National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, it would be churlish not to congratulate the Government on achieving their target of 60% of median earnings this year. I also welcome the increased funding for enforcement.

The increase in the national living wage will provide a considerable uplift for the working poor in our country. A top rate of £8.72 is getting closer to the Living Wage Foundation’s recommended £9.30—I presume that it will be further uprated in due course—but it is still a way off the London living wage of £10.75. I should probably know this, but can the Minister explain why there is no Low Pay Commission London minimum wage, when clearly it is more expensive to live in London than anywhere else?

The difference between the minimum wage and the living wage is that the living wage is based on a basket of goods and services which should give a basic but acceptable standard of living. It therefore follows that the national minimum wage is not sufficient for someone to live on. Instead, it has to be subsidised by the Government through universal credit and various other benefits.

I can see that different individual and family circumstances will need a different underpinning level of help. The idea of always making work pay was quite a genius move on the part of the Government when it came in, but implementation was, and still is, another story. Fortunately, that does not come within our remit today. We are where we are and there is something to celebrate.

The adult rate for 21 to 24 year-olds received the greatest percentage uplift, at 6.5%, but the youth rate for under-18s has fared proportionately worse, at 4.6%, or the princely sum of 20p an hour. I know that it is argued that these youngsters enter the world of work with very little knowledge, but it cannot help their self-esteem to give them a 20p rise, especially if they and their families need that money.

I wish I had a crystal ball to see whether, in a time of full employment and even greater skills shortages, not helped by this Government’s immigration policies, wage rates will rise above and beyond the minimum. Unfortunately, I do not have a crystal ball, except to predict that we are all likely to meet here next March. Who knows what state the country and wage rates will be in then?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the SI before us. As has been said, it is interesting to see every year the amount of work that goes into providing the analysis and evidence for it. It is of a very high standard and one enjoys reading the recent literature on these areas. I know that it has been updated this time, although I am afraid that I have not gone to the original texts.

I should have declared my interests. I am the father of a child who is receiving the apprentice wage, being over 19 and still in the first year of his apprenticeship—although I think that comes to an end next week.

Having said that, I want to come back to two questions I have asked previously. The first concerns the disregard for accommodation, which there is not very much detail about. I do not particularly need an answer now, but will the Minister write to me at some point in the not-too-distant future explaining why the percentage used for the disregard for accommodation is still at variance with the figures used for any of the others? My simplistic approach to this is that if there is a broad range of indicators which suggest that pay needs to increase on a particular range, and there are reasons why that might vary across the individual numbers, why do we come to a different figure for the accommodation disregard, even though it affects all those in the sector? It is too complex an issue for the Minister to respond to today, but I would be grateful to receive a letter on that point.

The noble Baroness asked about the work on making sure that employers are paying the national minimum wage, subject to a big increase in funding announced in last year’s Budget. We do not get much detail in these figures about what exactly is happening. A reference on page 37, in paragraph 146, suggests that there will be a change this year, because a greater number of employees are in the lower bands of the national living wage and there will therefore be instances where non-compliance could occur. In fact, there could be an increase in that. There is no explanation given, but if there is anything of significance, perhaps the Minister could write to me about it. I just note it at this stage.

The basic concern is that although the budget has increased and the numbers are down, an alarmingly large number of people are still thought to be affected. In April 2019, it was estimated that 424,000 jobs with pay less than the national minimum wage and national living wage were held by employees aged 16 and over. That is 1.5% of all those aged 16 plus in UK employed jobs. It is true that that is less than last year, when it was 1.6%, but it is still an awful lot of people. Will the Minister say what activity is going to be involved in the expenditure of the greater funds made available for enforcement? Does he judge that it will be successful?

National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 4th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I will fulfil the promise I made to the Minister on the previous statutory instrument and be brief. It is also a great relief from Brexit to be discussing something that is current and not contingent on anything else happening.

The statutory instrument talks about the national minimum wage amendment regulations, but the table refers to the national living wage. It does not take much to confuse me. I just want to explore that difference for a minute or two. The uplift of 4.9% for over-25s to £8.21 is very welcome and I accept and welcome the comments from the Minister on the progress that the Government are making to get to 60% of median earnings by 2020.

