Lucy Rigby

By Lucy Rigby lucyrigby

This week is Living Wage Week, a country-wide celebration of those employers who pay their staff the ‘Living Wage’, recognised nationally as an amount sufficient to live on. It’s the ideal time for us here in Lincoln to celebrate those employers within our city who pay the Living Wage, and to ensure that others are aware of the vast benefits which the Living Wage brings to both employers and employees alike.

Happily, we can be very proud that some of our most well-known and iconic Lincoln businesses and organisations already pay their staff at least a Living Wage, including the University of Lincoln, Bifrangi, our wonderful Lincoln Cathedral, the City Council and Globe Consulting.

Low pay is a chronic and growing problem, here in our city and across the country. The minimum wage is no longer enough to live on, yet there are more low-paid workers than ever before, and those that are paid the minimum wage are stuck on it for longer than ever before. In 2013, there were 4.9 million workers in the UK who were paid less than the Living Wage, an increase of 1.5 million people since 2010. The proportion of UK workers who are low paid is one of the worst in the developed world – we are 19th in the league table of the 25 OECD most developed countries.

This explains why we have seen such an exponential rise in in-work poverty and in foodbank usage. In fact, half of those living in poverty in the UK are actually in work, and two-thirds of all children living in poverty live in working families. If people can’t make ends meet, they have to rely on social security; in fact, low pay is one of the biggest drivers of rising welfare bills. The cost to the exchequer of workers paid less than a Living Wage was estimated last year at £3.23 billion in social security spending and lower tax receipts. Normally when an economy grows, income tax receipts go up, but because of the epidemic of low pay, tax receipts are actually falling, the deficit is rising again and Osborne’s sums are going wrong.

This is just not right. If you go out to work, you should earn enough to live on – you definitely shouldn’t have to rely on benefits to get by. But the case for the Living Wage isn’t just about employees, it’s better for employers too. Across the country, many employers have found that paying the Living Wage makes good business sense, generating savings by boosting productivity and morale, and reducing staff turnover.

A Labour Government elected next year would incentivise more businesses to pay the Living Wage with ‘Make Work Pay’ contracts, where employers share in the public savings that arise when they pay their workers a Living Wage. For every extra pound employers pay to raise workers from the minimum to the Living Wage, the Treasury saves on average 49p through lower social security payments and higher tax revenues. In return for becoming accredited Living Wage employers, businesses will receive 12-months’ worth of the resulting increased tax and National Insurance revenues received by the Government. If the Government introduced this today, firms could receive a 12-month rebate of up to £1,000 – an average of £445 – for every low paid worker who is moved onto the Living Wage.

All in all, the Living Wage is an integral part of making our economy work for the many, not just the few. It’s good for businesses and employees alike and it’s something I’m very proud to support – I hope as many organisations as possible in our city take it up.

Lucy Rigby is Lincoln Labour's candidate to be the city's next MP. She is a solicitor and lives in central Lincoln.

By Lucy Rigby lucyrigby

This week, the Government’s independent Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission produced its second annual report. The findings were striking. It predicted that the current decade (2010-2020) will be the first since records began without a fall in absolute levels of poverty and that younger British people are being left behind, in terms of jobs, earnings and housing.

According to the Commission, home ownership rates have halved among young people in the last 20 years and the current generation of young people are now far, far less likely to progress onto the housing ladder than their parents’ generation.

The report confirms my own experience of talking to people in Lincoln: for too many the dream of owning their own place has disappeared completely. More and more 20 and 30-somethings are living with their parents, and families are having to move further from jobs and wider family to find homes they can afford to buy or rent.

It’s a simple case of low supply and ever greater demand: not enough homes are being built to match the number needed, prices continue upwards and for more and more families, owning a home becomes unobtainable. As earnings have slumped compared to the cost of living, people have found it increasingly hard to get by, let alone save for a deposit. On top of that, David Cameron’s Government has presided over the lowest levels of house-building in peacetime since the 1920s. It’s no wonder that home ownership has declined to its lowest level in 30 years. By 2020, the average deposit for a home in the UK is set to rise to £72,000.

For all these reasons, Labour has announced significant reforms to tackle what is now a full scale housing crisis. These reforms set out a plan to meet Labour’s commitments of building 200,000 homes a year by 2020, and to double the number of first-time buyers over the next decade. Labour’s plans will also help first time buyers in Lincoln get on the ladder by ensuring that they’re given priority access rights when houses in the area go on sale.

In addition, local authorities will be able to designate new ‘Housing Growth Areas’, which will have powers to assemble land and give certainty that building will take place. They will also be able to restrict the sale of homes in these areas so they cannot be sold for buy-to-let or buy-to-leave empty properties.

In Lincoln, the Labour City Council have helped 55 first time buyers into their homes in the last year, through their mortgage support scheme. This scheme enables first time buyers buying properties worth up to £135,000 to only have to find a 5% deposit.

The City Council are also working on plans for a ‘Western Growth Corridor’ at Swanpool which could see 2,700 homes built, as well as space for new businesses, bringing new jobs and growth for our vibrant and dynamic city. I am pleased that initial environmental concerns have been overcome to the satisfaction of Environment Agency, and that the development, including the right infrastructure, transport links and facilities, can now press ahead.

Much more needs to be done to reverse years of building too few homes in Britain and to help ensure that home ownership doesn’t continue to be nothing more than a pipe dream for so many families. Labour recognises this and that’s why building homes and helping first time buyers on to the property ladder is a number one political priority.

Lucy Rigby is Lincoln Labour's candidate to be the city's next MP. She is a solicitor and lives in central Lincoln.