Employee Pay (DWP)
Alex Salmond Excerpts(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I wish to raise the important issue of the pay of employees in the Department for Work and Pensions—or, perhaps more accurately, the low pay of those employees.
As we know, pay throughout the public sector has been subject to restraint for a number of years, and the pay in the DWP is no exception. A TUC report published in 2014 showed that public sector workers were, on average, £2,245 worse off in real terms than they had been before the previous Government took office. However, the issue of low pay is felt particularly acutely in the DWP, as it is one of the lowest paid civil service Departments, and staff now struggle to make ends meet.
Some 87% of DWP staff—74,701 employees—now earn less than the UK mean average wage of £27,200 a year, and 47% of staff—39,526 employees—earn less than £20,000. The Public and Commercial Services Union estimates that thousands who are at the bottom of the DWP pay scale will not even earn the national living wage that was announced by the Chancellor in the Budget if their pay rises by only 1% a year until 2020. DWP pay increases have been heavily capped for the last six years, and in 2010 and 2011 there was a 0% increase for staff earning over £21,000.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
As my hon. Friend knows, in 2011, when we were in the very depths of the recession, the Scottish Government were able to introduce a living wage for all civil service staff in Scotland, along with a non-redundancy clause agreement. Why was such a move not possible for either the Labour Government or the coalition Government—or, for that matter, the present Conservative Government?
Chris Stephens
I do not know the reasons for that, but I think that it should have been possible. As my right hon. Friend will know, in Scotland those earning less than £21,000 a year have received a £250 pay rise over the last couple of years.
Between 2012 and 2015, all DWP staff received a 1% increase, and the Chancellor has announced his intention to limit civil service pay increases to 1% for the next four years.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) on securing this important Adjournment debate and all the other Members who have contributed in it. My office took particular interest in this one. I also congratulate him on his 25 years of work in public service, his role as vice-chair of the PCS parliamentary group, and his interest in DWP and its valuable work.
DWP is the largest Government Department, with a pay bill of £2.5 billion in 2015-16. The Department employs more than 84,000 staff, who work in various locations across the country and serve more than 22 million claimants and customers, some of whom are the most vulnerable in society. When I have spoken about that before, many of my colleagues have been surprised, because a lot of MPs are not aware of just how vast the organisation is and the diversity of work we do in job centre networks, benefit centres and the corporate services. For example, we support people to find work, develop policy, pay pensions and investigate fraud. The Department is delivering substantial welfare reform changes, including the roll-out of universal credit, the introduction of personal independent payment and pension reforms, while meeting our efficiency challenges.
We appreciate the professionalism and contribution of DWP employees in continuing to deliver those changes. The results of their efforts have included a new record high UK employment rate of 73.7%; unemployment at a seven-year low of 5.3%; an employment rate for young people who have left full-time education up at 74.3%, the highest in more than a decade; and a reduction in operating cost of £1.9 billion since 2009-10. I have made many trips around the country to meet those front-line DWP staff and to see the great work that they do, with great professionalism. Tomorrow I am off to Blackpool as part of my visits, when I am going to see the work being done on PIP. I am sure that hon. Members from all parts of the House will join me in acknowledging the hard work and contribution of the dedicated DWP staff.
In 2010, the country was facing tough economic challenges, and the Government had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the country’s huge budget deficit. As was the case across Europe, public sector pay restraint was part of the overall approach taken to reducing the deficit. That was not unique to the public sector; not only did many workers in the private sector also face pay freezes, but some faced pay cuts. As a Government Department, DWP has to comply with the Government public sector pay policy to set pay awards in line with Her Majesty’s Treasury and Cabinet Office guidelines.
