Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

5. When he plans to respond to the Taylor review of modern working practices.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

It is important that this much-needed report gets the consideration it deserves and that we take action where needed. In the industrial strategy, the Secretary of State took responsibility for improving quality of work in the UK and continued an important dialogue on this issue. We will publish our full response shortly.

[Stephen Timms]

The TUC reports that 3.2 million people are now in insecure work—an increase of more than a quarter over the past five years. Will the Minister accept Matthew Taylor’s recommendation, endorsed by the Select Committee, that a longer break in service—a month rather than a week, as at present—should be allowed before there is any loss of employment rights?

[Margot James]

That will be something that we consult on as we consult on the vast majority of the other proposals in the Taylor review. Taylor acknowledges the excellent track record of employment in terms of new jobs, but as the right hon. Gentleman rightly points out—and the TUC endorses this—there is an issue with insecure work and far too much risk being transferred to the employee.

Taylor Review: Working Practices

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

We will certainly consult carefully on those points. We will make sure not only that the Treasury is satisfied in respect of tax issues, but that we are satisfied that people are getting their rights if they are employees or workers—or, as Matthew Taylor is proposing to rename them, dependent contractors.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Minister has welcomed the report. Is she in a position to accept any of its specific recommendations today? Can she tell us when there will be legislation to implement at least something in it, or is this all going to be batted off into the long grass?

[Margot James]

As I said earlier, we will look at and consult on every single recommendation, but at this very early stage it is not really for me to say which I am personally inclined to recommend accepting and which I am not. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bear with us. Over the next six months—well, I said by the year end; it might be a little longer than six months—we will consult widely across the House, and the right hon. Gentleman will have every opportunity to make his views known.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

The lower Thames crossing is due to open in 2025. In the meantime, local growth hubs will continue to deliver support services to help businesses in the area to grow over that period. In addition, almost half of the South East local enterprise partnership funding of £274 million is directly supporting growth in north Kent and south Essex by improving transport infrastructure, addressing skills needs and creating new business spaces.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that one of the strengths of the Thames Gateway is the closeness of connections elsewhere in Europe, and one of the worries that small and medium-sized businesses have is whether they will be able to continue to recruit staff from other EU countries after Brexit. Will she acknowledge the strength of concerns of firms in the Thames Gateway, and can she offer them any reassurance about the prospects after Brexit?

[Margot James]

Having travelled around the country talking to many businesses over the past year, I acknowledge those concerns in the Thames Gateway area. However, I was reassured—I hope the right hon. Gentleman was, too—by the Prime Minister’s opening contribution to the negotiations last week and the reassurance she offered many hundreds of thousands of EU citizens currently residing in the UK, including those working in the right hon. Gentleman’s area.

Draft Important Public Services (Health) Regulations 2017 Draft Important Public Services (Border Security) Regulations 2017 Draft Important Public Services (Fire) Regulations 2017

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Wednesday 1st February 2017 General Committees

[Margot James]

I agree strongly with my right hon. Friend.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Of course, it was a Labour Government who presided over the reduction that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow drew attention to. Will the Minister tell us when was the last time that there was industrial action in the Border Force?

[Margot James]

I am afraid I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman that, but I will certainly seek out that information.

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister certainly has not convinced me that these regulations are necessary. I am not aware of industrial action in the Border Force, and I wonder whether there is a real problem here or whether these regulations are unnecessary.

[Margot James]

I do not know whether that indicates that the right hon. Gentleman sees the need for the regulations for the health service and fire workers—perhaps he does, and to that extent I am encouraged. I will get the information about the Border Force for him, but the regulations were introduced in recognition of the very serious nature of any threat of industrial action in the border services and make provisions as a preventive measure, at the very least.

Surveys taken during the consultation indicate that the public agree with our proposals. There was, of course, a manifesto commitment.

[Stephen Timms]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

I will not give way for a third time. I will make some progress.

