LABOUR WILL INCREASE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO HELP THOSE ON LOW PAY COPE WITH THE COST OF LIVING CRISIS

I’m proud that the last Labour government introduced the National Minimum Wage. This boosted pay for millions at the bottom without leading to a loss of jobs and now I can’t imagine a Britain without it.

But the issues we face today are different to those we faced at the end of the last century. The minimum wage was originally designed to prevent extreme low pay and abuse. Today, the challenge is to help people earning above the minimum wage but still living in poverty or dependent on benefits. Over five million people, or one in five employees, are low paid.

This has got worse under the Tories, with families on average £1,600 a year worse off since David Cameron became Prime Minister. And while this Government has given tax cuts to millionaires, the value of the national minimum wage has declined by five per cent since 2010.

Those on the lowest pay are at the sharpest end of the cost-of-living crisis. In-work poverty is a shocking legacy of the Tories’ four years in power and it’s only Labour government that would do something about it.

In September last year Ed Miliband asked Alan Buckle, former‎ Deputy Chairman at KPMG, to investigate how to improve the minimum wage. The report, published today, argues for a new framework to ensure that the minimum wage rises faster over the next five years than it has in the recent past, as part of a national mission to tackle low pay and build a new economy with more high skill, high paid jobs.

The report recommends that the next Labour Government should set an ambitious target to increase the minimum wage, bringing it closer to median earnings over a five-year period. This will ensure that there is a bond between the wealth we earn as a nation and the wages that people earn.

A clear five-year target gives businesses time to plan and adapt their business models so they are able to support higher wages for their employees.

The Tories’ economic policies over the last four years have resulted in higher prices, lower wages and a cost-of-living crisis that has hit tens of thousands of people in Derby. It is only Labour that will create a new economy that works for everyone instead of just a few at the top, and that begins by increasing the National Minimum Wage.