Leaving the EU: Workers’ Rights

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To give some further cheery news, 80% of jobs created since 2010 are full-time jobs. The introduction of the national living wage delivered the fastest pay rise in at least 20 years for the lowest earners. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) might like to look at the facts rather than listen to the rhetoric coming from Opposition Members. If people want good work, good workers’ rights and decent wages, they should stick with the Conservatives.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Asking people to trust the Conservative party is a bit like asking them to trust Dracula with the blood bank. We know what its record is.

Will the right hon. Lady talk about enforcement? We can have all the rights we like on paper, but this Government and their predecessors have slashed enforcement to the bone, which has meant that an awful lot of the so-called rights that people have at work are theoretical and do not exist in practice.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady knows that that is simply not the case. Since 2015 the Government have doubled the budget for enforcement on compliance with the minimum wage. The enforcement activity of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has meant that 200,000 workers could access nearly £25 million in national minimum wage arrears in 2018-19. The employment agency standards inspectorate has received a 50% increase in frontline inspectors. We are investing more than £1 billion in reforming the Courts and Tribunals Service. The hon. Lady is asserting non-facts; I am giving her the facts and she should listen to them.