Job Insecurity

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Andrew Bridgen

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Could the hon. Gentleman confirm to the House whether the gardener and the cleaner at his villa in Ibiza are full-time or part-time employed, and what is their hourly rate of pay?

[Mr Umunna]

I have said this before and I will say it again: I think we should keep our families out of this place. The hon. Gentleman would do well to reflect on that. If he wants to make another contribution that is perhaps a bit more intelligent and adds something to the debate, I am happy to give way, but clearly he has nothing to add.

The Government have failed to tackle the cost of living crisis. Family energy bills have been allowed to rise by £300 since the general election. As I said, they have given a huge tax cut to people earning millions of pounds a year while increasing VAT and cutting support for working families. They have failed to act on transport prices. What is certainly clear is that this Government have heaped further insecurity on people at work with their attacks on their fundamental rights and protections. The other week, the Business Secretary said in his speech to the Royal Economic Society—I thought it was a good speech—that he has “resisted moves” in the direction of attacking people’s rights at work. That simply does not reflect the reality.

When people have been treated unjustly or discriminated against and wish to seek redress, he and his ministerial colleagues have put up a barrier in the form of tribunal fees of up to £1,200, which the Minister for Skills and Enterprise referred to as “moderate” despite the fact that £1,200 is about two weeks’ average earnings. I do not think that is moderate: it is a barrier against access to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I will come on to that, but before that I will go through some of the things the Government have done to people’s rights in the workplace. They have increased the service requirement for claiming unfair dismissal from one to two years, depriving people of the right to seek justice when they have been wronged in the workplace. They have reduced compensatory rewards for unfair dismissal, which, as I have said in this House before, will impact in particular on those in middle-income occupations—the squeezed middle. They have also reduced the consultation period for collective redundancy and have sought to water down TUPE protections for people. I could go on.

We know that much of that was inspired by the 2011 report by the Conservative party donor and employment law adviser to the Prime Minister, Adrian Beecroft. By his own admission, in public evidence sessions in this House, Mr Beecroft said that his findings were based on conversations and not on a statistically valid sample of people—classic “off the back of a packet” stuff.

Never mind Beecroft, the best example of the Secretary of State failing to resist measures that increase insecurity in the workplace—my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has just referred to this—is the shares for rights scheme announced by the Chancellor at the Conservative party conference in 2012. The scheme provides for new employer shareholder status, whereby in return for between £2,000 and £50,000-worth of shares in their employer, the employee gives up fundamental rights at work: the right not to be unfairly dismissed, rights to statutory redundancy pay, rights to request flexible working and so on.

For all sorts of reasons, this is a bad idea, so much so that there was cross-party opposition to it, with the former Conservative employment Minister, Lord Forsyth, describing it as having

“all the trappings of something that was thought up by someone in the bath”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 March 2013; Vol. 744, c. 614.]

What did the Business Secretary do about it? He not only waved through the scheme; he sponsored its passage through the House. Since then, take-up seems to be low —about 19 inquiries have been made to the Department—but what happened next? Up popped the Deputy Prime Minister at the beginning of the year—let us remember that the Business Secretary waved through the scheme and took it through Parliament—calling for the scheme’s abolition.

Let me get this right: the Deputy Prime Minister’s two Liberal Democrat colleagues—the Business Secretary and the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—guided the policy through the House just 10 months ago; the Deputy Prime Minister marched his Members through the Division Lobby, along with Conservative Members, to introduce it; and now the Deputy Prime Minister wants to take credit for saying he wants to scrap this disastrous scheme, which he set up in the first place.

I know the Liberal Democrats have a reputation for this sort of thing, but even by their standards this really does take trying to have your cake and eat it to a whole new level.

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I am not giving way to that gentleman.

What would we do? To relieve the squeeze on incomes, we would take action to make work pay by expanding free child care for working parents. We would freeze gas and electricity bills while we make long-term changes to the energy market. We would introduce a 10p starting rate of tax, funded by a mansion tax. The Secretary of State was in favour of that once, but seems to have taken to voting against it, as well as against our motions about it in this House. [Interruption.] Perhaps he will correct the record.

