Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I cannot believe what I am hearing. We have more young people participating in sport now than we did when we bid for the Olympics in 2005, we invest £450 million in the school sport premium, which ignites an interest in sport from an early age, we invest £150 million in school sports, which brings competition back into schools, and we have nearly 17,000 schools participating, so I really do not recognise the very gloomy picture the shadow Minister is desperately trying to paint.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

13. What recent steps he has taken to tackle nuisance calls.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

In spring last year we published the first ever nuisance calls action plan, which includes both legislative and other proposals to tackle the problem, so we are taking measures. We have, for example, recently consulted on lowering—or, indeed, removing—the legal threshold for the Information Commissioner’s Office, and we will be publishing our response to that consultation very soon.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but there is an insufficient sense of urgency on this. To some people these calls are not merely a nuisance; particularly for older people, they are a source of great distress, worry and anxiety, to the extent that some people will not answer their landlines at all, which is a safety issue in some cases. What are we doing to address the fact that existing regulations are not strong enough, which results in our getting all these robot calls and calls from people supposedly doing surveys? What are the Government going to do about that?

[Mr Vaizey]

I regularly meet a range of stakeholders involved in this matter. We have allowed the ICO and Ofcom to share information, and we are going to lower or remove the threshold for taking action. We have also massively increased the level of fines that can be levied. We work with telecoms companies on technology solutions and we have worked with the consumer group Which? on a range of reforms. Only yesterday, I met the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) to talk about how we can help vulnerable people with call-blocking technology, so we are engaged with this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Lady did not listen to the answer that I have just given. We are investing money, working with organisations such as the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, and particularly looking at enabling women in low-paid, low-skill work to develop further skills, for exactly the reasons that she cited—so that they can have higher paid jobs, which obviously provides more security for them and their families.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I wonder whether the Minister would accept that the Government made a mistake in not implementing compulsory reporting on gender pay. Not enough businesses have voluntarily taken up such reporting. It is not too late to make the change; perhaps she would like to commit to doing so.

[Nicky Morgan]

We as a Government have always said that we would keep that section under review, but I believe that it will be much better, and we shall achieve much more systemic change, with companies thinking very hard about the pay that they offer their employees and about the diversity in their work force, if we work with them on the voluntary approach—the Think, Act, Report approach—rather than burdening them with more regulations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I am delighted to hear of that improvement in Worcester, which is no doubt in part, though not all, down to the work of my hon. Friend. Business rates raise revenue and revenue is necessary, but the review has to ensure that they work better. The £1,500 discount for retailers is a step forward, but this is a major opportunity to improve the way the tax works.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

T3. The Department for Work and Pensions’ proposals for universal credit will involve more than half a million self-employed people having to submit new and different monthly accounts. The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is responsible across government for reducing red tape. What discussions is he having with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the DWP to do something about this? He probably has time, given the delay to universal credit, but this is a matter of considerable concern for people trying to set up their own businesses.

[Matthew Hancock]

There is a series of discussions between officials in my Department and in DWP, and at ministerial level, to do precisely that. The advent of universal credit will help to make work pay. It is a very important change in our welfare system, but it has to be done in a way that supports small businesses which, after all, employ many, many people. The Government’s ongoing work will ensure that that happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, Parliament has spoken and we respect its views on the subject. All I would say is that the Federation of Small Businesses commissioned a study that pointed in a very different direction from the one he is describing. Of course, there has been extensive consultation with all the different parties on this issue.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

T7. The Secretary of State has frequently said that he wants fairness for people on zero-hours contracts. Will he now, even at this stage, reconsider the amendments he opposed in this House this week, which would have given greater protection to people on zero-hours contracts, including care workers?

[Jo Swinson]

We had extensive debates on these issues in Committee and on Report. The Government have introduced legislation that will now go to the other place to ensure that exclusivity clauses are banned. We have also made a commitment to introduce sector-specific guidance to promote best practice in the use of these contracts. That is action from this Government where the hon. Lady’s Government failed to act.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

In the House yesterday, the Government refused to stand up for small businesses that are going under simply because they are waiting to be paid by large customers, or for pub landlords who are struggling to make a living because of unfair beer ties. They now have a chance to stand up for workers on zero-hours contracts rather than continuing to allow them to be exploited by unscrupulous firms, and for people on low wages by taking proper action rather than letting them down. If the Government choose not to agree to our amendments, it will be up to the next Labour Government after May to stand up for the many and carry out the changes needed to make our employment market both fair and equitable.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I shall speak to the amendments, but this debate is about zero-hours contracts, and it is interesting that we have even got to the point at which there is a Bill addressing this issue. That is a good thing, because as this became an ever bigger issue for many people over the past two or three years, there was a lot of resistance from the Government. Initially, they said, “It isn’t really a problem. There aren’t more zero-hours contracts than ever before. People have the choice to work as they want, and we really don’t need to legislate.” The campaigns and the substantial criticisms have now got us to a place where the Bill includes a provision on zero-hours contracts.

