Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is able to take in response to reports of eligible employees being refused furlough by their employers during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has been designed to be a comprehensive, flexible and generous support for jobs and incomes. The guidance clearly sets out who is eligible for the scheme, and the Government encourages all businesses experiencing a reduction in business demand due to COVID make use of the scheme to protect jobs. Whether to place employees on the CJRS remains a business decision to be made by employers. When employers make decisions about which staff to furlough, equality and discrimination laws apply in the usual way.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 ensure compliance with the guidance on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme for employees eligible for that scheme who have been refused furlough by their employer.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has been designed to be a comprehensive, flexible and generous support for jobs and incomes. The guidance clearly sets out who is eligible for the scheme, and the Government encourages all businesses experiencing a reduction in business demand due to COVID make use of the scheme to protect jobs. Whether to place employees on the CJRS remains a business decision to be made by employers.
Should businesses opt against placing employees on the CJRS, it should be noted that employees retain all their usual employment rights
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 ensure that employers are maintaining a duty of care when deciding which of their employees to put on furlough during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
In relation to mental health and preventing work-related stress, we would encourage employers to talk to their employees to identify issues that may impact on their wellbeing and to jointly agree steps to mitigate them.
Employers have a duty of care when considering how decisions can impact on their employees’ health and wellbeing. Although placing employees on the CJRS remains a business decision, the Government has enabled employers to furlough staff in certain situations, such as the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 ensure that employers are not neglecting their duty of care and their responsibility to article 14 of the Human Rights Act 1998 when deciding which of their employees receive furlough during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is a comprehensive, flexible and generous package of support for businesses. Any use of the scheme is a business decision to be made by employers.
Should businesses make use of the CJRS – or indeed choose not to use it – employees retain all their usual employment rights, including protection against discrimination of any form. All employers must honour all their legal obligations, and the Government will continue to use normal channels to ensure laws such as the Human Rights Act 1998 are respected.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department is being consulted as part of the Intellectual Property Office’s consultation into the UK’s future copyright exhaustion regime.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Intellectual Property Office is an executive agency of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is working closely with its parent department and other government departments with an interest in this area, to ensure they can feed into the process to develop the UK’s future exhaustion regime.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has made representations to the Intellectual Property Office on the importance of a national copyright exhaustion regime to UK (a) authors and (b) publishers.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Government is currently considering the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Government will be consulting on this matter in early 2021 and encourages authors and publishers to feed into this process.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of an international copyright exhaustion framework on the ability of UK rightsholders to enforce those rights.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Government is currently considering the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Government will be consulting on the potential impact of different exhaustion of rights regimes in early 2021 and how they may affect IP rights holders.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 potential role of a national copyright exhaustion framework in underpinning the UK’s (a) publishing industry and (b) other creative exports.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Government is currently considering the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Government is also considering the role of different exhaustion regimes and the potential impact on different sectors such as the UK’s publishing industry.