Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2024

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 General Committees

[Chris Stephens]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. I direct the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I will be raising some issues pertinent to it.

I have been present at every Delegated Legislation Committee since 2015 that has discussed the national minimum wage and its rates. Year after year, those of us who have argued about age discrimination have been mocked, traduced and told that we were talking nonsense. We were told that those aged 25 or over had higher bills than those aged 21. I made the point then that that was a nonsensical position, but was told that I was talking nonsense. However, it turns out that the Low Pay Commission finally agrees with those of us who believe that those aged 21 have the same bills as those who are older.

I welcome that change. Will the Minister take the opportunity, on behalf of his colleagues in years gone by—some of whom are in the Cabinet now, I note—to apologise to those of us who argued the position on age discrimination? I note that age discrimination still exists in relation to national minimum wage rates, and I believe that is nonsensical. Two workers working beside each other, one aged 17 and the other 37—let us say they are flipping hamburgers at a McDonald’s franchise—should get paid the exact same wage for doing the exact same job. I hope the Minister will explore that with the Low Pay Commission to ensure there is no future age discrimination, despite the welcome change that the Government have made.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Stephens]

I give way to a good friend I served with on the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but—I have employed young people myself—is it not right to allow employers the discretion to discriminate between various employees on the basis of their ability and readiness to work, and indeed to pay a younger employee, perhaps, marginally more for their greater efficiency than another employee, rather than constrain all employers within the tight rules he would impose?

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. That provision already exists, but we are talking about the minimum wage rate—the very floor—and that should not be subject to age discrimination. He is correct that some employers have grades and spinal column points, and that is allowed. That reflects people’s experience, how long they have been with the employer and all the rest of it. That does happen, but I do not believe the bottom line—the absolute minimum that a worker can be paid—should be subject to any age discrimination at all. We cannot have two workers doing the exact same job on different wage rates because of their age, not because of their experience. There is a difference between age and experience.

I listened intently to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, who is correct about the economic conditions and the fact that in-work poverty still exists. The Government have failed to implement the report that they asked Matthew Taylor for: only seven of the 59 recommendations have been enacted. Now, I do not want every single one of those recommendations to be enacted, but to do only seven out of 59 is disgraceful.

As the hon. Gentleman said, wages are being dragged down in this country through shifts being cancelled and because people are in what I would argue is bogus self-employment—zero-hours contracts. I note that those issues are covered in a private Member’s Bill to be debated on 26 April, the Workers (Rights and Definition) Bill, which is in my name. I hope the Minister and shadow Minister will welcome the Bill and indicate that they will support it.

When I intervened on the Minister, I made, I think, a very important point. I asked how many UK Government workers will benefit from this delegated legislation. I again refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am the chair of the PCS parliamentary group. To the best of my knowledge, there are tens of thousands of UK Government workers who are paid the national minimum wage, including some employed by the Department for Work and Pensions. I invite the right hon. Member for New Forest West, who sits on the Work and Pensions Committee, to have a look at that, because it is a serious issue that so many workers in the Department for Work and Pensions have to rely on the benefits they are administrating because they are on the national minimum wage. I invite the Minister to write to all Committee members and tell us how many Government employees are paid the national minimum wage.

It is not just the DWP—incredibly, some of those on the minimum wage are employed by HMRC. Some of those employed to chase tax avoidance and evasion, and perhaps to tackle multinational companies that do not pay the rates they should, are paid the national minimum wage. Will the Minister write to tell us how many UK Government employees are being paid the national minimum wage? That is important, because the wage increases he has announced today are what UK Government employees will be getting. That will be their only pay increase this year, and I hope he will take that away.

