HC Deb 09 July 1991 vol 194 cc770-1
9. Mr. David Shaw

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his latest estimate of the cost and effect on unemployment of introducing a minimum wage; and if he is reconsidering his policy on this matter.

Mr. Howard

A national legal minimum wage set at two thirds of median male hourly rate, as proposed by the Labour party, could cost up to 2 million jobs—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—if higher-paid workers were successful in fully restoring pay differentials. That policy makes economic nonsense. My policy is to continue to point out at every opportunity the devastating consequences—[HON. MEMBERS: "Wrong."]—which that minimum wage proposal would bring about.

Mr. Shaw

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. No doubt the country will be shocked by the information contained in it. Has he any useful advice about the minimum wage to offer to the Leader of the Opposition, who will tomorrow be addressing the conference of the Transport and General Workers Union?

Mr. Howard

It was interesting to see the extent to which Labour Members were keen to disavow what is official Labour party policy and is stated in clear words in all Labour's policy documents. Perhaps it is not too late for the Leader of the Opposition to realise the absurdity of his policy and to abandon it when he talks tomorrow to the Transport and General Workers Union.

Mr. John Evans

Does the Secretary of State appreciate how distasteful it is to listen to Conservative Members, most of whom have outside jobs which more than double their parliamentary salaries, continually seeking to block any improvement in the wages and conditions of millions of British workers who suffer some of the lowest wages in the European Community?

Mr. Howard

That kind of sneer will not help to resolve the issue of how we can best improve wages and conditions. We can best help to do that by paying family credit to those on low pay, rather than substituting for low pay no pay, which is the policy of the Labour party.

Mrs. Gorman

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of experience in the United States, which introduced a minimum wage law in 1947, since when unemployment among the ethnic minorities and especially black unskilled people has continued to rise, so much so that many American states have abandoned the minimum wage law and introduced a right to work law?

Mr. Howard

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Every independent study has demonstrated that the policy would cost jobs. The only point on which they disagree is how many jobs would be lost. When will the Labour party see sense and abandon its absurd policy?

Mr. Blair

When will Conservative Members admit that they are talking nonsense about Labour's policy? They have doubled unemployment and are now presiding over the fastest rise in unemployment in Europe—[Interruption.]—and do not know what to do about it. The most interesting point about the Major Government is that while they pour scorn on, and deride the notion of, protection for some of the poorest paid in our society— often women, many of them working in conditions of great hardship for £3.40 an hour—they will not lift a finger when the chairmen of privatised industries pay themselves an extra £80,000 or £90,000 a year. That is the true face of Majorism.

Mr. Howard

The simple answer is that we protect those on low pay through family credit. The Opposition would simply destroy their jobs.