The Future of Work

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for introducing the debate.

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris). He is absolutely right to speak up for the Rolls-Royce workers. We are seeing that the opportunities for employers come on the back of working people when they offshore jobs. That is one of the biggest threats to our economy, and I support Unite in its battles against employers who have done such things.

The reason why the people of Barnoldswick have come to our attention is very much at the heart of my speech. Work defines us; it gives us dignity. It is where we spend most of our waking hours, build our security and friendships, display our skills, and contribute to society. Without work, we lose our identity, purpose and self-worth.

Tragically, for many, work has been hardly an edifying experience in recent times. Slavery conditions, poverty wages, insecurity and uncertainty have framed the working experience for too many. Recently, we have seen a sharp increase in zero-hours contracts, on which many people languish at the behest of their employers. Many jobs, good and bad, hang in the balance as we face a catastrophic tsunami of job losses. We have to build back better.

We have to decide what kind of economy we want to build. There have obviously been advances in technology and automation, but the word “growth” was mentioned again in this debate, and we have to understand what it means. Does it mean depth, or does it mean forever chasing profits for those at the top of organisations at the expense of workers?

I want the Minister to comment on how her Government view economic thinking such as that of Kate Raworth, who is looking at things such as doughnut economics and the value being put in, and Julian Richer, whose work on the good business charter looks at how work can have a more ethical base, including a real living wage, environmental responsibility, fairer hours, paying fair tax, employee wellbeing, a commitment to customers, employee representation through a trade union, diversity, inclusion, timely payments to suppliers and ethical sourcing. That would reshape the economy for the future in a far better, qualitative way.

Before I talk about my constituency, which is due to be the worst-hit area in the country from the current economic crisis—we could see unemployment rise from 2.8% last year to 27% next year, because the recovery from the last economic crisis was built on insecure jobs—I want to highlight three areas where we could see real movement in reshaping the economy. First, we should build sectoral councils. The fragmentation of the economy is not helping our response, so we need the economy to come together. Establishing sectoral councils will provide a framework for employers, workers, trade unions, academics and industrial leaders to come together, build back better, institute a skills analysis and look at the economic opportunities of those sectors. The fragmentation is preventing that from happening, but linking with local and devolved authorities and local enterprise partnerships would be a real opportunity to focus on the future and ensure that the big issues such as climate mitigation are at the heart of the discussions. It is also about building a base for sectoral negotiations to determine things such as pay, pensions terms and workers’ conditions in those sectors.

Secondly, I want to look at the university and further education sector. I have to say that I was disappointed by the debate earlier this week on the union learning fund and the opportunity it brings. Education is at the heart of growth: if we enable people to reach their potential and the extent of their skills, we can do so much more in local economies.

We see real under-employment in the city of York in my constituency. The two universities have now come together with the two further education colleges to form Higher York in order to shape the economy, but we need the education sector to have a more central role in establishing the future of the economy, looking at things such as the skills gap and inequality, and at the wider community interest—not just from the perspective of education alone, and not just looking at higher-end skills. In my city, 30,000 people work in areas such as retail, tourism and hospitality. Those jobs will not be there next week, next month and possibly next year, and we therefore need the university and further education sector to intervene and to address the many challenges that we face.

Perhaps the most difficult conversation that any of us have had over the past eight months has been with small employers and the self-employed, who have poured everything into their businesses—their money, their time, their resources and their lives—only to see them melt away without Government support. In building back for the future, we need to build more resilience into business by building collective support and looking at more social models of business support, to ensure that businesses are more sustainable in the future as they move forward—looking at the co-operative models and social enterprises that have good reach into their communities and real roots, which can address some of the real challenges around employment, too.

I turn briefly to my constituency of York Central. Already the high street is the worst impacted in the country—we have lost around 60 businesses to date, and I daresay there will be many more to come. As those businesses have been struggling, Government grants have been slipping through their fingers into the hands of leaseholders who live offshore and do not pay their taxes in our country. The taxpayer is subsidising that lifestyle, and hard-working people in our local businesses and shops do not see any of the benefits. There has to be responsibility when the Government hand out resources. Although they are saying they are supporting these times, we have to look where that money is ending up—it is certainly not ending up supporting business. I call on the Minister to look at how we can have proper investment and a responsibility put on property tycoons to ensure that the money is not just invested in their tax havens.

