Clause 46 deals with the issue of additional payments to employers of members of the Reserve Forces. This amendment would enable regulations to provide for a variation in the size of the payment made by specifically including provision for larger payments to be provided to small and medium-sized companies.
An Answer to a Parliamentary Question in 2010 revealed that at that time 15% of current TA members came from large organisations employing 500 people or more, 17% came from medium-sized organisations employing between 50 and 499 people, and 17% came from small organisations with between one and 49 employees. Self-employed people made up 5%, with unemployed people, including students, making up 42%, and the mobilised TA making up the remaining 4%.
When the Minister responds, perhaps he could say whether the percentages that I have just quoted are basically the same today, some four years later, in respect of where current TA members come from. If that is the case, are the Government looking to change that breakdown by employment of sources of Reserve Forces recruitment, bearing in mind that one of the key roles of the reserves in future will be to provide key specialist skills needed to support our Regular Forces to a greater extent than today?
I should like to raise a question about reservists who are unemployed—in particular, to ask the Minister how Jobcentre Plus views unemployed potential reservists going off for extended periods, in light of the requirement that they should sign on and apply for jobs on a
regular basis. Presumably we should be encouraging the unemployed to consider reservist occupations; so the question of how that fits in with the requirement to sign on for benefits is of some importance.
The figures given in the Parliamentary Answer to which I referred indicate the importance of small and medium-sized firms as a source of reservists. The additional payment proposed over and above the current arrangements is, I believe, £500 a month for each month in which a reservist is mobilised. The question is: will that prove to be a sufficient incentive for smaller firms, bearing in mind that the impact on them of one or more of their employees being reservists, and away from the workplace for periods of time, could be greater than for a large firm that has more resources, both human and financial, at its disposal to cover for employees away on Reserve Forces commitments?
I appreciate that we want to draw the attention of employers to the benefits to them of their employees being reservists and the positive impact that this can have on career development, but that may not necessarily be the first point that will strike a small employer when faced with the potential problem of covering for an employee away on reserve duties; there are many small employers in the IT field, which is a skill that we look to reservists to provide. A survey by the Federation of Small Businesses in 2012 suggested that this might be an issue, but I hope the Minister will say whether that is proving to be the case in respect of small and medium-sized firms.
We believe that there is a case for flexibility over the size of the additional payment in relation to small and medium-sized businesses, but we want to hear what the Government’s intentions are on the points I have raised, including how specific or otherwise the regulations relating to these payments are likely to be. I beg to move.