Chuka Umunna MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, commenting on the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation of a rise in the National Minimum Wage to £6.50, said:
“This announcement exposes the comments George Osborne made just weeks ago about a £7 minimum wage as misleading and empty rhetoric.
“Labour said last year that we need to see above-inflation rises in the minimum wage to restore the value lost over recent years. That’s why we welcome the Low Pay Commission’s announcement and have committed to strengthening the minimum wage so that its value is properly restored. We also need to see proper enforcement including through local authorities. The Tory-led government has failed to match our plans, and instead we have seen the value of the minimum wage eroded as working people facing a cost-of-living crisis have been left £1,600 worse off since David Cameron became Prime Minister.
“As well as a higher minimum wage, we need action now to earn our way out of the cost-of-living crisis like Labour’s plans to incentivise the living wage and expand free childcare for working parents. But all the Tory-led government can offer is empty promises and rhetoric.”
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. In January Labour’s opposition day motion on the National Minimum Wage, which Conservative and Lib Dem MPs voted against in the House of Commons, 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.”
3. In September 2013 Ed Miliband launched a review of low pay, led by Alan Buckle, former Deputy Chairman at KPMG International, to investigate how to restore the value of the minimum wage, ensure that where sectors can afford to pay more, they do, and promote the living wage, while building on the strengths of our approach in government: Basing decisions on partnership between employers and employees; and balancing the need for wage growth with concerns about the impact on employment.
4. In November 2013 Ed Miliband announced that the next Labour government would encourage employers to pay the living wage through new ‘Make Work Pay’ contracts.
http://press.labour.org.uk/post/65874517042/tackling-the-cost-of-living-crisis-with-decent-wages
5. It has been estimated that there are as many as 300,000 employees earning less than the minimum wage as the Tory-led government has turned a blind eye to non-payment. Just two prosecutions have been made in the last four years and despite ministers announcing their ‘name and shame’ policy on three occasions, not a single rogue employer has been named.