Opposition Day — Employment Rights — Strategy for Creating Higher Skilled Better Paid Jobs — 5 Feb 2014 at 18:48

The majority of MPs voted against strengthening employment rights and against calling on the Government to adopt a strategy for creating more high-skilled, better paid jobs.

The text of the motion rejected in the vote was:

• That this House
• believes that insecurity at work has increased under this Government, compounding the cost of living crisis facing families;
• further believes that the Government’s policies have made life less secure for people at work by watering down their rights, including protections against unfair dismissal and by abandoning an evidence-based approach to health and safety;
• notes that the number of employees working part-time who want to work full-time has grown by over 350,000 since the Government took office to over 1.4 million, alongside a marked rise in zero-hours contracts;
• recognises that insecure jobs add to pressure on the social security budget by making it harder for people to buy a home or save for their own pension;
• calls on the Government to reverse the trend of rising insecurity at work by reforming zero-hours contracts so they are not exploitative, addressing false self-employment by closing loopholes which allow it to take place, scrapping the failed ‘shares for rights’ scheme, strengthening and properly enforcing the National Minimum Wage, including by increasing fines to £50,000 and giving local authorities enforcement powers, and incentivising employers to pay a Living Wage through ‘make work pay’ contracts; and
• further calls on the Government to adopt a proper industrial strategy to help create more high-skilled, better paid jobs so the UK can earn its way out of the cost of living crisis with stronger and better-balanced growth.

Debate in Parliament | Source |