draft Employment Allowance (Excluded Companies) regulations 2016 Employment Allowance (Increase of Maximum Amount) Regulations 2016 draft social security (Contributions) (Limits and Thresholds amendments and national insurance funds payments) regulations 2016

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 General Committees

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson, and to see Members who have been on many Committees with me in my short career here. I commend the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West for his detailed scrutiny of the regulations.

The Scottish National party’s perspective is that the regulations faithfully enact what the Government announced in both the Budget and the autumn statement. In that regard, I do not see anything technically troublesome about the implementation of the regulations. We might disagree about the policy backdrop and we might think that more could be done to encourage the employment of apprentices. In Scotland, for example, an apprenticeship applies only to a full-time job, so we would want more done to enable that to occur. However, in broad terms, given the answers to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, we are content with the proposals.