HC Deb 22 October 1991 vol 196 cc785-7
8. Sir John Farr

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what proposals he has to regulate pay.

Mr. Howard

I have no plans to introduce legislation to regulate pay. Pay is a matter best determined by the parties concerned in the light of their particular circumstances.

Sir John Farr

Has my right hon. and learned Friend seen the report by UBS Phillips and Drew that the second stage of the Opposition's minimum wage policy would destroy 1.4 million jobs? Will my right hon. and learned Friend comment on that?

Mr. Howard

Yes, I have seen that report and I take it seriously. Just a few days ago, the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said on the radio that the introduction of a statutory national minimum wage would not cost a single job. During our debate last Wednesday, I repeatedly offered him the opportunity to cite any independent survey that supported his assertion. Quite unaccountably, he declined to take that opportunity. He cannot cite a single survey that supports his assertion.

Mr. McAllion

Is the Minister aware that, even without the national minimum wage, another 155 Dundonians joined the dole queue yesterday following the announcement of yet more job losses in a local manufacturing company? The company explained that it had to axe the jobs because of the continuing recession, which the Minister tells us is now over. Whom are we to believe— hard-pressed companies faced with a savage recession and forced to put workers on to the dole, or Westminster-bound Ministers, probably high on magic mushrooms, who imagine that they see economic growth everywhere?

Mr. Howard

We are coming out of recession, but, sadly, unemployment is always one of the last things to turn as an economy comes out of recession. I regret that as much as the hon. Gentleman does, but how does it provide any justification for wantonly adding to the ranks of the unemployed by pursuing the policies advanced by the Labour party?

Mrs. Currie

Would not a national minimum wage, instead of helping the low paid —many of whom are women—simply make low-paid work illegal? Are not there two dangers in that? The first, which my right hon. and learned Friend has already highlighted, is that many such jobs would disappear. The second is that many of those jobs would slide into the black economy, with a loss of rights for the women concerned in terms of the protection of health and safety at work, much of which is Conservative legislation. Would not there also be the loss of income tax and national insurance contributions?

Mr. Howard

My hon. Friend is entirely right to draw attention to another real danger that would arise from the Opposition's lunatic proposals. It is far better to help those on low pay who need help by making family credit available to them, as we do.

Mr. Blair

Will the Minister confirm that not only does he oppose Labour's proposal for a national minimum wage of £3.40 an hour, but he plans to abolish the existing wages councils, making Britain the only country anywhere in Europe—this applies also to the United States—that has no minimum wage protection? Will not 2.5 million people, mainly women, lose protection at law as a result of that policy? The Minister will irrevocably stamp his party not just as the party of mass unemployment, but as the party of poverty pay.

Mr. Howard

When I saw the hon. Gentleman rise to his feet, I hoped that he would at last provide some corroboration of his unsubstantiated assertion that his national minimum wage policy would not cost a single job. But of course he cannot do that. Instead he continues to make his misleading comparisons with countries in Europe that do not have the lunatic policy that his party wishes to foist on this country, because they know of the damaging consequences that would flow from it and because they have read the studies of the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and other bodies that have said how many jobs would be lost as a result of its introduction. We have made it perfectly clear that we do not see a permanent place for wages councils in the way in which our economy is regulated and, as the hon. Gentleman knows well, we made that clear a long time ago.