Covid-19 Economic Support Package

Debate between Mike Wood and Alex Cunningham

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Hospitality is one of Britain’s biggest employers. Some 3.2 million people across the country rely on hospitality for their jobs, including 4,300 of my constituents in Dudley South. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has always been a real and true friend of the beer and pubs sectors, in particular. He knows how much they have been affected by this pandemic, and he has delivered a comprehensive and unprecedented economic support package. Without such a support package, many thousands of pubs and breweries would simply not have survived the spring. They would not have got through the first phase of this outbreak.

I do not know whether the Chancellor has seen his rather fetching likeness on posters in pubs up and down the country, recognising the contribution that many of those support measures have made to making our pubs and other hospitality viable over the past six months but, as we are now firmly in a new phase of the pandemic, new measures are vital for those businesses that are not necessarily legally compelled to close. For those that are required to close their doors, the grant he has announced, although it may not cover the whole rent and all the fixed costs, will make a substantial contribution to the costs those businesses incur even before they pull a single pint or serve a single meal. However, there are also enormous challenges facing venues that are not legally compelled to close, those in tiers 1 and 2, where the legal restrictions that have been introduced make it impossible for them to operate. We know that one in 10 pubs has never reopened since March’s lockdown, and about two thirds of those that did reopen were already trading at a loss last month. That was before the introduction of 10 o’clock closing, mandatory table service, and of course the new restrictions that have come into effect today.

[Alex Cunningham]

Simon Longbottom of Stonegate, one of the largest pub groups in the country, has written to me about this, and he could have been making the speech that the hon. Gentleman is making now. He is very concerned that in tiers 1 and 2, he gets no help with his business costs whatsoever. Can the hon. Gentleman give the Chancellor some direct advice on what he needs to do about that?

[Mike Wood]

I would not presume to attempt to direct my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, beyond saying that pubs and hospitality cannot, of course, continue to operate with almost no income and without additional support that is proportionate to the legal restrictions they face. Those restrictions may not be in their immediate area. I have heard today from Titanic Brewery, a brewery in Stoke. The majority of its customers are in Liverpool and Merseyside, which are tier 3 areas, but that brewery will not receive support even though that is where its customers are based. These pubs need urgent additional support; otherwise, many of them are going to close their doors for good and never reopen, which would be a huge loss to not only our economy, but our communities.

Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Mike Wood and Alex Cunningham

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 11th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Member is totally correct, but people do not need to work for six months, 12 months or longer to get work experience. Four weeks will be sufficient in the organisation that he once ran to get that experience and build towards a new job.

Every party in this House claims to be the party of social mobility. Today Members have an opportunity to stand up and prove that theirs is the one that believes in that area of activity. If they are advocates for social mobility, I hope they will stand up to organisations that exclude those from poorer backgrounds from opportunities because they cannot afford to live without pay.

But this is not just about exclusive opportunities for those who can afford to take unpaid roles. Having people work for months on end without pay is exploitative, even when they are prepared to work for nothing. I am aware that some Members have argued that banning unpaid work experience would simply mean that organisations would stop offering opportunities altogether. First, for me, organisations not offering unpaid roles at all is preferable to them offering them exclusively to a distinct group of people. Secondly, if there is a real job to be done, organisations will find the money to pay someone to do it. Just because there are plenty of young and eager people, that does not mean that organisations should choose to save money by bringing in someone to do a job unpaid under the guise of work experience. Surely a young person does not need to work for six months or a year to get experience of a workplace or to learn a little of how a particular field operates.

But what does the employer or the organisation get out of it? It is quite clear: they get free labour, expecting a full day’s work without a full day’s pay. They save themselves a salary. They also save themselves national insurance and pension contributions. Surely it would be fairer for everyone if we limited such work experience placements to a month. Even the Exchequer could benefit. Such a move would ensure that living costs do not stack up, putting people further in debt, and would enable those opportunities to be offered to more people. A six-month unpaid placement could instead be offered to six people instead of one.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman recognises the value of short work experience placements, but does he also recognise that sometimes such placements are better structured for both sides, perhaps on a part-time basis or even for one day a week? That means that, although they are probably still rather less than 20 days in total, they can last for significantly longer than four weeks. Is there not a danger of their being caught by his Bill?

[Alex Cunningham]

Maybe my Bill should limit the length to 20 days with one employer—it all amounts to the same thing—but the hon. Member is right: a young person could gain experience over a period of time. If he supports my Bill, perhaps we can amend it to take on exactly that point.

The only way that we will crack down on this practice is by limiting the amount of time that someone can do unpaid work experience for one organisation.

Of course, there are already rules around the definition of a worker, but the Sutton Trust carried out some excellent research that found those rules are not as clear to organisations and those carrying out their work experience placements as we would hope. For example, it found that half of young graduates are unaware that unpaid internships are illegal—yes, they are already illegal—in most circumstances. This is a significant problem as the current system relies on young people to self-report any unpaid internships that they suspect are illegally not paying the minimum wage. That puts those young people in an incredibly difficult position.