(10 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), refused to answer me, but I wonder whether the Secretary of State could estimate how many of the 12 immediate beneficiaries of the fire sale of the Royal Mail are Tory party donors?
It is not my job to collect information on the Conservative party’s funding. All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is what the Minister of State has already told him: that a majority of the shares allocated to priority investors are still held by them and a substantial majority of the shares in Royal Mail that were issued through the initial public offering are being held by long-term institutional investors.
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons Chamber4. How many firms have been prosecuted for non-payment of the national minimum wage since May 2010.
Since 2010-11, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has identified £11.3 million in arrears of wages for 66,000 workers through civil powers, which are sufficient in the majority of cases. However, for the minority that are persistently non-compliant, criminal investigation is appropriate. Two employers have been prosecuted since 2010, with nine prosecutions in total since 2007.
Does the Secretary of State agree that paying Portuguese seafarers working on P&O Ferries in and out of Hull £3.96 an hour risks the employment of British seafarers? Will he make sure that the national minimum wage enforcement team investigates the maritime sector?
The maritime sector is subject to the national minimum wage if it is operating within the UK jurisdiction. I will happily take up the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions and, indeed, I was aware of accusations of abuse in this sector.
(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberT4. Does the Secretary of State appreciate the real need of ports such as Hull to upgrade to cope with green energy production? Is the £60 million promised by the Labour Government still on offer, or does he dismiss it as a cynical Labour election ploy, as he has done with Sheffield Forgemasters?
As the hon. Gentleman knows, there was an announcement in the Budget on commercial rates, which was a big issue for those ports. We are anxious to help the development of green investment and, as he will know, we are studying a proposal for the green investment bank, which could well become a vehicle for good projects in that sector.