Living Standards

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Of course, since the Government came to office, 400 children’s centres have closed and the child care element of the tax credit has been cut, making it harder and harder for ordinary families to afford child care.

Under this Government, the situation is getting worse for families such as the one I mentioned and those in my hon. Friends’ constituencies. One in 10 people who want to work more hours cannot get more shifts; 700,000 people are working more than one job, most of them out of desperation rather than choice; and 1 million people are thought to be on zero-hours contracts. Incidentally, zero MPs from the Government side turned up to the Westminster Hall debate on zero-hours contracts organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott).

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case. The workers at the Hovis factory in my constituency recently rejected the replacement of full-time staff with agency workers on zero-hours contracts, but does she share my concern that so few people are able to stand up against that and that increasingly it is young people who are trapped in insecure, low-paid work, which means they have no ability at all to plan their lives or to budget?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; she is absolutely right. The Resolution Foundation produced an excellent report, published this morning, warning about low pay becoming entrenched. It does not just affect workers at the start of their careers; low pay this year results in low pay the next year and the year after that, which is particularly worrying.

Zero-hours contracts often mean that workers are vulnerable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said, they are unable to plan for the future and unsure of their ability to pay the rent or the bills each month. Let it be remembered that no Tory MPs or Liberal Democrats, apart from the Minister responding, could be bothered to turn up to debate that issue.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) mentioned, we learnt today that 4.8 million people are now earning less than the living wage. Figures I commissioned from the House of Commons Library show that almost 60% of new jobs created since the spring of 2010 have been in low-paid sectors. This is the economy that the Tory-led Government are building: low-paid, part-time and insecure, making life tougher for families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I do not need to tell most Opposition Members about the crisis unfolding for individuals, families and whole communities, including in my constituency of Wigan. It is not just that unemployment has hit communities like mine hard and had an impact on people’s living standards, it is that the unemployment figures mask the reality facing many families of cuts to pay and hours, which have had a devastating impact on their daily lives. Many Opposition Members are also familiar with the picture we are seeing in Wigan, where payday lenders have sprung up to fill empty shops on the high street and are charging extortionate rates of interest, and where the queues at food banks, such as the Brick in the centre of my constituency, are lengthening by the day. In the past eight weeks, the Brick has given out more than 1,000 food parcels—it is running out of food.

We are now in a situation where one in five children in Wigan arrive at school too hungry to learn. Across Greater Manchester and Greater London, that figure rises to nearly 50%, leaving teachers having to feed children out of their own fridges and their own pockets.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

rose—

[Lisa Nandy]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. I would be grateful if he told me what he thinks his Government should do about it.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Does she not recognise that if over 10 years a Government consistently spend a lot more than they get in and leave a huge deficit, any attempt to deal with that deficit will be difficult? Does she not accept that basic point?

[Lisa Nandy]

I find the hon. Gentleman’s comment alarming. Perhaps it is time for Government Members to attend an economics course or, more pertinently, a history lesson. If we fail to learn what happens when considerable deregulation causes a global financial crisis—supported and egged on by Conservative Members—we will be condemned to repeat it.

I was telling the House about the indignity, anguish and anxiety that afflict many of my constituents, and that daily grind people down. There are a number of things the Government could do, and I want to address them in the short time that I have. First, the Government should and could take immediate action to create jobs by investing in infrastructure. We badly need new schools, we badly need new homes and, in some areas, we badly need new hospitals. Constituencies like Wigan, where the construction industry has always been important to the local economy, need that investment, not just because we will get the buildings we need but because it will provide jobs and apprenticeships for young people.

Construction used to be one of the key routes for young people leaving school to get into the labour market and learn skills that could take them beyond the sort of low-paid work that hon. Members have described. If the Government were to take action immediately, it would be a huge relief not just to me but to the 1 million young people who are out of work and who ought to be a national priority. We know that this should be a national priority, because we know what happens when young people are left out of work: they suffer prolonged periods of unemployment, insecure employment and wage-scarring effects well into their 40s. What we are seeing at the moment is limited action to create apprenticeships. I am seeing young people in a revolving door of apprenticeships, taking on work experience, internships and apprenticeships over and over again. These do not lead to a real, paid, lasting job. Government Members heavily criticised the future jobs fund for being expensive, but I say to Ministers: please recognise that investing money in young people up front is repaid in droves. It is the right thing to do morally; it is the right thing to do economically.

Many young people are on zero-hours contracts and I want to say something about the increasing casualisation of the work force, something that the workers in the Hovis factory in my constituency are rightly standing up against at the moment. People on zero-hours contracts tend to earn lower wages as a whole, and we have seen compelling evidence of widespread exploitation. I would be grateful if the Minister paid some attention to what I am saying, because this is something that affects people across the country, including, perhaps, in his constituency.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Lady speaks passionately about youth unemployment. If the Opposition have all the answers on youth unemployment, why did it rise by 40% under the previous Labour Government?

[Lisa Nandy]

Again, I would really like to send the hon. Gentleman on a history course. If he looks more closely at what happened under the previous Government, he will see not only that youth unemployment fell, but that at the one point in the mid-2000s when it rose it was because there were more young people compared with the number of jobs. It was due to an increase in the number of young people, not a shortage of jobs. The previous Government immediately took action to reduce youth unemployment, something I hope Ministers revisit and learn from in view of the problems we have now.

I was talking about the widespread exploitation of people on zero-hours contracts. Whole sectors are now dominated by this. I represent women in my constituency who work in the home care sector, and I have heard appalling stories about the way they are treated. One woman was forced to take eight hours of shifts on no notice whatever. She has two young children and had to take them with her and lock them in her car while she tended to older people. I would be really grateful if the Minister stopped laughing for a moment, because this is very serious. When the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), responded recently to a debate in Westminster Hall packed with Labour MPs raising similar concerns, she did not say very much. However, it cannot be beyond our wit to bring in some kind of statutory code or regulation and ensure that it is enforced. I take the Minister’s point that some people like zero-hours contracts, but, given the widespread exploitation of people in that situation, surely it is time to take action.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lisa Nandy]

I am sorry but I will not, because I have only a short time left.

Women, in particular, are affected by zero-hours contracts. We should take this seriously, because women are increasingly important to low-income households. In 1968, men in low-income households contributed 71% of the household income. By 2008, that was just 40%. The contribution made by women had doubled, yet female unemployment remained stubbornly high. We lag eight percentage points behind OECD leaders such as Iceland, Norway and Sweden in the re-employment of women with children. We should celebrate a fall in unemployment whenever it occurs, but we need to look seriously at what is happening to women; otherwise we will fail to solve the problems for families.

We should also take seriously the fact that for many women part-time work is not a choice. One third of women with children were found recently to be in part-time work through lack of choice. We should first address the high cost of child care, which is rising by 5% a year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) pointed out, that far outstrips affordability, especially for those on the minimum wage.

Finally, we should take immediate action to tackle low pay. We have seen a long-term trend of falling pay and rising profits. There is no pressure from the Government to take action against multinationals such as Tesco, which made huge profits last year. It employs many women in my constituency on below the living wage. I say to Ministers that low pay is not a ladder for most people. They are trapped in low pay, which is why we need action on the living wage. It is not just important for individuals and their families; it is important for the local economy. If people are not spending, small and medium-sized enterprises fold and the cycle continues. I ask Ministers this: where is the pressure? Condemn those multinationals, implement a living wage and refuse to do business with companies that will not take action. It is time for us to take concrete action. Our families and our young people simply cannot afford for us not to do so.