Let me now deal specifically with our Department’s approach. Since 2010, DWP has focused on increasing the pay of its lowest paid. In the emergency Budget of 2010 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a two-year pay freeze for those in the civil service earning more than £21,000. But, crucially, for those earning under £21,000, DWP took advantage of the flexibility and opted to pay more than the minimum £250 flat-rate increase proposed in HMT guidance. DWP actually provided awards ranging from £400 to £540. In 2010, it also increased the base salary of the lowest grade by £890. The pay freeze was followed by an annual pay remit of 1% on consolidated pay increases for the remainder of the last Parliament. During that time, DWP pay negotiations included discussions on how best to distribute the available funding. DWP opted to pay the majority of its staff a 1% increase each year, but continued to focus on increasing the pay of its lowest paid through higher base salary increases—for example, 3% in 2014 and 2.5% in 2015.
In addition, Departments have flexibility over how they allocate their non-consolidated performance payments. DWP is the only large Department that pays this to the majority of its employees, distributing on the basis of grade and performance marking. This year, DWP allocated performance awards of between £450 to £750 to junior staff.
Alex Salmond
I am listening carefully to the Minister, but the reality is that the Government have been rumbled on tax credits. They have been rumbled on payments to junior doctors, and now they are going to be rumbled on the treatment of DWP staff. When will the Minister address the very specific questions that my hon. Friend asked him in this Adjournment debate?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but all good things come to those who wait patiently. I am only part way through my contribution, and I have already addressed some of the points, but more is to come.
Pay and allowances are part of the total reward package. Employees also benefit from a package including a staff discount scheme, generous annual leave entitlement and a defined benefit pension scheme.
On the point about equality, DWP has one of the lowest gender pay gaps in Whitehall. It currently stands at 3.4%. Typically, it is rated at 5%. If an organisation or body is below 5%, they are making progress. The Department is committed to improve that further through the introduction of a range of measures including name-blind recruitment and female representation on senior recruitment panels. This is something that we take very seriously, and we are proud to be leading as a Department in that area.
Let me turn now to the future. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in this year’s Budget that the Government will fund the public sector workforce for a pay award of 1% for the length of this Parliament. Each year, DWP negotiates with PCS and other unions on their pay awards and that will continue for future pay deals.
European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]
Alex Salmond Excerpts(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Heaton-Harris
Again, I would like to think not. I follow what the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends have been doing on the European Scrutiny Committee. There has been a long and ongoing dialogue with the BBC, as I know because I was a member of the Committee over the last five years running up to the mandate of this Parliament. I hesitate to look in the direction of my Scottish National party colleagues, because I have a feeling they might have a view on partiality and the BBC when it comes to certain matters.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
Listening to the hon. Gentleman, I am wondering whether the BBC finds it more difficult when an organisation such as the European Commission gives it money or, in respect of human rights, when money is taken away, as is being done by the UK Government?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. In talking about the BBC, we are straying quite far from debating a narrow Bill.
John Redwood
The illustration that I was using was that there are now large areas in which this Parliament is not allowed to vote against something that the European Union is doing—because it has been pre-agreed, because we have been out-voted, because it is a consequence of a treaty that some previous Government signed years ago, or because it is the result of a decision by the European Court of Justice. Do Opposition Members not see that we are losing our democracy? We are losing our right to disagree with European decisions in this place, and we are losing our right to assert our wish to do things differently. I do not want to choose any one particular thing, but I could name at least 100 things which come from the European Union that I wish were better and different, because I think that they get in the way of prosperity, better wages and a better lifestyle for my constituents and others in my country.
That, however, is not the point. The question that we are debating today is whether, by means of the minor set of improvements contained in the Bill, we can have any impact on the hugely important issues of the breakdown of employment, the denial of opportunity to half the young people in large swathes of the south of our continent, and the effect that the euro scheme is having on people’s prosperity and life prospects. I find it extraordinary that an Opposition who are—sometimes rightly—full of passion on behalf of anyone in Britain who does not have enough income, cannot bring themselves to say a single word for the tens of millions of people on our continent who are being very badly affected by this dreadful scheme. They should think about all those young people who are out of work. How would they like to represent constituencies in which young people knew that they had only a one in two chance of getting a job?