The concept of the national living wage was introduced by the Government in 2015. I appreciate the Minister’s comments on how the amount has increased but my understanding is that it is not a national living wage because it is not based on actual living costs. The Living Wage Foundation currently calculates it—although presumably it is due for an uplift as well—at £9 per hour and £10.55 in London. It says that the living wage is what people need to earn to live. Citizens UK says that there is a moral imperative on employers to pay that if they can and 4,700 businesses and 104 local authorities do.

We know that 20% of all low-paid workers are in the public sector. Can the Minister say what percentage of public sector workers are in receipt of the living wage? It was very good to hear the Minister’s comments on enforcement. Can he tell me how many companies have been found to be paying below the minimum wage and how many of these have actually been prosecuted?

In conclusion, I hope that we will be moving towards the living wage very soon. It is proven to be good for business because it improves staff morale and retention. It is good for society and for the Government’s coffers too, because 35% of those earnings will go to the Treasury.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as one of my children is an apprentice aged over 19. He is in the first year of the apprenticeship and so would benefit from the figures that we have in front of us today. I have not discussed it with him but I am sure he will be delighted to hear that there is more money on its way.

My noble friend Lady Donaghy’s comments were well made and it is astonishing that we are 20 years into what was seen at the time as quite a revolutionary policy and which is now, in the words of the Minister who introduced the order, settled between all parties as a feature of our working environment. It is a good thing as it works for all sections of society, particularly those at the lower end of the pay spectrum.

This is the fourth consecutive year that I have been reviewing this order, so I took the change of looking back to last year’s Statement, when the Minister was also responding, although that was only his first time. I will repeat some of the things that were said then because I think that the issues are still relevant. There are two important points to put on record. The document in front of us is an excellent piece of work. Again, I congratulate the team responsible for it. It reads very well indeed. It is a bit scary to go back to what we learned at university about the economics of wage policy and the impact of living and national wages but, nevertheless, it is important to see it all there. The document itself is good but also it plays back to the work done by the Low Pay Commission, in place for 20 years now, but doing fantastic work. It is very good to see its ability to move from the national minimum wage conditions when it was set up in 1998 to now, with the national living wage, which progressively moves the lower paid on full rates up to 60% of the median wage. The commission has adapted and continues to do its work in a way that is important and effective for society as whole.

Three points were made last year which I think have been picked up in the current document. One concerned whether the approach that has been taken to calculate the impact of the national minimum wage has stood the test of time. It was good that the department decided to take external advice from an expert body, and it is good to read the report and evaluation, which goes some way to answer some of the points I raised last time. That gives us a good basis on which to go forward.

Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 4th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for conducting a consultation on this “minor” piece of legislation last week and for his explanatory letter to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which has been passed on to me. However, after the meeting last week I have rather more questions now than I had in the first place.

In the event of a no-deal Brexit, this SI creates a new independent regime for checking product conformity, initially mirroring EU product-safety standards. The Government have combined 38 measures into one, creating a piece of legislation over 600 pages long. The concerns that I outlined at the meeting—which were subsequently outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, as well—regarding the breadth of industries and the number of sectors covered by this instrument remain. It makes it difficult for Parliament to read and scrutinise let alone those organisations to which it actually applies. Any company, small or otherwise, looking at this piece of legislation would be daunted, and I do not accept the argument that the repetition over all the different sectors covered will be reassuring and ensure consistency of treatment between different areas, as was mentioned at the meeting last week.

I also do not think that the 241,000 businesses which will be covered by this instrument will thank the Government for making them wade through so much paperwork to find what they need. Surely one of the fundamental principles of a democratic society is that people should be able to know what the law is and easily understand how it applies to them. Today’s SI has the potential to undermine that principle.

We know that there is a premium on time before 29 March, and we certainly have plenty of SIs to get through, but the Government could have laid each of the measures separately and then grouped them together in smaller debates. Companies, and consumers, will not thank them for this tombstone of an SI.

At the meeting last week, I also raised the costs of implementation, which have been calculated at a total of £25 million. The analysis and evidence summary talks of a corporate manager or director taking an average of three hours to familiarise themselves with the new legislation. The £25 million is supposed to cover an estimated £54 billion-worth of GVA and £63 billion-worth of goods from our exporters to other EU countries, with about £104 billion imported from EU countries.

