers in the way of those who are digitally illiterate and giving everyone access to a way of signing up for postal and proxy votes online. I also advocate for more education in schools.

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[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing this valuable debate and Bill before the House today.

As has been made clear by many speakers, for as long as we have known it, there has been a weird hotchpotch of different regulations concerning different elections in the UK. We have different voting systems for different elections; we have parliamentary boundaries that take little account of the boundaries for local elections; and we have age differences for different elections in different parts of the country, with votes at 16 in some parts of the country for some elections. We have voter ID regulations. We have the single transferable vote, top-up systems and first past the post. That whole hotchpotch of different regulations needs to be simplified and standardised.

[Graeme Downie]

The stramash that my hon. Friend refers to around electoral systems is added to in Scotland, where initially the Scottish Parliament had a four-year term. That was extended—temporarily at first—to a five-year term to take account of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 that was enacted in this place. That has not yet been mended; it now seems to have become a five-year term, which causes additional confusion that I am not sure has been properly and adequately explained to the Scottish people. Does my hon. Friend agree that that adds a further complication to the problems he is describing?

[Patrick Hurley]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend—the amount of complications and complexities in the voting system in this country needs addressing. This Bill will address just one of those complexities, but I fully agree with what he has said.

My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) mentioned that we could perhaps guess his age from the elections he had taken part in. In a similar vein, perhaps Members can guess my age when I say that the first national election I voted in was the landslide Labour victory of 1997. At the time, I was living in the marginal constituency of Knowsley South—it was one of the safest seats in the country. I am sure it was not the vote of my 20-year-old self that tipped the balance in that election, but none the less I was very proud on that May morning to go down to the community centre around the corner from my house, with my voting card in hand, and cast my vote for the first time in a national election for my MP.

I am still very proud that at every election, I cast my vote in person, but just because I am a hopeless old romantic who wants to go down to the polling station, it does not mean that we must ensure that everybody does that. On the contrary, we need to make voting as easy and engaging as possible, so that the majority of people can engage with the process. For those people who cannot vote on the day, we need to ensure that proxy and postal voting, and absent voting more generally, is as easy as it can be.

I will talk briefly about an issue in my constituency and across my wider combined authority area. Over the last couple of years, since voter ID has become mandatory, there has been a localised concern. The law states that an older person’s bus pass is an acceptable form of ID, but the common bus pass in my part of the world is the Merseytravel over-60s bus pass, which the law does not allow to be used as voter ID. My council, and neighbouring councils across the local authority and combined authority area, had to write to every single Merseytravel over-60s bus pass holder in the borough to tell them that their bus pass was not valid to vote with, contrary to what they had been led to expect and believe by the national press in its reporting on the law change.

[Graeme Downie]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the move to ensure that veterans’ passes could be used as voter ID, which was one of the first things that this Labour Government did, was a welcome change?

[Patrick Hurley]

I again agree wholeheartedly. The omission of veterans’ passes from the previous legislation, which meant that they could not be used, was shameful.

We have all talked about the complexities, but the cherry on top of the 57 varieties of voting system that we have all got used to over the years was the old European Parliament elections being held under the d’Hondt system. I am mindful of time, so I will not go into detail on that—I am sure that even Mr d’Hondt could not come up with a better method of filibustering than doing so.

Much to my dismay, this Bill is not intended to correct every single peculiarity of the voting system, but it is intended to correct one. The Elections Act 2022 made it easier to apply online for absent voter arrangements, but it included Scotland and Wales only when it came to UK parliamentary elections. For some reason, Wales was included when it came to police and crime commissioner elections, but Scotland was not. Unwittingly, the weird hotchpotch of systems was made worse, rather than better.

People in Scotland and Wales who thought that they had registered for a postal or proxy vote found out when it was too late that they had registered for one set of elections but not another. Unwittingly, they were being disenfranchised, due to the nonsensical bureaucratic changes that had been brought in. Even council officers, as has been made clear, did not want this change; it heaped further administrative and cost burdens on electoral officers and local authorities. Nobody wanted it to happen, yet almost by accident, the complexity was increased.

There needs to be a raft of changes. The remits of the various boundary commissions need revisiting, and the voting system needs updating to ensure stability and good governance. In July last year, we achieved stability and good governance almost by accident, despite the voting system. Voting needs to be made more accessible, and engagement with the democratic process needs to be made easier.

In conclusion, there is a huge patchwork quilt of rules that make sense to almost nobody. The Bill seeks to rectify one small aspect of the increasingly daft situation. I hope it is allowed to make progress.

Employment Rights Bill

Graeme Downie Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley (Imogen Walker). I visited New Lanark on a school trip when I was younger, as many people in Scotland did, and it was a fantastic portrait of a beautiful part of the country. I pay tribute to other Members who have made a maiden speech today, including my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Kenneth Stevenson). I, too, know some of the language to which he was referring.

I draw attention to my declaration of interests, including my proud membership of Unison. I will use my short time to emphasise two elements of the Bill. Not only is it the greatest increase in workers’ rights in a generation, but it will ensure that the UK economy adapts to the changed landscape in which we find ourselves and to the businesses that will contribute to it and make us a success.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my proud membership of Community and Unison. My hon. Friend and I are both proud to represent Fife, but in some areas of Fife as many as one child in four still lives in poverty. Does he agree that by giving over 8,000 more workers more money in their pocket, the Bill will mean that more families have more money to spend and will help to make an important contribution to tackling child poverty in Fife?

[Graeme Downie]

Absolutely. At the core of the Bill is the need to raise wages for people across Fife, across Scotland and across the UK. That will be a key achievement of this Bill, which has been undertaken by this Labour Government within the 100 days that we promised the electorate.

The change in the landscape has been caused by a rapid advancement of technology in our economy, a shift in working patterns, the evolution of the largest contributors to the economy and welcome changes to the nature of family life, with an increase in shared parenting, as we have heard from so many Members across the Chamber. It is nothing but shameful that the previous Government took no action to adapt to those changes or help them to drive forward our economy. As ever, it has fallen to the Labour party to make the radical changes that we need to see. A look at the Opposition Benches tells us how much the Conservatives care not only about workers’ rights, but about the economy for the future.

I welcome clause 7, which will apply the objective test for an employer to refuse a reasonable request for flexible working. Like hon. Friends who have spoken today, I ran and owned a small business for 10 years. I know the benefits that businesses get from welcoming and embracing flexible working patterns. They assist with staff retention and improve and facilitate communication between employers and employees. They lead to more constructive relationships at work and—as I saw at first hand—to more productive teams and a business that is better for everyone involved. A shift to a clear objective test will further aid the process and will help both businesses and employees.

I also welcome clauses 20 and 21, which will provide additional protection for working parents. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), I am delighted to support the Dad Shift campaign, which has been campaigning for better statutory paternity leave to help mums, dads, children and our economy. The benefits of modern and flexible paternity leave would help families to raise their children in the way they see fit, so they can still progress their own careers and contribute to the economy and to society. I would like to see more progress on those issues during the passage of the Bill, as hon. Friends have highlighted, but none the less it is an important first step in making sure that new parents have the right protections.

This is a long overdue Bill that would only ever be brought forward by a Labour Government—a Government who understand the changing nature of business, of society and of our workforce and who realise that only by bringing the three together can we push forward and grow our economy together, creating a more prosperous and fairer society across the UK.

[Several hon. Members rose—]