Government Policies (Wales)
Debate between Anne Main and Owen Smith(10 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
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.