Job Insecurity

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I have said this before and I will say it again: I think we should keep our families out of this place. The hon. Gentleman would do well to reflect on that. If he wants to make another contribution that is perhaps a bit more intelligent and adds something to the debate, I am happy to give way, but clearly he has nothing to add.

The Government have failed to tackle the cost of living crisis. Family energy bills have been allowed to rise by £300 since the general election. As I said, they have given a huge tax cut to people earning millions of pounds a year while increasing VAT and cutting support for working families. They have failed to act on transport prices. What is certainly clear is that this Government have heaped further insecurity on people at work with their attacks on their fundamental rights and protections. The other week, the Business Secretary said in his speech to the Royal Economic Society—I thought it was a good speech—that he has “resisted moves” in the direction of attacking people’s rights at work. That simply does not reflect the reality.

When people have been treated unjustly or discriminated against and wish to seek redress, he and his ministerial colleagues have put up a barrier in the form of tribunal fees of up to £1,200, which the Minister for Skills and Enterprise referred to as “moderate” despite the fact that £1,200 is about two weeks’ average earnings. I do not think that is moderate: it is a barrier against access to justice.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about being ambitious and asks whether things have got better. In my constituency, unemployment has fallen by 20% and youth unemployment by 45%, and the number of new apprentices starting every year is more than double what it was in 2009. Does he agree that that is significant evidence that things are better?

[Mr Umunna]

Of course it is good that more people are in work in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but what is the nature of that work? Is it temporary or permanent, and what wages are people earning? That is the question I have posed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer]

I am well acquainted with the hon. Lady’s constituency, as it is where my family is originally from. There are certainly differences between her constituency and mine, but Ipswich has significant areas of deprivation and its long-term unemployment is above the national average. These are precisely the issues that I am concerned about, just as she is. I recognise the point she is making, but to claim—this is where the shadow Secretary of State really lets himself down—that this is something new immediately debases the debate.

When we look at the movement of wages over the past 10 to 15 years, we see that a far more subtle change has been going on, which we need to address. Middle-income earners have seen their wages, in real-terms, first plateau and then decrease slightly from 2003-04, even up until the point of the crisis, as a result of increased tax and increased costs of living. That might indicate that we need to have a rather fuller debate about why that is happening in our country—and was even before we hit the extraordinary circumstances of the great recession. Some claim that this has been on the Opposition’s lips for a long time, but I find that problematic, because I was speaking about the cost of living before my election in 2010 and in the days afterwards. It was immediately of concern to everyone, on almost every income, in my constituency.

I am talking about not just those who are most hard pressed, but those people, often on middle incomes, who have not much wiggle room because they have a mortgage. They are at the most expensive stage in their life. They are bringing up children and saving for a pension. The things that make life bearable for them—sometimes they are in jobs that they do not particularly enjoy—are the holiday and the curry every fortnight. Those things have now gone by the wayside, but that happened not in 2013 but in 2007-08. People’s lifestyles have changed over that period, and we need to address that in the long term. To claim that that change is a result of specific Government policies is profoundly misleading. We are addressing the problems identified on every line of the motion, up to the last one, as the Secretary of State made quite clear,

The motion mentions the changes to employment regulations. In 2011, an owner of a major cleaning company in my constituency came to see me, saying that she wanted to hire more people on permanent contracts. Admittedly she was offering just above the minimum wage—I am afraid that is what most cleaners in this country are paid—but they were jobs none the less. She said that she was prevented from taking on those people because of the labour regulations. As a result of the changes we made in 2011-12, she has hired dozens more people who otherwise would have been without a job. I want to see those people on a living wage. I also want to see them keeping more of their money, which is partly why I am so proud of what we did with income tax relief for the lowest paid and why, through changes to national insurance, we are making it even easier for companies to hire. It is a good thing to see people employed who otherwise would not have been employed. Those changes have meant that unemployment has come down in my constituency.

Let me now take the example of zero-hours contracts. In a Public Bill Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) made an important point about why for her, at a time in her life when she had just had children, zero-hours contracts were useful. There are many people on zero-hours contracts who would prefer to be on a permanent contract. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests that it is only a minority of people who are on zero-hours contracts. Like the hon. Lady, there might be many people who value them at a particular moment.

Just this weekend, I met a constituent who made an interesting point. Before the great recession, he was employed as a construction worker. He was laid off in 2009-10. Recently, he has been getting a lot more agency work, much of which is zero hours, but he is earning considerably more than he did when he was in full-time employment. I asked him whether he preferred the security or the money. He said that, obviously, he would like both, but given a choice at this moment, he preferred the money. He said, “I know that as the economy begins to improve and construction gets a proper foothold, I will have the security, too.” These are difficult choices. I wish that, rather than making a litany of complaints, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) had concentrated on the meat of the discussion, which he outlines in the last sentence of the motion. We need to talk about skills and education levels, all of which were left in a terrible state by the previous Government and which we are having to unpick and undo. I am afraid that that in itself will take several generations to take effect.

We are talking about the result of decades’ worth of negligence by Governments of both colours. Let us have a proper discussion about that. I hope the Labour party will show itself to be worthy of being not just the Opposition but the potential Government.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend quite rightly highlights the last sentence of the motion, which calls on the Government

“to adopt a proper industrial strategy to help create more high-skilled, better paid jobs.”

Does he agree that Government policy on apprenticeships is absolutely key, and that there are two small areas in which they could do even more to highlight the opportunities for young people: funding apprenticeships for the over-25s, and funding employers directly rather than through the training intermediaries?

[Ben Gummer]

I agree with my hon. Friend, but the news on apprenticeships is very good. Between 2010 and 2013, 370,000 additional apprenticeships were created, bringing the number up to nearly 1 million, which is an extraordinary achievement by this Government. We are again showing ourselves to be the true party of labour. I am proud of that and of what we have achieved, but let us think about the long term and the reforms to education and skills that we need to achieve to compete with those very ambitious and aspirational young men and women coming out of schools and colleges in Mumbai and Shanghai. At that point, we will have a proper debate about job insecurity and the future of this nation.