The problem is that the provision is very narrow. Outlawing exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts deals with only one part of a much larger problem. The Government must have thought, “Well, we’ve come under sustained criticism about zero-hours contracts, so we’ll show that we’ve done something. What’s the least we could do? We will ban exclusivity clauses.” Many people realise that that is a minimal response.

For me, the major factor is the degree of choice that people really have in their workplace. I have heard several Members say on Second Reading and in Committee, where the issue was also debated, “It’s all right. People choose to work in this way. It gives them flexibility as well. It allows them to plan their lives.” Reference was made to people with child care responsibilities, for example. However, it is precisely those people who often find it hardest to cope with being in such a situation. Far from giving them the ability to juggle their various responsibilities, a zero-hours contract may well be the one thing that makes it very difficult to continue in their job while sustaining those responsibilities. People with child care or any other caring responsibilities need to know, day to day and week to week, when they will be working.

Most people cannot arrange child care at the drop of a hat. When my children were young, I used to say that my parents were the only people in the world whom I could phone at 8 o’clock in the morning and say, “My child’s ill. Could you come, please, now?” Not everyone has parents who can drop everything on that sort of warning. I would not want to do that for anything other than a real emergency—the school’s boiler is bust and there is no school, or a child is ill—because if people have to keep doing it, they will quickly lose the support of their friends and family. To fulfil their caring responsibilities, people have to know what is happening. A lot of part-time jobs fit that bill well. It is not a great deal of help if part-time jobs are turned into jobs where people are told, “We’re not really sure which days it will be this week—we’ll let you know.”

Amendment 10 says that there should be compensation if people are called out to work but are not given work. We must understand that there are costs involved in that. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) mentioned transport. People might also incur child care costs to cover the hours they think they are being given, only to find that they are not there.

For many of the jobs where I have seen people on zero-hours contracts, there seems to be no compelling reason why there cannot be a much more organised set of working arrangements and why the arrangements have to be quite so flexible for the employer. In most businesses—even retail businesses—where there are ups and downs in the week, and indeed in the day, the patterns are knowable: they do not suddenly differ from one day to the next.

That is similarly true of caring. The point when I really began to lose patience with zero-hours contracts was when constituents of mine who work as carers found themselves getting texts early in the week telling them which days they would be working. The people they care for are there all the time. The number of people on the books who need care is well known. It should not be beyond the possibilities of management to work out fairly well in advance what the need will be and to allocate the staff accordingly.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most grotesque manifestations of the way in which such regimes impact on those in the caring profession is that they are paid only for the time when they are in attendance on the person who is receiving the care and do not receive the hourly rate while they are logging in, logging out and travelling to the next appointment? That exposes them to great risk on the roads, because they move quickly between appointments. Does she agree that we really must address that in these provisions?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I absolutely agree that such methods are used to manage the process, and they might make it look as though the service can be procured more cheaply. I assure anyone who thinks that we in Scotland somehow do not have a problem with social care because some elements of it are supposedly free that that is not the case—we see all the same things happening.

The insecurity for the worker is huge. I see no reason why that should be the case when the work is there. It might take a bit more juggling, but firms have been trying for years to work out how best to spread the work force over the week.

In the care industry, there may well be a need for some form of emergency cover, but that is different from regular work. I have heard the argument that it is all very well to say that the people who need to be cared for are known about, but if somebody goes off sick or is on holiday, somebody else is needed so that urgent arrangements can be made. That may well be the case, as it is in teaching. There are long-standing arrangements involving supply teachers. We are back to the issue of choice. If people choose to work in that way and it is limited to situations where cover is needed, clearly it has a place. However, the firms that are using such arrangements are not using them just for emergency cover; they are using them for the predictable times, too.

