Zero Hours Contracts Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Ian Mearns

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more. I do not see the benefit to a local economy of having so many people on low pay. A low pay, low disposable income economy is not good for other small businesses in the area that are trying to sell their goods and services in the local market, which is deprived of disposable income.

Employees are expected to perform all the roles of a regular employee but have no entitlement to sick leave, holiday pay, overtime payments or many of the hard-won rights and protections that have been gained by work forces over the years.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is very generous in giving way; I realise that he is struggling to maintain the flow of his speech. Will he join me in celebrating the work of our citizens advice bureaux? Mine in Musselburgh highlighted in its annual report the case of a man who had gone from five days a week on a zero-hours contract to two days. His employer would not pay him statutory sick pay or paternity pay, and then it turned out that the employer was not even paying him the minimum wage. It is just not good enough.

[Ian Mearns]

My hon. Friend’s example exemplifies the exploitative practices and abuse by some employers. For Government Members to deny that this is happening is unbelievable.

These are employment practices from another era, which is where they should remain. Zero-hours contracts are a new manifestation of the casualisation of the labour market, a race to the bottom in wages and terms and conditions, and a return to the bad old days of workers queuing at the factory gates, the shipyard or the pit and hoping to be picked to be employed for the day.

Living Standards

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Ian Mearns

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in the debate. The Government’s failure in economic policy is having a profound effect on our nation, but it is also having a disproportionate impact on regions such as the north-east and the poorest in our society. I have every sympathy for the squeezed middle, and many of my constituents are part of it, but I have much greater sympathy for the people who are the battered base in our economy, the very poorest in our society, who the Government’s policies are attacking the worst.

In March the Government launched their much-heralded “The Plan for Growth”. In the foreword, the Business Secretary and his new friend the Chancellor stated:

“This Plan for Growth is an urgent call for action. Britain has lost ground in the world’s economy, and needs to catch up. If we do not act now, jobs will be lost, our country will become poorer and we will find it difficult to afford the public services we all want. If we do not wake up to the world around us, our standard of living will fall, not rise.”

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one area where we are missing an opportunity for growth is green growth, and that yesterday the Government finally shed any claim to be the greenest Government ever by threatening investment in green technologies and green jobs?

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments, which are absolutely true. Certainly, companies in the north-east that have invested heavily in plant to develop photovoltaic cells for household generation and microgeneration have had the base of their work cut away by the Government’s slashing of input tariffs, which will have a disastrous effect on them.

The warning from the Business Secretary and his new friend the Chancellor was a call to action—fine words, but we all know that actions speak much louder. In my constituency and in the wider north-east the impact of the Government’s failure has been, and will be, enormous. Even before their economic sabotage, the Local Knowledge public sector employment survey predicted more than 287,000 public sector job losses in the north-east alone. As a consequence of the Chancellor’s statement yesterday, that figure will probably be higher. The Government claim that we are all in this together, but they know, as they knew before embarking on their failed economic experiment, that it will be the poorest and most vulnerable regions and people who will pay the greatest relative cost.