Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications)

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Ian C. Lucas

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian C. Lucas]

rose—

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (LD)]

rose—

Zero-hours Contracts

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Ian C. Lucas

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about us bankrupting the country. He knows, because I have heard him talk about this many times before, that the problems we had in 2008-09 found their gestation in the banking sector, which is ultimately where responsibility lies.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) too.

[Ian Lucas]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I just wanted to correct the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). In my constituency, the average male wage in real terms was £530.80 in 2010. That fell to £453.50 in 2011, the first year of the Tory-Liberal Democrat Government.

[Mr Umunna]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he is right to point that out. We are in the fourth year of this Government and blame is continually attributed to the Labour party. This Government ought to look at what they are doing to our country and our economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) made a point about insecurity at work. That insecurity is not just born out of three wasted years of a flatlining economy following the Government’s 2010 comprehensive spending review which caused confidence to fall and demand to nosedive; it is also because the nature of work has changed in recent years. Half the rise in employment since 2010 has been in temporary work, driven primarily by people doing temporary jobs because they cannot find permanent work—more than 500,000 people fall into that category—while record numbers of people are in part-time work who would prefer to be working full time, meaning that there is huge underemployment.

But perhaps the most shocking symptom of the changing nature of work is the proliferation of the use of zero-hours contracts, under which a person is not guaranteed any work, is usually expected to be around whenever the employer wants them to be and is paid only for the work he or she gets, meaning, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South said, that individuals engaged under these contracts never know when work will come and therefore whether they can sustain themselves and their families week to week.