This year’s pre-conference rumours gave unusual prominence to the minimum wage. After the consensus reached in the late 2000s, leading thinkers in all parties have begun to argue that it’s time for the system to be strengthened. There were even suggestions that the Conservatives planned to announce an increase in the minimum wage at their conference. With as much as a fifth of the UK workforce now struggling on low pay, the problem has become too big to ignore.
So how is the battle shaping up now that party conferences are underway? Last week the Lib Dems fired the first shots with Vince Cable’s announcement that he will strengthen today’s minimum wage settlement in a number of ways. In Cable’s speech itself there were few details, with the Business Secretary saying only that he had “asked the Low Pay Commission to advise how we might achieve a higher minimum wage without damaging employment”. But later, at a Resolution Foundation event, he broke this down into three specific and interesting ideas. They raise the bar that Labour needs to clear next week if it is to show its commitment to tackling low pay.
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