Terms and Conditions of Employment

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Mike Kane

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

As one of my colleagues helpfully says, the hon. Gentleman must wait and see. In our 2017 manifesto, we set out our fully funded taxation and spending policy. The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that a fairer taxation policy would not only enable us to fund our public services better but ensure that our economy was growing and that the growth was shared by all those who contributed to it, unlike what is happening at the moment. Last month, we learned that household debt was at its highest rate ever. Many people are reliant on borrowing, not for luxuries but for essentials such as putting food on the table for their children, and food bank use has skyrocketed.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Our 2017 manifesto was fully costed and full of figures, but the only figures in the Conservative manifesto were the page numbers. According to the StepChange charity, 3,500 families containing 5,000 children in my constituency are in toxic debt, owing about £14.5 million. Does she agree that this is because of eight years of austerity?

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The burden of debt has been shifted. We still have our public debt, but the burden has been shifted on to our poorest families. The national figures for debt are a matter of great concern for our future economic stability. As a consequence, food bank use has skyrocketed, with wages no longer covering basic living costs. In my constituency, Newcastle’s West End food bank is the largest in the country. That is not an achievement of which we are proud, but we are proud of the generous Geordies who take on the role that this Government have abandoned in feeding the most vulnerable among us.

We know that 5.2 million people are trapped in low pay, and small single-figure percentage increases in the legal minimum wage will not put an end to this misery. Shockingly, one in four employees earning the minimum wage for five years have been unable to move out of that low pay, which is the highest figure since records began. Low pay is becoming a trap, and the workers least likely to escape the low pay trap are those in the north-east and women. They are being trapped by the lack of action from this Government. Will the Minister admit that, under the Tories, low pay means that work is not a protection against poverty? I want to make it clear that, despite its name, the Government’s minimum living wage is not a real living wage. The small increase that this statutory instrument introduces will not make it a real living wage. More than 5 million people are paid less than the living wage—a huge increase from the 3.4 million people in 2009.