National Minimum Wage
Debate between Dan Jarvis and Liz McInnes(10 years ago)
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Dan Jarvis
That is a helpful and constructive contribution. If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will talk about the living wage later in my speech. It would be useful to hear what plans the Minister has. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point that we currently have record numbers of people in this country who are underemployed. Record numbers of people want to work full time but cannot get full-time work, so they are stuck in part-time employment and struggling to meet their costs. That is a good point, and I look forward to the Minister responding to it.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
In his deliberations, has my hon. Friend given any thought to the practice of many employers of paying the extremely low minimum rate for apprenticeships? Some employers set up bogus apprenticeships that last for only a few months so that they can get away with paying the absolutely paltry rate for apprentices, which I believe is less than £3 an hour. Has he looked at that aspect of the minimum wage and at the age-related minimum wage for under-18s?
Dan Jarvis
Completely by coincidence, my hon. Friend has made a timely contribution that neatly introduces the point that I was about to make. If we want to win the fight against poverty wages, the remit of the Low Pay Commission must be expanded. It should not be simply a national minimum wage commission that sets the level of wages; I believe that it should lead our national effort to tackle the problem of low pay. We need to give new powers to the Low Pay Commission to investigate the causes and consequences of low pay in different areas of our economy.
We know that some sectors have particular, systemic problems of low wages. More than half of cleaners, 48% of hospitality workers and more than 40% of hairdressers are paid less than £7 an hour. At the same time, other sectors—the banking sector, for instance—could pay a higher minimum wage. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us today whether the Government would consider giving new powers to the Low Pay Commission to bring together task forces to tackle such issues. Those task forces could include all the key stakeholders and recommend a strategy to the Secretary of State on the best way forward.