Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

1. What assessment his Department has made of the main causes of insecurity in the workplace.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

Employees’ views on job security are related to their individual circumstances and underlying economic conditions. Unsurprisingly, insecurity rose in the recession, but the fall in unemployment from 7.9% when we came into office in May 2010 to 6.6% in April 2014 and the creation of 700,000 permanent employee jobs since 2012 will almost certainly have reduced it.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

The national minimum wage gives people at work security and a statutory minimum, ensuring decent wages. In January, the Chancellor advocated a £7 minimum. Was that not just empty rhetoric, given that no action has occurred since? Why are Ministers refusing to back Labour’s living wage plans?

[Vince Cable]

Before I reply directly to the supplementary question, may I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott), who comes to the end of her admirable period in office at the end of this week as her colleague returns from maternity leave?

The Chancellor was not advocating a £7 minimum wage; he was explaining the simple arithmetic of what would happen if a real minimum wage were restored. The hon. Gentleman will well know that measures will be coming before the House to introduce much more effective enforcement action on the minimum wage. We should concentrate on strengthening the minimum wage, rather than pursuing the living wage as a mandatory option, about which there is confusion among Opposition Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

It is encouraging that the one-in, two-out rule, or the one-in, one-out rule, is increasingly being adopted by other member states, including France and Spain. I shall visit Brussels next month to urge the Commission to redouble its efforts to remove unnecessary directives, and to make sure that where new directives are proposed, they fully take account of the needs of small businesses, which are most likely to create the jobs we need in Europe.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

T5. More than a third of winning bidders in the regional growth fund’s first round have now withdrawn, while others have waited about two years to receive any money at all. Is this all part of the Government’s long-term economic plan?

[Michael Fallon]

It certainly is not. There are many reasons why some RGF bidders withdraw—because they do not get the planning permission they were anticipating, their main board does not give final approval for the plant, or they are not prepared to put in private sector money alongside the regional growth fund grant. Any money that is not used is of course put into future rounds of the fund. It is important that we carry out the necessary due diligence and check before taxpayer money is handed over.