HC Deb 02 April 1998 vol 309 cc1403-4
8. Mr. Drew

If she will make a statement on progress towards implementing a national minimum wage. [35980]

Mr. Ian McCartney

The Government are making excellent progress towards introducing a statutory national minimum wage for the first time in the United Kingdom during this Session of Parliament. The National Minimum Wage Bill had its Second Reading in another place on Monday 23 March.

Mr. Drew

I thank my hon. Friend for that statement. Does he accept that the national minimum wage is widely welcomed in Stroud, especially by those decent businesses that aim to pay a fair wage, in marked contrast to those rogue employers who exploit their employees? Does he also accept that those decent businesses find their natural home in the Labour party, unlike those rogues and exploiters who gain solace only in the Conservative party?

Mr. McCartney

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments and congratulate him and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt), who have campaigned long and hard for the introduction of a national minimum wage. In the south-west, 90,000 people earn less than £2.50; and in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), 1,300 families are so poor at the end of the week because of low pay that they have to rely on in-work benefits to survive. That is why at the last election the British people, in droves, supported the Labour party pledge to introduce, as a matter of urgency, a national minimum wage. I repeat the question asked of the Conservative Front Benchers: why have they not, in connection with any of the questions asked about low pay, come to the Dispatch Box and supported their own leader's decision to do a U-turn and support the national minimum wage?

Mr. Prior

Does the Minister expect the national minimum wage to increase jobs or reduce them?

Mr. McCartney

The national minimum wage, set at a proper level, will be a job creator, not a job loser. During the period in which the national minimum wage was introduced and uprated, the United States has created more than 11 million new jobs. There is no evidence whatever that an appropriately set minimum wage will cost jobs, but it will give low-paid workers an opportunity to purchase goods and services that they cannot currently afford. Does the hon. Gentleman know of any country in the world where a national minimum wage for hairdressers has stopped that country's people having a haircut? It is absolute nonsense to suggest that people will lose out by the introduction of a national minimum wage.