South London Labour politicians vow to protect the minimum wage
Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Streatham, and fellow South London Labour politicians condemn Tory moves to abolish the National Minimum Wage.
Senior Conservatives are making moves to scrap the minimum wage. A group of Tory MPs led by Christopher Chope, a former Minister and member of the shadow cabinet, have introduced a Bill in the House of Commons which would effectively abolish the National Minimum Wage (NMW). The Bill would make the NMW, currently set at £5.73 per hour, redundant by allowing employees to opt out of receiving the minimum wage in the same way that they may opt out of the maximum 48 hour working week.
Labour’s introduction of the minimum wage back in 1998 was a groundbreaking step in overcoming poverty and ending the tyranny of low pay. When the NMW came into being, wages of as little as £1.20 an hour were common and legal – that’s just £1.38 an hour in today’s prices.
Since 1998, the NMW has benefited over 1.5 million workers, raising the living standards of the worst-off – in London alone over 70,000 benefited from it last year. Studies show that rather than weakening the economy, the adoption of the minimum wage has created a more motivated and productive workforce, whilst providing an incentive for firms to invest more in their employees’ skills.
In a joint letter to local newspapers, Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, Keith Hill, Labour MP for Streatham, Tessa Jowell, Minster for the Olympics, and Labour Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman MP (pictured with Umunna), condemned the Bill. In their letter they wrote:
“Scrapping the minimum wage now would have catastrophic consequences for over 70,000 Londoners who benefit from it, bringing a return to poverty wages at a time when families are finding it more difficult to make ends meet.
“It is difficult to imagine the past 10 years without a minimum wage in place and the inroads made into child poverty would simply not have been impossible without it. That is why Labour will oppose any move to do away with it.”
