Oral Answers to Questions

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to encourage firms to pay a living wage.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

5. What steps the Government are taking to encourage firms to pay a living wage.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Government support a living wage and encourage businesses to pay it when it is affordable and not at the expense of jobs. We recognise that these have been challenging times and we applaud companies that have chosen to pay higher wages.

[Heidi Alexander]

The UK’s largest supermarkets, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons, together make billions of pounds in profits every year, but they still do not pay all their staff a living wage. Will the Secretary of State look at amending the corporate governance code to require all publicly listed companies to report annually the number of individuals they employ who earn less than a living wage?

[Vince Cable]

That is an interesting suggestion for nudging companies in the right direction, and I will certainly have a look at it. I am certainly very opposed to coercive measures because those would simply add to unemployment, but I will reflect on that suggestion, which is a new one.