Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The only difference between this Chancellor and the previous one is that of style, not substance. Where George Osborne could best be described as a tin of gloss, superficially painting over the cracks in our broken economy, the current Chancellor is the tin of matt, hoping to hide the worst lumps and bumps with repeated applications of more of the same. Either way, they are both the same shade of Tory austerity blue, with their repeated failure to recognise that the best way to grow the economy and improve productivity is to invest, to support workers, and to listen to those on the frontline and give them a pay rise. Instead, as fat cat—sorry, executive—pay continues to soar, and the bonus culture never seems to extend to frontline workers, the measures to support working people and vulnerable people in the Budget are yet again meagre, lacklustre and dismal Let us start with those starting out in the world of work and take it from there. Let us look at the minimum wage rises proposed in this Budget: 15p per hour for 16 to 17-year-olds, 20p per hour for apprentices, 30p per hour for 18 to 25-year-olds and 33p for the over-25s. That maintains and widens the inequality gap for young people doing the same job as those who are 26 or over On public sector pay, pages 68 to 69 of the Red Book can only be described as a pathetic, poor response, especially in the light of raised expectations on public sector pay—warm words and no action, except stalling for time. Let us look at some of the facts on pay review bodies, which is where the Government are now going to park the issue of public sector pay. The Government are batting this issue into the next financial year, with reviews not pledges. There is no actual funding on the table; there is just a reference to writing to ask the pay review bodies to start the process. That is so vague as to be almost meaningless Some 55% of public sector workers are not covered by pay review bodies. There is no pay review body for civil service workers below the senior grades—for the avoidance of doubt, these are the very workers who collect the taxes and who try to make the benefits system and the asylum and immigration system work. They are the frontline workers the Government have a duty of care for as an employer. And that is before we even get to the emergency services, the NHS and local government All is far from well, though, in the private sector. The statistics may show that pay has overtaken that in the public sector—as a result of the prolonged pay cap this Government cruelly pretended to be about to lift, but instead chose to drag out to ensure a miserable Christmas for the "just about managing"—but precarious work underpins the rise in employment statistics. The Government proposed a timid report, which has now been firmly kicked into the long grass with the announcement of a further review of that review. I do love the part in the Budget report that says that the Government will publish a discussion paper and "recognises that this is an important and complex issue, and…will work with stakeholders to ensure that any potential changes are considered carefully"— a "Yes Minister" line if ever I saw one It is appropriate on this big American holiday of Thanksgiving to quote the famous song from the classic Bing Crosby film "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court", which describes the Government’s approach to tackling workplace issues and in-work poverty: "We’re busy doin’ nothin’ Workin’ the whole day through Tryin’ to find lots of things not to do We’re busy goin’ nowhere" On their journey through the world of work, many people find that their job disappears through no fault of their own, or that they have to claim benefits due to life-threatening illness or chronic conditions. Welcome to Alice in Wonderland time, as they disappear down the rabbit hole into the topsy-turvy world of a benefits system that bears no relation to the po-faced announcements about how well it is working or the good intent behind the slashing of budgets. I wonder whether every Conservative Member trotting out the Government’s line about universal credit would survive if they had to go through the process tomorrow. I am willing to bet that full service roll-out has not yet happened in their constituencies I note that there is to be a slowdown of a couple of months in the roll-out, but not a pause. Glasgow will be the last area in the universal credit roll-out—not least, I suspect, because some in the Department for Work and Pensions know what an unholy mess of misery the policy is When someone gets to the end of their working life, what happens if they are a woman born in the 1950s? I received a letter from a constituent last week that was sadly typical. Born at the end of 1954, she was a single woman who had worked her entire life in low-paid, insecure work with no occupational pension or savings. She was facing the prospect of navigating the benefits system for the first time in her life. It is a disgrace that there was nothing about the WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—in the Budget, and I hope that the Government will sort that out and sort it quickly.