If people end up doing longish periods of regular hours, they should be offered a proper permanent contract. By that stage, people are tried and tested, by definition. There is no reason for the employer to think that they are not capable of doing the job. In many fields of work, the practice would encourage retention, which is a problem in some of the fields that we are discussing. In a job as important as caring for other people, but not just in that job, it is crucial to deal with issues such as turnover—people not staying the course—because they affect the quality of care. This is not just an issue for the people who are employed in these fields; it is hugely important for those who receive the services—they want certainty about the person who is coming into their home.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

The hon. Lady is making a passionate speech. I agree that there are a lot of anomalies in the care industry that need to be resolved. However, such contracts have been available for years and nothing has been done about them. Why did the previous Government, who were in office for 13 years, not resolve these problems? I share her passion on this issue, and some of the things that she is saying are right, but it is a bit late to come to this debate and complain about what this Government are doing. Why did the Labour Government not sort it out years ago when they brought the zero-hours contracts in?

[Sheila Gilmore]

That allegation is made frequently. In the years up to 2007 when I was a local councillor, I did not see these things happening in the care industry. I really did not see huge numbers of zero-hours contracts being used in my area. I do not think that what the hon. Gentleman said was a factual statement.

[Mr Donohoe]

In my constituency—I am sure the same is true of my hon. Friend’s constituency—the words “zero-hours contract” did not exist until very recently. In the past two or three years, I have heard more and more of my constituents talk about these contracts. It is because of the policies of this Government that we are in that position, is it not?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

The hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) seems to believe that the last Government did nothing on this issue. I do not agree, but even if that were true, it would not be a reason for not dealing with the issue now. On that basis, we would never do anything different or new because a previous Government had not done so. That would be a very strange way of doing politics.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is quite right. This has become a huge problem in the past four and a half years, so much so that people in this country are, on average, £1,600 a year worse off since 2010. That is a direct result of the failures of the Government who are now in power. That is the reality for people up and down the country.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for his pertinent intervention.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Does my hon. Friend know whether the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in March 2012, when the Government froze the national minimum wage for under-21s?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I do not think that there is any need to add to that observation.

When people work on a regular basis, that has to be accepted and provided for. That is what amendment 10 would do. If somebody genuinely does not want a permanent contract, nobody is saying that it should be forced on them. Amendment 10 says that people should be offered such a contract. If there really are all those people out there who would not want a permanent contract instead—I have to say that I doubt it—they would, of course, be free to turn it down.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that there could be circumstances in which amendment 10 would affect an employer unfairly? For example, there is a requirement that if someone has had so many hours of continuous work in previous weeks, they can insist on the same number of hours in the future. What will that mean for people who work in the entertainment industry and those who work in a job that is seasonal, such as a job at the seaside, where there is a demand for continuous weeks for a certain period, but that comes to an end?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I cannot see any reason why somebody should not have a seasonal, fixed-term contract for a particular period. We are talking about people working week after week without knowing what work they will be given. That means that they cannot plan for their caring responsibilities and so on, and as they do not know what money is coming in, they find financial planning, such as budgeting for paying their bills, difficult. This is not about somebody working on Brighton pier over the summer season, and I do not think that the situation is comparable with a zero-hours contract. Using such jobs as reasons for continuing a harmful system is not a good idea.

[Graham Jones]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the retention of skills and the need to develop people to improve the economy. If there is a dislocation or distance between an employer and an employee, or if their relationship is fragmented, it is hardly conducive to building up people’s skills and the capacity of the economy.

[Sheila Gilmore]

That is an important point, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South said, one reason why we are not getting in the tax take we should is the huge amount of insecure short-hours employment. That is not helpful to the economy and the community. It is not just the people on those contracts who are affected.

[Graham Jones]

My hon. Friend is making the important point that Britain’s productivity is poor and is not helped by zero-hours or part-time contracts, which dislocate people from the workplace and from opportunities to acquire better skills.

[Sheila Gilmore]

And of course that feeds directly into the fact that the Government’s deficit is rising again in this financial year. That is primarily because the tax take has not been as expected, which is a serious problem. A lot of people have been told that they have to make great sacrifices so that the Government can close the deficit, but now they are told that nothing is really improving, or at least it is certainly not improving as fast as they were promised.

