Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Debate between John Baron and Patrick Grady

Monday 6th March 2023 General Committees

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston said, nobody is going to object to any kind of rise in the minimum wage, especially in these difficult times and given the inflationary pressures being experienced across the economy, which I hope the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay will recognise are at least in part the result of the extreme hard Brexit forced on this country by the Conservative party, with the acquiescence of the Labour party. He might be right that unemployment is low, but I can show him businesses across the country and in my constituency that are crying out for labour—for staff—because of the labour shortages that have happened as a result of that hard Brexit.

[Mr Baron]

I say this in the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman made his point: he needs to see the bigger picture. It is quite interesting that there is almost a balance between the number of job vacancies and the number of people who are unemployed. That actually suggests that the economy is doing quite well. There may be a mismatch for whatever reason, but those vacancies are there; we just need to ensure that we encourage people into work more.

[Patrick Grady]

Indeed. There are plenty of asylum seekers in my constituency who have a huge amount of skills and talent but are unable to deploy them, because this Government will not give them the right to work, earn a fair wage and pay tax back into the system. Perhaps that is a place where we could start or, if the Government want to make working more attractive, perhaps—getting to the heart of the debate—people should be paid a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.