I want to mention enforcement, because it is important that the Government outline how they will enforce this delegated legislation laid today. My concern is that there are far too many vacancies in the national minimum wage rate compliance unit; perhaps the Minister can tell us how many there are. If there are vacancies, they will lead to the backlog referred to by the shadow Minister and the chasing of unpaid wages for years. I hope the Minister will be able to answer those points when he sums up.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

There has been a significant decrease in the number of people in absolute poverty—millions of people since 2010 and 400,000 fewer children in absolute poverty, which we all welcome. As I said before, in pushing the national living wage as high as we have done, we are putting burdens on businesses. We want to ensure that we strike a balance, and that is our concern with this. We always take into account the concerns of employers as well as workers.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I entirely accept the point the Minister makes with respect to the definition of poverty, but the hon. Member for Glasgow South West makes a fair point in drawing attention to the number of people, particularly those employed by Government, who are claiming benefits notwithstanding being paid the minimum wage. It behoves Government to make some analysis of the extent to which the taxpayer is subsidising low wages, albeit one of the principal concerns drawn to my attention by small businesses is every increase in the minimum wage.

I accept that this is a very difficult equation to have to deal with, but I have always suspected that the former Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, Frank Field, was right in his assumption that universal credit, like tax credits before it, was actually just subsidising a low-wage economy that would not otherwise exist. There are clearly costs that are not worth incurring here.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend is right to say that part of the rationale behind the national living wage is to ensure that wages that employers pay are not being subsidised. The total cost of the welfare system is around £303 billion, some of which is a result of the issue he raised. To me, that is wrong and that is one of the reasons why we would like to see the national living wage increased. Nevertheless, we do not want to see that at the detriment of jobs in our economy.

There is still a balance to be struck on making sure people have the opportunity for predictable hours. That is covered in the legislation we have introduced. I understand that the policy of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston is that anybody who has been in work for 12 weeks and is on a contract can request those hours in terms of as a permanent position. I think that is the policy that the Opposition are going to introduce. It will be interesting to see what impact that will have on employers, particularly employers of seasonal workers.

There is a balance to be struck between business and workers. I point out that there are 4.2 million more jobs in our economy than there were in 2010. That is a huge success story. There are 1.2 million fewer people unemployed and looking for work. That is a huge achievement. Some of the policies that Labour always tend to bring forward end up costing jobs. Every single time we have had a Labour Government, unemployment is higher at the end of their term than it was at the start.

Measles

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I can assure the hon. Lady that it was not ignored by the Government. Over the past 12 months, we have been pushing vaccinations to those who have not come forward, and to communities that struggle with vaccination uptake, which is why in the past 12 months there has been a 10% increase. As I say, that is not enough. There are still people who need to come forward for vaccination who have not done so. I emphasise to the House that this is an acute outbreak of measles. If someone has their first dose of the measles vaccine today, within two weeks they will have roughly 92% immunity. If they go on to have the second vaccine, they will have roughly 98% immunity, which will be lifelong.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Might vaccination rates benefit from a much more generous compensation scheme for the very small number of severe adverse reactions?

[Maria Caulfield]

We have a vaccine damage payment scheme, which provides a one-off payment of £120,000. That is accessible for any vaccine that someone takes up, but I have to say that part of the problem is misleading information about the safety of vaccines. The measles vaccine is safe. At one point, we had eliminated measles in this country. Most children will be fine, with a mild illness, but we have had episodes of children getting encephalitis, which is a swelling of the brain that has lifelong consequences. We must move away from the narrative that vaccines are not safe. The measles vaccine is one of the safest vaccines people can have. I really do not think that that messaging is helpful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and he is absolutely right to say that some local authorities see parking charges as potential revenue raisers, but this is in effect a tax on business. Local authorities can, of course, make charges where appropriate, but they should only cover the cost of maintaining those car parks; they should not be a punitive tax on businesses.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

There are streets in the west end of this city, important to our economy, that would certainly benefit from the ability of tourists to reclaim VAT, aren’t there?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point that this Department has looked at carefully. We are concerned about the impact of the withdrawal of that tax concession on businesses, not just for these businesses themselves, but for the other businesses that rely on foreign visitors—I am talking about hoteliers, restauranteurs and so on. We are keen to look at this matter. The Chancellor committed in his autumn statement to review the evidence to see what impact this was having. We will look at that with great interest and make our views known strongly to the Exchequer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I simply do not recognise that situation. I have just announced that we have given £100 million, and some of it was Barnetted. I have not heard anything from the Scottish Government about what they are going to do for Scottish charities. Maybe they should follow our example.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The plight of so many charities would be significantly improved if the Secretary of State were to raise the cap on postcode lottery sales, would it not?

