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The Prosser Perspective.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser

24 July 2008

When I was a member of Dover District Council during the eighties and the nineties the country was plunged into two deep recessions and this constituency and the rest of East Kent suffered much more than elsewhere because these periods of negative growth coincided with the shut down of our pits and restructuring of our ferry services under pressure from the Channel Tunnel.

My casework in those days was mostly about housing issues, poll tax problems and debt but I was also bombarded with complaints about redundancies and soaring job losses as the dole queues grew to the three million mark. And as the jobs market dried up, unscrupulous employers laid off workers and screwed down on pay rates.

These were matters largely beyond the influence of a local councillor and it came as little consolation to residents to be told that were Labour to take office we would expand the economy, create new jobs and establish a National Minimum Wage.

Like every other country in the world, the UK’s economy is now being buffeted by the credit crunch and rising prices but since taking office in 1997 we did grow the economy; we did create millions of new jobs and this month marks the 10th anniversary of the Labour’s historic vote bring in the National Minimum Wage in 1998.

Looking back I think this is one of the Labour's proudest achievements in Government. And we built on this by increasing the minimum wage and bringing in better safeguards at work like paid holidays and the right to request flexible working for parents and carers.

But what people in Dover and Deal want to know is how we are going to make sure that all working people benefit from the improved standards that Labour has introduced.

When the minimum wage was being discussed people like David Cameron strongly opposed it. The Tories said the minimum wage would cost the country 2 million jobs. The reality is totally different. An extra 3 million jobs have actually been created since then. Nearly one million low paid employees, two thirds of them women, have benefited from the National Minimum Wage. Contrast this with the Tory years – when 3 million people were unemployed.

We are also cracking down hard on those people that don't pay workers the minimum wage with new measures contained in the Employment Bill, now before Parliament. As your MP I'll be supporting this Bill but I want to see it improved further to ensure that foreign seafarers serving on British ships are not paid below the minimum wage when sailing in our territorial waters. This needs to be done in the name of fairness but also to prevent ship owners importing cheap labour into the ferry services and displacing British seafarers' jobs.

It’s a sad reflection on the Tories that having opposed the introduction of the minimum wage they are still criticising it ten years on at a time when the Government is taking further steps to strengthen it – ensuring that working people know their rights and employers know their responsibilities.