Alex Salmond
Was not the right hon. Gentleman’s political heroine the late Lady Thatcher, who pursued majority voting—which, by definition, means accepting some decisions with which one did not agree—in order to complete the European single market?
John Redwood
She did indeed, but she was not my heroine. I have great admiration for the late former Prime Minister, and I gave her a great deal of advice. Part of my advice was that she should not surrender those powers under the Single European Act, for the very reason that the right hon. Gentleman has correctly identified. Unfortunately, although she accepted a lot of my advice, she did not accept my advice on two very important matters: majority voting in the European Union, and the poll tax or community charge. However, I do not think we have time to explore the question of what would have been better outcomes in the case of those two issues.
I just hope that our Ministers, if they insist on whitewashing this through, as no doubt they will—no doubt they will have the votes to do so—will also ensure that this body does something useful for a change. As my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) has already demonstrated, it is obvious that although they can range very widely, and can lobby and discuss a number of fundamental issues that matter to people throughout the European Union but especially in the euro area, they have been unsuccessful to date. Clearly this “social committee” has not been a voice against austerity policies in Greece, Portugal or Spain that has had any resonance. Clearly it has not been a voice for more employment. Clearly it has not been a voice for dealing with the problem that a great many southern countries are locked in a currency union with Germany at the wrong exchange rate, which has put them into poverty and unemployment.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for squeezing me into this vastly over- subscribed debate. That brings me to one of only two points I wish to make. The purpose of the Bill is to fulfil the requirement in section 8 of the European Union Act 2011 that EU legislative proposals made on the basis of the catch-all article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union be approved by an Act of Parliament before the UK Government can support them in the Council of the European Union. That is presumably why the debate is so vastly oversubscribed.
Despite the clear lack of interest in the debate, as evidenced by the relatively sparse attendance in the Chamber, the usual channels have chosen not to timetable the Bill. We could speak until 7 o’clock. I could do so—I really could—and be perfectly in order, and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) could have spoken for far longer if he had chosen to do so. Yet we have this open-ended timing today—there is no regulation that says a Second Reading has to take even a half-day—whereas next Monday Scottish Members are expected to cram in Government amendments to the Scotland Bill and its Third Reading. The contrast between the two timetables indicates the Government’s total lack of respect for the need to prioritise the House’s business in accordance with Members’ interest in contributing. I hope that the Government will take that on board.
John Redwood
Does it not also illustrate that the official Opposition never have anything to say about the EU and never want to say anything about it? However, should they not have a view on it?
Alex Salmond
The fact that the Bill is so full of motherhood, apple pie and things that even the right hon. Gentleman finds difficulty in disagreeing with, as we heard in his speech, illustrates that even the serried ranks of Euroscepticism could scarce forbear to cheer this particular piece of legislation.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) raised the issue of the official Opposition’s view on the EU. I am sure he heard that at the conclusion of my speech I praised the work the EU has done in improving workers’ rights. I would say that without the EU we would not have the workers’ rights in the UK that we have today.
Alex Salmond
My estimation of the official Opposition is that they are currently unified in their disunity and have, indeed, raised disunity to an art form, the latest example being over the Trident missile system on the River Clyde. I must congratulate the official Opposition on how they relish that aspect of disunity. There is an outbreak of debate and discussion in the Labour party that certainly was never allowed during the Blair years. We should relish the freedom of speech the Opposition now have, even if we note that there are very few Labour Members here to exercise that freedom in the current debate.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is always amusing, but before he started scoring party political points he was making a significant constitutional point about the power of this House over our own schedules and timetables. Does he agree we should return the control of our own agenda to the House and take it off the Government?
