Jobs and Work

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

A few moments ago, the hon. Gentleman talked about a wage that people can live on. Will a future Labour Government commit to having a living wage in place of the minimum wage, or will his speech be more about rhetoric than firm commitments and pledges to the British people?

[Mr Umunna]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point, because 22% of employees in his constituency under this Government are paid less than a living wage. I will come on to what we intend to do and what is so sorely lacking in the Queen’s Speech.

We do not want to wait until a Conservative Chancellor sees the light and matches our ambition in 2084. What we are hoping is that in the Queen’s Speech, and the Bills that follow, he will match our commitment and ensure that we have a better-waged economy. There are two parts to this challenge: first, action to tackle low pay and insecurity at work—I will come on to what the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) talked about—and, secondly, the implementation across Government of an industrial strategy to nurture and grow the sectors that produce the better-paid jobs we want to see across the country.

On low pay, we make no apologies for reminding the House at every opportunity that it was this party, in the face of strong opposition, that introduced the national minimum wage. When we entered office, some people were earning as little as £1 an hour, a practice I am proud to say we outlawed. To give just one of the many examples of the opposition we faced, when we introduced the national minimum wage into this House 17 years ago, a member of the then shadow Cabinet said:

“If, as I and all my Conservative colleagues believe, the DTI’s minimum wage comes into effect, it will negatively affect, not hundreds of thousands but millions of people.”—[Official Report, 4 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 526.]

That shadow Cabinet member is now the Work and Pensions Secretary. We had the good sense to ignore him.

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[Mr Umunna]

That is a perfect example of the egregious and exploitative use of such arrangements. We are told that the employment Bill will help hard-working people to have confidence in the terms of their contracts and that it will crack down on the abuse of zero-hours contracts, such as the example my hon. Friend mentions. However, the details that we know of suggest that the Government are simply not going far enough. On its own, banning exclusivity clauses in such arrangements will not do the job. We need, among other things, to give workers the right to a fixed-hours contract when they have regularly worked hours with the same employer for a period of time—such as the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South—and to protect them from having their shifts cancelled at short notice without compensation. Above all, we must ensure that people know that they are on a zero-hours arrangement.

I have talked about jobs, wages and security at work. The other part of reforming the jobs market is the implementation across Government of a proper industrial strategy, both to create the right conditions for businesses to thrive in all regions of the country and to put the full weight of Government behind those sectors that can win gold medals in the global marketplace for the UK, creating more of the middle-income jobs we want to see.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I will just make a bit more progress.

Part of that involves ensuring the right environment across the country in all regions for our businesses to grow, and part of it involves a sector-led approach, looking at where we have a competitive edge and comparative advantage relative to our international competitors. I am very supportive of the sectoral approach. It was of course the Labour Government who led the way in that by setting up the Automotive Council.

When it comes to creating the right environment, ensuring that people have the skills our businesses need is crucial. Increasing the quantity and quality of apprenticeships is a must. We have a record to be proud of. In government, we rescued apprenticeships from the scrap heap. We more than quadrupled starts—[Interruption.] Government Members do not want to hear it, but let me give them the facts. We more than quadrupled apprenticeship starts, from a woeful 65,000 under the Major Government to 280,000 in our final year in office.

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[Vince Cable]

I will take two more interventions and then move on.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition’s stance, which is to pick out any poor statistic or position, highlights that they are completely in denial about the recovery’s strength? It exposes their lack of any vision to secure economic growth for this country.

[Vince Cable]

I was going to go on shortly to what is underpinning labour market growth, which is strong and balanced economic growth. I will come back to that.

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[Vince Cable]

Obviously, I do not know all the details of that case, but it seems a very bad one. It is not clear to me whether it is to do with the employer or the way that the benefits system has impacted on people, but if the hon. Lady writes to me we will get it investigated.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am a passionate believer in reform of zero-hours contracts, but does the Secretary of State agree that Opposition Members’ comments sit ill with the White Paper that the Labour Government issued that said that Labour

“wishes to retain the flexibility these contracts offer business”?

They then proceeded to do nothing about it for the rest of their time in office.

