Job Insecurity

Debate between Ben Gummer and Madeleine Moon

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called in this interesting debate, Mr Speaker. When I saw the title of the motion, I was pleased that the Opposition were tackling a substantive issue that I know is close to the hearts of many Members, on both sides of the House. As we have heard from Labour Members, this subject is the reason why many of them went into politics: they wanted to fight on behalf of their constituents who are most vulnerable at times like these, including to rapacious and exploitative employers.

I was therefore disappointed to read the content of the motion. I very much agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills that it could have talked about serious issues of job insecurity, especially the problems we face, which are existential challenges as this economy expands and grows once again: how we compete in an increasingly ferocious competitive environment. However, the motion contains a shopping list of failed Labour claims, most of which have been forgotten. Labour Members seem to have gone through so many accusations that they are now retreading them and putting them back in their motions.

Let me go through the motion line by line. It states:

“That this House believes that insecurity at work has increased under this Government, compounding the cost of living crisis facing families”.

There is no recognition, even at the beginning, of the triumph of coming out of the great recession, with 1.3 million more jobs. The greatest insecurity any family can have is not having a job, yet we have more people in jobs, and most of those people, although not all, are pleased with their jobs. They are pleased that they have a job that is secure—not everyone does, but most do.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency may well be very different from mine. Job insecurity is high in my area, and the cost of living increase has also been large. The StepChange Debt Charity recently published a report showing the average income of its clients in Bridgend in 2010 was £1,189, yet by 2014 that figure had risen by only £5. By contrast, arrears in gas and electricity bills, and mortgage arrears, are increasing. We are living in very different environments, with different work experiences, which is why Opposition Members are concerned about job insecurity.

[Ben Gummer]

I am well acquainted with the hon. Lady’s constituency, as it is where my family is originally from. There are certainly differences between her constituency and mine, but Ipswich has significant areas of deprivation and its long-term unemployment is above the national average. These are precisely the issues that I am concerned about, just as she is. I recognise the point she is making, but to claim—this is where the shadow Secretary of State really lets himself down—that this is something new immediately debases the debate.

When we look at the movement of wages over the past 10 to 15 years, we see that a far more subtle change has been going on, which we need to address. Middle-income earners have seen their wages, in real-terms, first plateau and then decrease slightly from 2003-04, even up until the point of the crisis, as a result of increased tax and increased costs of living. That might indicate that we need to have a rather fuller debate about why that is happening in our country—and was even before we hit the extraordinary circumstances of the great recession. Some claim that this has been on the Opposition’s lips for a long time, but I find that problematic, because I was speaking about the cost of living before my election in 2010 and in the days afterwards. It was immediately of concern to everyone, on almost every income, in my constituency.

I am talking about not just those who are most hard pressed, but those people, often on middle incomes, who have not much wiggle room because they have a mortgage. They are at the most expensive stage in their life. They are bringing up children and saving for a pension. The things that make life bearable for them—sometimes they are in jobs that they do not particularly enjoy—are the holiday and the curry every fortnight. Those things have now gone by the wayside, but that happened not in 2013 but in 2007-08. People’s lifestyles have changed over that period, and we need to address that in the long term. To claim that that change is a result of specific Government policies is profoundly misleading. We are addressing the problems identified on every line of the motion, up to the last one, as the Secretary of State made quite clear,

The motion mentions the changes to employment regulations. In 2011, an owner of a major cleaning company in my constituency came to see me, saying that she wanted to hire more people on permanent contracts. Admittedly she was offering just above the minimum wage—I am afraid that is what most cleaners in this country are paid—but they were jobs none the less. She said that she was prevented from taking on those people because of the labour regulations. As a result of the changes we made in 2011-12, she has hired dozens more people who otherwise would have been without a job. I want to see those people on a living wage. I also want to see them keeping more of their money, which is partly why I am so proud of what we did with income tax relief for the lowest paid and why, through changes to national insurance, we are making it even easier for companies to hire. It is a good thing to see people employed who otherwise would not have been employed. Those changes have meant that unemployment has come down in my constituency.

Let me now take the example of zero-hours contracts. In a Public Bill Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) made an important point about why for her, at a time in her life when she had just had children, zero-hours contracts were useful. There are many people on zero-hours contracts who would prefer to be on a permanent contract. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests that it is only a minority of people who are on zero-hours contracts. Like the hon. Lady, there might be many people who value them at a particular moment.

Just this weekend, I met a constituent who made an interesting point. Before the great recession, he was employed as a construction worker. He was laid off in 2009-10. Recently, he has been getting a lot more agency work, much of which is zero hours, but he is earning considerably more than he did when he was in full-time employment. I asked him whether he preferred the security or the money. He said that, obviously, he would like both, but given a choice at this moment, he preferred the money. He said, “I know that as the economy begins to improve and construction gets a proper foothold, I will have the security, too.” These are difficult choices. I wish that, rather than making a litany of complaints, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) had concentrated on the meat of the discussion, which he outlines in the last sentence of the motion. We need to talk about skills and education levels, all of which were left in a terrible state by the previous Government and which we are having to unpick and undo. I am afraid that that in itself will take several generations to take effect.

We are talking about the result of decades’ worth of negligence by Governments of both colours. Let us have a proper discussion about that. I hope the Labour party will show itself to be worthy of being not just the Opposition but the potential Government.