Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Paul Blomfield and James Cleverly(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
We continue to fully support the UN efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, alongside the US, the Saudis and other international partners. The United Nations has put a fair deal on the table, consisting of a ceasefire and a measure to ease restrictions in Hodeidah port and Sanaa airport. However, the Houthis are not engaging constructively with the proposals to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people. Rather than coming to the table, the Houthis continue their offensive in Marib. We are committed to reaching a peaceful settlement to the conflict. We await the appointment of a new special envoy, and we look forward to working with them when they are in place.
Paul Blomfield [V]
After seven years of violence, suffering and hardship, there is still no end in sight, as the Minister acknowledges. The UN has warned that Yemen faces the worst famine the world has seen for decades. After more than halving their aid to the country, what will the Government do to stop families dying of starvation and disease? As penholder for Yemen at the UN, we clearly have a special responsibility. What further pressure are the Government putting on all the parties for meaningful and inclusive peace talks involving all key stakeholders—not simply the Houthis, who are clearly blocking the discussions, but the Hadi Government and the Southern Transitional Council?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman is right that we are concerned about the humanitarian situation in Yemen. We have given over £1 billion-worth of aid to Yemen since the conflict began. I recently spoke about the food security issue with David Beasley of the World Food Programme in the margins of the G7 in Italy.
The best thing we can do for the people of Yemen is to bring this conflict to a conclusion. We engage constructively with the Saudis and the Government of Yemen but, unfortunately, the people we have the most difficulty engaging with meaningfully are the Houthis, and I publicly call upon them to engage with us, to engage with the UN, to engage with this process and to bring peace to these people who so desperately need it.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Paul Blomfield and James Cleverly(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield
I will not at this stage, simply because other Members want to speak and I am conscious of time.
Over a generation, we have seen a shift of between 5% and 7% of GDP from wages to profits, and from profits to shareholders’ dividends. That has widened inequality and reversed a century of progress towards a more equal society, and it started with deliberate decisions in the 1980s to weaken the bargaining power of working people and the trade unions that represent them. A sensible policy response to low pay would be to strengthen the negotiating hand of working people, but instead the Government made it clear in the Queen’s Speech that they want to weaken their position further with more attacks on the trade union movement.
James Cleverly
Would the hon. Gentleman concede that when tube drivers, for example, go on strike, the people who are hurt the most are not those who can fire up their laptops and work from home but those who, if they cannot get to work, do not get paid for work, such as contract cleaners and those who work in the care sector? Is it not the case that when people go on strike it is the low-paid who get hit the hardest?
Paul Blomfield
It is absolutely true that when people go on strike, everybody gets hit, including those on strike. Trade unionists go on strike only with enormous reluctance, because of the impact on services and their wages. The uncomfortable truth for Conservative Members is that improvements in living conditions, health and safety and other workplace situations have been won through the struggle by trade unions.
The campaign for a living wage was a great response to the challenge of low pay. Members on both sides of the House have rightly praised the work of the Living Wage Foundation, but that work has been made more difficult by the Chancellor’s attempt to steal its clothes. We need to be clear. The increase that he proposes to take the wage floor up to £9 for many workers is welcome, but let us not pretend that it is a living wage. Let us call it the over-25s rate or the national minimum wage supplement, or we could just call it the national minimum wage, but he should not damage the brand of the living wage by associating his proposal with it.
We should continue to work to encourage employers to adopt the living wage and to incentivise them to do so. We need to recognise, as the Living Wage Foundation has pointed out, that the rate will need to rise to take account of the cut in tax credits. Here is the rub: although the new rate of the national minimum wage might benefit up to 5 million workers, more than half of them will be worse off—an estimated 3 million families, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies—by an average of £1,000 a year because of the changes in tax credits. It could not be any other way: an estimated wage uplift of £4 billion is being offset by welfare cuts of £12 billion.
The Chancellor will argue that raising the tax threshold will benefit low-paid workers by taking them out of tax, but he knows that that is not true. He knows that lifting the tax threshold is a regressive tax measure, because it benefits everybody equally except the lowest paid. Six million workers who are already paid too little to pay tax in the first place will not benefit at all from raising the threshold, whereas Members of Parliament will get a tax break. Frankly, in comparison with low-paid workers, we do not deserve one.