Employee Study and Training (Qualifying Period of Employment) Regulations 2010

My Lords, the draft regulations that have been laid before the House are provided for under Section 63 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, as amended by Section 40 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. From next month—6 April, to be precise—this section will confer on eligible employees the right to ask their employer for time to train. It has support from the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and from the party opposite, as last year's valuable debate in this House demonstrated. This provision will apply initially to employees in organisations with 250 or more employees. In April 2011 it will be extended to apply to employees in organisations of all sizes. We are implementing this right in two stages so that small and medium-sized organisations have more time to prepare for these new regulations. The draft regulations provide that only individuals who have been in continuous employment with their employer for at least 26 weeks are eligible to make a request for time to train under the new procedures. The decision to set that 26-week minimum has been taken after careful reflection and primarily for two reasons. First, we think it is right that employers should be required to consider requests only from people with whom they have established a working relationship and those who have demonstrated a degree of loyalty to the business. Secondly, when the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill came before the House, there was concern that a new right of this sort might cause further administrative burdens on organisations. The Government share that concern, which is why the right to request time to train has been closely modelled on the flexible working arrangements, including alignment with the point at which an employee can make requests under those arrangements so that entitlement accrues at the same point. This will allow organisations to introduce the new arrangements with a minimum of adjustment to their existing systems. Employers will also be required to consider only one request from an employee in any 12-month period. It is worth mentioning that this 26-week condition does not prevent or limit an employer from considering an employee’s training and development needs at any other time, if that is what they wish to do. This is not, therefore, a right conferred on employees at the expense of their employers, but one intended to be of mutual interest. Requests made under this right must explain how the employee’s performance is expected to improve as a result of training and how this will benefit the employer’s business. The commercial advantages that accrue to companies which undertake to improve the skills of their workforce have been established conclusively. We know also that many employers take the training needs of their staff extremely seriously. As employees exercise this new right, it is hoped that more employers will be encouraged to become more involved in training, involve their staff more in strengthening their business and derive the benefits. At the same time, and no less importantly, it will spur many employees to think about and take responsibility for their own training needs. One issue raised during the passage of the legislation was the need to take account of what good employers do already when managing training and development within their organisations. Amendments were tabled suggesting that this could be achieved by providing employers with an additional reason to refuse requests for time to train where they had already carried out a training review of some nature. Those amendments did not succeed. However, I remind noble Lords that I made a commitment to conduct a review of the reasons for refusal available to employers. This review will consider whether, in practice, employers need any other reasons to help them to manage requests more effectively under this right; and the review will be completed before the right is extended to all employees in April 2011. These draft regulations mark an important step towards making sure that the future skills needs of employers and employees alike are met effectively, and I commend them to the House.