Housing Supply

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Peter Bone

Thursday 13th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd]

Will the Minister reflect on the question of incentives to new home ownership? Restricting the scheme to new properties does a number of things. First, it restricts the supply. Secondly, it breaches the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) put forward about people wanting to stay in their communities. On top of that, older properties are often cheaper. The policy does not make a lot of sense.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

I remind the Minister that it is normal for the proposer to have a chance to reply.

Employment Opportunities Bill

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Peter Bone

Friday 17th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

I do not have to admit that, because I have not indicated that that is what I believe. Of course there are many good employers, and they should not be forced to face competitive pressures from the unscrupulous ones who would undercut them. That is the reality in the black economy; it would also be the reality if we had a differential or arbitrary minimum wage rate. That would result in the good employer who wanted to pay his or her employees a decent wage being undercut in the marketplace by the rogue employer. Of course I am not claiming that rogue employers are in the majority, but, sadly, they exist in many different areas of our national life. That is why we have to have floors through which people must not fall.

The hon. Member for Shipley asked me about unemployment rates. I cannot quote him the figures, but I am sure that when he makes his own speech, he will probably have them to hand. Let me tell him something that I know he will disagree with profoundly: nobody has demonstrated any link between the levels of unemployment in our society and the introduction of the national minimum wage. The last person who I think tried to put that concept forward was the former Member for Folkestone and Hythe and sometime leader of the Conservative party—perhaps I should call him the noble Lord Howard. He once claimed in a debate about the minimum wage that it would see the loss of 500,000 jobs, only to claim later that it would result in 1 million or 2 million job losses. When it was brought in, in 1999, we did not see that impact on employment; indeed, we saw employment levels rising.

[Mr Bone]

As usual, the hon. Gentleman makes a powerful speech in line with his beliefs. To put the record straight, he talks about what the then Michael Howard said, but at that time the Labour party was promising to bring in the minimum wage at a much higher rate than it actually did. If it had been brought in at that higher rate, it would have resulted in more unemployment.

[Tony Lloyd]

That simply does not square with the facts. I lived through that period and, more importantly, I was a member of Labour’s employment Front-Bench team that began to develop national minimum wage policy and I can think of no occasion when we over-promised on the national minimum wage. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman should know that some people now feel that the Labour party under-promised what it might have done across a whole range of issues in those early days; it certainly did not over-promise. If he went back to check the record, he might want to acknowledge that he got this wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd]

As I do not support the Bill in the first place, I am not sure how I could be expected to support certain parts of it. However, the ambition to remove taxation from the lowest paid is an excellent one. If the hon. Member for Shipley will support me in trying to ensure that the higher paid make a bigger contribution, it will be easy for us to relieve the low paid of their burden.

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention has led me to another point that I was going to make. If the hon. Member for Christchurch were willing to drop most of his Bill while incorporating my proposal for a high pay commission to ensure that the top rate of pay is reduced, I would feel able to support the first part of it, and we might then be in business. However, I suspect that my views on high pay are as hard for him to accept as his views on low pay are for me to accept.

Let me say something about the economic arguments that the hon. Member for Shipley has invited me to consider. When the Better Regulation Executive investigated the impact of the national minimum wage, it found no link with levels of employment and unemployment. I fear that unemployment will begin to increase, but an interesting aspect of the way in which the labour market has operated recently is the fact that those in work have remained in work much more consistently than was the case during earlier recessions. That is almost certainly partly due to levels of flexible working, but it also belies the proposition that the minimum wage has served as a disincentive to employment, because had it done so the existing work force would have been undercut by would-be entrants. That throws a cloud of doubt over the argument about the operation of free markets at the bottom end of the labour market.

A more important finding by the Better Regulation Executive was that paying a national minimum wage conferred an overall benefit on our economy. The minimum wage has important regional impacts, which is why the idea of a regional differential is ridiculous. The clue lies in the phrase “the United Kingdom’s national minimum wage”. We are indeed a United Kingdom, and the national minimum wage is national. There are good and profound reasons for that. The national minimum wage prevents the dislocation, already too prevalent in our economy, between the overheated south-east and other parts of the country.

I cannot go as far as the hon. Member for Christchurch in describing those other parts of the country as the “more remote” regions. Those of us who live in such regions do not feel that they are particularly remote. However, we “remoters” feel strongly that the people whom we represent and the economies in which we work should enjoy the same level of protection and the same capacity for operation of the minimum wage, partly—indeed, if for no other reason—because it is important in creating regional demand. That is one reason why groups such as the Better Regulation Executive have found that the national minimum wage is, overall, in the national economic interest.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman is, again, generous in giving way.

If we view the minimum wage in terms of what it can buy rather than the actual amount involved, it is clear that it is worth a great deal more in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency than it is in, say, London. Might that be an argument for two different rates? I do not know the answer, but I should like to hear what he thinks.

[Tony Lloyd]

That is a genuine issue for debate. It is obvious that it is much easier for someone to live on the minimum wage in, for instance, the north-west of England than in central London. That is why the Mayor of London has begun to advocate strongly—I think I agree with him on this—the introduction of a living wage, which does not simply enable people to operate at or below some notional national level, but recognises such factors as housing costs. However, we must still maintain a national floor through which people cannot fall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), who put the official Opposition’s case clearly and well—I hope that he continues to do so for many years. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on introducing such an interesting and productive Bill that has found support on both sides of the House—not in total, but in part. On the decision whether to vote on the Bill today, I should say that I, as a parliamentarian, believe that the will of the House should be expressed. However, I completely understand why the shadow Minister is jumping up and down asking for a vote. He does not really care whether this gets a Second Reading. He has already written a press release that says, “Nasty Tories divided over minimum wage. The real Tories want to abolish it”, which is nowhere near the truth, of course—the Bill in no way abolishes the national minimum wage. I shall, at the moment, be supporting the Bill wholeheartedly.

[Tony Lloyd]

Having quoted this press release—“Nasty Tories divided over the minimum wage”—the hon. Gentleman seemed to challenge the division over the minimum wage, not the concept of them being nasty Tories. Can he clarify that?

[Mr Bone]

I am not sure I really understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but “nasty Tory” is clearly an oxymoron.

I plan, at the moment, to support the Bill, but of course we have not heard from the most important person in the House, the Minister. Many people would say that the Minister is one of the best in Parliament, and I would entirely agree with that. In fact, others would say that he is the Jim Hacker of Parliament. His Ministry is the closest to the Department for Administrative Affairs in “Yes Minister”, and he is responsible for getting rid of regulation and red tape, which is in part what this Bill would do. Everybody thinks that “Yes Minister” shows what really happens in this place, but of course, Jim Hacker went on to become Prime Minister, so I hope that the Minister will not forget me in future.

I refer Members to my entry in the register and the fact that I am a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. I want to take the politics out of this debate, or at least out of my speech. I have never doubted Opposition Members’ sincere concern about low-paid people and the unemployed; I just think that the policies that they propose do the opposite of what they want. Every Labour Government have left power with unemployment higher than when they came to power. That is not because Opposition Members set out to do that or because they did not care passionately about unemployment; it is because their policies lead to unemployment.

I happen to have with me the Library figures for the constituency of the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith). In April 2006, unemployment in his constituency was 1,917, but in April 2010, when Labour left power, it was 3,202, which is an enormous increase. After a year of this successful coalition Government, the figure has dropped to 2,955. I do not say that in any way to make a political point; I just think that the policies that the Opposition pursue sound good, but result in more unemployment.