Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is an absolute pleasure to congratulate the head teacher, Mrs Burnside, and all the staff, governors and pupils on their hard work in achieving those spectacular results. I greatly enjoyed my recent visit to schools in Pendle.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

2. What recent assessment she has made of the effect of the cost of child care on the household disposable income of parents with disabled children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

This Government have introduced the biggest reforms to special educational needs and disabilities provisions in 30 years, reforms that enjoy cross-party support. Every disabled child, like all other three and four-year-olds, is entitled to a free 15 hours of early education, and the situation is the same for disadvantaged two-year-olds. In addition, when tax-free child care is introduced, parents of disabled children will get double the allowance of other families at £4,000. The disabled child element of universal credit is £4,300, on top of all the other benefits parents of disabled children receive.

[Liz McInnes]

The cross-party parliamentary inquiry into child care for disabled children found that 92% of parents with disabled children reported difficulties in finding suitable child care for their children. As child care costs overall continue to rise, particularly for disabled children, that figure can only continue to grow. What is the Minister doing to ensure sufficient places for disabled children?

[Mr Gyimah]

On the cost of child care in general, let me point out that the Labour party left us with the highest child care costs in the OECD; they went up by 50% when it was in government. This Government have been helping parents with the cost of child care, particular parents with disabled children, whom the hon. Lady mentioned. Local authorities have a legal duty to secure sufficient child care for working parents in their area. As far as free entitlement is concerned, local authorities that set the rate they pay for free entitlement can pay for additional hours, on an hourly basis and tailored to individual children, from the dedicated schools grant.

National Minimum Wage

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis]

That is a helpful and constructive contribution. If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will talk about the living wage later in my speech. It would be useful to hear what plans the Minister has. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point that we currently have record numbers of people in this country who are underemployed. Record numbers of people want to work full time but cannot get full-time work, so they are stuck in part-time employment and struggling to meet their costs. That is a good point, and I look forward to the Minister responding to it.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

In his deliberations, has my hon. Friend given any thought to the practice of many employers of paying the extremely low minimum rate for apprenticeships? Some employers set up bogus apprenticeships that last for only a few months so that they can get away with paying the absolutely paltry rate for apprentices, which I believe is less than £3 an hour. Has he looked at that aspect of the minimum wage and at the age-related minimum wage for under-18s?

[Dan Jarvis]

Completely by coincidence, my hon. Friend has made a timely contribution that neatly introduces the point that I was about to make. If we want to win the fight against poverty wages, the remit of the Low Pay Commission must be expanded. It should not be simply a national minimum wage commission that sets the level of wages; I believe that it should lead our national effort to tackle the problem of low pay. We need to give new powers to the Low Pay Commission to investigate the causes and consequences of low pay in different areas of our economy.

We know that some sectors have particular, systemic problems of low wages. More than half of cleaners, 48% of hospitality workers and more than 40% of hairdressers are paid less than £7 an hour. At the same time, other sectors—the banking sector, for instance—could pay a higher minimum wage. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us today whether the Government would consider giving new powers to the Low Pay Commission to bring together task forces to tackle such issues. Those task forces could include all the key stakeholders and recommend a strategy to the Secretary of State on the best way forward.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

That is helpful but I shall make it clear; the point of new clause 2 is that it is a stand-alone clause and has no bearing on that matter. I understand the position of those hon. Members with family brewers. They can support their family brewers if they wish by opposing new clause 6, but they can still support new clause 2, which, as I say, will apply not to a single family brewer but only to the large pub-owning companies. We have defined that very deliberately, which the Government failed to do despite our telling them that they should. A Member can vote for their family brewer by voting for new clause 2. To be clear; it is primary legislation and cannot then be changed without other primary legislation. It is not being put into the statutory code—secondary legislation—as some measures are. That is precisely why we have done it.

There has been a shameful campaign of misinformation against new clause 2 and the market rent only option from the usual suspects; the large pub companies and their mouthpiece, the so-called British Beer and Pub Association. In reality it is the big brewers and pubco association. They have been lobbying vociferously, making a whole stream of utterly baseless comments. It is simply scaremongering to suggest that somehow these companies offering a fair commercial rent to their tenants would cause collapse, chaos and closures.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Mulholland]

I remind the House of what was said by the BIS Select Committee in its follow-up report in 2011—

[Liz McInnes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Mulholland]

Let me finish my point and I will give way. The Select Committee said:

“The BBPA (British Beer and Pub Association) has shown itself to be impotent in enforcing its own timetable for reform and the supposed threat of removing the membership of pub companies who did not deliver was hollow.”

Just last year the chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association misled the Select Committee and said two things that were factually untrue, as well as presenting a series of baseless evidence.

Finally, before I give way, I will read what the Select Committee said in its 2008-09 report:

“As is noted elsewhere in this Report…in evidence to us both Mr Thorley of Punch and Mr Tuppen and Mr Townsend of Enterprise Inns made assertions which, on investigation, proved to give a partial picture, or on one occasion were positively false.”

Members on all sides of the House can know exactly how to take the absurd and baseless claims from those organisations.

[Liz McInnes]

Like the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), I am seeking clarification on small family brewers. I, too, am confused by the effect of the proposal on J.W. Lees brewery in my constituency, which has fewer than 500 pubs but has a strong retail arm. I am concerned—as is the brewery, which asked me to raise the issue during the debate— about the effect it will have on a family brewer with fewer than 500 pubs but which has a strong retail arm.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thought I had given clarity. I ask the hon. Lady and all hon. Members to read this detailed new clause, as this is precisely why all of us who have been involved in writing it have done so. Let me read new clause 2(4):

“For the purposes of this section,”

meaning the market rent only option,

“the definition of a ‘large pub-owning business’ is a business which, for a period of at least six months in the previous financial year, was the landlord of—

(a) 500 or more pubs (of any description)”.

That cannot apply to any family brewer, and because it is in primary legislation, it cannot be changed in the future.