Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I congratulate the new hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on her maiden speech.

It is very hard to articulate how grateful I am to the voters who put their faith and trust in me on 7 May and how proud I am to stand before you as the new Member of Parliament for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. It is also a privilege to be able to join in this debate on equalities. Women in Bermondsey and Old Southwark can expect to earn only 83p for every £1 earned by men locally. My background experience in the past 10 years has been in the charity and public sectors tackling inequality, particularly disability inequality due to my family experience of growing up with a parent with a severe mental health problem.

Having had an unusual upbringing, I found it a little strange that the House of Commons Library described the seat as unusual also. It chose that adjective because, in researching the maiden speeches of previous Members, it found that I am only the third Member of Parliament for Bermondsey to make a maiden speech since the second world war. My predecessor, Simon Hughes, served for 32 years and his predecessor, the Labour MP Bob Mellish, served for 36 years. It has already been pointed out to me how hard I will have to work in order to sustain anything like that kind of average.

It has also been unfairly suggested that it would be difficult for me to say positive things about my predecessor because we come from different political parties. That is as untrue as it is inaccurate. Simon Hughes’s record speaks for itself. He took the seat by surprise in 1983 and put up with media intrusion into his personal life, but he held the seat for that long because of his hard work and diligence in helping thousands of local people every year. While other areas saw a slump in Liberal Democrat support this year, Simon Hughes secured more votes than he did in 2005. Indeed, he got more votes than five of the Liberal Democrat Members who were returned to this place. His personal contribution to so many local people’s lives was what helped him to gain and secure that support. I use this opportunity again to congratulate him on his knighthood. I wish Sir Simon very well. I would like to clarify, though, that I will be less visible than my predecessor within the constituency because I do not plan to adopt his mode of transport. There will be no red cab with my name on the side motoring around the constituency.

The first Labour MP for the constituency was Dr Alfred Salter, who was elected in 1922. It was a privilege to unveil a statue of him and his family last year along the riverside. There is a school and a road named after him locally. He is a genuine legend locally as a healthcare pioneer. He was delivering free medical treatment to local people well before the national health service was established. In an equalities debate it would be remiss of me not to mention his wife, Ada, who was the first Labour woman elected mayor anywhere in the UK, and that also happened in Bermondsey in 1922, which, as Members will know, was before the equal franchise. She is credited with greening the borough in her role as mayor. As patron of Southern park, and with my landscape architect wife, I hope we are continuing her legacy in some small way.

The Salters’ concern for health, wellbeing and the environment lives on in my local borough. Southwark’s Labour council is one of the most progressive in the country. We have the biggest council house building programme. A new park is being provided at the Elephant and Castle through a local development and there is also going to be a new leisure centre. The council will allow local residents to use the swimming pool and gym for free, and it introduced free healthy school meals well before it was central Government policy. I am proud to have served as a councillor on that council since 2010, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes).

Much has changed in the area since the Salters’ time. We are now far more diverse, but we are also, arguably, far more dynamic. The constituency has the third highest banking and financial sector employment of any constituency in the UK, and we bring more than 7 million tourists into the capital city every year. They come to see the fantastic attractions I am proud to have in my constituency, including Tate Modern, the Globe, the Imperial War Museum, Tower bridge and HMS Belfast.

It is an unusually young constituency. We have four fantastic universities with local bases: the London School of Economics, King’s College, South Bank University and the University of the Arts London. We are also making a massive contribution to house building and tackling the housing crisis locally. The average figure for new home starts in UK constituencies in 2013 was 200; the figure in Bermondsey and Old Southwark was 1,600. Some people have suggested that we would be better termed Bermondsey and New Southwark.

The attraction of living in the constituency is partly the amazing local food and drink industry. I am sure that many Members are familiar with Borough market—it has been there for 1,000 years, so I hope they have noticed it. Bermondsey has had the reputation of being the larder of London for many years. The first tinned food factory anywhere in the UK was opened in Bermondsey in the 1800s. More recently, a market has opened on Maltby Street—please visit—and there are no fewer than six breweries and a gin distillery open locally. I cannot promise to shout everyone a drink, but please do visit.

Despite the positives of such an amazing constituency, inequality is still a massive concern. Child poverty remains stubbornly high across Rotherhithe and Bermondsey in particular. Low pay and unequal gender pay are definitely a factor. It is no coincidence that the justice for cleaners campaign is based in the constituency and helping in particular women from the Latin American community who are working as cleaners.

Some local private sector companies have done very well to introduce the London living wage, including the Ministry of Sound and the Association of British Travel Agents, which is living-wage accredited. The council also delivers the living wage. It is a shame that that example is not being followed in Lanark and Hamilton East, but Southwark has pioneered that policy, including making sure that women who are disproportionately represented in low-paid care jobs are covered by the living wage. I would like central Government to deliver that better in their commissioning and procurement policies.

I am proud of the food and banking sectors locally, but I am less proud of my constituency’s growing food bank sector. This year, 7,000 people are expected to use this central London food bank, including 700 who are in work. Low pay is a very serious concern for me. The citizens advice bureau and Pecan, which provides the food bank, have outlined how Tory welfare waste, particularly over the past five years, has contributed to that food bank growth. I will be throwing myself at making sure that I address inequality in the constituency. Indeed, I have already outlined how I will donate this year’s increase in the MP’s salary to my local food bank.

I hope that the Government recognise that they cannot build one nation on such high levels of in-work poverty. One former Southwark resident, Charles Dickens, who lived just off what is now Marshalsea road, wrote about the best and worst of times, and it is very sad that he would probably still recognise those two cities in a constituency in the heart of London.

I would like to end with a note of thanks not only to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the Speaker’s team more widely, but to all the staff across the Westminster estate, including those in the canteen and security, for the fantastic and warm welcome I have received as a new Member, no matter how many times I get lost. I am particularly grateful for their advice and support, as I am to the voters of Bermondsey and Old Southwark who put their faith and trust in me. I hope to serve with a degree of passion and diligence and, I hope, some small measure of success.