Clause 11
Employment Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mary Creagh (PPS (Rt Hon Andy Burnham, Secretary of State), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Wakefield, Labour)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but something occurred to me while he was speaking. Is not the difficulty of enforcing minimum wage legislation the fact that things tend to be done quietly, secretly and in quite a close way? That does not empower us as consumers to make choices about which companies we go to, good or bad.
For example, if I were choosing which nursery to send my child to, I would certainly not choose Rascals day nursery, not least because children are priceless and I would not want somebody who was being paid less than £5 an hour looking after the most precious thing in my life, my young baby. The same applies in relation to hairdressers, the security industry and the hospitality industry.
When I am choosing which restaurant to go to for a curry, in the same way as I choose fair trade goods, where possible, in the supermarket, I want to know that that curry is being made by people who have decent labour standards, are getting holidays and are not being taken for a ride. There are a lot of benefits to such matters being dealt with in a criminal court, particularly the fact that they will then become public knowledge. The grapevine will be a powerful deterrent, so that people will choose not to go to a particular firm and so that they will not be exploited.