The impact assessment does not include the wider impact caused by the separation of the UK and EU product safety regimes. It is surely here where the biggest costs to businesses of a damaging no-deal Brexit would lie. No assessment that I can see is made of the cost of relabelling products—removing the old CE marker and substituting the new UKCA one. The manufacturers’ organisation Make UK told the BBC that,

“thousands of companies are going to have to spend millions of pounds collectively on changing all their markings to comply with the new mark”.

It does not include the cost to British exporters of having to seek approval from two notifying bodies: one based in the UK and one based on the EU.

My first question is: what assessment have the Government made of those costs to UK businesses and what knock-on effect will they have on consumer prices? Is this not another reason why the UK would be foolish to leave on 29 March without a deal? That is a rhetorical question: the Minister and I both know the answer to it.

My second question, to which I would appreciate an answer, regards the impact of a no-deal Brexit on our 176 notified bodies operating in the UK which provide more than 4,000 jobs between them. If the EU does not allow UKCA-marked products to be sold in the EU, there will be no incentive for foreign manufacturers to have their products certified in the UK. They will go to an EU-notified body to receive the CE mark and then import the products into the UK. Does the Minister agree with that assessment? In the light of it, are the Government seeking assurances from the European Commission that it would accept UKCA products in a no-deal scenario?

On the subject of the CE mark, I should like to ask a question on behalf of the charity Electrical Safety First. It is concerned that although the UK Government have created their own mark, it will not be a consumer mark widely recognised by the public. What plans do the Government have to raise awareness of the new mark among consumers? What are the timings and what transition plans are there? Electrical Safety First would like the Government to work with it and industry to raise awareness of the UKCA. That sounds like a fair offer to me. How does the Minister respond?

Next, I should appreciate some clarification on the expiry of the CE mark. The Government have decided that they will continue to allow products imported from the EU that bear the CE mark to be sold on the UK market and that this will happen unilaterally, regardless of whether the EU agrees to allow UKCA-marked products to be sold to the EU. At the meeting with the Minister, he referred to a transition period of 18 months using the existing marks for importers, and to one of 90 days for cosmetic product imports. We discussed that earlier today. But there appears to be no sunset clause on the SI. I presume the Government will have to change the law to ban CE marked-products from being sold in the UK should they ever wish to do so. Can the Minister clarify whether that is correct?

Finally, I will mention market surveillance. The UK will lose access to RAPEX—the EU’s rapid alert system—and ICSMS, the Information and Communication System on Market Surveillance, which we will replace with our own databases for market surveillance and public protection to help remove unsafe or non-compliant products from the UK market. The charity Electrical Safety First is unsurprisingly exercised about counterfeit goods as well, particularly those sold online. What plans are there to prevent more counterfeit and substandard electrical goods from being sold, particularly online, after Brexit?

I am sorry for the length of my remarks and promise to make it up to the Minister in the next SI, but this is, as I have mentioned, an inordinately long one. I appreciate that I have asked a lot of questions, so will the Minister undertake to write to me on any he may not manage to answer today?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for organising the meeting held last week on this SI—as has been said, it was very useful in covering a lot of the ground that otherwise would have needed to be raised today. It is interesting to have had the experience of going through such an extraordinarily large tome with so many details; it took me into areas of public policy where I did not think I would ever have to go. I particularly enjoyed, and of course immediately read first, the intoxicating liquor order 1988, which was closely followed by the strawberry regulations. Both were of immense interest and, for those who have not yet managed to get that far through the document, worth the journey.

I will not raise many of the points which have been made, but I will come back to a point raised during the meeting which has not yet been properly answered. There is substantial additional work implicit in the change in regulations, which has already been mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and my noble friend Lady Donaghy, for the United Kingdom Accreditation Service and the Health and Safety Executive. It is not yet clear that the additional resources that may be required will be funded and that support will be offered. Could the Minister confirm that that will be the case? Additional work will clearly be required; it may be of a short-term and temporary nature, but I suspect that it will be continuing. Assurances need to be given that the additional work will be properly covered, or we will lose.

