National Minimum Wage

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jim Sheridan

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

At the Labour party conference, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition called for the fine to be increased to £50,000, and I support that. It is also important that companies that get out of paying the minimum wage are prosecuted, and we are not seeing that under this Government.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

With regard to the advert about the security guard and the dog, I remind my hon. Friend that the RSPCA refused to allow the dog to work, yet the security guard had to do so.

My hon. Friend is running through a list of the abstentions in the vote on the minimum wage. Please do not leave out the separatists in Scotland, who I think were washing their hair that night.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing the attention of the House to the voting record of other Members of Parliament on that night.

Thanks to Labour Members of Parliament and a Labour Government, for the first time in history, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, British workers had a legal floor below which their hourly pay could not fall. Slowly but surely during the following years the rate rose. It was attacked every step of the way by many Government Members and, in 2003, when the Labour Government announced a 16% increase in the minimum wage over two years, the right hon. Member for Twickenham attacked the policy directly, saying that it would set a dangerous precedent.

The result of the minimum wage was to boost the wages of nearly 2 million low- paid workers, two thirds of whom were women. It helped to lift 1 million children out of poverty and every authoritative economic study concluded that it brought no negative employment effects, despite the warnings of Government Members. No wonder that a survey of academic policy experts conducted by the Institute for Government judged the national minimum wage to be the greatest policy success of the past 30 years. It is now a policy supported by the CBI and the TUC, whose nominees work together on the Low Pay Commission. It is seen by the British people as a vital British institution, underpinning basic rights and decency in the way our economy works.

Regional Pay

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jim Sheridan

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Gentleman should speak to the 9,500 public sector workers in his constituency. That number is substantially larger than his majority.

What families and businesses in these parts of the country need is not an even tighter squeeze on the wages of the people who are keeping their public services running, but a Government with a proper plan for jobs and growth who will work actively with businesses to get investment flowing into the sustainable, competitive, high-value industries of the future. That is what we need to improve living standards and economic opportunities in every part of the country.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has highlighted the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for these measures. It may be helpful to share with the House the fact that the same Member is asking for exemptions from the minimum wage for employers. Perhaps that is the real agenda here.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that. That is how the Government will get the economy moving again—by cutting the pay of the most vulnerable workers and introducing regional pay.