Before I conclude, I would like to address the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s comments on the regulations. In relation to the three regulations on the 40% threshold, the Committee pointed out that the Government committed to issue guidance to clarify which workers will be captured by each of the important public services listed in order to assist unions and employers when they are assessing how a ballot should be conducted. Its view was that the need for such guidance raises a question about whether the regulations are sufficiently clear and understandable by those affected. Furthermore, it regretted the fact that the Government failed to publish that guidance in early December when we laid the draft regulations before Parliament.

I am grateful for the Committee’s scrutiny, and I can confirm that the Government have now published guidance to provide advice to unions on applying the 40% threshold in practice and on examples of workers who will be covered by each of the regulations. In drafting the guidance, we engaged with key stakeholders affected by the provisions to understand how the guidance can be most helpful. We listened carefully to their views and reflected them in the guidance. The Government believe that the regulations are proportionate, and I commend them to the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend works tirelessly for businesses in Rugby, and it is great to hear about their growth. I urge him to get in touch with the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP. When I visited it in September, I was advised that the Coventry and Warwickshire growth hub is providing support to local businesses that are expanding and looking to move premises.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

According to the Federation of Small Businesses, of those small businesses that export, 82% export to other EU member states. What plan does the Minister have to support small businesses through Brexit?

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

We will announce uprating policy in the normal way on the normal timetable, not on a date chosen by the Chancellor for his own partisan purposes.

I think the Minister knows that I have been looking back at his speech in the Child Poverty Bill Second Reading debate in July 2009—fewer than four years ago. It was an autobiographical speech, as he said at the time. He explained that his first job was with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, where he had the task in the 1980s of compiling its poverty statistics. He said that

“year after year the level of child poverty would remorselessly grow. A majority of people would do relatively well, enjoying tax cuts, and the people at the top would do exceptionally well, but year after year more and more children would find themselves in poverty.”

He said that he decided to become a politician because he

“was appalled at what was happening in our country to the most vulnerable people”—[Official Report, 20 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 625.]

Now here he is, three and a half years later, arguing in this Committee for exactly the same combination of policies he condemned at the time: tax cuts for the highest paid and benefit cuts for the most vulnerable. Exactly as in the 1980s, as he knows better than anybody, the result is certain: child poverty rocketing. With the extra rise as a result of the Bill, if current policies are maintained it will go up by 1 million by 2020—right back up to the level he was logging at the IFS in the 1980s.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the most recent data demonstrate a reduction in child poverty last year of 300,000? If he disputes that, does he have any comment on the way the previous Government measured child poverty, and whether that measure should be changed?

[Stephen Timms]

Absolutely right—the policies of the previous Government have continued to have beneficial impacts, but as soon as this Government change the policy the numbers will rocket back up again. According to the IFS, child poverty will rise by 400,000 by 2015 and by 800,000 by 2020. On top of that, there will be an additional rise of 200,000 as a result of the Bill. That is what the Government’s policies are doing.

Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Margot James

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

Sir John has, in fact, reported. He did so in July. That was rather later than he was going to report; he would have reported in May, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) said that we would have produced a scheme within two weeks. As I have said, our view would have been that we should proceed as we had intended, and as we set out before the election, on the basis of the report that we commissioned.

The new Government delayed publication of the report until July, and we still do not know what the scheme will be. We know almost nothing about the timetable, but I am afraid it will not be what EMAG has been demanding, which it thought current Ministers were signing up to when they signed all those pledges. A great many people feel very let down indeed.

[Margot James]

The ombudsman has found much to welcome in the Bill and this Government’s proposals, such as the independent commission, the compensation scheme, the enabling mechanisms to be set up, the transparency and the progress made. She has welcomed that. Are not Opposition Members therefore getting ahead of themselves in writing off what the Government are proposing? It is one thing for long-suffering members of EMAG to be in that frame of mind because they have been let down so many times, but Opposition Members are getting ahead of themselves. The compensation pot has not yet been fixed, and we are all keen to see the maximum allowance made within the context of the state of the public finances. Opposition Members are being far too negative.

[Stephen Timms]

The ombudsman has said that the Chadwick approach is no longer relevant because the Government have fully accepted her recommendation, yet the Government are saying that they accept that recommendation but that Chadwick is the building block for the future scheme. There is a fundamental contradiction in the Government’s policy.