Employment: Zero-hour Contracts

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I certainly accept that. The consultation is designed to be wide-ranging. We do not have a closure date for it because it is important that we go into all the issues surrounding zero-hours contracts, including who is involved in them and the numbers of people. There is definitely opaqueness there; my noble friend makes a good point.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, Wales has a higher proportion of people working on low pay than the rest of the UK, including many who are in insecure jobs. About 50,000 of them are on zero-hour contracts. Will the Minister explain how, if these people do not know from one day to the next whether they have work, they are benefiting from the great recovery that we are supposedly seeing at the moment?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

First, I should alert the noble Baroness to the fact that there is a recovery going on. Indeed, the employment rate was 71.7% and the unemployment rate was 7.7%, so progress is definitely being made, but there is more work to do. In terms of the contracts in Wales to which the noble Baroness referred, again, this is one of the issues we will be looking at as part of the consultation. It is not a good thing if contracts are entered into with both parties being unhappy with the contract.