Job Insecurity

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Gareth Johnson

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I will try to make progress, because I am conscious that I have been going on for some time.

We would clamp down on false self-employment. That is the practice by which employers classify their workers as self-employed in order to pay lower levels of national insurance. Of course, that leaves workers without the protections that are enjoyed by employees, even though most people would regard their relationship as one of employment. That is a particular issue in construction. The last Labour Government proposed that workers should automatically be deemed as employed for tax purposes if they met the criteria that most people would regard as obvious signs of being employees rather than self-employed contractors. That will be the starting point for the next Labour Government.

To conclude, we have a bigger goal. Our ambition must be to transform our labour market from one that has too high a percentage of low-wage and low-skill jobs into a high-wage, high-value and high-skill labour market. Of the 25 economies in the OECD, we rank fifth in the percentage of our labour market that is low-waged and low-skilled, and we must tackle that.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a 24% reduction in people claiming benefits in my constituency, which is not a million miles from his constituency? Most of those jobs are full-time, permanent positions, and many are for 18 to 24-year-olds. That happened only because we did not take the advice that the Labour party gave us over the past three to four years, and we stuck with our plans. Why should we start taking the hon. Gentleman’s advice now?

[Mr Umunna]

I think the clue is in the question. The hon. Gentleman said three to four years, but he did not mention that we had a flatlining economy during that period, or all the stress and worry that people have been subject to in the meantime. That is why we disagreed with his Government’s economic strategy.

Returning to the composition of our Labour market, as economists grapple with the ongoing productivity puzzle, a growing body of thought suggests that it is explained by the compositional change in the work force that I mentioned, and the change towards having more low-paid, low-productivity sectors than before. We must address that and do so fast.