Employment Rights: Government Plans

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

Today, we have seen the Labour party do its typical thing for Opposition day debates—roll out its spin machine, this time to cling on to EU regulations by the back door, rehashing lines from the remain campaign—but we can all see through it. My constituents do not want to hold on to EU rules and regulations. What they want is a high-wage, high-skill, high-standard economy: high wages by introducing a new immigration system that ends the practice of people being brought into the UK to undercut our workforce; high skills by using schemes such as kickstart, the lifetime skills guarantee and the new skills for jobs White Paper; and high standards, reflecting the clear commitment from the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who said at the Dispatch Box that there will be “no changes” to workers’ rights in the UK.

We have some of the best standards in the world for workers—there will be no change. What are those standards? We have 28 days of annual leave in the UK, compared with a requirement of 20 in the EU. Parental leave allowance stops for a child of eight in the EU but at 18 in the UK. Maternity leave is paid for 39 weeks in the UK, but for only 14 weeks in the EU. However, protecting UK workers means more than just these rights; it is about making sure that people get a decent wage for the work that they do. Again, it is the Conservative party—MPs on this side of the House—that is committed to making that happen. It is this Government who have cracked down on employers not paying the national minimum wage. It is this Government who have increased the national minimum wage by more than 50% since 2010, and there is 20% more to go before 2024.

Let us not forget that when Labour were in Government, they scrapped the 10p tax bracket, hitting those on the minimum wage. That is not protecting British workers. Let us put that into pounds—under the Labour party, when it left power, someone earning the minimum wage and working full-time would pay £815 a year in tax. Today, someone on the minimum wage working full-time pays £672 in tax. Take-home pay has increased from £767 under Labour to £1,200 today, so the Labour party might want to talk about protecting workers but in reality it means nothing of the sort. It wants to tie us to EU rules in perpetuity, dismantling our flexible workforce. We need to recognise the protections we have, recognise the measures that we have taken and continue to build a flexible, highly skilled and well-paid workforce.