Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to George Osborne’s comments on the national minimum wage, said:

“George Osborne is flailing around under pressure but he has made no concrete announcement about the level of the minimum wage.

“Ed Miliband and Ed Balls said last year that we need above inflation rises in the minimum wage in order to catch up the lost value over the last few years. And both the Tories and Lib Dems voted against Labour’s motion yesterday which called for action to make this happen.

“The Tories cannot hide from the fact that working people on average £1600 a year worse off since they came to office. We need action now to earn our way to higher living standards and tackle the cost-of-living crisis. That’s why, as well as a higher minimum wage, Labour will make long-term reforms to our economy, freeze energy prices, expand free childcare, incentivise the living wage and build the homes Britain needs.”

Ends

Editor’s notes

1. At last year’s Labour Party Conference, Ed Miliband said that the next Labour government will strengthen the minimum wage and that the minimum wage needs to rise faster than it has in the recent past in order to catch up with where it was in 2010: http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/news/conference-2013-strengthening-the-national-minimum-wage

In his conference speech Ed Balls said: “strengthening the national minimum wage, restoring its value and catching up the ground lost over the last three years”: http://www.edballs.co.uk/blog/?p=4478

2. Labour’s motion, which Conservative and Lib Dem MPs voted against in the House of Commons yesterday, said:

“That this House celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) which falls this year and the contribution it has made to making work pay, boosting living standards and tackling in-work poverty; notes that before the NMW was established poverty pay was widespread and that the Conservative Party and many Liberal Democrat Members opposed its introduction; further notes that families are on average £1,600 worse off a year and the NMW is now worth less in real terms than in May 2010; further notes that the government has not backed up its promise to ‘name and shame’ firms not paying the minimum wage; calls on the government to strengthen the NMW, including by increasing fines for non-payment of the NMW and giving local authorities enforcement powers; and further calls on the Government to encourage employers to pay a living wage and take action to restore the value of the NMW so that the UK can earn its way out of the cost of living crisis and help control the cost of social security.”