DRAFT National Minimum Wage (Amendment) REGULATIONS 2017

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 General Committees

[Margot James]

That is a fact—I am sorry if it displeases the hon. Gentleman. I accept what he says about the future projections—I am not going to start arguing with the OBR—but I am afraid that if he has his way and brings in a national minimum wage of £10 an hour overnight, that will result in more unemployment, which would set people’s chances back.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

I am sorry; I am going to carry on.

I want to deal with the extra £2 an hour, which is the same point as the one about raising the national living wage to almost £10 an hour. The hon. Member for Walthamstow made a very powerful speech. I completely accept that £2 an hour would make a big difference to people’s lives at the lowest end of the income scale. We want to get there as quickly as we can. The UK’s lowest earners have at least received the fastest pay rise in the last 20 years and their earnings have grown faster than other people’s further up the wage scale. More than 6% is the largest increase among the low paid for the last 20 years. Those figures are independent of Government.

I fear that one of the reasons why every Labour Government in history, I think, always leaves office with unemployment higher than when they entered office is that they want to escalate the pay rates before the country has earned it. I am afraid that is a recipe for more unemployment, which is a price that this Government are not prepared to pay. We would rather listen to the independent advice of the Low Pay Commission and put in place national living wage rates that protect employment, respect economic growth and what it is capable of paying people, and give the lower paid at least the best increase that they have had in the last 20 years. I want it to be more and I hope we will get to that point in future years—it could not come soon enough for me. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2017.