In October 2008, the European Commission published a proposal to amend Directive 92/85/EEC, more commonly known as the Pregnant Workers Directive. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) is therefore consulting on the proposals.
For the UK it is a largely irrelevant document. Our maternity leave entitlements are already well above the EU minimum in key areas – with leave of up to 52 weeks compared to the current EU minimum of 14 weeks, which is proposed to be increased to 18 (although the European Parliament is lobbying to extend that to 24 weeks). Maternity leave currently varies from 14 weeks in Germany to 18 months in Sweden.
Likewise the UK already also meets the minimum safeguards of the proposals in terms of the rights to: reasons for dismissal during pregnancy or maternity leave; return to work in the same or equivalent post; and to request flexible working.
Nevertheless, both the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) and Institute of Directors (IoD) are apoplectic. In their draft response, the BCC states the need to "avoid increasing the administrative burden for employers in managing maternity leave". The pain of pregnancy for employers is often forgotten as we recklessly focus on mother and child.
But why this outrage? Because the proposal states that mothers may be entitled to additional leave in cases where the child is born late, so there is no reduction in the post-natal leave entitlement. The IoD also states that this proposal is "problematic".
Other proposals that meet with business ire include that to increase maternity pay to full pay (subject to a national ceiling). Currently the UK provision is 90% of salary, but 100% with a ceiling could be better for lower paid women, as long as the ceiling was set in pounds earned rather than as a proportion of wage. "This would have major cost implications" barks the IoD, while the BCC responds, "as the UK government says itself, 'the principle of full pay is a significant spending risk'". Business Minister Pat McFadden told Parliament, "we want legal clarity that we are not being directed to pay full pay".
Yes sadly even at a time when the poorest and most vulnerable workers – often women – are being squeezed most and when the Government is failing to bring down child poverty, it still resists even moderate improvements for working people.
The TUC said in November 2008, "The Government should not use the recession as a reason . . . increasing maternity pay would not be a huge extra cost to business and would help companies recruit and retain highly skilled female employees".
The consultation document can be downloaded from the DBERR website. The closing date for responses is 22nd June 2009.
ConsultationWatch is published fortnightly in the Morning Star
Monday, 13 April 2009
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Only the market for energy saving?
Government's newest department, of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is hosting a consultation entitled Heat and Energy Saving Strategy (HESS), which promises to be a step change in energy saving.
HESS sets out the strategy to cut carbon emissions by 30% from existing UK buildings by 2020, towards the ultimate target that emissions from buildings will be approaching zero by 2050. This aspiration has of course been widely welcomed. Friends of the Earth (FoE) called it "an ambitious target", and WWF-UK, "critical to the UK achieving our carbon budget targets". Yet both questioned the means: FoE stated it could "kick-start the economy" – as part of the 'Green New Deal' strategy, and WWF-UK stated "we need to see funding for this strategy as a matter of urgency".
As Green New Deal advocate Alan Simpson MP states, "The process of turning our homes, communities and cities into their own localised power stations requires huge amounts of work and skill. The employment prospects are vast. Jobs and investment cannot be banked offshore or relocated".
The consultation document states, "if the level of ambition set out above is achieved, then there will be approximately 34,000 jobs". Bear in mind, unemployment rose by 165,000 last month alone.
The thing is there is no funding – not in the consultation document anyway. Instead we have "new finance models", "a new voluntary code of practice with the building trade", "carbon pricing mechanisms", and the intention to "stimulate greater competition by encouraging new companies to enter the market to provide energy services".
Whenever we need delivery, New Labour looks to the market . . . and fails. Despite the wreckage of market failure hanging like an albatross around New Labour's lame duck government (London Underground PPP, the banks, PFI) it has lost none of its faith. From housing and postal services to welfare and the environment, if we need it New Labour will give it to the market to exploit.
Unlike some of its European neighbours, the Government will not invest, nor allow local authorities to invest, in decentralised energy systems. In parts of Europe 80% of their energy system is community-owned. Instead, the UK government will be "convening a Heat Markets Forum to ensure an appropriate market framework is in place."
It is this woeful poverty of ambition and market-based approach that requires a fundamental rethink, based on the more ambitious experiences of our European neighbours and a shift to community-controlled provision. The deadline for the consultation is 8th May 2009, and the consultation documents can be downloaded from the DECC website.
HESS sets out the strategy to cut carbon emissions by 30% from existing UK buildings by 2020, towards the ultimate target that emissions from buildings will be approaching zero by 2050. This aspiration has of course been widely welcomed. Friends of the Earth (FoE) called it "an ambitious target", and WWF-UK, "critical to the UK achieving our carbon budget targets". Yet both questioned the means: FoE stated it could "kick-start the economy" – as part of the 'Green New Deal' strategy, and WWF-UK stated "we need to see funding for this strategy as a matter of urgency".
