Philip Davies
Main Page: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)Zero Hours Contracts Bill
Philip Davies Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Government Members celebrate the fact that 3 million workers have been taken out of tax completely, but they are also celebrating the fact that 2 million of them are earning £200 or less a week. I do not think that is anything to celebrate in this day and age.
Given the variety of employers now using zero-hours contracts, from Sports Direct to Buckingham palace even, it is clear that they are not just filling a niche; they are also being exploited by unscrupulous employers looking to dodge their responsibilities to their staff.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman talks about employers exploiting their workers by giving them zero-hours contracts. I presume that within that group he includes all the Labour councils that employ people that way. Has he done any investigations into why so many Labour councils employ so many people on zero-hours contracts?
Ian Mearns
As a matter of fact, I have. I would ask colleagues engaged in public service provision up and down the country to think very deeply about their employment practices. I do not condone it, but I know that for some workers zero-hours contracts are a handy way of gaining part-time employment, but only part-time employment. Many find it very difficult to sustain an ordinary family life on a zero-hours contract.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on promoting his Bill and on his speech. I very much enjoyed the time I spent working with him on the Backbench Business Committee and I would like to think that everybody would agree that he is one of the nicest people in this House. I wish him well personally, even though I cannot particularly guarantee that I will support his Bill. I hope he will realise that that is not meant personally in any way, because he is a good guy and I certainly do not doubt his sincerity in promoting the Bill. Anyone could tell from his speech that he clearly feels very strongly about it, and I am all for people who stand up for things they believe in. The hon. Gentleman believes in this Bill and more power to his elbow for that. [Hon. Members: “But?”] There is a “but” and it would be quite a lengthy one if I had the time.
To be perfectly honest, I must say, and we need to get this on the record before the clock counts us out, that it is a bit rich for the Labour party to come here en masse to pretend that they are massively opposed to zero-hours contracts, when if one believes what one reads in the press—I am one of those who does, rightly or wrongly—it appears that some of the worst offenders are not only Labour councils, but Labour MPs. I do not know whether any of those in the Chamber want to fess up today, but perhaps those who skulked out quietly at the start of this debate are the guilty parties. I read somewhere—so it must be true—that 62 Labour MPs, which I reckon is about a quarter of them, actually employ their staff on zero-hours contracts, which I cannot believe.
Andy McDonald
That was a very nice attempt at a smear. Will the hon. Gentleman say where that was published and where the information is, and how about naming some names? He cannot just cast that out on to the water as if it were true.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman’s problem and mine is that the unnamed Labour MPs do not, for some reason, admit to it. They do not come out and say that they use zero-hours contracts.
Philip Davies
I will in a second. We can all understand why they do not want to draw attention to the fact.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman will give way when he is ready. The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) does not have to remain standing. I do not want her knees to give way while she is waiting, because it could be a long time.
Philip Davies
I would be perfectly happy for us to have some way of admitting whether we employ our staff on zero-hours contracts. I do not, and I have no intention of doing so, but perhaps there might be something that we all sign.
Yasmin Qureshi
The issue is not about which councils or which MPs use zero-hours contracts. If the hon. Gentleman and the Government supported our Bill, everyone would be banned from using them. Surely the issue is about stopping the use of zero-hours contracts.
Philip Davies
I understand that point, and it was made in an intervention by the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) during the opening speech of the hon. Member for Gateshead. I do not want to embarrass the hon. Member for Wansbeck, but I am a big fan of his as well. He is also a good guy, and he stands up for what he believes in.
Philip Davies
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a second.
My problem with such an argument is that no law currently makes it compulsory to employ somebody on a zero-hours contract. Nothing forces any Labour council to employ somebody on a zero-hours contract; it is their choice. My point is that if the Labour party genuinely wanted to end zero-hours contract, the best thing to do would be to start by smartening up their act and to make sure that no Labour MPs or councils employ people on such contracts.
Philip Davies
There is not much time left, but I will do my best to squeeze in the hon. Gentleman.
It is not just any old Labour councils that go for zero-hours contracts. I know that Bury council, the council of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), is one of the worst offenders, but so is the council in Doncaster, my home town. People in Doncaster have the honour, the privilege or the misfortune—I do not know which, but we can all choose an appropriate adjective—not just to have the Leader of the Opposition as one of their MPs, but to have their three local MPs in the shadow Cabinet. They are blessed with highly talented people, including the Leader of the Opposition, as their local MPs. If the abolition of zero-hours contracts was so important for the Labour party, one would think that its leader, who is the Leader of the Opposition, might just have enough clout in Doncaster, with an elected Labour mayor and a majority Labour council, to encourage it to get rid of zero-hours contract. There are two things at play. Either the Labour party really has no intention of getting rid of zero-hours contracts and does not really care about them, or the Leader of the Opposition has so little clout within his party, and so few persuasive skills, that he cannot even persuade a Labour council and an elected Labour mayor to do it.
Philip Davies
I am going to call the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) my hon. Friend, because he is a great man, a fellow member of the Select Committee. I know that has probably finished off his career for good, but he is a great man. I give way to him, because he has been waiting patiently.
Jim Sheridan
I am sorry I stood up. First, I plead not guilty to employing people on zero-hours contracts—not guilty, your honour. I would also quite like to exonerate my local authority from engaging people on zero-hours contracts. Not only does it not engage people on zero-hours contracts, but it pays them the living wage.
Philip Davies
I very much welcome that intervention. To be honest, I would never have thought that the hon. Gentleman was one of the people who used zero-hours contracts. He is a good man and he does not only stand up for what he believes in; he practises what he preaches. I take my hat off to him for that.
We have a good process of elimination going on here. If we could just get every single Labour MP before us, we could go through them one by one and find out which have been using zero-hours contracts.
