Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

My right hon. Friend gets to the nub of many of the Taylor review’s recommendations. It is important that decent employment standards are maintained and that consumers are offered new opportunities, and we will be reviewing the proposals.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Recent reports uncovered the fact that people driving on behalf of Amazon were forced to deliver up to 200 parcels a day while earning less than the minimum wage. With impossible schedules that left little to no time for breaks and no access to paid holidays or sick pay, many drivers experienced conditions that could be described as Dickensian. As yet another high-profile employment case emerges, why are the Government not taking robust action to crack down on bogus self-employment and to enforce employment rights?

[Margot James]

The hon. Lady puts her finger on precisely why the Prime Minister commissioned the Taylor review in the first place. When employers are indulging in practices such as those the hon. Lady outlines there will definitely be a deleterious effect on employees’ health, and they should be roundly condemned.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The Government keep hiding behind their forthcoming response to the Taylor review, but Sir David Metcalf, the Government’s director of labour market enforcement, stated this year that even the Government’s existing powers have not been used to protect workers, despite numerous official statements that the Government have taken abuse by employers seriously. Only last week, the Government identified 16,000 workers who were paid less than the minimum wage, and yet the Low Pay Commission believes that the true figure is between 300,000 and 580,000. Does the Minister agree with Sir David Metcalf that the Government’s enforcement of basic employment rights is wholly inadequate?

[Margot James]

I await the publication of Sir David’s strategy for dealing with labour market enforcement, which we expect to see in the first quarter of next year. I am pleased with his appointment, and he is doing a great job so far of bringing together the enforcement agencies at the Government’s disposal to ensure that they work even more effectively in the pursuit of non-compliance with the law.