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.

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[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.

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[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—

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[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I repeat what I have just said, which is that local authorities already have powers to control clustering and to control concerns on their high streets that need to be dealt with. Article 4 directions have been very recently used by Southwark and by Barking and Dagenham, while Newham has used licensing conditions very recently.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that although it is quite legitimate for people to have concerns about the number of bookmakers on our high streets, the fact is that the number of bookmakers in this country in recent years has remained relatively stable at between 8,000 and 9,000, which is well below the peak of 16,000 in the 1960s?

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need to remember that gambling is a legal activity and is enjoyed safely by many people right across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is exactly the point. I am sure that the leader of South Derbyshire district council is doing almost as good a job as my hon. Friend did previously, although I leave her to sort that out with him later. The key thing is that discretionary housing payments are there to help the most vulnerable. Councils should use them. We have allocated an extra pot for those that think they might run over, so there is extra money to bid for, and we are happy to entertain those bids.

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

4. What recent estimate he has made of potential savings to the public purse arising from implementation of the benefit cap.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Capping benefit at average earnings is forecast, by reducing the large benefit amounts previously paid to households, to save £85 million this year and around £140 million next year. What is more, some 19,000 potentially capped claimants have moved into work, where paying tax and national insurance contributions brings a further benefit to the Exchequer.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Residents in my North-West Leicestershire constituency are doubly astonished, first, that more than 30,000 households were claiming more than £26,000 in benefits prior to the introduction of the cap and, secondly, that the Labour party completely failed to support the introduction of a cap at all. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that this Government will persevere with its benefits cap policy and review the level at which the cap is set—currently at considerably more than the average post-tax income in my constituency?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is not alone, when 73% of the public support the cap as it stands, as did nine out of 10 Londoners in a recent poll. It appears that the only people who do not support the cap are Labour Members. We will keep the policy under review, but the one thing we should celebrate is that we are reforming welfare to ensure that those who need the money get it, and those who do not get back to work.

Food Banks

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

I agree. My right hon. Friend and I share food bank provision in our constituencies, so I know that to be true.

Since April this year, over half a million people have already relied on assistance from the 400 food banks run by the Trussell Trust charity—that is double the number of food banks compared with this time last year. Of those half a million people, one third are children. In Britain, the seventh richest country on the planet, in the 21st century, it is a scandal, and it is getting worse. More people have been going to food banks in the past nine months than in the whole of last year. Half a million people have gone to food banks compared with 26,000 before the last general election.

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

rose—

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

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[Maria Eagle]

I agree that some food banks were established before the last election, but 400 have now been established by the Trussell Trust, rather than 49. By the time we left office, 40,000 people were visiting food banks, a tenfold increase on the 4,000 at the start—

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Eagle]

No.

There are now half a million people visiting food banks—an exponentially larger figure. It is right that this House seeks to find out the real cause of that increase. It is a scandal that is getting worse. The Government now have the humiliation of the Red Cross helping to collect and distribute food aid in Britain for the first time since the second world war.

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[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I would just like to mention Labour’s record: a 40% increase in youth unemployment. What we have done, as I have said, has seen youth unemployment fall for 17 consecutive months. It is now lower than it was at the general election.

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

Will my hon. Friend confirm that since the Youth Contract was launched in April 2012 youth unemployment has fallen by more than 59,000 and that the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance has been dropping for 17 consecutive months?

[Esther McVey]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Just so that we can hear it again, even though I have said it twice and he has said it once, youth unemployment has fallen for 17 consecutive months.

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[Mike Penning]

Individual cases are understandably quite emotional for individual MPs and their constituents. If the decision in that case was overturned, we will look carefully at what the tribunal said. We need to do that to ensure we get it right. However, this process was started by the previous Administration—it is nothing new for this Government—but we will get it right where, I am afraid, they got it wrong.

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

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Today I welcome the latest labour market statistics. We have seen the largest annual drop in the claimant count for 15 years. Almost every area in Britain has seen the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance fall over the last year, contributing to a total fall in worklessness of more than 500,000 since 2010, while there are now more than 1 million more in work. All this is a testament, I believe, to this Government’s success in getting Britain working again.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Few would disagree that careers advice in schools needs improvement. Given that unemployment is now down to 2.6% in my constituency, does my right hon. Friend agree that Jobcentre Plus is well placed—it has the resources and the local knowledge —to deliver part of that improvement, preferably in conjunction with local employers?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his area on having an unemployment rate of 2.6%, which is testimony to the efforts this Government are making. Schools obviously have a legal duty to secure independent careers guidance for their pupils, and employers have to work with them, but it is also a fact that Jobcentre Plus has a careers guidance programme. We are now in talks with the schools to ensure that somehow we can connect would-be school leavers, long before they leave school, with companies and businesses, to tell them exactly what they need to have and what skills they will need to obtain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that, actually, despite the picture he portrays, work is improving. There have been significant job outcomes across the country—they are up 1 million—and the claimant count is down. Inactivity is at record low levels and the number of households where someone is in work is higher now under this Government than it was in any year under the previous Labour Government.

