Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I agree with the sentiment that my hon. Friend expresses that we want to make it easier to employ people. I would argue that the reductions that we have already made in national insurance on coming into office and the provision of an employment allowance, which has been enormously popular among smaller businesses, and next year’s move to remove under 21-year-olds from the jobs tax are all steps we are taking to support the creation of jobs in the economy. Of course, the Labour party would like to put up the jobs tax, but that would be deeply counter-productive and put people out of work.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Chancellor find it a cause for concern that the Bank of England has halved its forecast for wage growth for the rest of this year?

[Mr Osborne]

Of course one of the challenges across the western world has been wage growth. The shadow Chancellor put it very well in an interview he gave last week. He said:

“I think that the fact that you had the massive…financial crisis which happened on our watch meant people saw their living standards hit.”

There is an admission of where the source of the problem is, and the solution is to grow our economy, create jobs and help people get on in life, and that is what we are doing.

[Chris Leslie]

I am not sure whether I detected any concern from the Chancellor. But if he is concerned about this issue, why is it that under his plans it is always those with the lowest incomes, those in the poorest areas and those who are most vulnerable in society who end up being hit hardest by these measures? Will he now prioritise action to ensure that we have proper enforcement of a decent minimum wage, end those exploitative zero-hours contracts and promote some incentives to have a living wage?

[Mr Osborne]

We are introducing new measures to strengthen enforcement of the minimum wage and to ensure that there is not an abuse of zero-hours contracts. Might I add that for 13 years the Labour party had the opportunity to introduce those measures and it did not? The record under this Government, despite the incredibly difficult economic inheritance, is that child poverty is down by 300,000 and inequality is lower than it was on average under the previous Labour Government, so we are proceeding to deal with the enormous problems that we inherited in a way that is consistent and fair.