Living Wage

Debate between Liz McInnes and James Berry

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for securing this debate and for her exceptional work on this issue since the Government’s national living wage took effect. She has campaigned tirelessly for the rights and wages of workers, to make sure companies do not renege on their contractual commitment to the rate of statutory pay by reviewing and diminishing their staff benefit and reward structures. She has held firms such as B&Q and Marks & Spencer to account. They have tried to offset the cost of the national living wage by cutting Sunday pay, bank holiday pay, company pension contributions and unsocial hours. I echo the words of the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne): that is not

“in the spirit of the law.”

I commend my hon. Friend’s unshakeable belief in following through on this undertaking, persistently raising this issue inside the Chamber and relentlessly campaigning outside the House. I am sure the thousands of affected workers would also like to thank her, too.

Many of those people are in my constituency. This week, I received a letter from a constituent, Lynn, who works for Marks & Spencer and has done so for 34 years. These are her words:

“I feel I have been blackmailed and threatened to sign the form to accept the small pay-out because I was told I would not receive this; also they would change my contract and that would mean I would have to start working Sundays and work all bank holidays. No matter what they say the loyal long service worker has been sold down the river and threatened.”

Lynn clearly feels that she has been forced into an “agreement”, despite the warm words from the Minister, and that she has been blackmailed—those are her words, not mine. It is disappointing to hear reports like this from employees of stalwarts of our high streets, which really should be striving to be seen as exemplar employers. While all this has been going on, Marks & Spencer has reported a 4.3% increase in profits; the total is £689 million in the UK and £1.1 billion internationally this year alone.

As we are all aware, this week is Living Wage Week—the real living wage, as determined by researchers at Loughborough University, not the Government’s misnamed “national living wage”, which is a new national minimum wage, no more, no less. The real living wage is good for the individual, good for the family, good for society and good for business itself. Two thirds of employers who pay the living wage—the real living wage—reported a significant impact on recruitment and retention. They also saw a sharp fall in absenteeism. More than 80% reported improvements in staff performance. It was my privilege yesterday to visit the living wage event held in Parliament and to talk with many small and medium-sized enterprises about the benefits of having living wage status and what it brings to their businesses. Large companies such as Marks & Spencer could learn a lot from them.

The former Prime Minster said that the genuine living wage was

“an idea whose time has come”,

and yet here we are, six years on of Conservative rule, and it has not been implemented.

[James Berry]

Instead of making tendentious points about the name of this living wage, perhaps the hon. Lady will explain why her party’s manifesto at the last election did not include bringing the living wage up to the level of the London or national living wage?

[Liz McInnes]

I believe that my party’s manifesto championed a decent standard of living for all workers. [Interruption.] I will have to go back to the 2015 manifesto and see what we actually said and get back to the hon. Gentleman.