Jobs and Work

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Having sat here for the best part of six and a half hours listening to the discussion of various issues to do with the Gracious Speech, I have to say I am not surprised that many people outside the Westminster bubble feel disenchanted with politics. We have seen from the Government Benches that the fine and dandy politics shines through—Government Members have explained to the people who will be listening to this and who perhaps read reports that life in the UK is fine and that everybody is doing marvellously, but that simply is not the case.

People are right to sit back and be offended by politicians who continually ram that down their throats, suggesting that their life is fine and their families are fine and they should not complain and they should know their place. We live in food bank Britain, yet the fine and dandy politics of the coalition suggests that that is a good thing—it shows community spirit; it is not because people need to eat food to live. The fact that there are more working people at food banks than there are people who are not working is apparently the big society, and it is to be celebrated. Try telling that to people who actually attend the food banks.

We discussed zero hours for a lot of hours today. Different people have different views. The fine and dandy politics of the coalition simply says, “Well, we’ll look at zero-hours contracts, but listen: people should be happy that they’ve got zero-hours contracts. It’s a job. They’re not unemployed, and it doesn’t matter that they’re not making a halfpenny in a week. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t got any protection in the workplace. Be happy because you’ve got a job and you’re not unemployed.” That is rubbish. Try telling it to the young man or woman or the family who are on zero-hours contracts and cannot control their lives. Try telling the agency workers who are being exploited. Try having a look at the situation they are in. Instead of telling everybody that life is brilliant, we should be looking at trying to restore some justice to ordinary people in this country.

I am terribly upset by what went off today, because Members have simply been suggesting that we live in utopia, and saying, “This is happening and that is happening and it’s fantastic, and that’s what we’ve delivered, and you’re scared to talk about it”, while at the same time we have got people suffering greatly in our constituencies. We have child poverty, pensioner poverty, fuel poverty and food poverty, and people relying on handouts—not benefits but handouts—to make a living, put bread on the table and clothe their kids. That is what we should have been addressing in the next few months, in the road to the next general election. People are saying that this is a zombie Parliament. Of course it is, but it is not as if we have not got things to talk about and people to deliver for.

The Bills in the Queen’s Speech, which we will be dealing with for the next six, seven, eight months, contain nothing that will deliver for many of the people in our communities who are desperate and do not live with rose-tinted spectacles on. They are desperate for some help from politicians from all sides. That is what we are here for— we are here to represent the people in our communities—and it is about time that people in this place realised that the Westminster bubble is completely different from other parts of the United Kingdom. My view is simply that we need at all times to remember where we come from, where we want to be and who we represent.