Labour Market Activity

Debate between Chris Stephens and Jerome Mayhew

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, not only because it highlights the Government’s proud record of increasing labour market activity, but because it raises the fundamental problem with Labour’s political philosophy: its historical and financial handcuffing to the union movement.

Unions are undoubtedly a good thing. In the early 19th century, if they had not been formed, they should have been. At a time of social immobility, they dealt with a huge and important social injustice: the dislocation between the bargaining power of the master and that of the servant—we just have to use the language of the time to make the case that there was a huge imbalance in bargaining position and therefore a need for unions. Times have changed, however. Nowadays, information on pay and opportunities is universal: I could go online today and look at employment opportunities in Bogotá as well as those in Bridgend. At a time of full functional employment, which is what we benefit from at the moment, other options for staff are available as well as combined bargaining.

The role of unions has moved away from the proud position in which they began. They are now more focused on the rights and privileges of members. In some cases, although not all, they are focused on things like the defence of anti-competitive Spanish practices or the prevention of increases in productivity and of modern work practices unless they are linked to increases in pay. All those things harm the economy.

It is perfectly rational, of course. If I were a London tube driver, would I join the union? Of course I would! Through union control, its members have got salaries of between £55,000 and £60,000 a year and 43 days of holiday. But does that help the economy? Is it good for society as a whole? No.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but—with as much respect as I can muster—I say to him that it is not a bad thing that trade union-organised workplaces have higher pay than non-unionised workplaces. Surely the fact that people have more money means that they can spend money in the economy and help the private sector.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The question is: at what cost does this come and who pays the price? It is the young, the unemployed and the old who are outside the club of unionisation. They are the ones who pay the price, and the evidence is in the data.

It is an extraordinary fact that every Labour Government in history have ended up destroying employment, leaving more people out of work than when they came into power. The figures hide the real cost of Labour being in hock to the unions. I mean “in hock” literally: since 2010, it has received £142 million. That is excluding individual contributions to Opposition right hon. and hon. Members, and not even mentioning the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), so actually the number is a lot higher.

Raising employment barriers skews what would otherwise be a much more sensible employment policy for the Opposition. The costs are paid by those outside the club. Look at youth employment. In 2010, Labour left office with youth unemployment at about 20%. Right now, even after a global pandemic, youth unemployment is at 11.3%—almost half. Look at the long-term unemployed. In the 2000s, as we have already heard, Labour left about 1.4 million people unemployed for longer than 12 months. Today, the figure is 270,000, roughly a quarter of the number under the terrible record of Labour. Look at the people who are harder to employ—those, perhaps, with disabilities. Under this Government, there are 1.3 million more people with disabilities in employment than before 2016. That is the proud record of this Government. This Government do not pontificate about pay and employment; they get on with creating a dynamic labour market, supporting those most in need, not the union paymasters.

We have created a labour market not just by removing barriers to employment, but by having a benefits system that always makes work pay: the universal credit system, the destruction of which the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made the key plank of his 2019 election manifesto. Labour Members all fought the last election on the basis that they wanted to get rid of universal credit, and the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) continued that policy. In October 2020, when he was already leader of the Labour party, he said that “in the long term” universal credit needed to be replaced

“because… it traps people in poverty.”

However, given what we have heard from the hon. Member opposite, that now appears to be Labour policy.