Regional Pay

Debate between Jim Sheridan and Elizabeth Truss

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Sheridan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I want to continue because we have only a limited amount of time in the debate.

The Government need to be bold in their approach. We need to move from national wage bargaining to individual contracts, as Sweden did. That change was well received by the unions and public sector workers. We need to move to flexi-jobs, similar to German mini and midi-jobs, which have reduced unemployment by half since 2005. We need seriously to look at exempting small businesses with under 10 workers from some dismissal regulations, as Germany did—the change reduced unemployment. The time to take bold action is now.