It is also disappointing that, when the law on zero-hours contracts is to be changed, a clear enforcement mechanism is not being built into the Bill. A lot of people do not know much about their contract of employment—and that is if they even see one, because many people do not get much chance to see a contract even when they have started a job. People need to get good information about the content of their contract and the rights that they have. We all have people coming to our surgeries for assistance and saying, “I didn’t realise that these were my terms and conditions of employment.” They might only realise when something goes wrong.

To think that people will understand that a certain clause in their contract is unlawful assumes a degree of understanding and information that a lot of people do not have, especially when they are just glad to get any job at all. They think, “That’s great, I’ve got the job”, but they do not necessarily inquire at that stage about all the problems they might face. It seems strange not to make it easier for people at least to enforce the small change that the Government are offering.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I understand and appreciate the hon. Lady’s argument, which she is making with passion, as she regularly does. Does she not recall that in one of the evidence sessions of the Public Bill Committee, the TUC, which rightly represents workers’ rights, was clear that a good number of its members are on zero-hours contracts by choice and said that it was opposed to their abolition?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am sure that some people would like the Opposition to table amendments to abolish zero-hours contracts, but our position has never been to say that they should be abolished totally. The question is whether people have a genuine choice. Just as an employer can say, “I need you on Friday evening, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning,” the employee should be able to say, “I can’t do Sunday morning. I want Monday or Tuesday instead.” The question is whether there is a genuine two-way relationship, and in a lot of circumstances there clearly is not. That shows that we have to give people protection.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

This is not just about zero-hours contracts. Under the amendments, an employee would be entitled to see their contract within six months of starting their employment. Often, people are not given any view of their contract, and their agreement to the terms and conditions is implied by the fact that they turn up to work. The amendments are about all contract work, not just zero-hours contracts. An employee should have the right to see their contract, and the Government should enforce that right.

[Sheila Gilmore]

That is an important comment, and it illustrates again the importance of giving people protection that they do not necessarily have at the moment. In a lot of situations, the employee is perforce in a much weaker position than the employer.

I fully accept that there can be circumstances in which people can find contracts such as we are discussing a useful way to live their lives, provided that they have equal bargaining power. I remain slightly unclear, however, about why people who want choice would not on the whole be better operating on a self-employed basis. There are a lot of people who have been doing regular work and who everybody knows are employees, but who cannot easily get permanent work. Some employers might find it difficult to rearrange their planning to let them have a permanent arrangement, but things seemed to operate on that basis for many years. I cannot understand why it has suddenly become so difficult for employers to manage.

[Andy McDonald]

The fundamental point is about choice, which the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) touched on. Does my hon. Friend agree that the power has shifted enormously over the past several years? There has been an explosion in the incidence of zero-hours contracts, and the employee does not have the choice of whether they want one. It is a case of “take it or leave it”, because that is all that is available to them.

[Sheila Gilmore]

My hon. Friend echoes the point that I was seeking to make. If there were equality of arms and people were negotiating on an equal basis, that would be different from a situation of “take it or leave it, and be grateful for what you’re getting. Arrange your life around all the constraints.”

In many ways, the Opposition’s amendments are modest. They are not asking for huge changes, but they go beyond the miserly reforms to zero-hours contracts that the Government are offering. I think the Government want to get brownie points by saying that they are now dealing with the problem of zero-hours contracts—the Prime Minister mentioned them today—but the Bill’s provisions simply do not go far enough. I urge the Minister, even at this late stage, to consider supporting the Opposition’s amendments and strengthening the Bill’s provisions so that the Government can say that they are making a proper effort to deal with the problem.

[Bill Esterson]

In evidence to the Committee, Sarah Veale from the TUC said that there is a significant difference between what she called the higher end of the employment market, which is often where trade unions are organised and staff are well paid, and other areas. She stated:

“Our worry is with the unscrupulous employers who use these contracts deliberately as a means of cutting wages and having people available, the flexibility being to their advantage and not so much to the advantage of the worker”.

When talking about provisions in the Bill she said:

“A lot of work will need to be done with the regulations for this to ensure that there are no easy avoidance tactics used by unscrupulous employers.”

That is what the TUC said about what the Bill sets out to do, where the gaps are, and how much more work is needed to make it effective for staff who otherwise would be exploited.

Yesterday we talked about the impact that uncertainty has on people—whether tenants in pubs or small business owners and managers more generally—and on their communities and staff. Today we are considering people in employment, and my hon. Friend’s amendments set out how important it is to look after people who otherwise face uncertainty and difficulty as a result of low pay and everything that follows from it.