Let us not forget that my party stood up to the nay-sayers and introduced the national minimum wage. The value of the minimum wage has fallen by 5% under this Government, so we have asked Alan Buckle, the former deputy chairman at KPMG, to investigate how we can make sure that the role and powers of the Low Pay Commission are extended in order to restore that value.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I understand that the Secretary of State is investigating that outrageous practice at the moment, and we await the findings of his Department’s investigation.

We have already made it clear that we disagree with heaping job insecurity on people in work, which is why we have opposed and voted against all the measures that this Government have introduced to water down people’s rights at work.

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I am not giving away.

For that reason, we would abolish the ridiculous shares for rights scheme. Zero-hours contracts have been mentioned, and we would ban their exploitative use.

[Andrew Bridgen]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hate to raise a point of order, but I think that the shadow Minister may be misleading the House inadvertently. He is talking about job security, but the latest ACAS figures—

Banking Reform

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Andrew Bridgen

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for letting me catch your eye in this debate; this is a little different from the last time that I spoke. I remind you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it is not the size of the dog, but the size of the fight in the dog that decides who wins.

This is an important debate because we need a vibrant, strong and confident banking sector if we are to see the essential growth that all hon. Members desire for our economy. Before we look to the future, it is important that we should address the problems of the past, including the very recent past.

Many Labour Members seem to be keen simply to bash the bankers and blame them for the financial crisis and recession rather than look at the causal and contributory parts played by their own former Treasury Front Benchers, including the former Chancellor and Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). He has much to answer for, and I wish that he were in the Chamber more often so that he could do so.

[Mr Umunna]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Bridgen]

With pleasure.

[Mr Umunna]

In fairness to many hon. Members who have spoken from both sides of the House, I should say that there has been a recognition that although the crisis was not 100% the fault of the bankers, they bear a huge part of the responsibility. As I said when I spoke, I think that before the crash there was a consensus around the world that tended towards a light-touch regulatory regime. That is something for which everybody, on both sides of the House and in legislatures throughout the western world, has to take responsibility. That has been acknowledged in the Chamber. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that that sentiment has been expressed during this debate?

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Gentleman makes that point, but the previous Government encouraged and took part in an orgy of credit: in fact, they led it, and invited individuals and corporations to join in, safe in the knowledge that the former Prime Minister said that he had ended boom and bust, which now sounds as ridiculous as King Canute claiming he could turn back the tide. The taxpayer now has the hangover from that 10-year orgy of credit.

Under the former Prime Minister’s watch, the Bank of England deliberately stoked a consumer boom that led to spiralling house price inflation and massive levels of personal debt. This is not just my opinion, but that of the previous Governor of the Bank of England, the late Lord George, who said of that period:

“We knew that we were having to stimulate consumer spending. We knew we had pushed it up to levels which couldn't possibly be sustained into the medium and long term.”

That approach led to 20% house price inflation when the consumer prices index was running at 2%, led to financial institutions such as Northern Rock offering 120% mortgages, and ultimately led to a run on a British bank and the financial crisis of 2007. Opposition Members might blame America, global markets, or even the fact that we are not in the euro, as ridiculous as that sounds, but this misguided belief, and the hubris of the previous Prime Minister in believing that he had ended boom and bust, helped to contribute to the banking collapse. It is fascinating that the shadow Home Secretary—or perhaps I should say the shadow shadow Chancellor—stated that the cause of the deficit was not the previous Government’s borrowing, but rather the collapse of tax revenues. He failed to recognise that tax revenues based on rapid house inflation and excessive consumer credit are totally unsustainable.

The failure of the previous Prime Minister’s regulatory regime also contributed to the problem. It was clear in the early part of the decade that the UK had an unsustainable consumer credit funding gap: the IMF said so, as did the previous Governor of the Bank of England. The power to regulate had been transferred from the Bank of England to the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury, with an inadequate definition of roles and responsibilities. It was an absolute disaster, as was shown at the height of the Northern Rock crash, when Mervyn King was asked, “Who is in control?” and his answer was, “That depends on how you define ‘in control’.” The answer was that nobody was in control, and no one could see who was in control. One cannot have a third of a problem—one wants all of the problem or none of it. That was part of the difficulty.

So where do we go from here? I am a firm believer in sound money. A sustainable banking system is one where lending policies are closely in sync with the projected economic activity of the people it serves, not driving them.