National Living Wage (Extension to Young People) Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 6th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I am conscious of the time, but I suspect that, although I love him to bits, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), has quite a lengthy speech prepared, so I want to give some slightly more positive comments on the issues we have just heard about.

Let us be clear that, when we talk about the wage rates under the law, they are the minimum rates that an employer has to pay someone so that they do not get prosecuted; they are not about setting a rate for the job. It was interesting to hear the observations of the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on what would, rightly, happen to an employer who decided to, shall we say, put aside a candidate aged 26 or 27 who was more skilled for the job in favour of a 22 or 23-year-old, purely so that that employer could take advantage of the discount deal.

It would be interesting if the Government produced some analysis of what would happen if, instead of an age-based system—we would all accept the difference at 18, because there is a difference with employing children—we switched to a system in which a different rate applied in a first period of employment. First, that might be a period in which people are training and building up skills, as we already reflect in the different rate for apprentices; and secondly, that might encourage employers to take back into employment people who have been out of employment for a while. That would be fairer than a system in which someone can work for four or five years and be quite experienced, but stay on a different rate. By that point, there is clearly not going to be any productivity difference between someone aged 23 who has worked for five years and someone who is 28 and has worked for five years. If we are being sensible, we are not going to see a difference.

Those are some of the things that could be sensibly considered. If the Bill had perhaps had more time for debate, we could have explored, for example, the differences between 18 and 21, applying the rate around training and employers being prepared to sponsor people to go to university. It is positive that we are having this debate and that we have such a positive image of young people. Too often, there is this idea in the media—