Government Policies (Wales)

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Yes, it is an economy of maximum insecurity for the work force and maximum security and flexibility for employers. Invariably these days the employers are umbrella companies, supply agencies or contract companies, and often people do not even know who is employing them. We do know that the number of self-employed workers in Wales has gone up by 17,000 since the Government came to power, but their incomes have crashed by more than a fifth. Similarly, in Wales there are now 71,000 part-time workers who wish they were working full time. That is up from 54,000—an increase of almost one third under this Government. Those are the hallmarks of the culture of insecurity—the culture of fear—in the workplace that is now affecting Wales and the rest of the country.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that Labour would scrap all zero-hours contracts? If so, I would like to know how the NHS and education in Wales would cope without the flexibility of bank nurses and bank teachers.

[Owen Smith]

No, we have been clear that we will tackle all abuses and exploitation of zero-hours contracts. We will introduce rules to give new rights to employees on zero-hours contracts. We will ban employers from requiring zero-hours workers to be available on the off-chance that there might be work for them. We will stop employees being required to work exclusively for one firm if they are on a zero-hours contract. We will ensure that zero-hours workers who have their shifts cancelled at short notice are recompensed. That is what the next Labour Government will do; that is what this Government could and should be doing.

[Mrs Main]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will not give way any more, because I have gone on for quite long enough. I need to wind up my remarks because other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate—at least on this side of the House.

The reality is that workers’ rights have been eroded under this Government. It is not just wages that have crashed—employees’ rights have crashed. The Government have made it more difficult for workers to take employers to court. They have watered down health and safety legislation and they have bribed workers to sell their rights for shares. They have talked up anti-strike laws, they have halved the consultation period for redundancies in large employers, they have allowed blacklisting to flourish and they have tried to silence campaigning activities by trade unions and others. It is the antithesis of what the Government need to be doing to increase security and loyalty, to increase receipts in our work force and to increase productivity. Fear has become the norm in the workplace. The minimum wage is no longer the minimum: all too often, it is the going rate. Rights have been diminished and wages have fallen.

The next Labour Government will do things radically differently. We will right those wrongs, ban zero-hours contracts, freeze energy bills, fix the rip-off market, increase the minimum wage, and stand up for the Welsh NHS, investing in new doctors and nurses through a mansion tax. We will scrap the bedroom tax and liberate the 26,000 disabled Welsh people from the fear of it. We will cut taxes for the lowest-paid. We will increase taxes for the richest. We will rebuild Wales and Britain on the foundations of fairness, not fear. We will build an economy that works for working people once more, for the many and not the few.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Evans]

I did not want to get into this argument because I did not want to be negative, but we must be very clear that when we try to use the NHS as a stick with which to beat people, we must think about those on the front line.

[Mrs Main]

I urge a note of caution. As someone whose mother has just died under the NHS, with an inquiry going on into her treatment, I know there are legitimate concerns and the hon. Gentleman ought to face up to them. That is not to denigrate the nurses; but there are some serious concerns about the health service.

[Chris Evans]

I have full sympathy for the hon. Lady. I lost two people this week who were close to me and I know they were served very well by the NHS.

The challenges we face are greater than they have been for decades. Rising economies in China, Brazil and India and on the African continent are changing the global economy in ways we could not have predicted just 10 years ago. This is a challenge for which we must be prepared. It is vital that businesses are supported and encouraged to grow and that we train our young people for the jobs of the future. Years ago, when my grandfather began working down the mines, it was the muscles in his arms that he had to use. Now, when children leave school and start work they have to use their brains. It is no good standing here and harking back to the past. No politician can reopen a factory or rebuild an industry that has gone. To put it simply, this country has to go back to school.

No one has a job for life any more. In fact, people will change their job seven or eight times throughout their working life. We therefore need a partnership between education and business. Our universities should work with industry to formulate portable skills that can be taken from job to job. Equally, we have to realise that education ultimately produces future employees and employers, yet businesses tell me they have young people who are not equipped for the world of work. For me, business needs to be involved in the educational process from day one, introducing children to the world of work.

I am afraid that the Government are failing Wales. Their policies are sending our communities backwards, not forwards. Where is the business strategy from the UK Government, like that from the previous Labour Government, to encourage more companies such as General Dynamics to locate in Wales? Where is the national infrastructure to ensure that Wales is connected not just to the UK but to the world? We should remember when we talk about electrification of the railways that it was the Ebbw Vale and Maesteg lines that were left out, which are essential transport links to the valleys.

Where is the support and encouragement for entrepreneurs to create new enterprises? Ministers often talk about a long-term economic plan, but I am still not clear what it is. Is it blaming everybody else, talking down the economy and our communities, making people believe that we are all on welfare and failing time and again to work constructively with the Welsh Government to deliver policies that help Wales face new global challenges?

Mr Speaker—I am sorry, I mean Mr Deputy Speaker, but I hope that one day we will refer to you as Mr Speaker. The facts speak for themselves. Youth employment in Wales is down from last year and is 4% lower than in the rest of the UK. The production index has risen by 1.4% less than the rest of the UK, up to the second quarter of 2014. Worst of all, one in three children live in poverty.

The biggest poverty in the Welsh valleys is not a poverty we can measure but a poverty of ambition. It is the belief that university or starting a business is not for us. It permeates generation after generation, and no Government of any colour can change that with one policy. That is why, as I said before, we need to go back to school. We need to introduce children to the types of careers they can enjoy and say to them, to borrow a phrase from across the Atlantic that has fallen into disregard, “Yes we can.” The tragedy is that we know how to solve the problem. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,

“Wales needs job creation to defeat poverty.”

The Labour Administration in Cardiff are pursuing active labour policies, and we need to follow them.

There is no future in a low-skill, low-pay economy. We know that. What we need is a forward-thinking, specialised, high-skilled, connected economy, and, with the political will, we can achieve it.