Philip Davies
I will give way in a second.
However, I think what we have safely also found out today is that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North has much better powers of persuasion than the leader of his party. If only he were leader of his party the party might not be in the dire straits that it is in at the moment.
Grahame M. Morris
I am not admitting it; I absolutely do not use zero-hours contracts. I think part of the problem is that many local authorities do not have tight enough procedures with subcontractors; I would encourage them so to do. The point I wanted to make is this: is not what we are all concerned about in-work poverty and the 59% increase in such in-work poverty?
Philip Davies
I am grateful. We have had a second Labour view. I think, if I heard correctly, the hon. Gentleman said that he does not employ anybody on a zero-hours contract. That is two down—plenty more to go.
Ian Mearns
I am aware that colleagues from all parties occasionally employ people on a task-and-finish basis—a fixed fee for doing a particular task, using the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority payments system. That may have been interpreted by the Daily Mail as employing people on zero-hours contracts.
Philip Davies
We are getting nearer. I fear that if we go much further, we will get a full confession at some point.
Ian Lavery
This is a really serious debate, but we seem to be trivialising it, suggesting that the problem is perhaps the fault of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) hit the nail on the head. I think it was in 2000 that only 200,000 people in this country were on zero-hours contracts. As we sit in the Chamber today, there are 1.4 million people on zero-hours contracts. That is the real problem. I stand for the total abolition of zero-hours contracts for every single person, regardless of where they work.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There is a certain amount of dispute over the actual number of people who are on zero-hours contracts. The labour force survey, which collects data on individual workers, not on the number of contracts, and asks employees and not workers for the information, has an estimate for the fourth quarter of 2013 of 583,000 people on zero-hours contracts. There is clearly a dispute over the figures. I am not necessarily saying that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are wrong in their figures; they have obviously sourced those figures from somewhere. Those who compile the labour force survey have different figures.
I genuinely do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s logic. He seems to be saying that it is absolutely fine for 200,000 people to be on zero-hours contracts, but that it is an absolute scandal for 1.4 million people to be on those contracts. Either zero-hours contracts are a good thing or they are a bad thing. Surely it cannot be a question of, “Because there were only 200,000 people on zero-hours contracts when Labour was in office, that was fine; that was a reason to do absolutely nothing about it and bury our heads in the sand, but now there are a few more of them, it is a massive scandal and we need to do something about it.” Either zero-hours contracts are right or they are wrong. The number of people who are on them cannot be the determining factor.
Sheila Gilmore
The public might be interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman favours or opposes zero-hours contracts. Throughout everything he has said, he has not made that clear. Since he is attempting to criticise certain councils, that might mean that he is against zero-hours contracts. Perhaps he would like to support the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) today?
Philip Davies
If Labour Members were not so enthusiastic in standing up to admit whether they employ anyone on a zero-hours contract or otherwise, I might get around to starting my speech. If I were able to do so, we might get into the nitty-gritty of the debate, but I am afraid that all of my time thus far has been taken up in dealing with excitable Labour Members which means that we cannot have the debate that the hon. Lady wants.
Graeme Morrice
I just want to follow up on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore). I appreciate that we only have about five minutes left and I know that the hon. Gentleman has said that he has yet to start his speech, but perhaps to save a bit of time he could tell us whether he is in favour of zero-hours contracts or not. If he is not, will he give me an indication of whether he will support the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)?
Philip Davies
I would like to think that I made it clear at the start of my speech that I do not support the Bill. For many workers, particularly students, zero-hours contracts are a good thing. They suit their patterns, they help them and they are a good way into the employment market. It suits their lifestyle to have zero-hours contracts. Some people have zero-hours contracts through choice; they are not all awful. I do not want to ban something that many people have by choice. So no, I do not agree with the Bill.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. When is he going to get on to that part of the Bill that makes it clear that those proposing it are not against zero-hours contracts completely and do not wish to outlaw them? They just wish to limit them, yet all their rhetoric has been about outlawing zero-hours contracts.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend makes a good point and I would have liked to have humoured him by going through all this in as much detail as he would want, but it appears that time is against us. He is right to draw attention to the fact that once again—the situation is very similar to the previous debate—the Labour party is trying to give an impression to its voters, perhaps running scared of UKIP in its constituencies, that its Members believe in something. Yet the Bill proposed is nothing like the rhetoric that accompanies it.
The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one can always make improvements to zero-hours contracts? This is the first Government to have consulted on zero- hours contracts, we have got rid of the exclusivity clauses and we are bringing in transparency to ensure that people know they are on zero-hours contracts.
Philip Davies
I have no doubt that the Government are moving towards the Labour party on this issue; they tend to move towards the Labour party on most issues. The Minister’s confirmation of that fact comes as no surprise to me and I do not think it will come as much of a surprise to anybody.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman was complaining about the direction in which his party is moving, so I wondered in which party’s direction he was moving.
Philip Davies
I am not moving in any direction. As I have for the past 10 years, I am staying where I am in every possible regard. I do not move my views and policies based on what the latest opinion poll says or what the other parties might say. If there is one thing the people might be able to agree about it is that I stick to what I believe in, no matter how popular or unpopular it is or whatever the passing trend or fad. I stick up for what I believe in, which is something I have in common with the hon. Member for Gateshead. He does much the same.
In the limited time left, I want to pick up on one more point. It was unfortunate, as I do not think the hon. Gentleman intended to say this, but he seemed to indicate that zero-hours contracts were linked to quality of care.
Philip Davies
He is nodding in agreement. I think that is unfair on those people who work in the care sector on zero-hours contracts. There is no evidence that they give any worse care than other people—