National Minimum Wage

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

As I was saying earlier, there would have been no national minimum wage or any fines if it were not for the last Labour Administration, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that fines need to be increased, and I will come to that very shortly as he makes a good point there.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend comment on the experience of my constituent whose fixed-hours part-time job, which fitted in with school hours, was changed recently by a very respectable employer—a large department store, not some unscrupulous employer—to a zero-hours contract in order to make her terms more flexible? She had to stop work because she could not find the child care to help her. That is surely the sort of contract we must do something about.

[Mr Umunna]

Well, that is it, and that is precisely why we will introduce a far tougher package than the sole measure we have seen on zero-hours contracts from the Government, which is basically just a do-away with exclusivity on those contracts. That is simply insufficient given the story that my hon. Friend has just told—and I would be very interested to know who the employer was.

The third point I want to make on the changes we need is that, when the minimum wage was introduced, the hope was that it would have a ripple-effect causing wages to rise up the income scale, but that has not turned out to be the case. Frankly, it is becoming the going rate in some sectors, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) alluded to. This explains why 1.2 million employees currently just earn the legal minimum. That is up from just over 600,000 in April 1999, so we have seen a considerable increase in the number of people on the minimum. Therefore, in its beefed up role, we will ask the LPC to advise on what sectors of the economy could afford to pay more than the minimum wage and how that could be achieved.

Finally, enforcement has been mentioned, and much more needs to be done on that, as the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said. There has in some respects been a systematic failure in the way the minimum wage has been policed. To address that, we will give local authorities, working alongside Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, powers to enforce the law, and we will increase the fines tenfold for rogue companies that do not meet their obligations. In this way, we will evolve the national minimum wage so that it moves beyond the narrow task of setting a minimum wage to avoid extreme low pay to a broader mission to reduce low pay in Britain. As far as the Minister’s party is concerned, I discern no desire to move beyond the status quo and the current arrangements.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Business and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

You would not have believed it from the speech the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) has just made, Mr Speaker, but a fortnight ago those of us on the Government side of the House put up the national minimum wage in real terms for the first time since Labour’s great recession. The national minimum wage is now at its highest level ever in terms of average earnings. Enforcement of the national minimum wage is stronger and because of the recovery the national minimum wage is set to rise. For the last half hour, the Opposition have talked about the past and the glory days of 1997, but I want to talk about the future.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Is the Minister suggesting, yet again, that the recession in Europe, the United States and throughout the world was Labour’s recession?

[Matthew Hancock]

I am certainly suggesting that we had one of the deepest recessions in the world because of the failure of the last Labour Government to regulate the banks properly and to mend the public finances in the run-up to the recession. That youth unemployment had risen by 40% even before the crash shows the failure of Labour’s economic policy. That is a theme to which I shall warm in my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

It is a genuine honour to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who has a long history of supporting the lowest-paid in our society, and a long history of defending workers’ rights. When he speaks, he speaks not just with passion but with experience. That is in stark contrast to the synthetic arguments that we have heard from the Opposition Front Bench so far. I hope that today’s debate will reach a different level, because what we have observed so far is a lot of complacency about what Members think people want to hear when they are electioneering.

For me, this is not just an issue of party politics. I can agree with most of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington has just said—as, indeed, can most of my colleagues, especially those who are members of the new generation of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on the Government Benches. We have been in those jobs at the bottom. We have seen what it is like to be on short-term contracts, and what it is like to work as a sole trader. I was a kitchen and bathroom fitter. When the contracts that I had in the university of Leeds were short-lived, I had to plug the gaps. That, in many ways, was a zero-hours contract. I have a great deal of respect for what was said by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) about zero-hours contracts. I wish that she would stand up and name the company concerned, and I offer her the opportunity to do so now if she wishes.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The company was Debenhams.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has named that company, because there can be no excuse, in our society, for forcing people into a position at work in which the employer says, effectively, “Do as I say, and you cannot do anything else.” That is wrong, as the Prime Minister said in his conference speech. Zero-hours contracts have their place—they can work for people—but it is absolutely wrong and immoral to say to someone “We will tell you when you can work, and if you dare to work for anyone else, you will not be paid.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman has made the mistake of believing that zero-hours contracts are wrong in themselves. They offer flexibility to people. What is wrong and unacceptable is the abuse of zero-hours contracts, when an employer says “You cannot work for anyone else.” That is what is wrong. The hon. Gentleman needs to take a close look at Members in his own party who have people on zero-hours contracts. That is the problem. We must not mix up the arguments along the way, because there is positivity in some instances. The abuse is what the Government need to crack down on.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The exclusivity of zero-hours contracts is one issue, but it is not the only way in which they exploit people. A constituent of mine is a care worker who has to wait for a weekly text message telling her what hours she will be working at the end of that week. She has no choice either. The arrangement is causing severe problems in terms of her personal cash flow and her ability to obtain benefits and pay her rent, and, of course, it is also having a severe effect on the quality of the care that is being provided.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I do not disagree with a single word of what the hon. Lady has just said. It is absolutely true, and that is why it falls to this place to start looking at the way in which employers have been abusing a flexibility which does work for certain people.

