Tax Credits

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Sammy Wilson

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

There is clearly, as my hon. Friend says, a question about resources. We are arguing that Ministers should produce an analysis of the impact of the national living wage, but many local authorities are paying above that level now, so those workers already have that money in their wage packet. The ability of local authorities to increase wages will be limited in the years we are considering, so many public sector workers on the lowest pay will not be beneficiaries of the living wage; their pay increases will be limited by the requirement the Government have laid down. Perhaps that is a factor the Government will use in the analysis for which we are asking.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman also accept that when the data are being compiled, there should be an indication of the impact the changes will have on the under-25s, who will not be covered by the national living wage?

[Frank Field]

Well, indeed. Our plea is to have made available the range of analysis that has traditionally accompanied any Budget statement that any Member of this House, however long he or she has served, has come to expect.

The Work and Pensions Committee has emphasised a fourth factor, which is that there may be some wage push as a result of the introduction of the national living wage. Will that be taken into account in the Government’s analysis? I am slightly sceptical about the extent of that wage push—again, it is one of the problems of having been a Member of this House for some time. When I was initiating the Low Pay Unit’s campaign for a statutory minimum wage, the official trade union position was to oppose it on the ground that there would be a mega-bill as we re-established differentials. However, when we look at the impact of the statutory minimum wage, we see a great deal of bunching of wages, and not the big increases that some people feared and expected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Field]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

[Sammy Wilson]

rose—

[Frank Field]

I will give way again, but I will then begin to conclude.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government have accepted the principle he has just espoused about those who are already in the system? With the pension changes, for example, the Government have not required those coming up to the pension age who have certain expectations to change their expectations. Why does that not apply to those who are currently recipients of tax credits?

[Frank Field]

I could not agree more. I think those on the Treasury Bench are picking up a very strong message. There would be very little opposition to the Government introducing the reforms for people who are not claiming tax credits now, but who, if they claimed them in the future, would know the rules of the game. When this place has helped to shape people’s lives, expectations and drive, it is very different all of a sudden to blow the whistle and say, “We’re changing the rules.” People both in the Chamber and in the country feel very strongly about that.

Home Affairs

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Sammy Wilson

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I cannot say how pleased I am to follow the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat). On both the topics that he centred on, the Government pay much attention to him. On pensions, he sketched out the areas where the Government really have to face the issues that he raised, because they are important not only to the House but to our constituents.

I will talk on one topic, which is the Modern Slavery Bill. I apologise that I was not present to hear some of the opening comments and the kind comments that various Members made. I will begin by making the roll-call of those who should have credit for this measure. The hon. Members for Erewash (Jessica Lee) and for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) quite rightly said that slavery would not be a topic in the House or in the country if not for the work of Anthony Steen. It was Anthony Steen, through his Human Trafficking Foundation, who first made me interested in this topic, and it was Patrick White in my office who said how important it was, which led to my commitment to it. The hon. Lady was absolutely right that without the work of Anthony Steen—first, towards the end of his period as a Member, and then in the work that he has done to extraordinary effect with the HTF—we would not have had a Modern Slavery Bill included in the Queen’s Speech.

As I say, it is slavery on which I wish to comment, and I wish to continue to draw attention to those who should rightly claim credit for the Bill. The idea for a modern slavery Bill was set out in a report published a little over a year ago by the Centre for Social Justice, so the Government have responded extraordinarily quickly by presenting the Bill. I do not think that we would have had that report had it not been for Philippa Stroud, who now works at the Department for Work and Pensions, and Fiona Cunningham, who worked at the Home Office. Had they not been working carefully to ensure that this moved up the Government’s agenda, I do not think that it would have been on the list of topics that the Home Secretary thought should command her attention and, more importantly, her departmental time. The Bill therefore has three immediate heroes: Philippa Stroud, Fiona Cunningham and the Home Secretary.

My purpose in speaking in this debate is to draw attention not only to a glaring omission in the Bill, but to a provision in it that I do not think we would now see had it not been for the work of the Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill and, in particular, the contribution that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) made to it. The glaring omission, as he knows—he piloted a private Member’s Bill on this very topic—concerns supply chains. Although the Bill will deal much more effectively with countering the horror of modern-day slavery in this country, the plain and brutal fact is that most of the slaves on whose labour our standard of living is supported work in other countries, producing the goods and services that we buy.

For all the reasons that were given to the evidence review for the Bill, to the Joint Committee and for my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill, I hope that Members will table amendments that persuade the Government that supply chains must be included in this measure. We know what the Home Secretary’s opinion is, because before she began talking about a Bill in detail, she said that she wished it to cover supply chains, so clearly there are other forces at work that overruled her in that respect. I think that we need to come to her aid and ensure that she wins the argument, not some officials in No. 10 who are against it. I hope that all those employers, large and small, that publicly support extending the measure to supply chains will now front up and lobby No. 10 to ensure that the Bill is complete in that important respect. If the Government still have some doubts about that, I hope that Members here and in the other place will ensure that the Bill is complete when it goes for Royal Assent.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that businesses in the United Kingdom have a duty to check that their supply chains do not use labour that is tantamount to slave labour to produce cheap goods that can then be sold in this country?

[Mr Field]

I am immensely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I would take his argument a stage further. I think that the Prime Minister has a duty to protect British business men and women from undertaking activities that are deemed to be heinous crimes. I think that the Prime Minister needs to develop a level playing field, so that not just the good businesses ensure that their products are not tainted by slavery; those that are slower in coming up to the plate must also make their contribution.