Living Wage

Debate between William Bain and Pete Wishart

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bain]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. The proportion of company profits paid in wages has declined in the past 15 to 20 years, but it has declined particularly in the period since the financial crisis and in the four and a half years of this Government. Companies must be forward looking if they want to retain staff and if they want staff to develop. Employees want a job that becomes a career—they want progression in that firm or that profession. Paying higher wages benefits not just the employee, but the employer. Many countries are demonstrating that.

How can we act to end the low pay crisis? First, every level of government, whether a council, a devolved Government, a regional government in England through local enterprise partnerships, or central Government, should commit to using whatever policy levers they have to advance the living wage, to show an example to the private sector and the rest of society. It was therefore disappointing that the Scottish Government yesterday rejected the Labour party’s offer in the Scottish Parliament to extend further the use of the living wage through procurement policies. I hope they will reconsider. With 264,000 women in Scotland earning less than the living wage, it was wrong for the Scottish Government to reject that practical and helpful suggestion yesterday. The living wage is too big a prize for us to be deflected by partisan considerations. People expect all politicians to use every tool at our disposal to extend it to the widest possible number of people. I hope that devolved Governments, central Government and councils use those powers and achieve precisely that aim.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

We know that Labour’s tribal hatred of the Scottish National party is part of Labour’s problem in Scotland, but does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that the Scottish Government pay the living wage to all public sector employees? They also have no compulsory redundancies. That is the SNP’s record. In government, the Labour party could not even match the minimum wage with inflation. That is Labour’s record.

[Mr Bain]

The hon. Gentleman knows that the hand of friendship is always extended between Labour and Scottish National party Members. I have reiterated that to him on many an occasion. It is wonderful to see him in his place, but I gently point out that Labour Members strived and sat up night after night in order to introduce the minimum wage in the first place. All my Labour party colleagues in the Scottish Parliament were asking in their proposal yesterday was for the Scottish Government to do what the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change does. I would have thought that that was a commendable approach, and I hope the Scottish Government will decide to adopt it.

Secondly, the remit of the Low Pay Commission needs to be shifted from simply setting a floor for wages to examining scope for raising low pay across the board. Different models have been suggested. We could change the commission’s remit so that it offers forward guidance on the scale of future rises in the minimum wage, or, as Labour Members have suggested, we could peg the minimum wage to around 58% of median wages by 2020.

The third tool that I ask the Government and the House to consider is incentivising employers to move to the living wage using the tax system in those sectors of the economy in which that can be afforded. The evidence is that, when employers pay a living wage, they experience long-lasting benefits in productivity and reduced staff turnover. We should use all the levers of fiscal policy. We should see what tax concessions can be given to businesses if they start paying the living wage. We should pump prime the system. I believe that employers and employees will benefit.

The fourth way to solve the low pay crisis is by making the right investments in skills to ensure that people do not remain stuck in low-paid jobs for ever. Important research from the Resolution Foundation establishes that 80% of low-paid workers never escape from low-paid work. There is therefore a premium on government at all levels, whether the UK Government, the Scottish Government or local councils, using the whole range of their powers to have the skills revolution that is needed in the UK.

Never let anyone say that voting does not matter when there are families who can be helped by the Government, the Low Pay Commission and employers acting together to secure a decent pay rise for millions of people. Never let anyone say democracy does not count when by our actions the UK could become a living wage country by 2025, as the child poverty and social mobility commission recommended last month. Never let anyone say that the right to vote means nothing when it can help to deliver the right to more decent work that genuinely pays a living wage.

We know what has to be done to end the scourge of poverty pay in this country. The question is whether we have the determination to do it. In supporting the motion before the House today, I hope we can say we must and we will.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between William Bain and Pete Wishart

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison).

Today’s debate is essentially about civil rights and equality—about whether we believe that inequality under the law can still be justified in our society or whether we believe that, as Martin Luther King once reminded us,

“the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

We have an opportunity today to join countries such as Argentina, Spain, Iceland, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Norway, Canada, the Netherlands and South Africa—nations that have strengthened the institution of marriage by removing the inequality before the law that existed for loving, same-sex couples.

Although many parts of the Bill deal with areas devolved to the Scottish Parliament, where an equivalent Bill will be considered shortly, with similar cross-party support, important parts of this Bill deal with the civil rights of my constituents and those throughout Scotland, with provisions that pave the way for the mutual recognition of marriages, marriages of service personnel and consular staff, and marriages entered into overseas, along with important provisions for the transgender community. There is great support in Scotland for the idea that the institution of marriage should be open to loving couples of the same sex and that the injustices faced by transgender people should be ended too.

