Women and the Cost of Living

Debate between Gloria De Piero and George Hollingbery

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gloria De Piero]

I have nothing to add to what my hon. Friend has said. She has put it perfectly.

The next Labour Government will offer a simple deal to employers: 32p off tax on every pound that they spend on paying workers the living wage during our first year in office. Tackling the cost-of-living crisis means taking action to increase wages and keep the benefit bill down.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Gloria De Piero]

I am nearing the end of my speech, so I will continue.

Something is broken when women are being forced to take two or three jobs in order to afford the basics for their families, and are being forced to take out payday loans just to make ends meet until the end of the month. We know that payday lenders target young women with their advertisements, and that the number of women declared insolvent is expected to overtake the number of men in that position for the first time. We need tough action to end the misery of so many women who are facing insurmountable debt. The next Labour Government will cap the total cost of credit. We will place a levy on the profits of payday lenders to double the public money available for low-cost alternatives for families, such as credit unions, and we will ban them from targeting kids with their advertisements.

All that we get from this Tory-led Government is complacency, and sometimes contempt, as I discovered this morning when I read in the newspapers that 42 Conservative Members of Parliament are members of the Free Enterprise Group, which advocates VAT on children’s clothes and on food. Was this some fringe group, I wondered? No. A Treasury Minister is a member, as is the child care Minister, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This is a group that recommends putting VAT on children’s clothes and shoes, baby food, car seats and prescriptions, raising the weekly shop by over £8.

We need a Government who will take on the vested interests, who will stand up to the big six energy companies, reforming the market and freezing prices until 2017; a Government who are prepared to take on the payday lenders, and who will cut taxes for 24 million working people with a lower 10p starting rate of tax; a Government who will cut business rates for small firms; a Government who will provide 25 hours of free child care for working parents of three and four-year-olds and a legal guarantee for every primary school in the country to provide breakfast clubs and after-school clubs, and introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee to bring down the number of women in long-term unemployment: a one nation Britain that values women’s talents, that supports mums back to work, that tackles the pay gap—a Britain where women play their full part. That is Labour’s Britain.