Fairness at Work and Power in Communities

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

We meet today with our constituents struggling more than they have in my entire lifetime, and that comes off the back of a very difficult decade or more for people in my community, with anaemic growth in the economy, virtually no wage growth, stagnant pay and of course ever-increasing bills. Millions of people across the country have been just about managing for a decade, whether by not going on holiday, not buying things, having hand-me-down clothes or parents missing out so their kids can eat. They have been just about keeping their heads above water for a long period of time, but in the last six months that has changed for that entire category of people with startling speed. Millions in this country and many in my community have seen their viability blown away by the increase in their bills, whether through inflation, in energy bills or at the petrol pump. I do not like the “cost of living crisis” as a frame because it does not nearly state how serious it is. It is a poverty crisis.

When the Government set out their agenda, there should have been a helping hand for working people to get them through their hour of need, but, yet again, true to form, they have been unable to meet the moment. They could have introduced a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to take hundreds of pounds off the energy bills of millions, but they chose not to. They could have taxed online retailers fairly and given our struggling small and medium-sized entities discounts on their business rates, but they chose not to. They could have finally done the right thing and cancelled the national insurance rise, but again they chose not to. What we have instead is more of the same, with high taxes, high inflation, low growth and low pay.

In my community, low pay is a disease. Last Friday, I attended an event at the Jubilee LEAD Academy in Bilborough in my constituency. Its inspiring young students asked me to come to hear about their campaign to secure the real living wage—the proper one—for care workers. Many of them had parents who worked in care and saw the toll that hard work coupled with poor pay took on their lives. Many had relatives who were recipients of care and they saw how hard life was for those who ensured that their loved ones were looked after. They wanted to see those care workers looked after as well. They are fighting for better pay and the Government should listen to them. Those are six, seven and eight-year olds in a primary school who are well ahead of the adults chosen to lead the country. Instead, we get a promise of jam tomorrow, but there is no value in jam tomorrow when there is not bread today.

Just as pay is a core part of decent work, so is security. It is now five and a half years since the Taylor report and two and a half years since the 2019 Conservative manifesto promised employment legislation. We have heard Government Ministers promise an employment Bill 20 times. In opening the debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), said that the Government’s commitment was “undiminished”. I say gently—he is a good man and I like him a lot—that they cannot promise an employment Bill 20 times, fail to deliver it in the Queen’s Speech and say that their commitment is undiminished. That is simply beyond imagination. I am old enough to remember the commitment to the UK being the best place in the world to work—where is that in the Queen’s Speech?

Instead, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) raised so passionately, we are stuck with fire and rehire: a Victorian practice that is alive and kicking. In two years, we have seen it used on a large scale by British Airways, British Gas and P&O, and three times the Government have missed the opportunity to do something about it.

We should be cheered by the news this morning that Deliveroo and the GMB have reached a recognition agreement. That shows once again that the timeless and long-standing values of trade unionism are as relevant as ever in the modern economy. That will be good for Deliveroo’s staff and for its business. It is a partnership; one does not come at the expense of others. However, the Government should be introducing employment legislation rather than hoping that the answer for people in low-paid work is to work longer and harder, taking more jobs, operating in the wild west of zero-hours contracts and bogus self-employment—colleagues raised that—and not really knowing what they will earn from one week to the next. According to the TUC, the failure to act in this area is costing the Treasury £10 billion a year. What could we do with that £10 billion from people in regular employment paying tax and not reliant on social security? We could meet 40% of the social care budget from that alone.

If we want to talk about fairness at work, we should be chasing a more resilient economy and one that is less volatile to the markets. One of my passions—colleagues can look at my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—is building a co-operative economy with a new model of ownership. We know that co-operatives are more resilient. We got little hope or optimism from the Queen’s Speech, but we can look outwards to find that in the co-operative economy, because those businesses are at the coalface of the current crisis.

Co-operative and mutual enterprises are putting people before profit and supporting the vulnerable while the Government do not do their bit. They are building a fairer and more inclusive economy, but they need help. They could do so much more. We ought to have a Minister in Government who leads for co-ops. We should strengthen the credit union movement and support our building societies in providing affordable and accessible banking in all communities. We could have had a Marcora law, as they do in Italy, so that when a business is on the verge of collapse, workers have the right to buy it out. Instead of money being spent on employment benefits, resilient businesses that pay well could be putting that financial firepower back into communities, retaining good jobs, and keeping the economy going and thriving. Instead of money going to nondescript, distant and disinterested shareholders, we would be giving millions of working people a say in their own life and the services they use. That is a very exciting future, and the co-operative economy could do so much more in that area.

Instead, however, we see more of what has given us this decade of lost national growth. I am less excited about GDP than I am about what is in the pockets of my constituents. Their pay packets are, in real terms, less and less every month. That issue has grown exponentially in recent months. We should have had action to help them. Instead, we have vague promises of help in the future. That will not do. It is not good enough, and that is why I think there has been such anger about that, as there is on the Opposition Benches. We have to do better by our constituents.