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Working
Hours
Did you know that one quarter of all fathers work over 50 hours
a week and one in eleven work more than sixty hours a week?
Two-thirds of employees always or regularly work longer than
their basic hours and 30% work more than 48 hours a week. Amongst
managers, 77% work more than their contracted hours.
No wonder our economy is so successful. No surprise the EU
says we must stop - and has imposed the Working Time Directive,
which will make it illegal for many to work more than 48 hours
a week. Yet there is a good case for curbing long hours and
cooling the good old Protestant work ethic.
There was, no doubt, hilarity down at the pub when MPs recently
voted to 'modernise' their working hours. After all, two of
the biggest taunts we face are that the Commons doesn't meet
until 2.30pm each day and that we have a two-month 'holiday'
in the summer. I wish!
Well, I've been in my office at The House soon after 8.00am
each day for nearly twenty years. Mornings are taken up with
e-mails, letters, phone calls and Committees. In the afternoons
we meet in the Chamber. Evenings are for meetings and public
receptions. Voting usually happens at 10pm. So, for 'modernisation'
read 'displacement'. There will still be the same amount of
work to do, but it will look more like 'normal' work.
Then there's the long hols gibe. August is a sensible month
(not the best, nicest or cheapest) to go on holiday. I just
had my busiest September for a decade. But Robin Cook says it
looks bad if we don't sit in September - so now we will, for
two weeks. Apparently no-one will notice when we break up two
weeks earlier in July. So that's all right, then.
One good thing that has come out of 'modernisation' is that,
for the first time ever, we will know in advance the (provisional)
dates for the Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and Summer Recesses.
This is welcomed by Members and staff alike - and their families,
not to mention the journalists.
The really bad news is that the whole 'Modernisation' agenda
transfers more power and influence from Parliament to the Government
- whose loyal lobby-fodder voted all the changes through while
a lot of us voted against. Mind you, the Government only scraped
through by a handful of votes in one division. We had a House
divided.
Parliament is losing power in every direction. This Government
is giving the power of Parliament to Brussels, to the Scottish
Parliament, to the Welsh Assembly, to new Regional Assemblies
and to quangos. Why? Because it makes life easier for No. 10
and Whitehall - and moves us closer to the French 'Napoleonic'
model of Government on which most European democracies and the
whole EU structure are based. Yes, Boney has finally made it,
alive and well in a bunker under No 10!
Just as our English Common Law is being eroded and codified,
so our system of central and local government is being reformed
by stealth. Some of this is good - and flows as a natural consequence
of our European adventure, which has delivered peace and prosperity
for over 50 years. But some is not good - like removing decision-making
from our local councils to the 'regions'.
The full impact of the Working Time Directive will not hit
us until 2004. It will have a negative impact on the Salisbury
area, which already has very low unemployment and high living
costs. Some say we'll need 10% more people to do the same amount
of work. Where will they come from? Where will they live? Where
will they park? Of course it won't affect MPs. We've been exempted.
Just thought I'd tell you.
ROBERT
KEY MP |