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

Can my hon. Friend confirm that tackling youth unemployment is a major priority for the Government, and that young people—18 to 24-year-olds—have benefited from the Work programme, with more than 100,000 finding some sort of work through it? Does she agree that the Work programme is working?

[Esther McVey]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Work programme is working. In particular, let us look at the figures for youth unemployment. The number of 18 to 24-year-olds on jobseeker’s allowance has fallen for 15 consecutive months. It is now 60,000 less than in May 2010. Youth unemployment is down from the numbers we inherited from Labour, and the number of young people not in education, employment or training is at its lowest for a decade.

Disabled People

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Again, that is a good point. I think of a constituent whose case I raised with the Prime Minister. I visited her the day after our exchange. Her house has been adapted because she is in a wheelchair, which she has to use upstairs as well as downstairs, so she needed a lift. That lift was provided in one of the rooms of her house. Are we to believe that it would help society for that woman to move to a smaller house, which would also have to be adapted? Where is the sanity of that, far less the decency?

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

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that heavily adapted homes are excluded from the spare room subsidy?

[Mr Clarke]

They are not. If the hon. Gentleman reads the regulations, the two U-turns to which I referred to do not include heavily adapted homes, but we will continue to fight for that.

Briefly on local government, we are told that the Government have increased funding for discretionary housing payments through local authority funds and that that will be enough, but we have seen a 338% increase in people applying for discretionary housing payments. Local authorities—I say this as a former president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—simply cannot find the money. The Government cannot keep cutting, cutting and cutting again and then say the responsibility lies with local authorities when every single pressure has been put on them.

Personal independence payments are replacing disability living allowance. They will be paid at a different rate and the Government estimate that 600,000 fewer people will be eligible, all because the Government wish to reduce costs by 20%. Balancing the books, as they see it, is being done on the backs of disabled people, and that cannot be right.

On the Work programme, we have been told that the Government want to get people with disabilities into work. That is an admirable objective, and one that I have supported for a very long time, but the Government must know that there are simply not enough jobs available, not only for people with disabilities but for others on benefits too.

In 1986, I had the privilege of introducing what I hoped was a progressive Act relating to disability. I think of the people who supported it: Jack Ashley, Alf Morris and others on both sides of the House. It went through under a Thatcher Government. I say to Government Members to read what the Whips have told them to say and read what the civil servants have prepared, but to think and think again about how this policy affects ordinary people who are already disadvantaged, and, in all morality, to reject what the Government are seeking to do.

Remploy

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I am not sure that the hon. Lady has been listening. These are not disappointing figures; they are better than those for most other redundancies—that is how fast these people are getting into employment. We have given personal support. People are going on Work Choice and getting the tailored support they need, and we are doing this for 18 months.

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

Does my hon. Friend recall a fantastic Marks & Start event she attended in my constituency last year, where not only were more than 1,000 newly created jobs announced, but 200 of them were reserved for people with disabilities? Does she agree that that is an excellent model of how to help those with disabilities into sustainable employment?

[Esther McVey]

I do indeed remember being at Castle Donington with my hon. Friend at the Marks & Start site. This was a distribution centre looking for 1,000 employees, many of them disabled. He, like me, will be pleased to know that it is ahead of its target and is getting more disabled people into work there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I remind the hon. Lady that over the last seven months the number of jobseekers has fallen. She has not welcomed that, but it is good news for her constituents and for people across the country. We want to make sure Jobcentre Plus advisers offer a good quality service. They do that, and I am very disappointed that a member of the Select Committee cannot see fit to thank Jobcentre Plus advisers for their hard work.

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

Will my hon. Friend confirm that job vacancies are at their highest level since 2008?

[Mr Hoban]

Indeed, they are at their highest level since 2008. That is why we have record numbers of people in work, record numbers of women in work, and a record number of hours worked. It is about time the Opposition welcomed that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we are asking social tenants to pay £2 a day towards a spare room—something that private tenants had to do under Labour’s local housing allowance scheme. Within Wales, a quarter of all social accommodation is one-bedroom properties. If we can deal with overcrowding and people on the waiting list in Wales, we will be doing the right thing by the people of Wales.

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

I am pleased that £50 million-worth of discretionary housing payments have been made available to ease the transition in difficult cases and to support families. How will the Minister ensure that my constituents are aware of this extra support?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need local authorities and social landlords, with which we have been working, to alert tenants to the fact that over £150 million has been made available to local authorities this year to help individuals in hard cases.