Statutory Minimum Wage (Hansard, 18 May 1988)

§ Mr. John Battle (Leeds, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a statutory minimum wage to be paid in all industries and services as a requirement on employers.

I have been asked why I have chosen this opportunity to bring before the House a Bill about a statutory minimum wage. My answer is that it is my first opportunity to do so. First, I represent an area of west Yorkshire in which low pay is the primary cause of family poverty. Secondly, this could not be a more apt time to introduce the Bill because, when our Budget debates have to the national average male wage of £244 per week in Britain, it does not seem to me that there is widespread awareness of how little many people have to live on week by week.

The primary aim of my Bill, therefore, is to eradicate poverty by tackling a primary cause—the persistence, even in what is heralded by the Government as a booming economy, of low pay. My Bill will bring forward a framework for the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Britain, built on the establishment of a basic level of two thirds of the average wage, with a procedure for regular revision of that figure, and monitoring and enforcement provisions by a new minimum wages inspectorate.

First, I shall address the question whether there is a need for the Bill. West Yorkshire has been traditionally renowned as an area of Britain which pays lower wages than elsewhere. In the heart of my constituency of Leeds, West, which is a traditional textile and engineering manufacturing area, is the Bramley jobcentre.The jobs that are on offer at that jobcentre are predominantly in the service sector and are part-time, temporary and low-paid. One of the best jobs on offer is a general catering assistant post at the princely rate of £2.10 an hour. There are five cleaning jobs featured in the jobcentre window with hourly rates that range from £1.70 an hour. For those who cannot do the arithmetic, that works out at £68 for a 40-hour week. There is a job for a play scheme leader, who needs to have experience and references, at a wage of £55 a week. One can apply for a job as a security guard at a rate of £1.50 an hour for a basic 60-hour week.

This means that there are many working for much less than £2.50 an hour, or £100 a week, which is well less than half the national average of £244 that has been cited in the Budget debates. That is well below the Council of Europe's decency threshold of £3.50 an hour, or £135 a week, which has been fixed for the whole of Europe. In reality, about 9.4 million adult workers in Britain earn less than the Council of Europe's decency threshold of £135 for a week's work. That is one in three of male manual workers in Britain.

The new earnings survey, to which I shall refer briefly without citing figures, spells out the fact that many workers in west Yorkshire are on less than £100 a week.

952 Many workers in Yorkshire, both manual and non-manual—these are predominantly women—earn significantly less than the decency threshold, or half the accepted national average.

Some may say that the remnants of the wages councils remain to deal with the issue. In 1987, 23 per cent. of the establishments checked by the councils were found to be paying less than the set levels. The clothing industry is one of the lowest of the low-paid industries, yet the Minister has been petitioned to abolish the wages council that sets wages in that industry and its hourly rate is £1.98 an hour.

A new minimum wages inspectorate is needed to replace the voluntary approach which has been tried and has failed. If the view is presented that most low-paid workers are women who do not need the money they earn—the so-called pin-money argument—and that home workers, who number about 250,000 in Britain, and piece-rate workers should not be counted, I shall press the argument for economic justice in our society by using the following quotation: Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future. I suggest that that should be our baseline approach. To generate a low-wage economy for a large minority in our society alongside the current economic boom for the rest of us is grossly unjust. It is pricing people into work at the expense of their families.

I shall use what little time remains to me to argue that a statutory minimum wage will not jeopardise the economy but will increase its efficiency. I could press the case that a national minimum wage operates effectively in many other countries. I could further ask, with the move to an integrated European labour market in 1992, what more opportune moment could there be to prepare for it by adopting the Council of Europe's decency threshold as the statutory minimum wage`' Without a commitment to a national minimum wage, we perpetuate the conditions that manufacture poverty in our society alongside the wealth of others.

The Bill offers an opportunity to change those conditions and to introduce a basic cornerstone that will enable us to tackle poverty in our society. The way to prevent poverty is to pay decent wages and not force families into the benefit system. I hope that the Bill will gain the support of the House.