Zero-hours Contracts

Debate between Alison McGovern and Vince Cable

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There are still significant opportunities for people who are subject to unfair dismissal. We reformed the system because we considered that it provided a very significant barrier to small and medium-sized growth companies and thus to employment opportunities with them. We think we have got the balance right.

[Alison McGovern]

Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to the statistics for one minute, if the House will forgive me, because they really matter. The statistics provide the only way of finding out what is going on in our economy from the Government’s point of view. The care Minister told me that 300,000 people working in the care sector were on zero-hours contracts, so that is what the Government say; yet the Office for National Statistics—and therefore the Government again—have reported that there are 250,000 such workers in that sector. That discrepancy cannot stand. In a recent parliamentary answer in October, one of the Secretary of State’s Ministers said that his review did not seek to collect any statistics, but the Department is now reporting an inconsistency in them. Does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that his Department can do better than that?

[Vince Cable]

That is precisely why I am in touch with the head of the ONS, so that we can get some high-quality and consistent data. That is the whole point of the exercise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Vince Cable

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and I decided to use a survey to investigate zero-hours contracts. The Secretary of State has now followed us. Hopefully I can help by asking him whether he will now look into the situation of the 37,000 people on zero-hours contracts whom the Government estimate to be working in the care sector in the north-west.

[Vince Cable]

We do indeed have anecdotes about abusive practices in that area. We also have a lot of other anecdotes to show that the system works very well for a large number of workers and companies. I am not jumping to any conclusions; I am just trying to gather the facts. I should add that the zero-hours contract system continued under 13 years of the Labour Government and that no Labour Minister thought that there was a problem with that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Vince Cable

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The Government are supporting women with young children, and families in general, to the tune of about £5 billion through the child care element in tax credit and free early years tuition, which for low-income families has been extended to two-year-olds, as well as tax relief on employers’ schemes. That amounts to very substantial support for child care.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The number of women in the workplace has been increasing for some time, of course, but in Wirral women public servants faced with the threat of redundancy and women leaders of small business tell me the cuts to Wirral council are threatening their job security. Will the Secretary of State ask his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to have a rethink about some of the heaviest cuts that are falling on places such as Merseyside?

[Vince Cable]

It is never good when people lose their jobs, and I always regret that, but the simple fact is that in Wirral, as in other parts of the country, the number of public sector local and national Government jobs lost is far outweighed by the number of jobs created in the private sector; over 1 million have been created over the past two years.

Industrial Strategy

Debate between Alison McGovern and Vince Cable

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman has his own very distinctive and unique style which we all admire. What I said goes in tandem with the announcements that my colleagues and I made this morning about scrapping a substantial amount of red tape. Of course, for large parts of the small-scale business sector that is rather more crucial. The two things coexist.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Further to the Secretary of State’s comments about tax, what conversations has he had with the Treasury about helping businesses that want to invest in the technology that we will need if the coalition Government are sincere about rebalancing the economy?

[Vince Cable]

I meet the Chancellor very frequently. He has supported, through the autumn statement and the Budget, a whole series of innovation spending, building on the science budget, which, as the hon. Lady will remember, was ring-fenced in the spending review. He understands the needs in this area very well.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Debate between Alison McGovern and Vince Cable

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I shall finish this point and then give way. What we have done is, first, establish a process to stop the accumulation of regulation. Last week, with the support of the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), I started attacking an issue that is a particular concern to small business: the problem of tribunals. I believe that there are almost 250,000 such cases a year, many of which are frivolous. They are being brought by people who are not required to pay any fee in order to be heard before the tribunal. We are trying to establish, following a consultation, a level playing field to help small business deal with the problems established by the tribunal system. In future all cases will go through a mediation process before they get into the costly and disruptive process of a tribunal. It is worth remembering that the previous Government tried twice to reform this process, but backed off on both occasions, under pressure from the people who pay their bills.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is talking about regulation, but he began his speech by giving us a history lesson on the financial services sector crash. So will he take this opportunity to explain what he would have done to regulate that sector further and prevent the global financial crash?

[Vince Cable]

It is a pity that the hon. Lady was not here to hear my speeches on this subject for the five years running up to the crisis, but I shall make two simple points now. The first is that when the financial crisis occurred, I thought and said openly, as I shall repeat now, that the interventions made at that time by the then Chancellor were exactly right and deserved support. What the then Government did not do—this is what we are doing through the Banking Commission—is look at the fundamental issues of overly large banks, concentrations of retail and investment banking, and how to deal with the very complex problems of those two things being locked in the same institution. We are dealing with the fundamental issues behind the banking crash, rather than the superficial aspects of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Vince Cable

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The Secretary of State does understand the importance of RDAs, which of course will be changed but in a way that makes them more effective. I am sure that the hon. Lady noticed that in my first comments on RDAs very shortly after I took office I recognised that several parts of the country were especially vulnerable. I mentioned the west midlands as one.

[Alison McGovern]

In my constituency of Wirral South there are a great many people who are very concerned about the coalition Government’s proposals, and specifically those with special relevance to the projects that have been progressed by the Northwest Regional Development Agency. Will the Secretary of State give me some reassurance that this vital business support will continue?

[Vince Cable]

Within days of taking up this job I went to the north-west of England. I visited the RDA and talked to the chairman and chief executive and to businesses in the region. I reassured them that we are well aware of the problems faced by Merseyside and the north-west, and that it is an area of priority in terms of resources.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

We have indeed made large economies, along with the rest of Government, and we had to do so. Had we not met the nature of the economic crisis that we now face across Europe, the cost of capital would have risen, causing even further difficulties for business. I have already told the hon. Lady about the increase in apprenticeships, and high-value engineering is clearly a major target for that.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

T9. Businesses both small and large in Wirral are showing great faith in our young people and their future by investing in apprenticeships. However, that work has the potential to be undermined by the great many reviews that the Government are now carrying out. Will the Minister confirm that if those reviews are truly necessary, they will be carried out swiftly and in liaison with businesses, so that their support for apprenticeships will not be undermined?