The breadth of those in favour in Scotland shows how much society there has moved on from the days in the 1980s of the hated section 2A and the social divisions over its abolition a decade ago. The most recent surveys of public opinion show that 64% of people believe that same-sex couples should be able to marry and that 68% believe that religious organisations that wish to conduct same-sex marriages should be able to do so. The support across Scotland includes 70% of women, 75% of under-55s and three quarters of households with children. It is the settled view of the Scottish people in wealthy Scotland and deprived Scotland, and in urban and rural Scotland. It was endorsed by a full 65% of those who made full responses to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the issue. That view is also supported by ordinary Catholics and worshippers in the Church of Scotland—by 54% and 50% respectively—according to the Scottish social attitudes survey. It is a view also backed by a huge coalition across civic society in Scotland.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is massive support for the legislation in Scotland among all sectors of the community, but none of the measures we are debating today affects the Scottish people. It does not affect his or my constituents. It does not affect anybody in Scotland; we have our own legislation in Scotland.

[Mr Bain]

I am grateful for that intervention, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to check clause 10, parts 2 and 3, and schedules 2, 5 and 6. He is sure to find that they apply to his constituents and mine in Scotland.

The Bill will achieve a great deal in equalising the marriage laws in their own right, but it will also have the effect of challenging and reducing the discrimination that same-sex couples and other LGBT people still face in our society. The Bill will strengthen marriage as a social union, but it will also strengthen our society as a whole, reflecting our values of diversity and freedom. This measure is about freedom. The right to marry is set out in article 12 of the European convention on human rights, drawn up by a Conservative Home Secretary and made part of our law in the United Kingdom by a Labour Government in the 1990s.

Sometimes equality is delivered in huge leaps, on other occasions in small steps. Our society has made huge leaps to end the intolerance and, often, the persecution it inflicted on the LGBT community in our chequered past. Today is a small step, but a hugely significant one. By extending the civil right to marry to millions of people across the country, we send a powerful signal to the world about who we are and what we stand for. Let us join a dozen progressive countries that have already done just that and stand tonight united as a House on the right side of history.

Voting Age

Debate between William Bain and Pete Wishart

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bain]

Indeed, and I will refer later to precisely how much taxation 16 and 17-year-olds have contributed in the past 10 years. Although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) that that is not the only criterion for citizenship, it is an important factor that should be put on the record in this debate.

In my view, extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds would boost our democratic institutions across the United Kingdom and help boost political engagement, too. Under the Representation of the People Act 2000, a young person who does not turn 18 until just after a parliamentary election would have to wait until they were nearly 23 years of age before they could cast a vote to choose a Government or elect their constituency Member of this Parliament or the Scottish Parliament. Evidence shows that the longer people wait to cast that first vote in a parliamentary election, the less likely they are to vote at all.

A 2010 Demos study showed that 16 and 17-year-olds in work or training had contributed £550 million in taxes to the UK Exchequer in the previous decade, but had no democratic say on how much tax they paid or on how the revenues they contributed should be spent. As has been said, 16 and 17-year-olds can serve as company directors, get married or enter a civil partnership, be members of our armed forces and contribute to and benefit from our welfare state. As the Power commission report said in 2006, reducing the voting age to 16 would reduce the systematic exclusion from democracy of tens of thousands of our young people and increase the likelihood of their taking part in political debate. The report dismisses the argument that overall turnout would fall as not being an adequate reason to oppose extending the franchise.

In Scotland, the section 30 order, which this House and the other place have debated and which is likely to be approved by the Privy Council within weeks, will permit the Scottish Parliament to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds in the forthcoming referendum, so an important precedent will be set. It is for this House to complete the task and ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in all local and parliamentary elections and in future referendums that may be legislated for by this Parliament. It is absurd that 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland will not have the right to vote in the European elections next June or the next UK general election in May 2015, on either side of that critical referendum.

I believe that those in favour of extending democratic rights to 1.5 million young people in our country are on the right side of history.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bain]

I am afraid that I cannot, because time is running short. Forty-four years ago, this House was among the first to support votes at 18. Today we have the opportunity to join progressive countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Austria in beginning the process of legislating for votes at 16. I urge this House to support the motion, to hasten a long-overdue change in our electoral law and, in doing so, to further the cause of equality.

Fuel Duty

Debate between William Bain and Pete Wishart

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bain]

If the hon. Gentleman has the courage of the convictions he has just expressed, he should join us in the Lobby tonight. That will be the evidence his constituents will be looking for tomorrow morning.

On incomes, millions of ordinary people are under huge pressure because of the collapse in real wages, which has hit particularly hard since the onset of the current recession.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bain]

I am running out of time, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to make his own speech.

Since 2007, real wages have declined by about 4% for the vast majority of ordinary people, damaging their spending power and weakening prospects for a consumer-led economic recovery. In my constituency, almost three in 10 workers, including half of all the 10,000 part-time workers, earn less than the living wage of £7.45 an hour. The increases in fuel duty have hit them especially hard. As the Resolution Foundation’s recent Commission on Living Standards report established, just 12p in every £1 of growth generated in Britain finds its way into the pay packets of workers in the lower half of the income scale. They need help on fuel costs tonight.

Britain stands at a crossroads. Without a change in policy, people will be no better off in 2020 than they were in 2001, but with the right kind of reforms on pay, tax and benefits, that can be reversed and we can see the gap between rich and poor falling once again. Tonight we can make our contribution to supporting growth and improving the living standards of our constituents over the next few months, by rejecting the Government amendment and boosting much needed job creation by cutting fuel duty.