When I was between contracts and doing manual labour, did I want to be wondering whether I would have a kitchen or bathroom to fit in the following week, or did I want a constant supply of work? The fact is that I could not demand that the work would be there. I could not say, “Sorry, Mr Shelbrooke, you will be on a permanent contract whether the work is there or not.” There must be flexibility, but what we must legislate for is stopping the abuse. That is what my party is trying to do now, and my hon. Friend the Minister is working to address these very issues in his Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill.

Let me now deal with the minimum wage, which, after all, is what the debate is mostly about. I want to go further than our £12,500 tax threshold. My hon. Friend said that people in full-time work who are paid the minimum wage would not pay tax, but I want to maximise the benefit. If anything, I am a politician of aspiration. I want to make sure that someone who wants to work 42 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, will not have to pay any tax. That gives us a figure of £14,196 at today’s minimum wage rate, and that is my ambition. It is not a new policy. We have seen members of a newly formed political party leap up and say that they want the threshold to be raised to that level. Let me remind them that, back in the 1980s, Nigel Lawson said that no one should be taxed until their income had reached the rate at which it was not necessary to give the money back to them. That is the really important point when we are talking about how we can empower people. We must ensure that they have not only the motivation to go to work but the ability to keep the money they earn. If we have a minimum wage, surely we have to have minimum taxation. That taxation should not start until people start to earn more than the minimum wage full time. That is my ambition for this Government. Yes, I am delighted with our policy regarding £12,500 but I personally would like to go further.

The Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), said that there was not enough certainty in our policies. He made a good, considered opening speech but when he was pushed on the detail of where the 10% tax threshold would come in, he had no answer. That worries me. I worry that the policy of increasing the threshold from £10,500 to £12,500 would involve people paying 10% tax. We do not know whether that is the case; the policy is not there. I accept his argument that he cannot answer the question today, but this worries me none the less. I am worried about what these policies on wages for the lowest-paid workers actually mean. I worry that these policies could be inflationary if they are not carefully considered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. It is vital to make sure that the skills system is focused on the needs of employers so that people who go through that system go on to get an apprenticeship and a good job. That is exactly what the traineeship scheme is designed to achieve.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Government suggested that trainees might be eligible for jobseeker’s allowance while they are undertaking their traineeships. Has the Minister sorted out the details with the Department for Work and Pensions because, at the moment, someone studying for more than 15 hours a week would not be eligible for the benefit?

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Lady makes an important point because the link to the benefits system, particularly for those aged over 18 who are in traineeships, is vital. In the framework for delivery set out yesterday, she will have seen the details, ensuring that eligibility for JSA and eligibility to get a traineeship are aligned. Of course, with the introduction of universal credit and changes in the jobcentres, we are making it easier for people to get training while also looking for work. Work experience is a vital part of that and a vital part of traineeships.

Girls and ICT Careers

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend. She raises an extremely important point and I shall dwell on it in more detail later. She is right. One of the key messages that I hope the Minister will take from the debate is the importance of ensuring engagement with employers. Often employers are willing to make arrangements to go into schools, but do not feel that they can identify schools or know how to set about it.

We should encourage employers to engage with schools. One of my first parliamentary questions was to ask who was responsible for ensuring engagement between industry and primary schools. The response was that no one in the Government was responsible, in either the Business or Education teams. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that in her response.

