Seasonal Work
Debate between Antonia Bance and Simon Hoare(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Let us take a look at the amendment which Mr Speaker has selected in the name of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s amendment tells us that he
“welcomes the policy paper”
on
“the plan for small and medium sized businesses, which sets out”—
wait for it—
“a comprehensive vision for productivity and success”.
[Interruption.] “Wow” indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) says from a sedentary position—she is less well trained in keeping her excitement levels under control. After 14 years of opposition and 18 months in government: a policy paper, a plan, a comprehensive vision—that is the sum of the contribution from the Treasury Bench towards these important and vital parts of the sector. The Government need to learn, I suggest, a key and important lesson: policy papers, plans and comprehensive visions deliver of themselves nothing. They create no jobs. They give no certainty. They provide no confidence to employees, employers, investors, entrepreneurs, innovators or consumers. Strategy and policy are not the same things. Vision and delivery are not two sides of the same coin.
The Government tell us in their amendment that their Employment Rights Bill
“will help season workers by bringing the UK’s outdated employment laws into the 21st century”.
Well, I would dispute first and foremost the idea that our employment laws are outdated; I think they have been organic and iterative over the decades, as one would expect. But the Government will not help seasonal workers if they cannot become seasonal workers because putative employers have neither the confidence to employ nor the headroom to create jobs and pay salaries. We are in fantasy land, with a fantasy idea about how to run an economy: we just legislate and, hey presto—pantomime-like—it happens. A strategy is published and—bingo!—it is all resolved. That is not the case.
This first example will, I am sure, be of enormous interest to the Labour party. Mark Fulton, a constituent of mine in Tolpuddle, is the landlord of the Martyrs Inn.
Simon Hoare
It is a lovely pub. The hon. Lady has been and has not been barred yet. Anybody who knows their trade union history, as I know she does, will know about the Tolpuddle martyrs in 1834. The pub is named after them.
Simon Hoare
The pub was bought by the village for £500,000. It is a community asset-type pub. One significant stakeholder is the TUC itself, which decided that thirsty trade unionists might, after the martyrs memorial, enjoy a pint and, indeed, one of the excellent sandwiches that the hon. Lady has referenced.
After the Budget, Mark Fulton wrote to me:
“With the impact of this Budget, we risk losing these vital community hubs that are so important to our local life and economy.”
He, like others in all our constituencies, has been arguing for—and this freedom exists now we are outside the European Union—a bespoke reduction of VAT on pub sales, including the wet trade. We are asking publicans, who provide far more in the community hubs that Mark talks about, to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, when in essence they are paying a VAT rate of 20% compared with the 2% paid by supermarkets.
Business rates are clearly going to go up. That is, again, the fantasy world of this Government. One sector representative group after another tells the Government that, by the Government’s own figures and calculations, business rates will rise. “Oh no,” says the Minister. “Everybody else is wrong. I am right, because I am a Minister of the Crown.” This is the politics of the emperor’s new clothes. It is about time that one or two people on the Government Benches stood up and told the Treasury team that many of their policies leave the Government naked as they try to garner and foster a small, entrepreneurial business sector.
On employer national insurance and increases in the minimum wages, I quote Mark Fulton again:
“The latest rise risks opportunities for young people to be employed in our sector.”
He goes on to remind us that
“40% of young people begin their careers in hospitality—the sector plays a crucial role in training, upskilling and supporting social mobility.”
All that is put at risk. Surely, irrespective of geography or party affiliation, we should all be worried if a cogent argument is deployed about social mobility being reduced as a direct result of Government policy.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) said in his excellent speech, many of the harmful decisions taken in the recent Budget were not of the Government’s choosing. They were, in essence, a fulfilment of what the Chancellor rightly said to rebellious Back Benchers on welfare: “Rebel if you like, and we’ll abandon if we have to, but there’ll be a cost that will have to be paid. That cost will be taxed, and there will be a concomitant diminution in confidence among employers and customers.”
I could quote several publicans, but Barbara Cossins, who owns and runs the Langton Arms in Tarrant Monkton, would have my guts for garters if I did not take this opportunity to mention her. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) knows it well and says what a good pub it is. Barbara Cossins replicates many of the points made by Mark Fulton, but adds that rural pubs in tourist areas are particularly reliant on seasonal summer trade. They have to pay business rates, but their major competitor in those small rural settings, Airbnb, pays no business rates at all. It is an un-level playing field.
The Government had an opportunity—and they possibly still do, as the Finance Bill progresses—to try to level that playing field. We are asking these important sectors of our economy to go into bat for UK plc—to create the jobs that create the tax that funds our public services—but at every step and turn, this Government seem hellbent on hobbling and hamstringing them and tying their hands behind their backs.
The Government have the laudable aim of seeing housebuilding increase. Who does not? Again, that is an important part of social mobility—we know that a lot of seasonal jobs are created in the construction sector. However, Travis Perkins sent out a customer email just today that said that, from 1 January, supplier increases in prices will come in across the industry.
Simon Hoare
I will, but let me finish this point.
Roofing prices are up 7%, bricks 8%, blocks 9%, landscaping 8%, drainage 8%, and plaster, plasterboard and cladding 7%. Costs can be increased, and companies can absorb as much as they can, but at some point, as Travis Perkins points out, those increased costs can no longer be self-absorbed and must be passported off to the consumer. When the consumer’s costs go up, their margins of profit decrease, and their likelihood, potential and appetite for creating additional jobs disappears, like an early spring frost, arguably never to return.
Antonia Bance
I am so glad that someone has mentioned the construction industry. However, the hon. Member is talking not about seasonal jobs but about contract work. The key to maintaining sustained employment in the construction sector is having a strong pipeline of repeated projects so that people can build their skills and move on to the next contract, and then the one after that, to build a career in that way. Does he agree that the Government’s announcement of construction technical excellence colleges across the country—including close to my area, at the end of the new tramline in Dudley—£39 billion over the next 10 years for sustainable housebuilding, including social and affordable housing, and the largest sustained infrastructure funding in four decades, means that there will be a sustainable pipeline—