Jobs and Work

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I will take two more interventions and then move on.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition’s stance, which is to pick out any poor statistic or position, highlights that they are completely in denial about the recovery’s strength? It exposes their lack of any vision to secure economic growth for this country.

[Vince Cable]

I was going to go on shortly to what is underpinning labour market growth, which is strong and balanced economic growth. I will come back to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

Obviously, I do not know all the details of that case, but it seems a very bad one. It is not clear to me whether it is to do with the employer or the way that the benefits system has impacted on people, but if the hon. Lady writes to me we will get it investigated.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I am a passionate believer in reform of zero-hours contracts, but does the Secretary of State agree that Opposition Members’ comments sit ill with the White Paper that the Labour Government issued that said that Labour

“wishes to retain the flexibility these contracts offer business”?

They then proceeded to do nothing about it for the rest of their time in office.

[Vince Cable]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of that. Two of my Labour predecessors investigated this problem and neither of them felt there was sufficient cause to change the legislation.

National Minimum Wage

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

In line with the commitment to enforcement, I think we have produced more resources for that. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who will be summating, may want to say a little more about that, but we recognise that the enforcement authorities need resources to do their job.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. As a Conservative Member of Parliament representing a constituency with a lot of social deprivation, I support the national minimum wage and the work of the Low Pay Commission, which is really important. In response to my intervention, the shadow Secretary of State dismissed the Low Pay Commission and talked about restoring the value of the minimum wage. Does my right hon. Friend know what exactly restoring the value of the minimum wage means and how much that would cost?

[Vince Cable]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support and I know that it is shared among his colleagues. This is a historical issue: it has now been laid to rest. I will talk a little more about the mandate of the Low Pay Commission and the fact that successive Secretaries of State, including me, have respected its judgment, which is non-political, non-partisan and represents both the union and employer standpoint.

Let me talk about the wider economic consequences. The shadow Secretary of State talked with a real sense of righteous indignation about things that are, frankly, blindingly obvious. We have had a massive financial crisis, the biggest in our history—certainly in modern times. As a result, the country is poorer. That is a matter of fact. It is not a polemical point: the country is poorer, and that has been translated into lower earnings. That is simple economic reality and nobody is disputing that.

In the wake of the economic crisis in 2008-09, we now know that British GDP fell by 7.5%. That was more than after the great crash in 1929 and worse than in any other western country. I am not going into the business of who did what when; I am just recording a matter of fact. Recession inevitably followed the financial disaster and real earnings have been affected. The shadow Secretary of State is right on simple matters of fact: real earnings fell by 7% and the minimum wage fell by 5%. That is a matter of fact. What I find so very difficult to understand is that the Opposition Front Benchers—it is not just her; her colleagues are the same—have seen the greatest economic disaster in modern economic history and apparently not noticed it, and they have not taken any account of the inevitable economic consequences. What matters is that the Government of the day seek to mitigate those effects.

Royal Mail

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As the hon. Lady may have heard, I am having a look at the evidence on zero-hour contracts. Many employees as well as employers think it is a perfectly sensible system, but there have been complaints. We are looking at the issue and trying to make a balanced judgment.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

In my constituency, Dover and Deal is one of the fastest growing areas for internet businesses. Is it not the case that the protections for deliveries and collections are not just a matter of good politics but important to our economy? Many of the small, internet businesses in my area depend on that security.

[Vince Cable]

They do, indeed. Trade through the internet is one of the things that Britain does exceptionally well. We are probably the leading country in the world in internet-based commerce. By strengthening Royal Mail, we will be able to create a platform to enable that to increase even further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am frequently in the west midlands; I was in Coventry last week discussing these issues with the local enterprise partnership. My understanding is that there has been rapid growth in private sector employment in the west midlands and many other parts of the country, and, as the hon. Gentleman will have seen from yesterday’s figures, unemployment is still falling.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T7. The late payment of commercial debt regulations provide for a 60-day payment period, unless agreed and not grossly unfair. Will Ministers consider a longstop date of 90 days to give small businesses certainty?

Blacklisting

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Let me just try to draw a line under this part of the argument. I am trying to be helpful; I do not see any particular value in having a party political barney over this. If there is evidence forthcoming about current practice, of course we want to have it investigated, and I will investigate it. For that reason, I am not going to recommend to my colleagues that they vote against the motion. It might well be true that there are issues here, and I do not want to close the door on the matter if there is evidence out there that needs investigating.

That is one set of issues, but there is a completely different perspective as far as the past is concerned. I will go over what happened in the past in a moment, but that is a different question. My responsibilities lie, as part of this Government, in dealing with things that might have happened over the past two and a half years. If things are happening, of course we must get to the bottom of it.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The question that forms in my mind is: have there been further cases of blacklisting since the regulations came into force? We have parliamentary privilege that we can use in the Chamber, and it is important that we should hear examples of blacklisting that have occurred since the regulations came into force, rather than simply holding an inquiry for the sake of holding an inquiry.

[Vince Cable]

That is, in a sense, what I was trying to say.

Industrial Strategy

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am not the least bit embarrassed about the regional growth fund, which is a major success story. Wherever I go around the country, I get strong appreciation for the contributions it has made.

The hon. Gentleman knows very well that, once a decision in principle has been reached, there has to be due diligence, which is not necessarily quick. Very often the companies change their own plans, which then have to be negotiated; some fall by the wayside. There is a very large number of projects that not only have disbursed finance but are up and running and creating large numbers of jobs across the country.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his personal support for the life sciences sector in east Kent. If there is to be public money behind any partnership, will he particularly consider equity so that the taxpayer can share in the success? Will he also consider the idea that the proposed industrial bank should be the business growth fund retasked, expanded and floated for the future?

[Vince Cable]

It is certainly true that in developing the idea of an industrial business bank, we need to take account of existing mechanisms of funding and bring them together in a more rational way.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about east Kent, which is a good example of how, even in successful growth industries such as the life sciences, technologies change, competition is intense and companies close. A large part of government is dealing with the painful restructuring that has to happen. We cannot stop markets working.

Directors’ Pay

Debate between Vince Cable and Charlie Elphicke

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome this announcement, because power going to the shareholders and the business owners is how capitalism is supposed to work, yet it is essential that shareholders are able to exercise their votes in practice. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what action he has taken to ensure that brokerages communicate to their nominees—shareholder-owners—the fact that they have the right to vote at board meetings and are able to exercise it? What action he will take to address stock lending, which is all too often used to steal away votes from the real owners so that other people can use them instead?

[Vince Cable]

We are not taking specific action on brokerages, but it is clear that the increasing participation of shareholders reflects good practice and a favourable trend. To address the hon. Gentleman’s introductory comment, we are talking about capitalism working well and working properly, so perhaps he could have a word with his colleague sitting behind him—the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)—about the difference between capitalism and socialism.