Job Insecurity

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Could the hon. Gentleman confirm to the House whether the gardener and the cleaner at his villa in Ibiza are full-time or part-time employed, and what is their hourly rate of pay?

[Mr Umunna]

I have said this before and I will say it again: I think we should keep our families out of this place. The hon. Gentleman would do well to reflect on that. If he wants to make another contribution that is perhaps a bit more intelligent and adds something to the debate, I am happy to give way, but clearly he has nothing to add.

The Government have failed to tackle the cost of living crisis. Family energy bills have been allowed to rise by £300 since the general election. As I said, they have given a huge tax cut to people earning millions of pounds a year while increasing VAT and cutting support for working families. They have failed to act on transport prices. What is certainly clear is that this Government have heaped further insecurity on people at work with their attacks on their fundamental rights and protections. The other week, the Business Secretary said in his speech to the Royal Economic Society—I thought it was a good speech—that he has “resisted moves” in the direction of attacking people’s rights at work. That simply does not reflect the reality.

When people have been treated unjustly or discriminated against and wish to seek redress, he and his ministerial colleagues have put up a barrier in the form of tribunal fees of up to £1,200, which the Minister for Skills and Enterprise referred to as “moderate” despite the fact that £1,200 is about two weeks’ average earnings. I do not think that is moderate: it is a barrier against access to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I will come on to that, but before that I will go through some of the things the Government have done to people’s rights in the workplace. They have increased the service requirement for claiming unfair dismissal from one to two years, depriving people of the right to seek justice when they have been wronged in the workplace. They have reduced compensatory rewards for unfair dismissal, which, as I have said in this House before, will impact in particular on those in middle-income occupations—the squeezed middle. They have also reduced the consultation period for collective redundancy and have sought to water down TUPE protections for people. I could go on.

We know that much of that was inspired by the 2011 report by the Conservative party donor and employment law adviser to the Prime Minister, Adrian Beecroft. By his own admission, in public evidence sessions in this House, Mr Beecroft said that his findings were based on conversations and not on a statistically valid sample of people—classic “off the back of a packet” stuff.

Never mind Beecroft, the best example of the Secretary of State failing to resist measures that increase insecurity in the workplace—my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has just referred to this—is the shares for rights scheme announced by the Chancellor at the Conservative party conference in 2012. The scheme provides for new employer shareholder status, whereby in return for between £2,000 and £50,000-worth of shares in their employer, the employee gives up fundamental rights at work: the right not to be unfairly dismissed, rights to statutory redundancy pay, rights to request flexible working and so on.

For all sorts of reasons, this is a bad idea, so much so that there was cross-party opposition to it, with the former Conservative employment Minister, Lord Forsyth, describing it as having

“all the trappings of something that was thought up by someone in the bath”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 March 2013; Vol. 744, c. 614.]

What did the Business Secretary do about it? He not only waved through the scheme; he sponsored its passage through the House. Since then, take-up seems to be low —about 19 inquiries have been made to the Department—but what happened next? Up popped the Deputy Prime Minister at the beginning of the year—let us remember that the Business Secretary waved through the scheme and took it through Parliament—calling for the scheme’s abolition.

Let me get this right: the Deputy Prime Minister’s two Liberal Democrat colleagues—the Business Secretary and the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—guided the policy through the House just 10 months ago; the Deputy Prime Minister marched his Members through the Division Lobby, along with Conservative Members, to introduce it; and now the Deputy Prime Minister wants to take credit for saying he wants to scrap this disastrous scheme, which he set up in the first place.

I know the Liberal Democrats have a reputation for this sort of thing, but even by their standards this really does take trying to have your cake and eat it to a whole new level.

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I am not giving way to that gentleman.

What would we do? To relieve the squeeze on incomes, we would take action to make work pay by expanding free child care for working parents. We would freeze gas and electricity bills while we make long-term changes to the energy market. We would introduce a 10p starting rate of tax, funded by a mansion tax. The Secretary of State was in favour of that once, but seems to have taken to voting against it, as well as against our motions about it in this House. [Interruption.] Perhaps he will correct the record.

Let us not forget that my party stood up to the nay-sayers and introduced the national minimum wage. The value of the minimum wage has fallen by 5% under this Government, so we have asked Alan Buckle, the former deputy chairman at KPMG, to investigate how we can make sure that the role and powers of the Low Pay Commission are extended in order to restore that value.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I understand that the Secretary of State is investigating that outrageous practice at the moment, and we await the findings of his Department’s investigation.

We have already made it clear that we disagree with heaping job insecurity on people in work, which is why we have opposed and voted against all the measures that this Government have introduced to water down people’s rights at work.

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I am not giving away.

For that reason, we would abolish the ridiculous shares for rights scheme. Zero-hours contracts have been mentioned, and we would ban their exploitative use.

[Andrew Bridgen]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hate to raise a point of order, but I think that the shadow Minister may be misleading the House inadvertently. He is talking about job security, but the latest ACAS figures—

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I think I would rather press on. I will take other interventions later.

The next twist in the argument on employment moved gradually away from the prediction of mass unemployment. The argument became that because public sector employment was declining, the growth in private sector employment would never catch up. What has actually happened is a very clear trend. In the period since we came into office, 1.1 million private sector jobs have been created. There have been losses in public sector employment of 440,000 jobs, but the ratio is about three to one. If we go back to the first quarter of last year, before the recovery had become properly embedded, the figures show that in every single region of the country, including in the north-east of England, private sector growth exceeded the decline in public sector employment, and that that trend has been sustained.

[Andrew Bridgen]

We have been talking about the rise in the number of people on zero-hours contracts. Is the Secretary of State aware of a report by ACAS saying that between 2003-04 and 2010-11—under Labour—the number of people on zero-hours contracts actually doubled?

[Vince Cable]

Indeed, and to be fair to the shadow Secretary of State, he did acknowledge that job insecurity—particularly zero-hours contracts—was not particular to our period in office but was a long-term trend.