As Green New Deal advocate Alan Simpson MP states, "The process of turning our homes, communities and cities into their own localised power stations requires huge amounts of work and skill. The employment prospects are vast. Jobs and investment cannot be banked offshore or relocated".
The consultation document states, "if the level of ambition set out above is achieved, then there will be approximately 34,000 jobs". Bear in mind, unemployment rose by 165,000 last month alone.
The thing is there is no funding – not in the consultation document anyway. Instead we have "new finance models", "a new voluntary code of practice with the building trade", "carbon pricing mechanisms", and the intention to "stimulate greater competition by encouraging new companies to enter the market to provide energy services".
Whenever we need delivery, New Labour looks to the market . . . and fails. Despite the wreckage of market failure hanging like an albatross around New Labour's lame duck government (London Underground PPP, the banks, PFI) it has lost none of its faith. From housing and postal services to welfare and the environment, if we need it New Labour will give it to the market to exploit.
Unlike some of its European neighbours, the Government will not invest, nor allow local authorities to invest, in decentralised energy systems. In parts of Europe 80% of their energy system is community-owned. Instead, the UK government will be "convening a Heat Markets Forum to ensure an appropriate market framework is in place."
It is this woeful poverty of ambition and market-based approach that requires a fundamental rethink, based on the more ambitious experiences of our European neighbours and a shift to community-controlled provision. The deadline for the consultation is 8th May 2009, and the consultation documents can be downloaded from the DECC website.
What rate for business?
The Business Rate Supplements Bill currently before Parliament gives councils the right to levy a business rate supplement (BRS) to fund local economic development.
This consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' sets out draft guidance to be issued under clause 26 of the Bill for the consideration of local authorities, businesses and business representatives, and any other stakeholders in relation to when it might be appropriate to fund a project through BRS, how to levy the BRS, and the circumstances under which to conduct a ballot.
The Bill arose from the 2007 Review of council tax by Sir Michael Lyons, but is a much diluted version. Lyons recommended that the large homes of the super-rich should be charged double what they are currently paying to allow for a rebate of £150 per year for the poorest. He recognised that council tax was regressive, but New Labour has done nothing to address this injustice, nor the injustice of £1.8bn of Council Tax benefit goes unclaimed every year due to the complications and stigma of claiming.
On business rates, Lyons noted that in 1993, local government raised 23% of its expenditure through business rates, now it's just 17%. According to Lyons’ calculations, the average household could be about £250 a year better off if business paid the same share of taxation as they did in 1993. Neither the Bill nor this consultation gives local government the ability to challenge this.
Instead, in an act of tokenism it allows local councils to levy a supplementary rate of no more than 2%, and in a further blow to local democracy only for hypothecated expenditure on local economic development (which this consultation seeks to help define), and if the BRS will fund more than one-third of the total costs, then businesses must be balloted (by value and number) – as if business had a democratic legitimacy. The consultation paper makes it clear that "a BRS is not a new means to fund existing expenditure or a resource to support general service expenditure".
Despite the fact that the Bill and this consultation will not restore anything like the powers to local government taken since Thatcher, it is a (pigeon) step in the right direction.
The consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' can be downloaded from HM Treasury website. The deadline for responses is 17th April 2009.
This consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' sets out draft guidance to be issued under clause 26 of the Bill for the consideration of local authorities, businesses and business representatives, and any other stakeholders in relation to when it might be appropriate to fund a project through BRS, how to levy the BRS, and the circumstances under which to conduct a ballot.
The Bill arose from the 2007 Review of council tax by Sir Michael Lyons, but is a much diluted version. Lyons recommended that the large homes of the super-rich should be charged double what they are currently paying to allow for a rebate of £150 per year for the poorest. He recognised that council tax was regressive, but New Labour has done nothing to address this injustice, nor the injustice of £1.8bn of Council Tax benefit goes unclaimed every year due to the complications and stigma of claiming.
On business rates, Lyons noted that in 1993, local government raised 23% of its expenditure through business rates, now it's just 17%. According to Lyons’ calculations, the average household could be about £250 a year better off if business paid the same share of taxation as they did in 1993. Neither the Bill nor this consultation gives local government the ability to challenge this.
Instead, in an act of tokenism it allows local councils to levy a supplementary rate of no more than 2%, and in a further blow to local democracy only for hypothecated expenditure on local economic development (which this consultation seeks to help define), and if the BRS will fund more than one-third of the total costs, then businesses must be balloted (by value and number) – as if business had a democratic legitimacy. The consultation paper makes it clear that "a BRS is not a new means to fund existing expenditure or a resource to support general service expenditure".
Despite the fact that the Bill and this consultation will not restore anything like the powers to local government taken since Thatcher, it is a (pigeon) step in the right direction.
The consultation paper 'Business rate supplements: a consultation on draft guidance to local authorities' can be downloaded from HM Treasury website. The deadline for responses is 17th April 2009.
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