Alex Salmond
As somebody who has been in government, I have to say that views on such matters can undergo a transition. There was debate earlier about representation in the Council of Europe, on which I would think Members throughout the House would be wise to insist on greater control and discretion. I think the Government would benefit from that; they may not realise it initially, but I think they would. That might be a good illustration of what the hon. Gentleman says, and there are a number of mechanisms by which it could be done. Also, I do not think he should underrate party politics; most of us have been engaged in it at one time or another.
The second point I want to make concerns the explanatory notes that accompany the Bill. With regard to the European convention on human rights, it is stated:
“Priti Patel has made the following statement under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998:
In my view the provisions of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [HL] are compatible with the Convention rights.”
One reason why the Bill is relatively non-controversial is that we recognise and welcome the progress that Macedonia is making under the observation of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, located in Vienna. In welcoming that development, it occurs to me that that is another illustration of how foolhardy it would be for the Government to proceed with their plans to withdraw from the European convention in some form or other. We would find ourselves in an invidious position not just when debating issues such as this but in making representations on a range of issues. As First Minister of Scotland I did not just have to sign certificates saying that legislation was in accordance with the European convention; every act of a Scottish Minister has to conform to the European convention on human rights. Of course there are occasions when that can be inconvenient or even frustrating, but, significantly, my experience has told me that that is actually a very good and useful check on the actions of Government.
Earlier today we witnessed a most astonishing display of arrogance from a Minister at the Dispatch Box. In Justice questions, a Minister was asked specifically about withdrawal from the European convention and waved the question aside on the basis that it is up to the House and the Government to decide whether or not to be in the convention, and for the devolved authorities to administer it once that decision is made. I think the Government will find that that sort of attitude comes back to apply some severe retribution to them. The Government might be noted for that sort of insouciance and arrogance, but it does them no credit or good whatever. The devolved authorities, not just in Scotland but in Northern Ireland and Wales, are not in accordance with the Government’s view on the European convention, and the idea of watering down our commitment to it in some form is going to be totally unacceptable to the devolved nations. I suggest to the Government that they should think again.
My last point is that given the lack of interest and participation in this debate in the House, the very reasonable proposition put forward by my colleagues that the Scottish Parliament should be given more scrutiny power over European Council or European Parliament decisions is an excellent one. If people do not have the appetite to scrutinise those decisions in this Chamber, why not send the legislation to Parliaments and Assemblies where that appetite and desire exists?
Alex Salmond
I give way to the Chair of the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change.
Mr MacNeil
It should be noted for the record that as my right hon. Friend said that, there were nods from some Tory Members, which should be taken as encouragement for Scotland to take that scrutiny forward.
Alex Salmond
Not only that, but my hon. Friend is an excellent example of how someone can pursue duties as a Select Committee Chair and contribute massively to debates on the Floor of this Chamber. If we all followed his example, the House and Parliament would be a better place today. With that, I shall bring my remarks to a close, unless anybody wants to tempt me with another 30 interventions.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Alex Salmond Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Leslie
I am astonished: a Conservative Member of Parliament reports positive feedback on the Chancellor’s Budget. I never thought I would hear that: I am aghast.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
The shadow Chancellor may remember that during the Scottish referendum debate last year I described Alistair Darling as “a Tory front-man”. Given what we have heard this morning, might there have been a grain of truth in that remark?
Chris Leslie
I have not read the comments by the former Chancellor, although I keep hearing about them from Members. I will have a good look at them, but it is important that we scrutinise the Government’s record on productivity. Unless we improve productivity in our economy, we will not generate the revenues to deal with the deficit and raise living standards. In 2012 and 2013, our productivity growth was negative, and last year it was just 0.2%. That compares with an average of 2.2% under the Labour Government from 1997 until the global financial crisis hit. It is, therefore, almost beyond belief that on the OBR’s analysis the Budget could lead to lower productivity growth, now estimated to be 0.4% lower than the forecast for next year, 0.2% lower in 2017, 0.1% lower in 2018 and 0.2% lower in 2019—productivity down next year, the year after, the year after that and the year after that.