Finance Bill

Debate between Mary Kelly Foy and Ben Everitt

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

We are facing an employment crisis unlike anything we have seen in a decade. The impact of coronavirus will undoubtedly weaken much of our infrastructure, leaving many workers unemployed, and businesses on the brink of collapse. Unfortunately, when lockdown ends, the Government seem intent on a return to normality and business as usual, stuck in the past when they should be learning lessons and looking to the future. The Government’s slow reaction cost us as we entered this pandemic, and they cannot repeat that mistake as we emerge from lockdown.

In contrast, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) has proposed a back-to-work Budget that places jobs at the heart of the economic recovery. That does not mean a sticking plaster solution, however, or jobs with little or no protection for workers. The damage to our economy caused by this awful virus has been severe, but the economic structuring of society was already broken—skewed in favour of the wealthy rather than workers.

Over the last decade of Tory austerity, the Government have launched attack after attack on the rights and protections afforded to working people. Through the promotion of zero-hours contracts, ambiguity in employment status, low pay and lack of protection in the workplace, the Government have encouraged irresponsible employers and abandoned the country’s workers. Before lockdown, 9 million people living below the poverty line—3 million of them children—were in households with at least one person in work. The Government boast of record levels of employment, but they should be ashamed of the amount of in-work poverty. This economic model needs to end.

If this pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the people on whom society relies the most are those least rewarded in pay and respect. Whether it is the poorly paid nurse, the carer on a zero-hours contract or the retail and hospitality staff working shifts so long that they would not be out of place in Victorian society, the people of Britain deserve better. This pandemic has been devastating, but it provides us with an opportunity to shape the economy and society in a way that prioritises the environment and protects workers. That means better pay, shorter and more consistent working hours and job security. Workers need to be able to look ahead into the week knowing that they have work, that their wages will provide a decent standard of living and that their working hours will leave them the time and energy to live their life. The better the conditions and protection for workers, the better their quality of life and the greater their health, wellbeing and sense of worth—it really is that simple.

The pandemic has also exposed the lack of protections for staff in the workplace and how fragile health and safety standards are. The Government must begin to see employment law as a red line, rather than being advisory, and they must properly fund the Health and Safety Executive, so that safety in the workplace is properly enforced. When the Government finally begin to plan for our post-coronavirus society, they must accept that the status quo has not worked, and any attempt to return to business as usual will fail the public. The 33 million workers of Britain deserve more. When society needed them most during this pandemic, they delivered. It is time for the Government to do the same for them.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

In this part of our debate, we are talking about jobs. Today the Government launched the flexible furlough scheme, and flexibility needs to be the watchword of our response and how we consider the economy. We are emerging, blinking in the sunlight from lockdown, and our businesses are blinking too, in the light of the new economic reality. Things will never be the same. Things have changed irrevocably, and we have learned a lot about our society, volunteering and our communities. We have learned a lot too about how business will need to change and adapt.

The drivers of that change—the adapters—are the consultants and contractors in our professional services sector, which provides such immense value to our economy and also revenue to the Exchequer. These are the people who bring the sparkle of innovation. They are the lubricant of the cogs of capitalism. They are the critical friend to beleaguered boards and exhausted executives. These are the people who are caught up in the IR35 reforms. I welcome the decision of my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to postpone the introduction of those reforms until next spring. I am sure that, in the short term, that decision will have reassured many who face huge challenges in retooling our economy, reorganising the businesses that provide those jobs and repositioning and repurposing our private sector.