Zero-hours contracts

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) on bringing this subject to the Chamber. It is essential that such debates take place, because many of the people we are discussing do not have a voice in society.

I am overwhelmed by the absence of Government Members. I am really disappointed, to say the least, that not even one Conservative MP is in the Chamber to listen to some of biggest concerns that affect some of the least well-off people in society. The zero-hours contract is the scourge of the working poor. It has trapped many people in an employers’ paradise; it is a charter for legal abuse, as we have heard in many fine contributions today; and it needs to be stamped out.

Some 8% of workplaces now use zero-hours contracts. Interestingly, 85% of the people employed on those contracts work in the private sector. The Government tell us almost hourly, “We’ve disposed of many jobs in the public sector, but look how many we’ve created in the private sector.” Well, if this is the type of job they are proud of, they really need to look at this, because these are not jobs in reality. What is happening to many people on zero-hours contracts is an absolute scandal.

People on zero-hours contracts receive lower gross weekly wages—an average of £236 a week, compared with £482 for those who are not on zero-hours contracts. On average, therefore, those who are on zero-hours contracts receive less than half the pay of those who are not. Workplaces that utilise zero-hours contracts have a higher proportion of staff on low pay—between the national minimum wage and £7.50 an hour—than those that do not. Those employed on zero-hours contracts also work fewer hours—an average of 21 hours per week—than those who are not, who work an average of 31 hours per week.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC has said:

“Employers know they can get away with advertising zero hours jobs because there are so many jobseekers hunting too few vacancies.

With the tough times set to continue, now is the perfect time for the government to be reviewing— and hopefully regulating—the increasing use of these exploitative contracts.”

In my constituency, 26 people are applying for every job at the jobcentre. That is an absolute outrage. A lot of those jobs involve zero-hours contracts. People are really excited if they get the opportunity to work one or two hours a week, yet in the statistics that is counted as employment. That is outrageous.

Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer, said:

“A zero hours Britain is a zero-rights Britain in the workplace—Beecroft by the back door. Being at the boss’s beck and call is no way to build a skilled, committed, loyal labour force.”

I do not agree with the Liberal Democrats that much—hardly ever—but I agree with that comment. It spells out neatly and concisely exactly what zero-hours contracts are all about. As my hon. Friends have said, they give no guarantee of regular earnings, which leads to huge problems in meeting energy, food and clothing bills, and people have no way to plan their future. The need to respond to calls, frequently at short notice, to obtain work absolutely disrupts any type of social or family life. It causes problems with the kids and with everyone involved, because people on those contracts cannot plan anything at any time, yet they are paid nothing for the privilege. We need to look at that situation.

There is much more that I would like to say. Just before I came in I met someone from Nacro, who explained that there are probation officers who work on a proper, 37-hour contract, and who at night time are given zero-hours contracts. They work two separate contracts, which is causing chaos, but the probation service does not need to pay overtime and extra payments. That practice will spread through society, and it is unacceptable.

I agree with my hon. Friends who have said that the practice of giving zero-hours contracts should be outlawed. Okay, there is a review, but it must outlaw them. Let us be fair to people, respect people, look at how they want to work and give them working opportunities that they can be proud of and plan their lives around, so that they can secure their future. Zero-hours contracts are the sort of thing that should not be allowed in civil society; but perhaps we do not live in a civil society.