Oral Answers to Questions

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. I know from my own constituents the difficulty that the original decision has provided both for employers and for workers. I am afraid that I cannot answer her question from the Dispatch Box, but I will take it away and write to her.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Not only is it true that the number of people on zero-hours contracts is rising at a very high rate, but the Government do not seem to think that it is anything to do with them. There are close on 1 million people on zero-hours contracts—there are 2,000 or 3,000 on one pit site in Shirebrook near Mansfield in my area—and the Government sit idly by. It is only when they talk about the golden future for workers and get stuck in with getting rid of zero-hours contracts that we will believe a word they say.

[Claire Perry]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman, despite the rhetoric, is just wrong. I have visited some of the pit areas, and one of the saddest things I ever saw was a former pit engineer who, because of the appalling transport links left as a terrible legacy to the pit areas, was unable to get out of the area and find work. [Interruption.] If he would just listen for one second, he would know that many people on zero-hours contracts actually choose that level of flexibility. [Interruption.] Well, they do, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) should talk to her constituents and find out. However, he is absolutely right that the thing we need to do—[Interruption.] Blimey, you must be hell to live with. [Interruption.] He must be hell to live with; not you, Mr Speaker, clearly. The hon. Gentleman must be hell to live with. He will know that this Government are determined to drive up wages and standards for working people, because we, not the north London intelligentsia, are the party of working people.