On a green new deal, the BioYorkshire project is incredible. It will create 4,000 jobs and retrain 25,000 people to have the skills to bring about a real revolution in the bio-economy, putting York at the heart of that—not just in the UK, but globally. The Government are tying this to a devolution deal that could be two and a half years away, but we need investment in those jobs and skills in York now. Before next Wednesday, can the Minister have words in order to bring that forward, so that we can start the work in creating the jobs that we are losing hand over fist at the moment?

Finally, and most importantly, if we are to have a strong future of work, we need to protect workers’ rights and to think about the real challenges that workers face in the workplace today. After 50 years of looking at health and safety, it is timely that we now have a health, safety and wellbeing commission to look at the wellbeing of workers. We know that issues such as mental health, bullying in the workplace and even the fallout of occupational health services were not discussed 50 years ago. We do not have a legislative framework to protect workers, particularly those who experience issues such as stress, poor mental health and bullying. We need to ensure that such a framework is introduced. Finally, we need to introduce a right to learn and to ensure that the union learning fund is invested in, because this is the opportunity to rebuild our economy.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

A Westminster Hall debate would not be complete without Jim Shannon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to respond to the debate. I look forward to further debates on this issue. I greatly thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for securing this important debate on a critical topic for the UK. It has been interesting and thoughtful, and the introductory speech was exactly that—as were those from Front-Bench colleagues. I particularly welcome the new APPG on the future of work, which will look at work going forward and the role the Government take. I will try to pick up on some of the points hon. Members have made.

Reflecting on what Members have said, we recognise that the labour market is fluid. We will have to continue to adapt to the forthcoming challenges, emerging technologies and the changing nature of available employment, and the skill sets that are required to remain agile enough for this change in the world in work. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) reflected on the jobs miracle, the barriers and impacts of where we are now compared to where we were, and the inequality challenge. I absolutely recognise the points that my hon. Friend made.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) who has the art of being in two places at once—brilliantly done today. I failed at that earlier, and I apologise. The hon. Gentleman pointed out, rightly, that for many families this is an incredibly worrying time. The Department for Work and Pensions has stepped up in this pandemic so that we are supporting as widely as possible, but I fully recognise the impact on SMEs and our local independents.

We heard from the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) who highlighted the social care challenge—it is absolutely important. We have had a care academy in Scotland through the DWP that has been brilliant, and has highlighted the variety of roles, and impacts, that can be made by those who are part of that amazing world making a daily difference to people’s lives. It is important that we sell and point out that opportunity in the world of work.

I want to pick up briefly on UBI. I believe, fundamentally, it is the wrong approach for the UK. As we heard from my hon. friend the Member for Devizes, it does not incentivise work. More importantly— and the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire mentioned disability—it does not target people with additional costs and needs when it comes to the challenges that they face, whether it is disability or childcare responsibilities. We should be careful how we approach that.

We recognise at the DWP that we need to be looking strongly and widely at the labour market. We have an excellent team, which I work with closely, who give me a daily understanding of the labour market so that we can try to take advantage of the opportunities of automation—this emerging technology—and what it may bring. We heard already about the green jobs taskforce which met for the first time last week, which will bring together the views of businesses and employers, as we heard today, and key stakeholders including the skills sector. The taskforce will focus on the immediate and longer term challenges of delivering workers with the right skills for the UK’s transition to net zero, including dealing with the issue of building back greener, as we heard this afternoon, and developing a long-term plan that charts out those key skills. It will also focus on the good-quality jobs that we need, a diverse workforce and supporting workers in high-carbon areas transitioning into sectors such as green technologies.

We heard about the 10-point plan this week from the Prime Minister and his blue-print to focus on jobs and opportunities in the areas where the UK’s industrial heartlands need that support—be they in Yorkshire, the north-east, the Humber, the west midlands, Scotland or Wales. It is important that we drive through a green industrial revolution to support the industries of the future.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister specifically look at the BioYorkshire project, which has been driven by the University of York and others to kickstart York’s economy in the light of the crisis, and look to bring it forward, because we need new jobs now?

[Mims Davies]

It is an absolute focus for us to drive forward local needs and support where they can change the local labour market and local opportunities. Earlier, the hon. Lady also mentioned working with local mayors and local enterprise partnerships, which this Government encourage.

On automation, we know that the increase in productivity, progression and wages that it can bring if we get it right will be really important as we head into this fourth industrial revolution. It is very difficult, as we know, to predict with any kind of precision what automation will do to the labour market, but it is important that we understand new technology, including the enablement of smart robotics and artificial intelligence, grab it and put it in place as part of our process of change. We know that 60% of the jobs in 2014 simply did not exist in 1990, so we know that things will change imminently.