As well as improving the image of ICT, we need to look at the working environment of women in ICT, and at higher, secondary and, very importantly, primary education, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and careers advice. We also need to look at our culture, which socialises girls to think that ICT is not for them.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend have a view about the suggestion of some educationists that it would be helpful if some schools separated girls in ICT classes? Some people say that when boys get into the ICT classroom they dominate the machines.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In single-sex schools, it is certainly the case that more girls study A-level science than in co-educational schools. There is evidence that girls do better in a single-sex environment. It is not clear whether that is due to the presence of strong female role models or, in other schools, the influence of boys who may be more aggressive in taking resources. I would say to my hon. Friend that schools should examine ways of ensuring that girls are engaged and excited. For example, I know that all-girl science and computer science clubs successfully engage girls with ICT in an environment that they find comfortable and stimulating, which is what we are trying to achieve. If we are considering how society socialises girls away from ICT, we could wonder why girls’ toys are generally pink and patronising, and rarely involve any ICT participation, while boys’ toys tend to be more centred on engineering, machines and ICT.

The sample of responses that I received demonstrates just how much is being done. I am worried that Microsoft and Google, which are role models in their own right, do not appear to want to let anyone know how well—or how badly—they are doing. I trust that the Minister agrees that it is essential that we have such information if we are to understand what we need to achieve. However, I was impressed by the measures that many companies are taking to attract girls to ICT, which suggests that there an increasing desire for change which was missing during large parts of my career in the industry. Indeed, I was at an industry event only last night at which several representatives of large ICT companies raised that issue with me before I had the chance to ask them about it. Given that I usually raise the issue with such companies at a very early stage, one can imagine how quickly they beat me to it by talking about that to me.

There is a large number of initiatives in place, and as part of my preparation for this debate, and given that tomorrow is girls in ICT day, I crowd-sourced examples from Twitter. I was impressed by the number of organisations that are actively working to attract girls to ICT. For example, Nominet is sponsoring computer clubs for girls and Sunderland Software City in the north-east is setting up a coders academy. Primary Engineer encourages primary school pupils to engage with STEM education. As we have heard, we know that it is critical to engage girls at a young age, before preconceptions have formed, because by the time that they are taking their GCSEs, they might have ruled themselves out of ICT due to earlier choices. Little Miss Geek, Girl Geeks and ScienceGrrl try to inspire girls into ICT, while WISE promotes female talent in science, engineering and technology from classroom to boardroom. Athena SWAN and STEMNET—the science, technology, engineering and mathematics network—support women in ICT and STEM careers, and help to them become role models for the next generation.

While there are many initiatives, the challenge is to know how well they are working and how to help them to work better, yet I fear that the Government are failing to take up that challenge. I suspect that the Minister will disagree with that, but let us look at the evidence. The Government ended funding for UKRC, the organisation dedicated to supporting girls and women into ICT. They claim to be making the ICT curriculum more flexible, but they are in fact simply disapplying all standards and requirements of the national curriculum. They have reduced support for, and undermined, careers advice, which is the key way of helping into ICT those many girls who have no direct contact with ICT professionals as part of their background.

The Government have reduced support for small and medium-sized businesses. Increasing diversity in the workplace can be more challenging for SMEs that do not have dedicated human resource departments and may instead rely on older recruitment methods—for example, employing friends of current staff, which means that the work force do not become more diverse over time. Of course, employing one’s friends can happen in larger organisations, and even in Government. But the Government should be offering more support for skills in small businesses, rather than turning Business Link from a face-to-face support organisation into a website and a phone line.

We have no roadmap, no plan, no targets and no framework to help us assess whether we are on the right track to attract more girls into ICT. Can the Minister explain what the Government are doing? Can she say how, for example, if I am a teacher in a primary school in Newcastle, I can find out what resources are available to make ICT more appealing, and what incentives there are for doing that? What steps are the Government taking to use subjects which do engage girls, such as climate change, to make ICT more appealing? Will removing climate change from the national curriculum make that easier or harder? How is the Minister ensuring that primary school teachers in particular have the right ICT skills themselves, given the higher salaries paid in the private sector? Research shows that because of the cultural factors relating to ICT and girls, the quality of teaching is a far more important factor in girls’ decisions in relation to ICT than it is in boys’ decisions.

What are the Government doing in response to the Nesta report on video games entitled “Next Gen—Transforming the UK into the world’s leading talent hub for the video games and visual effects industries”, which said:

“The content and delivery methods of computer science teaching will need to change to address ... misperceptions (especially in the eyes of girls)”?