[Stuart Andrew]

I know that my hon. Friend has been campaigning hard on this issue, and we had a Westminster Hall debate on it very recently. I have committed to looking at some of the structures, but we need to see more evidence that the limits already there are not being reached at the moment. I will certainly keep the matter under review.

--- Later in debate ---

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners was asked—

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

4. What recent steps the Church of England has taken to participate in the community sponsorship scheme.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

I am able to reassure my right hon. Friend that the Church remains closely involved with the Ukraine community sponsorship scheme. Many bishops and churchgoers and hundreds of clergy have opened their homes to host Ukrainian evacuees.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

That is reassuring, given the wind-up that the bishops raised in the House of Lords over the Illegal Migration Bill. What more can the Church do to encourage people to support and take in Ukrainians?

[Andrew Selous]

The Church of England is developing a new strategy for community sponsorship, building on the launch of community sponsorship in 2016 by Amber Rudd, when Home Secretary, and the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. The Church will continue to use its presence in every community to raise the profile of community sponsorship, as it has been demonstrated to work well for all concerned.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am trying really hard not to laugh at what the hon. Lady has said. She is in a party that cannot even decide who paid for a caravan and is falling into a complete shambles. How will it in any way be able to do the sort of technical work we are doing? I am working with—[Interruption.] The SNP makes a lot of noise, but the way it is running Scotland shows that Bills such as this are best left in the hands of UK Government Ministers to stop the SNP making a shambles of everything.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The advantage of a sunset is that it provides a sense of urgency. Now there is not one, is there?

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I will be full of meetings, but I defer to the Minister with responsibility for small businesses, who is more than happy to have that meeting. We have provided billions of pounds of support for businesses to deal with their energy costs, and we have the new supercharger in place. We lobby the Treasury long and hard, and we are more than happy to represent businesses small and large.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

12. If she will make an estimate of the number of UK businesses that chose to list on the New York stock exchange in the last three years.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The UK is the most internationally connected financial centre in the world. We continue to attract some of the most innovative and largest companies. More than £17 billion of capital was raised for firms in the UK—a 15-year high—with over 120 deals completed. The UK is taking forward ambitious reforms to rules governing its capital markets, building on our continued success as Europe’s leading—globally, the second largest—hub for investment.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Is Government debt crowding out productive investment?

[Ms Ghani]

My right hon. Friend is always so succinct in his questions, and there is often a huge amount of sense behind it. I fundamentally agree that we need to collaborate with business and industry. [Interruption.] Forgive me, Mr Speaker. The response I want to give to my right hon. Friend’s very good question is that, as he will be pleased to know, there is the Lord Hill listing review and the Sir Douglas Flint review, and in particular the Edinburgh reforms, which will be considering competitiveness and will, I think, provide some sort of answer to his question. It would be remiss of me—because I know that he is particularly interested in this—not to mention that it is 50 years since women were first admitted to the floor of the New York stock exchange after 170 years of just men.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

As I said earlier, I hope that we can look at the opportunities of leaving the EU as well as trying to fight past battles. There are a host of opportunities; for example, I do not think that the EU had a particularly proud record on services around the globe. We are opening up services for many companies, which under the EU we were to a very large degree constrained in doing. We have huge resources for supporting businesses. Trade with the EU has been growing considerably, and we will do everything we can to support further growth.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

These barriers have had a greater impact on EU trade than on the UK. When does the Minister anticipate the EU will wake up to what is in our mutual interest?

[Nigel Huddleston]

My right hon. Friend makes a perfectly good point. Our agreement with the EU is one of the most thorough and comprehensive trade agreements, but we need to work further. We are constantly looking at opportunities—country by country, industry subsector by subsector—to open up more trade by reducing the barriers. These are barriers that also existed when we were in the EU.