Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Murray Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The maritime sector is subject to the national minimum wage if it is operating within the UK jurisdiction. I will happily take up the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions and, indeed, I was aware of accusations of abuse in this sector.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

We know that the Government do not want to admit that the country is engulfed by a cost of living crisis, but that denial is made worse when the Chancellor is exposed as giving a hollow and empty promise to raise the national minimum wage to £7 an hour. Indeed, only a few days after he made that promise, the Conservative party issued a memo, under the heading “Common Sense Guide”, advising on how to avoid paying the national minimum wage. Rather than false promises for the lowest paid in our country, would it not be helpful to utilise the Secretary of State’s naming and shaming policy to expose the national minimum wage deniers in his Government and back Labour’s plans for a living wage?

[Vince Cable]

I thought that the Labour party was still committed to supporting the national minimum wage. This is an interesting new evolution of policy, which seems to have been made on the stump. The naming and shaming policy has now come into effect and the first five companies were named at the end of last week.