The Economy and Living Standards

Debate between Anne McGuire and Andrew Griffiths

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

I remember it well, and there is now the mirror image of that: they are in government now, and they are calling for even more expenditure in their individual constituencies. That certainly puts a whole new slant on “Think nationally—or globally—and act locally.” It is almost as though there is no connect between the two.

I first want to welcome two elements of the Queen’s Speech, however. One is the commitment to continue to implement new powers for the Scottish Parliament, which I hope will be done within the context of a United Kingdom—the “No” badge I am wearing today has absolutely nothing to do with me not wanting anybody here to speak to me.

I also welcome the increased penalties for those not paying the national minimum wage, but I say to the Government that it is one thing to increase penalties, but it is another thing actually to enforce the law. There is absolutely no point in increasing the penalties if there is not going to be the enforcement welly behind the national minimum wage to tackle employers who are behaving illegally.

I want to concentrate on a couple of areas. One is zero-hours contracts, which the Chancellor blithely dismissed. Yes, zero-hours contracts have, of course, been with us for a long time, and, yes, they can in some circumstances be a useful resource in managing a work force, but the difference between what happened in the past and what is happening now is that zero-hours contracts have effectively become part of the mainstream in how our employment market is operating.

Let us consider a couple of companies that have a presence in most of our areas. Sports Direct has 23,000 workers, and 20,000 of them are on zero-hours contracts. That is 86% of its work force. That is not about Sports Direct having flexibility. Some 80% of Wetherspoon staff are on zero-hours contracts, too. That is not just about managing the bulges in customer numbers at certain times of the day or at the weekend, but is a policy decision by those companies to use zero-hours contracts as an employment tool. What is even worse is that having 1 million or so workers on zero-hours contracts helps to disguise the unemployment figures—[Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) talking to himself or does he want to intervene on me?

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady condemns companies that employ people on zero-hours contracts, but will she condemn the more than 60 Labour MPs who also do so?

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Gentleman was obviously so busy talking to himself that he did not hear what I was saying, which was that there are instances in which zero-hours contracts might well be suitable. However, a zero-hours contract approach is now being embedded in our mainstream way of employing people. That stokes up people’s uncertainty about their income, creates instability in their lives and leaves them unable to get finance, even for rented accommodation. Those who think that these contracts provide numerous hours’ work each week should note that, according to the Office for National Statistics, an individual who worked for just one hour within its survey period was considered to be employed. The attractive mirror image to this situation for the Government is that they can describe those people as having come off the unemployment register, creating a false figure for the unemployment in our constituencies. The previous Tory Government used to shunt people on to incapacity benefit. The present Government are using zero-hours contracts in much the same way.

The second issue that I want to address is how people can afford housing in the present environment. According to the Scottish Parliament information unit, the average pay in Scotland is £26,472. The average price for a semi-detached house in my constituency is £140,000. I know that Members who represent constituencies in the south of England might think that that is not a high price, but we must ask ourselves how on earth people are going to get a mortgage or other finance for such a house on a salary of around £26,000 a year. It just does not compute. In my area, we have strong tourist accommodation and food industries, in which the average wages have actually dropped. They now average £10,558 a year.

Taking all those factors together, we find a situation in which many people in this country do not feel that they are benefiting from the rosy picture painted by the Chancellor earlier. We do not have to move far from this Chamber to find evidence of that. I wonder how many of us think about how our low-paid workers in the House of Commons dining rooms or in the Tea Room are even managing to get into work. Some of them are on zero-hours contracts. We need to look at the long-term implications for those people.

This Queen’s Speech is, I hope, the last under this Government. I also hope that it predates a new Queen’s Speech after the general election under a Labour Government led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). I can find no better description of the Conservatives than that used by Disraeli. He said of Conservatism that it

“offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.”

This Queen’s Speech fulfils both those criteria.