Post Office Closures
Debate between Stella Creasy and Margot James(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Margot James
They are. I will write to the hon. Lady, if I am returned, and tell her what the Post Office plans on credit unions are.
Margot James
Okay, but I am not going to fill it with interventions; I am going to carry on.
Hon. Members have said that post offices do not have click and collect services, but I want to reassure them that there are 10,500 local post offices that do provide those services. That is another area of potential growth. I invite Members to write to me if their constituency branches do not have them; we will look into it. As to the allegation about hours being reduced in convenience stores, I am pleased to confirm that that is not the case. Opening hours are not decreasing in the fullness of time.
Stella Creasy
The Minister has just told the House that the Post Office is working with credit unions, but that is not what they tell us; they say that they are open to doing so, but that nothing has happened in the past five years. The Opposition are all talking about financial inclusion; will the Minister commit to revisiting the issue and actively working with alternative providers who will deliver?
Margot James
The Post Office does work with credit unions where it can, but there is a common link through the Co-op in some transactions. The difficulty has been—and as the hon. Lady is an expert on credit unions perhaps she can help us to solve the problem—not having a common banking platform. When a common banking platform has been developed, further inter-working with credit unions should be possible. We take financial inclusion seriously.
I want to talk a little more about banking; I think that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is happy for me to continue.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
DRAFT National Minimum Wage (Amendment) REGULATIONS 2017
Debate between Stella Creasy and Margot James(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Stella Creasy
I thank the Minister for giving way. Does she recognise that there is also quite a bit of evidence, given that growth is increasing, that companies are making profits? So what we are seeing now is employers not passing on the benefits of the productivity of employees to the people helping them to make that money. That disconnection between wages and growth is really troubling.
Margot James
I am glad that the hon. Lady concedes that the economy is in good shape and that it is indeed growing; I agree with her on that. I am also heartened by the fact that lots of employers are paying people more. In fact, the recent evidence about the national minimum wage is that it has not only protected the wages—the living wage—of people over the age of 25 but hauled the average wages of people younger than that up in its wake. That is because some employers who can afford it accept the point made by the hon. Lady earlier, namely that if they can afford to pay younger people more, they would rather have parity—
Draft Important Public Services (Health) Regulations 2017
Draft Important Public Services (Border Security) Regulations 2017
Draft Important Public Services (Fire) Regulations 2017
Debate between Stella Creasy and Margot James(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Margot James
I think I have already explained that, but if the hon. Gentleman requires me to restate it, we are seeking to rebalance the rights of those workers to strike with the rights of the public, particularly in the case he mentioned. For patients facing critical illness or emergencies, those two rights have to be balanced, and that is what the legislation is all about.
In the Border Force, we are addressing the significant risks to public safety in the event of disruption to border controls. We have focused on services in respect of the entry and exit of people and goods, as those are central to the carrying out of checks and to preventing illicit commodities and other threats to our security from entering the country.
Members of the public will agree that strikes in those important public services should take place only when there is a strong level of support and a justifiable mandate. I hope I have reassured Members that the regulations are justified and proportionate to our objective.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister talks about balancing the rights of the public against the rights of people in employment to withhold their labour. Over the past decade, we have seen a decline in the number of days taken in industrial action. None of these powers has been necessary. Before she finishes, will she tell us what assessment the Government have made of whether there are alternative, more constructive ways of resolving their concerns, which do not restrict people’s right to withhold their labour when they feel under pressure?
Margot James
I will deal with the hon. Lady’s points in this way. Working days lost vary from year to year. For example, 170,000 working days were lost to industrial action during 177 stoppages in 2015. That number was less than some recent years and more than others, but I think most people would agree that that is a significant amount of time lost to strikes. The point is that this measure is not at all designed to attack a person’s right to strike. It is designed to ensure that, when the right to strike is exercised, it has a strong and democratic mandate from the people who vote for strike action.