On that same theme, the Minister said as he introduced this that it was really all about consumer confidence and product safety. Of course, that will be only as good as the body and individuals which have to police it. That will largely fall to trading standards—we have already discussed some of the issues that are raised in this. I asked at the meeting, and ask again: what will the financial arrangement be for this? Clearly we want good product safety and consumer confidence, but will get them only if we pay for them. In the past it has been assumed that the additional work can be picked up by those responsible for trading standards, which are largely local authorities. When primary legislation has gone through this House in the past, we have also asked these questions and had assurances that substantive new additional work applying from primary legislation—such as the recent Bills going through this House—would be funded. Indeed, mechanisms for that have already been described and put in place. Can we again have some confirmation that the additionality implied in these regulations will also be funded?

Postal and Parcel Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. My understanding of this piece of legislation is that it pulls us out of retained EU law that will no longer be applicable on our withdrawal from the EU if we get no deal and crash out; unfortunately the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, who asked the “crashing out” question, is no longer in his place. Again, there is no impact assessment. I take the point that the Minister made earlier but I ask for his patience and for assurances on a couple of issues. I am sure he will be able to supply them.

My first question relates to the directives that we are rejecting which opened up the sector to competition and defined a universal postal service as a right. What will the situation be post Brexit for remote communities, for which the universal postal service is vital, even though it might not be economically viable to provide? As the Minister said, Regulation (EU) 2018/664 increases price transparency and regulatory oversight of cross-border parcel delivery services. Can the Minister explain for the ignorant what difference this is likely to make to price transparency and the prices of cross-border parcels to and from the UK?

Finally, what do the Government assess will be the effect of removing us from these EU regulations? Will our ability to send and receive parcels cross-border be affected in the future? I am not asking the Minister to look in his crystal ball here, although it would be helpful if he had one to hand, but does he think that it will be harder or easier? The Government have produced no impact assessment, but how can there be no effect of withdrawing from this legislation?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, again, I am very grateful to the Minister for the very full letter about this SI that I received last week. He covered all the points that he has made in his speech—and, in fact, a few more—and it was very useful in getting us ready for this debate.

However, there was one thing that I wanted to pick out relating to the Postal Services Regulations 1999, which were set to become redundant and will be revoked in full. I presume that the rationale for wishing to revoke them is that they are derived from an EU directive, I think, rather than a regulation, and they require member states to designate a national regulatory authority in the UK. In this case, Ofcom is the designated authority. The letter goes on to say that the functions of the Secretary of State and Ofcom in regulating the sector are set out in the Postal Services Acts 2000 and 2011, but I question whether the removal of the 1999 regulations, which designate Ofcom as a specific post of national regulatory authority in the UK, does not in some way discriminate against Ofcom as being the likely regulator for postal services in the UK. It is really a question of whether there will be any diminution in Ofcom’s authority as a result of this. I would be grateful for reassurance that there will be no change in substance, even though there will be a change in the legal basis on which it is appointed.

The noble Lord has spent a lot of time discussing the role of the ERGP and the future of that body with Ofcom as an attendee. It is an obvious point but attending is not the same as being a participant, and even though it is an informal body largely operating by consensus, there will still be a difference, so we will be a rule-taker and not a rule-maker in a very real sense. Again, I would like reassurance that there is no question that we will lose out in terms of how our postal services flow and our parcels are delivered in the future.

I have two further points. Like many noble Lords, I am sure, we have received a number of representations from those involved in cross-channel activities, particularly about getting access to goods and bringing them through the Channel Tunnel to make sure that markets in the UK are satisfied. Therefore, this is about inward goods but it is also about external goods. A lot of material flows out through the tunnel to other places, and a particular issue is time-sensitive goods. Is there anything that the noble Lord feels it appropriate to share with us, particularly in relation to recent comments by his colleagues in the Department for Transport about the difficulties in ensuring that goods move backwards and forwards? Would that impact on anything that these regulations should do? Time-sensitive goods are obviously the most important, such as fresh goods and other materials that need to arrive at a particular time. These will be affected by blockages and changes in the overall system. Where they are postal, additional regulatory authority and other issues may be engaged, and there may be costs involved that we are not yet aware of. I would be grateful for some comments on that.

