HC Deb 08 March 1983 vol 38 cc691-2
3. Mr. Dover

asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he has any plans to meet the chairman of the retail food and allied trades wages council to discuss the effects of wage awards on employment.

Mr. Tebbit

I have no plans for a meeting at present. However, I have written to the chairman of the council telling him that it is abundantly clear that, if not modified, the awards proposed by this council will have damaging effects on employment.

Mr. Dover

Does my right hon. Friend agree that when inflation is less than 5 per cent., a proposal for a wage increase of more than 8 per cent. will not help to increase employment in the food and allied industries? Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is price resistance and that fewer jobs are available because the volume of trade has fallen?

Mr. Tebbit

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If wages are pushed up to a level above that which customers are willing to pay, greater unemployment will certainly result.

Mr. Harold Walker

Have not the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister repeatedly said that they have no intention of interfering in wage bargaining? Is it not true that the 8 per cent. increase was on a wage of £62, which is half the national average, and that the wage for a senior shop assistant was brought up to only £65? Is it not disgraceful that the Government and the Conservative party should try to make low-paid workers the scapegoat for the unemployment that the Government have created?

Mr. Tebbit

The Government have no intention of interfering in wage negotiations. However, I have a responsibility to draw the attention of those concerned to the consequences of what they are doing—[Interruption] The right hon. Gentleman does not understand what he is saying.

Mr. Harold Walker

I understand only too well what the Secretary of State is saying.

Mr. Tebbit

I told the chairman that if the council ignored the representations and confirmed the proposed increase, I would be driven to conclude either that the council did not recognise links between wages and jobs or that it did not see it as part of its responsibilities to take that clear connection into account when making proposals about minimum wage rates. I should be glad to know which view the council takes.

Mr. David Atkinson

Is my right hon. Friend aware that this week I received a letter from a bread and cake shopkeeper in my constituency saying that last year's 8 per cent. wage award led to redundancies and that this year's wage award would lead to more redundancies? When will employers be able to pay wages that they can afford without having to make redundancies?

Mr. Tebbit

I can understand that point of view. Hon. Members should not underestimate the sheer fury and frustration that is expressed in the more than 300 letters that I have received in the past month. Many of them point out that redundancies will result if the wage award goes through. I cannot do anything about wages councils, because we are tied by our adherence to the treaty and the ILO convention, which cannot be renounced until 1985.

Mr. Skinner

Is the Secretary of State aware that voters are concerned more about the fact that a director of a company in Britain, Mr. Ricardo Gordiano, can pick up more than £500,000 a year and that Mr. Fieldhouse can pick up £700,000 in a golden handshake—commonly called redundancy pay—than about low-paid workers receiving a miserly 8 per cent. increase on their poverty-stricken wages?

Mr. Tebbit

I am not sure that that was uppermost in the minds of voters in Bermondsey recently.