Lord Walney
Main Page: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Walney's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
2. What steps the Government are taking to tackle low pay in Northern Ireland.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What steps the Government is taking to tackle low pay in Northern Ireland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Ben Wallace)
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has announced that, from October, the national minimum wage will increase by 3% to £6.70 per hour, the largest real-terms increase since 2006. The Government are also committed to increasing the personal allowance to £12,500, and to ensuring that anyone who works at least 30 hours a week on the minimum wage pays no tax at all.
Mr Wallace
One of the best ways to help the low paid is to allow them to keep as much as possible of the money that they earn. The hon. Lady will be delighted to learn that, according to the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, average gross weekly earnings in Northern Ireland have increased by 10.2% over the past year. That is a whacking, massively great increase compared with the United Kingdom average of 1.7%. I am sure that the hon. Lady will be delighted to recognise that our long-term economic plan is working for the low paid in Northern Ireland.
John Woodcock
I welcome the Minister—my neighbour—to his post, and hope that he will be successful in it.
One in five children in Northern Ireland lives in poverty. The Government are not really considering going back on their legal commitment to tackle child poverty, are they?
Mr Wallace
Like every previous Government, this Government have tried—and, in many instances, continued successfully—to deal with child poverty. Let me reiterate that one of the best ways of doing that is to make sure that works pays, and that people keep the money that they earn. To ensure that that happens, we have increased the personal tax allowance by 63% since 2010, from £6,475 to £10,600.