Living Standards

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Those increases hit people in two ways: they hit the people who paid the duty when they filled up their tanks and they hit small businesses who employed people. It was a disastrous policy, which is why we scrapped it.

We will shortly have the joint lowest corporation tax in the G20. Last year, Britain was the biggest destination in Europe for inward investment. That competitiveness is creating jobs—jobs that give people incomes. Since 2010, 1.3 million jobs have been created in the private sector. More people are working in Britain than ever before and we have the lowest proportion of workless households for 17 years. There have been more net new private sector jobs in the past three years than there were in the previous 10 years under the Labour party.

People’s living standards are higher if they are in work, but I also want people to be able to earn higher wages. The only way to achieve that is to improve the levels of education and skills in the workforce. That is why the reforms of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education are so vital. It is why we need rigour in the exam system. It is why his announcement this week that we must ensure that people leave school qualified and skilled in all ways, but especially in maths and English, is so important. It is why the 86% increase in new apprenticeship starts between 2009-10 and 2011-12 is so important.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I would not want to waste the opportunity, with the Secretary of State for Education in his place, to raise again the cost of living issue of school uniforms, which the Prime Minister ignored earlier as though there were no issue to consider. In Manchester, one of the new academy secondary schools is charging £300 for a boy’s uniform. Families are really struggling, as I mentioned to the Prime Minister, although he did not seem to take the point on board. That cost is pushing a lot of families into debt and payday loans. The Financial Secretary talked about families struggling to get by, and this month some families are struggling to get by because they have had to shell out £300 to send their children back to school. What does the Secretary of State for Education have to say about that?

[Greg Clark]

I suggest that the hon. Lady turn up to Education questions if she wants to question the Secretary of State, but since her question refers to the cost of living, I hope she would not want the policies on such matters for every school in the country to be set from the Department for Education. It would be an interesting statement from the Labour party if it did want that. My experience of good schools in my constituency that have a uniform code, which parents welcome, is that they typically have schemes and mechanisms to help people obtain uniforms if they find themselves in financial difficulties.

Getting good jobs requires investment in skills and education for those in work. For those who are retired, incomes have been helped by the biggest ever increase in the state pension.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

Quite right! Jam tomorrow, but never jam today. People in the Wirral will certainly not put up with that, and I doubt that anyone in the rest of the country will either.

I have spent much of the summer talking to people about zero-hours contracts. They are a growing issue for my constituents and others. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and I have conducted a survey in order to listen to people with experience of such contracts. Given the stories that we heard from people who simply did not know what their wage packet was going to contain at the end of each week or month, I simply cannot accept the argument that any job is better than no job. That is like saying that it is better to work for £1 an hour than to have no job at all. I cannot accept that argument. I cannot accept an economy that is devoid of standards.

This is not a proper recovery. Unless it reaches those on low and middle incomes, we shall not see the kind of economic recovery that we need. Instead, we shall see the kind of hysteresis and waste of talent that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan has described. Zero-hours contracts affect young people; they are a blight on their prospects. Those people need a chance to build their skills so that they have the potential to have a good career. Will the Minister answer these questions? What will he do if the number of hours worked per person in the economy does not increase? What will he do if people are still underemployed in a year’s time? How will he address their need to increase their pay packet so that they can afford the prices in the shops?

On inflation, I repeat that I still cannot quite believe the Prime Minister’s response at Prime Minister’s questions today to the question about school uniforms. I remember only too well the situation in my own family. There were three of us, and September was an expensive time. My mum used to worry that we had grown. If the Prime Minister has not experienced that, or heard about it from families in his own constituency, let me tell him that it was extremely stressful. Unfortunately, the previous Governor of the Bank of England was forced to write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer citing the VAT increase as part of the cause of the inflation that we have experienced. So, although I accept the points that have been made about the global situation, the Government’s policy has not exactly helped to bring down prices.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank my hon. Friend for re-raising the point about school uniforms. The point that seemed to escape the Prime Minister, and possibly also the Secretary of State for Education, who was sitting next to him at Prime Minister’s questions, is that the problem is due entirely to the Government’s policy of creating new free schools and academies that insist on a branded uniform. That has raised the cost of the uniforms to £300. It is not possible to buy those uniforms from a supermarket. The increased cost is directly due to the policy of creating lots of new free schools and academies. The Government have to take responsibility for that.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend is quite right.