Finally, paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum deals with Article 7 of the EU parcel delivery regulation. I recently saw documentation from the Institute for Government, which has been looking at the Government’s readiness for Brexit in the case of a no-deal crash out. One issue flagged as red, and therefore not ready, is parcels. Does the Minister have any information on that, given that it falls within his brief? Is there a problem here and, if so, is it something that he wishes to share with us? The Explanatory Memorandum makes the point that the EU parcel delivery regulation is largely covered by the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. It goes on to say:

“Therefore, the EU Parcel Delivery Regulation will become substantially redundant following the UK’s exit from the EU”.


But “substantially redundant” is not the same as “completely redundant”. Will the Minister spell out the differences that are envisaged?

Steel Sector

Debate between Baroness Burt of Solihull and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the devastating impact of job losses in the country as a result of Tata’s announcement of more than 1,000 job losses across Wales, Corby and Hartlepool is devastating news for all of the workers, their families and the close-knit communities surrounding the plants. The impact is a double whammy for Wales because steel is an industry which has contributed significantly to the added value of the economy there, adding several percentage points to GVA figures. Of course, this latest news comes on top of job losses at Tata’s Newport plant last year, along with job losses across the UK announced by a number of operators in September 2015, and the complete closure of the Redcar plant.

Steel is the foundation of many of the UK’s most important manufacturing sectors, including aerospace, defence, automotive and construction. However, the industry suffers from a perfect storm. Countries such as China are engaging in ruthlessly uncompetitive practices which are destroying the steel industry, energy prices are too high and emissions regulations are too restrictive. The Government centrally, although they are doing some work on this, still, perversely, do not require their own contractors to buy steel from the UK. The Minister, in repeating the Statement in this House, for which we are grateful to her, mentioned that there is some progress on these matters, but the general view around the country is that although progress is being made, it has sadly been too little and it has certainly come too late.

Central to ensuring that our steel industry survives and thrives is the urgent need for an industrial strategy. The Chancellor declared recently that Britain would be carried aloft by the march of its makers. But manufacturing exports have slumped and manufacturing output is still below its level of seven years ago, before the crash. There is a lot more still to be done.

I have some questions for the Minister. When did she or her colleagues raise the issue of the dumping of steel directly with the Chinese? Can she give us chapter and verse on that? Can she spell out the support from the UK Government that will be made available directly to the families and communities affected by the latest round of cuts? She said that the Government would help where they can, subject to state-aid rules—but there is a humanitarian crisis on our doorsteps and we really need to see action. What work is being done by the department on the supply chain that supports these companies affected by job losses and, presumably, reductions in activity? Many of these are small and medium-sized companies that help to keep the British steel industry going. What work will be done to support the UK buyers of output from these plants who may well now have to seek alternative supplies on the market?

The steel industry is of vital strategic importance to this country and the Government need to safeguard its future. We are very conscious that there are issues in the market of price and overcapacity, but these have been there for a long time, and we have been raising concerns about the structure of the UK steel industry for most of the previous Government and certainly during this one. Where is the action?

We are keen that the Government support key strategic industries in this country and make sure that highly skilled jobs are not lost. I hope that these sad events will trigger a reconsideration of the Government’s hostility to an industrial policy and strategy. We hope that they will get to grips with this crisis. It would be a tragedy for the steel industry if they did not, not only for those who have lost their livelihoods but for those of us who wish to make the case for modern economic progress.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure that I represent everyone in the House when I say that our thoughts today are with the steelworkers and their families.

A major cause of this, it would seem, has been the dumping of Chinese steel. We are part of the largest trading bloc in the world, and this has been going on for a very long time. What are the Government doing to defend our interests and to fight for British steel in the EU? The noble Baroness said that some things are being done but I think that everyone would agree that we need to do more to mitigate some of the worst problems that we are going through at the moment.

The British Government need to do more, but so do the Welsh Government. My Liberal Democrat colleagues in Wales have called for scrapping business rates on planting in the Welsh steel industry. The Labour Party has criticised the Government in England but seems to have done nothing where it is in charge in Wales.

Finally, one-third of the production in Port Talbot is for the car industry—a highly successful industry. The Minister says that there is no excuse not to buy, and every reason to buy, British steel. So why does she think, given all that she said, it is not being bought?