DRAFT National Minimum Wage (Amendment) REGULATIONS 2017

James Berry Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 General Committees

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. One can put provisions on the statute book to tackle low pay, but whether that works in practice is another thing altogether.

The proposed living wage will not compensate for cuts to universal credit and other taxation and benefit changes. The 60% figure is arbitrary, and the Government’s proposals continue to discriminate against young people. I used to be chair of the Ministry of Defence trade unions, with a long association with the armed forces. North Birmingham, which I represent, historically has a strong defence culture and is a recruiting ground for the British Army. I know ex-squaddies of 23 or 24 years old who do a three or four-year stint and come out of the Army having fought for their country but not entitled to the full living wage, which simply cannot be right.

The GMB has been absolutely right to argue for an end to unacceptable age discrimination against young people. In addition, there are problems not just about how the wage is defined but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow just said, how it is enforced. The Government have been lacklustre in the extreme in taking the necessary steps not just to name and shame but to use leverage and to enforce the law against recalcitrant, bad employers who refuse to pay the living wage. In too many employers, including those that were historically regarded as reputable, such as Marks and Spencer, there has been an industry of avoidance. First, they give the good news, “You get the living wage”—or at least the Government’s definition of it—but then there is the bad news that it is offset against other conditions of employment. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) has done an outstanding job in this place in exposing such practices.

The living wage is a cause about which many of us, as I do with my history, feel passionate. Is it welcome that the debate has moved on from where we were in the ’90s, with resolute opposition from the Conservative party even to a then national minimum wage? Of course it is welcome that some progress has been made. In the real world out there, from which I came, people will benefit as a consequence. Having said all that, the Government’s approach continues to lack ambition, which is why the Labour party has argued, in the strongest possible terms, for moving to a £10 an hour starting point, and then the living wage review body, based on the national minimum wage review mechanisms, can keep future increases under scrutiny.

[James Berry]

(Kingston and Surbiton): The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech, but the manifesto on which he stood did not commit to that increase.

[Jack Dromey]

I would caution Conservative Members against praying in aid manifestos. From when I worked for Alperton Carton Company, I remember an individual who would say that something that was false was “as sound as a nine-bob note”. I think that future Conservative manifestos will be interpreted creatively, because it is extraordinary not only that a manifesto commitment on national insurance was broken, but that there then followed an attempt to define it as not having been broken. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that I place no trust in his manifesto, but I do place trust in our determination to ensure that this country has a proper living wage.

That is all the more important because, sadly, as we have heard in recent times, including in the context of the most recent Budget, the country still faces years of austerity and squeezed living standards. Too many people are struggling to get by and that is why it is essential that we are much more ambitious, as a country and a Parliament, about a real living wage to end working poverty in Britain.