Ms Marie Sherlock:

We have no desire to speak negatively about the availability of part-time work if a worker requests it because there should be a choice.

However, there is an issue that we know from the research that those who remain in part-time work for a prolonged period suffer a pay penalty over their lifetime. There is an issue here about access to pay progression. We know that part-time workers, in particular, in certain organisations do not access the same pay progression measures that are available to full-time workers so there is an issue with that. We would certainly share the view that there needs to be a narrative but I think we also need to be clear that it is very important that we recognise that some part-time workers become trapped in a low paid, or lower paid, situation relative to their full-time peers.

The second thing relates to the number of employees to whom this Bill applies. There would be a certain sympathy to a staggered, or a phased-in process for this Bill, starting with the bigger employers and moving to smaller employers. Ultimately, in terms of the destination here, it needs to be far lower than organisations with 50 employees. Certainly when we look at the business demography which Ms O'Connor talked about earlier, the vast majority of employers in this country obviously employ around 20 people. We think that for this legislation to have any real impact, the number needs to be less than 50. If we look at the international experience, in Sweden the minimum number is ten employees, in Lithuania it is 20 and it is below 50 in other countries. There is no excuse but to reduce it below 50 here.