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Written Question
Parental Leave and Parental Pay
Thursday 11th October 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to publish the consultation document on the potential requirement for employers with more than 250 staff to publish parental leave and pay policies.

Answered by Kelly Tolhurst

We will consult in due course.


Written Question
Parental Leave
Thursday 14th June 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 29 July 2018 to Question 137053 on Parental Leave, whether the Government has now commissioned the survey data referred to; and whether the review will consider the eligibility criteria for shared parental leave for people in (a) new employment and (b) self-employment.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

We have started the evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay schemes and expect to be in a position to publish the findings of the evaluation in the Spring of 2019.

The evaluation will consider the barriers to parents taking Shared Parental Leave and Pay and how the schemes are being used in practice - including by self-employed mothers who qualify for Maternity Allowance. Whilst we are not planning to review the eligibility criteria at the current time, as part of the evaluation we will be speaking to range of stakeholders, including groups who are lobbying Government to extend parental entitlements to the self-employed.


Speech in Commons Chamber - Tue 01 May 2018
Oral Answers to Questions

"The industrial strategy rightly sets out opportunities arising from the new technology and STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—sectors but says little about the increasing importance of skills that are unique to human beings, such as care. Does the Secretary of State recognise that part of our answer to increasing automation …..."
Jo Swinson - View Speech

View all Jo Swinson (LD - East Dunbartonshire) contributions to the debate on: Oral Answers to Questions

Written Question
Parental Leave
Thursday 26th April 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the timetable is for commencing and concluding the planned three-yearly review of the implementation of shared parental leave.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

We have started the evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay schemes. We will gather and analyse information from a variety of sources, including survey data which the Government will commission.

Subject to the progress of data collection, we anticipate publishing findings in Spring 2019.


Written Question
Minimum Wage: Arrears
Thursday 8th March 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 20 February 2018 to Question 127413 on Minimum Wage: Arrears, how many of the 169 employers instructed to self-correct further arrears in naming rounds 10 to 13 self-corrected a sum of arrears greater than the sum of arrears for which they were named and shamed.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

Of the 169 employers instructed to self-correct further arrears in naming rounds 10 to 13, 96 employers identified a sum of self-corrected arrears greater than the sum of arrears for which they were named.

As part of a formal HMRC investigation where arrears have been identified, enforcement officers have the ability to instruct an employer to conduct a self-review across the remainder of their payroll. An employer will be required to correct any further underpayments found; and the review is assured by HMRC officers before being finalised. Self-correction is used to maximise the impact of enforcement activity, and frees up HMRC officers to start work on additional investigations.


Written Question
Minimum Wage: Arrears
Tuesday 20th February 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2018 to Question 123622, how many of the 169 employers who were instructed to self-correct further arrears in naming rounds 10-13 owed arrears, including those for which they were named and shamed of more than (a) £25,000, (b) £50,000; (c) £100,000; and (d) £250,000.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

Of the 169 employers who were instructed to self-correct further arrears in naming rounds 10-13:

  • 13 employers owed total arrears of between £25,000 and £49,999
  • 8 employers owed total arrears of between £50,000 and £99,999
  • 5 employers owed total arrears of between £100,000 and £249,999
  • 5 employers owed total arrears of more than £250,000.

Written Question
Companies: Pay
Friday 2nd February 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to publish the regulations to implement the Government's policy of requiring listed companies to publish pay ratios; and whether those regulations are planned to be in force by June 2018.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

The Government is committed to introducing a new statutory reporting requirement to require quoted companies to disclose and explain the ratio of the Chief Executive Officer’s total annual remuneration to the average annual remuneration of the company’s UK employees. The regulations to implement this provision (along with the other new reporting provisions being introduced as part of the corporate governance reforms announced in August 2017) are being drafted and will be laid in draft in Parliament later this year subject to other Parliamentary business.


Written Question
Managers: Pay
Friday 2nd February 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to publish the regulations to implement the Government's policy of requiring listed companies to publish pay ratios; and whether those regulations are planned to be in force by June 2018.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

The Government is committed to introducing a new statutory reporting requirement to require quoted companies to disclose and explain the ratio of the Chief Executive Officer’s total annual remuneration to the average annual remuneration of the company’s UK employees. The regulations to implement this provision (along with the other new reporting provisions being introduced as part of the corporate governance reforms announced in August 2017) are being drafted and will be laid in draft in Parliament later this year subject to other Parliamentary business.


Speech in Commons Chamber - Tue 30 Jan 2018
Oral Answers to Questions

"Hardworking people on ordinary incomes are understandably angry at the way executive pay has skyrocketed at a time when ordinary wages have remained flat. When can we expect to see these regulations that the Minister is talking about on publication of pay ratios, and can he confirm that this requirement …..."
Jo Swinson - View Speech

View all Jo Swinson (LD - East Dunbartonshire) contributions to the debate on: Oral Answers to Questions

Written Question
Minimum Wage: Arrears
Tuesday 23rd January 2018

Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2018 to Question 121446, how many of the 169 employers owed arrears, including those for which they were named and shamed, to (a) more than 250 workers and (b) more than 500 workers.

Answered by Andrew Griffiths

Of the 169 employers who were instructed to self-correct further arrears in naming rounds 10-13:

  • 17 employers owed arrears to more than 250 workers, of which 12 employers owed arrears to more than 500 workers.

This breakdown represents the arrears owed by a business to its workers, not the employer size.