UK election 2019: how it could deliver the country’s first real living wage
The din of political parties outbidding each other on promises to spend more on the NHS, education, transport infrastructure and housing has echoes of pre-austerity and even pre-Thatcher times, writes Professor Donald Hirsch.
This article was originally published in the Conversation
In a less familiar but no less noisy competition, both main parties are trying to persuade voters that they are committed to raising living standards by promising a significant rise to the minimum wage.
We could well see a transformative assault on low pay in the UK.
As recently as 2015, the hourly national minimum wage was just £6.50. Today, for over-25s, it is £8.21.
Promising to raise and extend this national living wage, as it’s now called, the Tories have a target of £10.50 an hour, paid to all over-21s, by 2024. Labour pledges £10 for all over-16s next year.
These promised increases – to up to 40% in real terms above the 2015 level – represent a striking new feature of UK politics.
The UK came late to minimum wages, with the first national minimum wage introduced only in 1999. That was 30 years after France, 65 years after the US, and around a century after Australia and New Zealand.
Labour and the unions had feared a national minimum would undermine the collective bargaining system whereby pay deals were negotiated in individual occupations and sectors.
Free-market Conservatives criticised public interference in the labour market and opposed the minimum wage at its inception.
Yet 20 years later, their rhetoric promises nothing less than to “end low pay altogether”…
Loughborough University is equipped with a live in-house broadcast unit via the Globelynx network. To arrange an interview with one of our experts please contact the press office on 01509 223491. Bookings can be made online via www.globelynx.com
Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.
It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme, named the best university in the world for sports-related subjects in the 2019 QS World University Rankings, University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times University Guide 2019 and top in the country for its student experience in the 2018 THE Student Experience Survey.
Loughborough is in the top 10 of every national league table, being ranked 4th in the Guardian University League Table 2020, 5th in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020 and 8th in The UK Complete University Guide 2020.
Loughborough is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’ and is in the top 10 in England for research intensity. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes.
The Loughborough University London campus is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities. It is home to influential thought leaders, pioneering researchers and creative innovators who provide students with the highest quality of teaching and the very latest in modern thinking.
Loughborough staff, students and alumni make a real difference. They challenge convention, think creatively and find solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing society today and in the future.
The din of political parties outbidding each other on promises to spend more on the NHS, education, transport infrastructure and housing has echoes of pre-austerity and even pre-Thatcher times, writes Professor Donald Hirsch.
This article was originally published in the Conversation
In a less familiar but no less noisy competition, both main parties are trying to persuade voters that they are committed to raising living standards by promising a significant rise to the minimum wage.
We could well see a transformative assault on low pay in the UK.
As recently as 2015, the hourly national minimum wage was just £6.50. Today, for over-25s, it is £8.21.
Promising to raise and extend this national living wage, as it’s now called, the Tories have a target of £10.50 an hour, paid to all over-21s, by 2024. Labour pledges £10 for all over-16s next year.
These promised increases – to up to 40% in real terms above the 2015 level – represent a striking new feature of UK politics.
The UK came late to minimum wages, with the first national minimum wage introduced only in 1999. That was 30 years after France, 65 years after the US, and around a century after Australia and New Zealand.
Labour and the unions had feared a national minimum would undermine the collective bargaining system whereby pay deals were negotiated in individual occupations and sectors.
Free-market Conservatives criticised public interference in the labour market and opposed the minimum wage at its inception.
Yet 20 years later, their rhetoric promises nothing less than to “end low pay altogether”…
Loughborough University is equipped with a live in-house broadcast unit via the Globelynx network. To arrange an interview with one of our experts please contact the press office on 01509 223491. Bookings can be made online via www.globelynx.com
Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.
It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme, named the best university in the world for sports-related subjects in the 2019 QS World University Rankings, University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times University Guide 2019 and top in the country for its student experience in the 2018 THE Student Experience Survey.
Loughborough is in the top 10 of every national league table, being ranked 4th in the Guardian University League Table 2020, 5th in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020 and 8th in The UK Complete University Guide 2020.
Loughborough is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’ and is in the top 10 in England for research intensity. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes.
The Loughborough University London campus is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities. It is home to influential thought leaders, pioneering researchers and creative innovators who provide students with the highest quality of teaching and the very latest in modern thinking.
Loughborough staff, students and alumni make a real difference. They challenge convention, think creatively and find solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing society today and in the future.
