Charlie Maynard
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Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this important debate.
This morning I met a constituent, Petra, who has been in the country for three and a half years. She works in the care sector. She works extremely long hours, which are not in her control; sometimes she is loaded with work six days straight from 7 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock at night, and sometimes she gets no work at all. When she talks to her employers, they say, “Well, you and the rest of your team are on visas, and if you report us and we go out of business then you’re all going to be leaving the UK.” We are creating this enormous class of indentured servitude.
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)
Those were exactly the words of my constituent Arshad Khan when he came to see me at my constituency surgery this weekend; he made that point about indentured servitude and visa licences, and how these employers operate. I just want to add to the hon. Gentleman’s argument, because this is a serious point. People are living with the power of their employer over their head. Sometimes, they are held on poor rates of pay and poor shift patterns, and they cannot challenge it because their employer has all the power in the relationship.
Charlie Maynard
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention.
The situation I described is obviously cruel, and this moving of the goalposts will make it miles crueller. To the point made by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I really hope that the Minister is reading the room, because the country is up in arms about the proposed change, and we should not allow it to be made. I ask him to reconsider.