Labour votes for £15 an hour wage
Minimum would be more than average worker gets
Labour delegates yesterday voted for a £15 an hour minimum wage – more than the average worker is paid.
The motion passed easily at the party conference in brighton in a victory for the Left and a blow to sir Keir starmer’s authority.
The Labour leader was forced to play down reports of divisions ahead of the result, which is not binding.
He insisted he would instead stick to the party’s current policy of raising the minimum wage to at least £10 an hour.
Official figures show £13.68 was the UK median pay per hour last year.
Paul Johnson, of the Institute for Fiscal studies, summed up the motion as ‘asking for a minimum wage above the current median wage’. The row over pay has highlighted divisions within the party following the resignation of a member of the frontbench on Monday.
shadow employment secretary andy McDonald quit in protest after claim
‘It would be a 68% increase’
ing he had been asked to oppose the £15 an hour policy. The minimum wage at present is £8.91 for workers aged 23 and over, £8.36 for those aged 21 and 22, and £6.56 for 18 to 20-year-olds.
Labour’s current policy is to increase it to £10 an hour – a 12 per cent increase. Increasing it to £15 would represent a 68 per cent rise. Last night sir Keir told ITV News: ‘We were very clear on saturday – a £10 minimum wage which is a 12 per cent increase and means £2,000 in real money for those that would benefit under that.
‘That is significant, that is our policy and it is alongside a wider package of measures to protect people at work – including “day one” rights and including statutory sick pay.’
Mr McDonald claimed he was told by the leader’s office to argue against the increase.
Yesterday the unite union proposed the motion to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour.
The motion also said that, for Labour to win the next election, it ‘must be an anti-austerity party, defending jobs and improving living standards’.
The motion included demands for stronger union rights, higher taxes ‘on the very wealthiest’, an end to zero-hour contracts and a ‘better work-life balance’.
ahead of the vote, sir Keir’s team claimed to be relaxed about the result and said it would not encourage members to back or reject the motion.
It comes after he managed to force through changes to party rules to prevent the hard-Left winning power again.
raising the minimum wage was not one of the ten pledges sir Keir made when running for the Labour leadership last year.
but he supported a campaign in 2019 for burger giant McDonald’s to improve pay and conditions. at the time, he said: ‘They’re not asking for the Earth. They’re asking for the basics – £15 an hour, the right to know their hours in advance and to have trade union recognition.
‘That ought to be the norm in 21st century britain.’
but, in a scathing resignation letter, Mr McDonald claimed the leader’s office had instructed him go to a meeting at the party conference and ‘argue against a national minimum wage of £15 an hour and against statutory sick pay at the living wage’.
Meanwhile, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – now an independent MP – told the BBC a £15 an hour minimum wage is what the party ‘should be supporting and campaigning for’.
■ The hard-Left union for britain’s bakers severed its historic link with Labour yesterday. The bakers, Food and allied Workers union voted to disaffiliate from the party and accused Labour of a ‘factional internal war led by the leadership’.