HC Deb 11 December 1996 vol 287 cc270-1
8. Mr. John Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when she last met the representatives of other member states in the Council of Ministers to discuss job creation. [7058]

Mr. Forth

Whenever other United Kingdom Ministers and I meet our European counterparts, we make it clear that the way to create jobs is through the development of efficient, flexible and competitive labour markets, not through imposing new legislative burdens on employers which only damage competitiveness and destroy jobs.

Mr. Marshall

As the United Kingdom is in the premier league of job creation and countries such as Germany are in the third division, will my hon. Friend ask my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to host a seminar on job creation in Dublin this weekend so that Chancellor Kohl can discover that we in Britain can teach him a thing or two?

Mr. Forth

I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been given quite a lot of advice about what he might say in Dublin this weekend from a number of different quarters, and I therefore hesitate to add even my hon. Friend's words of wisdom. He makes the valid point that we can now conclude safely that the route that we have chosen to take and the policies that we have chosen to pursue to create an environment that is friendly to job creation and business and attractive to inward investment present a far better chance of creating the maximum number of jobs—real jobs, jobs for the future—than the route chosen by our continental partners. That is becoming clear. The extent to which our partners have been persuaded by that argument will perhaps be better known after the Dublin summit.

Mr. Sheerman

Before the Minister goes to the Council of Ministers with his usual bundle of prejudices, will he talk to the Business Services Association and other major employers that want a national minimum wage because they believe that it will raise standards, create jobs and stop the scandal of spending £3 billion of taxpayers' money on subsidising poor employers?

Mr. Forth

Of course we listen to all groups and all representations on such matters; that has always been so. I must admit to a slight lingering suspicion that some groups take the view that the imposition of a statutory minimum wage would help to eliminate competition that they find difficult and unhelpful. If a statutory minimum wage were ever to eliminate new, thrusting, dynamic, entrepreneurial businesses, which tend to compete with established businesses, it would demonstrate beyond a doubt that the policy of a minimum wage, so beloved by the hon. Gentleman, would destroy many jobs in our economy.