B

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 31 March 2025

Debate

Employment Rights Bill: Productivity

Contribution

I am grateful to my noble friend for making these points. I should reiterate that Britain’s working people and businesses will be the driving force of the UK economy, but the current labour market is not delivering for either. The productivity gap with France, Germany and the US has doubled since 2008; average salaries have barely increased from where they were 15 years ago; and the average worker would be more than 40% better off if wages had continued to grow as they did leading into the 2008 financial crisis. A final point: alongside its productivity performance, the UK lags the OECD average on most employment protections. We inherited an economy that was in decline, with poor productivity, and we intend to fix that.

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