Work should always pay
Monthly column by Alex Mayer, MP for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard constituency
17 MPs, including me, were given an important task recently: to increase the minimum wage for 1.2 million people nationwide, including 6,700 across Central Bedfordshire.
I was chosen to be a member of something called the “First Delegated Legislation Committee”. Not the snappiest of titles I agree!
So what is a Delegated Legislation Committee? When we think about MPs passing laws, we tend to think in terms of sweeping Acts of Parliament. Like the NHS Act in 1940s, when the post-war Labour Government created our health service.
But these Acts create powers to pass other laws, that are considered by MPs at a Delegated Legislation Committee.
It’s basically where we discuss the fiddly bits.
So take the Road Traffic Act which established general road safety powers.
Then the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) Regulations set out the detailed rules about who must wear seat belts, exemptions (for example for certain medical conditions) and requirements for child restraints.
You get the gist.
There are about three and a half thousand of these every year.
I was scrutinising the “National Minimum Wage (Amendment)”. Specifically how much wage rates should rise.
And, now we’ve agreed it, that paves the way for higher pay rates to come into force from 1 April. And more money in people’s pockets.
Young people are the biggest winners with the rate for 18 to 20-year-olds increasing by 8.5% rise. By April the rate of the minimum wage for young people will have risen by a quarter under Labour government.
I am particularly pleased to see the stronger increase for younger workers. For too long, there has been a significant gap between younger people’s pay and the main adult rate. Closing that gap is an important step towards fairness at work.
Meanwhile the uplift for workers aged 21 is worth around £900 a year for someone working full time.
I’m proud to vote for a pay rise for thousands of local workers.
Work should always pay, and people who put in the hours deserve decent wages they can live on.