Challenges facing people in and out of work
Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 09:59, Fri 16 March 2012:
This week’s unemployment figures, now at a 17-year high, make depressing reading. Women bore the brunt of the rise in unemployment, accounting for nearly 80% of the increase in the jobless figures.
And for those in work, the news wasn’t much better – pay freezes and capped pay rises held back average earnings growth to just 1.4% - way below inflation.
No wonder people are worried. It’s clear the government’s failing either to create new jobs or protect existing ones.
Instead, it’s decided the answer to rising unemployment’s to make it easier for bosses to fire people. On Tuesday, I went along to the debate on proposals to prevent people taking unfair dismissal claims to employment tribunals until they’ve worked for an employer for two years.
The Minister couldn’t provide any evidence that the new regulations would help protect or create new jobs. This is simply a mean attack by the government on protection for workers – and what’s more, most employers don’t want it either.
The government’s also got its eye on maternity rights. It’s likely to suggest mums and dads should share more parental leave.
Of course I’d like both parents to be able to spend more time at home with a new baby, but all the experts agree that for the first 26 weeks, it’s really important to protect women’s maternity leave. Mothers’ health and wellbeing, and that of their babies, depend on it.
Yet Ministers are apparently considering that just 18 weeks would be protected for mums.
Meanwhile, some constituents have contacted me about cuts to their tax credits from April. Couples working fewer than 24 hours between them are set to lose working tax credit.
The problem is that, in the current economic climate, few employers can offer more hours. The result is that some people will actually have to give up their jobs – increasing unemployment.
This week, the government published its consultation on marriage for same-sex couples.
Labour introduced civil partnerships in 2004 for same sex couples, and public opinion’s moved on a long way since then. It’s time we had equal marriage.
So I’m disappointed that the government’s proposing that same sex marriages could not take place in religious settings. No-one’s suggesting churches and places of worship that don’t want to marry same sex couples should be compelled to do so. But some faiths, like the Quakers and the Unitarians, would like to be able to marry same sex couples, and I don’t understand why the government wants to stop them.
We should value all loving, committed relationships. I hope there will be rapid progress now to ensure same sex couples can marry if they choose to.
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