[Vince Cable]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of that. Two of my Labour predecessors investigated this problem and neither of them felt there was sufficient cause to change the legislation.

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[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

Along with many hon. Members, I welcome the unemployment statistics released today. I note that in my own constituency unemployment has come down, both on the year and on the month, which is to be welcomed alongside the drops nationally in both the long-term unemployment rate and the youth unemployment rate.

I also welcome the national insurance cut of £2,000 for businesses, which has contributed to businesses taking people on. I note of course that the Opposition have refused to say whether they would rule out reversing that change if they were in government.

In the Gracious Address, I particularly welcome the child care Bill, which will continue to make it possible for women to go into the workplace, and for men and women to share their child care responsibilities between them as they think best for their own circumstances.

I also welcome the small business Bill, which the Secretary of State spoke about earlier today. I particularly welcome measures in that Bill that support entrepreneurs. In a discussion that I had only yesterday, I came across an extremely interesting statistic. I understand that by the 2025 general election, for the first time since the second world war, the self-employed will outnumber public sector employees. That is not only extremely interesting electorally speaking but is, of course, exactly why we need to use a Bill such as the small business Bill to back entrepreneurs and all that they wish to do for themselves, their families and the jobs that they may create in the future.

[Charlie Elphicke]

A policy that I have been setting out before now is to have a really light-touch regime for the taxation and regulation of start-up businesses, whereby it will basically cost nothing whatever to set up a business. What does my hon. Friend think of that idea to drive entrepreneurship?

[Chloe Smith]

I strongly welcome that point and the Government could do well to examine my hon. Friend’s idea.

A subject that my hon. Friend and I have spoken about in the past is the other phenomenon that will happen by the 2025 general election. It is that generation Y —to talk in generational terms—will become a competitive part of the electorate compared with the baby boomers. Of course, I am talking about generation Y and all those who come behind them; I think that hon. Members will understand that concept.

I am not seeking to stir up any form of strife between generations; I do not think that would be productive. I mentioned jobs news and I wish to hail the work in my own constituency of the Norwich for Jobs campaign, which has brought about impressive results for young workers. However, I also wish to refer to the needs of older workers who will no doubt remain in the work force. I have met several 50-somethings in my constituency surgery to talk about exactly that issue.

In passing, I will say that I welcome the pensions Bill laid out in the Queen’s Speech, which will allow pensioners to have far more control and freedom over what they choose to do with their savings.

I will take a moment or two to talk about the way in which our politics and indeed our economy need to change, so as to adapt to generation Y and its needs in the coming years. The Queen’s Speech sets out a basis for that change.

Benjamin Disraeli spoke about there being two different planets and we might ask whether there are still two different planets. He spoke about rich and poor, but in fact the figures suggest that there is a gap between older voters and younger non-voters. That gap is an important one and it should concern us all.

I hear some people say that generation Y—younger voters—will simply bounce into the same habits that previous younger generations may have had. However, three things have changed: when asked, this generation reports having less interest in traditional politics than others; it has less belief that voting is a civic duty; and it has less affiliation with parties. That all adds up to an existential change for British democracy. The UK is worse than other countries in this regard; it is indeed the sick man of Europe and it does not compare well with the US either. Young people vote less than their elders elsewhere, but Britain’s problem in this respect has got worse.

That should concern us, but it also gives us an opportunity. We can look at research by Demos, which shows that these younger people look to themselves to take action, and to businesses, charities and action groups to achieve things in their chosen community. Indeed, the state comes a long way down that list. Generation Y, like any other group, backs its own values and aspirations. I want politics in Britain to work for the members of that generation and I want the principles of the small state, responsible economics, freedom, enterprise and social liberalism to come through for them.

