Lord Hendy
Main Page: Lord Hendy (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Hendy's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Tackling poverty, as I said, is an absolute commitment and a priority for this Government. The noble Baroness raises the issue of the £20 uplift, and I can only confirm that the £20 uplift is in place until April 2021. Discussions between our department, the Treasury and others are ongoing, and a decision will be made in due course.
Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]
My Lords, before the impact of lockdown, in 2018, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty found that 14 million people in the United Kingdom were below the poverty line, 9 million of them in households where at least one person worked. Wages need to be increased to reduce poverty. To this end, and to increase demand, the OECD and the ILO advocate the promotion of collective bargaining. Does the Minister agree with them? If so, what steps to restore collective bargaining in the United Kingdom will the Government take to enable the voice of workers to be heard in the determination of wages?