In December 2011, Ofsted said in its report “ICT in schools 2008-11”:

“Very few examples were seen of secondary schools engaging with local IT businesses to bring the subject alive for their students. This was a particular issue for girls, many of whom need a fuller understanding of ICT-related career and education options to inform their subject choices at 14 and 16 years of age.”

How has cutting back the careers service Connexions to become solely an online and telephone service helped this? The House of Commons Education Committee described this change as resulting in a “worrying deterioration” in the overall standard of careers advice.

The lack of women in ICT is a scandal but it also a huge loss. It is a loss to the country, with a talent pool half the size it could be. Every year the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s skills survey shows a severe skills shortage, and it is no wonder if we are excluding half our population. I am sure the Minister will be interested to know that it also represents a loss to women in not having entry to these rewarding careers and therefore contributes to the gender pay gap. The average technology professional’s salary was over £38,000 per year in 2011, 50% higher than the average across all sectors.

The lack of women in ICT represents a loss to society of the types of ICT that might come from non-male perspectives. I do not hesitate to say that an ICT work force that was more representative of humanity would result in technology which was more humane. All too often technology is imposed upon us aggressively and before it is fit for purpose. And yes, I am thinking of automatic tills at supermarkets when I say that. It is common sense, because we know that innovation comes from the creative exchange of ideas between individuals. If all the individuals in a company or sector come from the same background, there is necessarily a limit to the ideas and innovation.

There is also an intangible loss, but a hugely important one, to our society. Many of the challenges we face, such as climate change, an ageing population with greater health needs and a world of 7 billion people, have technology at their heart, but we are handicapped in addressing them because technology does not have a place in our hearts. Technology will never have the position it merits at the heart of our society and economy if it remains the preserve of such a narrow section of society. To drive our economy forward sustainably, ICT needs to be a part of our society and our culture. Given the challenges we face as a nation, we cannot allow ICT to remain such a male occupation.

In conclusion, to improve the gender balance in ICT the Government need to show leadership in ways that are more concrete than mere warm words of support. I hope that is what I will hear in the Minister’s response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We will certainly do that. The aerospace industry received an enormous boost on Monday with the announcement of £1.5 billion that is to be shared, along with another £1 billion from the private sector. I hope that that will give the industry the confidence to invest, right across the remainder of this Parliament and through to the end of the next one, in what is already one of Britain’s great success stories.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

T10. The Secretary of State has often told us of his plans to rebalance the economy. Is he as worried as I and many commentators are that a huge plank of the Chancellor’s growth strategy seems to be predicated on a policy that could reinflate the housing bubble?

[Vince Cable]

We certainly would not want to see that happen again. I have to say that I am a little surprised to be given a lecture on this, having seen the housing bubble that developed 10 years ago and got completely out of control and did so much damage. Clearly, the intention of the stimulus announced yesterday is to provide supply as well as demand in the housing market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done through the Working Families charity to promote shared parental leave and on female participation in the finance sector. It is not entirely a problem that women are paying less income tax; raising the tax threshold will help low-paid women in particular to pay less tax, which is one of our objectives. Female participation and promotion and women rising to the top in business are also key objectives of our policy, and that will produce the equality for which my hon. Friend strives.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Warm words butter no parsnips. The cost of child care holds women back from entering the work force. Does the Secretary of State regret his decision to support the reduction in child care tax credits and will he now push for that to be reversed?

[Vince Cable]

The Government are supporting women with young children, and families in general, to the tune of about £5 billion through the child care element in tax credit and free early years tuition, which for low-income families has been extended to two-year-olds, as well as tax relief on employers’ schemes. That amounts to very substantial support for child care.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

We are working very hard to ensure that those over the age of 24 in advanced learning have the opportunity to take out a loan if required. We are ensuring as best we possibly can that the process goes through smoothly and, most importantly, that everybody knows of the opportunities that are available due to the loans.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

What steps is the Minister taking to work closely with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that obstacles do not come in the way of people trying to enter further education while they are in periods of unemployment? I have a constituent who had to give up a course because the DWP failed to inform the college on time that she was on the relevant benefit to get fee exemption.

[Matthew Hancock]

For far too long the skills system and employment system have not interacted well and have not spoken to each other. I probably spend more time with the employment Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), than with any other Minister outside my Department. I had two meetings with him on Tuesday and will have three meetings with him today, so we are working extremely hard to try to bring to an end the inconsistencies that the hon. Lady rightly highlights and that have been there for far too long.