First-time voters in 2015 may have an aversion to formal, professional politics, but they are interested in community affairs and they are doing great things in their communities. What are the right things that the Government should do to respond? They should focus on the economy, on education and indeed on those major intergenerational issues that I have mentioned. The Conservatives in government have a good record in that regard: honesty in public finances; more jobs, and a plan to go further with the tax cut in April 2015 for businesses employing under-21s; house building; reform of welfare; and the ambitious work at the Cabinet Office to make public services work for people. We have this record that we can be proud of; we should aspire to do more; and the Conservative party can be this party for the future. The Queen’s Speech delivers results. People should judge us on those results and young people can do the same.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I support the Queen’s Speech and, in particular, the work of the Department for Work and Pensions, which is engaged in nothing less than a moral crusade, a war on unemployment, a war for work and a war to defeat poverty. We all know that the best way to cure deprivation is a job and the best way to reduce poverty is work. Today, I have heard so much from the Labour party about how the Government do not care enough about the least well-off. As Labour Members talk about the ills of everything, they remind me of Jack Frost denying the coming of spring, yet each day the sun rises that bit higher and shadows are thrown back that bit further as the economy and employment continue to improve and as unemployment continues to fall.

The numbers on poverty are encouraging, too. Let us be honest. In the previous Parliament, under the last Labour Government, poverty rose. It is falling under the Conservatives. Under Labour, child poverty rose. It is falling under the Conservatives. Under Labour, inequality rose and it has been falling under the Conservatives. Before the crash, under Labour, 9.8% of people were reporting that they did not have enough money to buy food, according to OECD figures. Today, the figure is 8.1%. That is still too high but it is moving in the right direction. I hope that food poverty will continue to fall under this Government, who are engaged in a crusade against poverty, want and need because they believe in the power, importance and value of work, and the poverty-fighting aspects and dignity that work can bring.

Under Labour, youth unemployment rose and it has been falling under the Conservatives. Under Labour, economic inactivity—people doing nothing—rose and it has been falling under the Conservatives. Under Labour, long-term unemployment rose and it has been falling under the Conservatives. However, it is not enough. I have a vision of the future that we can build under a Conservative Government after 2015: a Britain moving further towards economic success and a work revolution, particularly through the promotion and fostering of small businesses, and through making it easier to have a light-touch regulatory system where one can set up an enterprise at no cost. I hope that the small business Bill will deal with that.

It is important that we give young people a better future. Under Labour, nearly 2 million more people went into renting. Young people’s futures were stolen by Labour’s buy-to-let policy and its promotion of buy-to-let landlords. That was a disgrace. It was wrong that, in 2000, 2 million households were in rent and that, by the time Labour left office, about 3.4 million were in rent. That took away the futures of our young people. We should give them their futures back, so I want more action to disincentivise buy-to-letting—it is too incentivised today through the tax system—and to incentivise owner-occupation. We should give back to our young people the chance, hope and aspiration that owning one’s home brings, which the previous Government took away. It was wrong. It was a shame for Labour to do that. We need to promote work for our young people. We need to promote home ownership and owner-occupation for our young people to give them those things. We need to build a society that is fairer and more just.

I have powerfully made the case for tackling tax avoidance. We must tackle want through welfare reform. We must tackle welfare tourism, too. It is important that we make our borders secure to give our young people a greater chance. For the Labour party, borders and immigration are just issues to be discussed at a coffee morning. Those issues involve the hopes, security and futures of our young people, a generation who were sold the pass by the previous Government. This Government are looking after them.

We need to reform zero-hours contracts, which the previous Government did nothing about.

[Christopher Pincher]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although we do need to reform zero-hours contracts, only very few people on them say they do not get enough hours of work?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I agree. For me, this is about fairness and justice and ensuring there is flexibility while also protecting people. Labour did not do that, but this Government are doing it. That is very important, and social justice lies at the heart of so much of what we are doing.

We need to look after savers. There are too many zombie accounts—too many zombie ISAs, too many savers being taken advantage of. That was allowed under the previous Government. I say we should give consumers and savers a fair and just deal.

There should be more competition in the power markets, and our water bills should be fairer. I have made that case before, and I am glad to see that Ofwat has been listening and has made a stronger settlement for consumers in the 2015-20 period.

There must also be fairness and justice to our way of life. We need to make our Supreme Court supreme. We need to reform human rights legislation, which has too often gone wrong and too often promotes unfairness and injustice. That is the kind of vision a Conservative Government could build after 2015, and it is one I look forward to.