Amendment of the Law

Debate between Vince Cable and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

We have always made a clear distinction between the basic recommendation on the minimum wage, which every Minister in my position has accepted, and some of the second-order questions. We have changed the recommendation on apprenticeships, and indeed others, but the recommendation on the basic minimum wage is fundamental and something that Ministers of both Governments have honoured. The Leader of the Opposition—for reasons that are unclear beyond anything other than political populism—now proposes to destroy that tradition, and that is very retrograde.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s experience of having opposed the minimum wage when it was proposed by the previous Government, although I now realise that was a mistake and have been converted to the value of it, given how it has worked. Does he agree that if the political debate follows what the shadow Chancellor wants, and each of the parties—all seven of them, no doubt—says what it would tell employers to pay as a minimum wage, we go back to the danger that I initially feared of unemployment being caused by bidding up, for vote-catching reasons, the basic pay of people trying to get into work?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before the Secretary of State replies, may I gently say that 23 Members wish to take part in this debate, and he has been speaking for nearly 35 minutes. I understand that he has generously taken lots of interventions, but will he perhaps think about all his colleagues who still wish to speak?