The thread is titled "More Tory Lies", not about the minimum wage, I am simply pointing out that the Left lie just as much. But you will never accept it, just like you will not accept referendum results.

On this minimum wage issue I think common sense has prevailed by changing it to 'if economic conditions allow'.

The minimum wage in the UK has been a pretty impressive success, considering how when Blair brought it in the Tories and right wing media were saying it would send unemployment through the roof. We've managed to maintain it whilst having relatively low unemployment for the best part of two decades now, barring a spike after the financial crisis.

Part of the reason it's been like this is because until fairly recently, the minimum wage rate-setting was kept out of the realm of politics. The government appoints independent experts, the Low Pay Commission, which has leading labour market economists on it, they analyse the labour market across all regions and sectors and come up with a recommendation every year to government as to what is the highest minimum wage rate that could be set without risking higher unemployment.

In the past few years, first George Osborne and now Sajid Javid have got in to making these pledges about the rate at which the minimum wage will increase, regardless of whether the economy can support it. If we go in to a downturn after Brexit its going to be madness to be pushing up the minimum wage when firms are already having to lay staff off. It's far better to just say we'll follow the recommendations from the experts in the LPC and have that as your minimum wage policy.

The other point about the minimum wage is it's not as big a poverty reducer at household level as people think. A lot of the people on the minimum wage are second earners in middle-income or higher households. The lowest income households are ones where people are out of work or on part time hours or insecure/contract work, especially when they have periods between having paid work available and the benefit system is too slow moving to stop them having large periods with no income.

I support the minimum wage but it's not the key to solving the food bank problem and not worth risking higher unemployment in an arms race of who can target a higher rate.

If they claim to be the party of the working class why remove the protections granted by the EU from the withdrawal agreement. I doubt they did this to strengthen worker’s rights but those who voted for the Conservatives will deserve all they receive it is those who didn’t I feel sorry for.

I think you are wrong - this is all part of us controlling our law making - why should we be dictated to by the EU as what any of our laws should be?

We already have better workers provisions than the EU do you think eroding them is going to help the Tories win the next election? You on the left would have been very happy for Corbyn to trash the economy - doubt you would had much sympathy for those on right who voted against Labour if the result had been the other way round. You lefties know what's best for the rest of us

No we don’t but we do know that it is business that funds the Conservatives and if they want to produce inward investment then a reduction in worker’s right will be a starting point. With the current majority I doubt they care about what their new supporters think. They have previously muted the reduction in rights but whatever happens he will lie about it, I guess it depends how many continue to believe him.

Anybody who has worked in road transport will tell that workers rights ,especially for drivers, have gone down hill for the last twenty odd years ,ever since the EU Driving Time Directive came in.
The Working Time Directive re normal jobs is not all it is made out to be & in a legal sense has eroded some of the rights to breaks etc that were in force prior to the WTD.

Its business that funds the economy - if you want to produce inward investment then you need to find competitive sources of investment capital. There also needs to be a rebalancing of the council tax/business rates. Why should business bear a big chunk of these costs - business has to pay extra if they want their bins emptying!!.

The Tories have never muted a reduction in workers rights - what they have muted is a reduction in the administration of employing people - no bad thing in my view. It would be electoral suicide to reduce workers rights.

You are a very sore loser - nobody told more lies in the campaign than Labour - shame you refuse to accept that.

I completely disagree - breaks are strictly controlled and adhered to by the use of Tacho's - operators run the risk of losing their O Licence if they flaunt the rules.

Well we did have tachos before Europe became involved & maximum working days of 11 hours with up to 3 optional half hour breaks on top & no more than 2 x 10 hour drives per week.

But now because of its position on Brexit the government has to face both ways with business.

The business community has been saying for the past 3 years that their priority is to avoid additional costs of doing business with the EU: avoid tariffs, non-tariff barriers like regulatory checks and rules of origin. Hence the arguments for staying within the single market and/or customs union. Outside those there will be a lot more paperwork involved which for small businesses that can't centralise and create dedicated teams to deal with it could very quickly become prohibitive and destroy margins. For NI businesses that do trade with mainland GB this is going to be a major problem now there will be checks down that border.

The government however is taking the line that they won't listen to business on this, because the people want to leave the single market / customs union. Fair enough. But its inconsistent to take that position and then start championing slashing employment rights, consumer rights and so on, by saying it's important to help businesses and businesses fund the economy so we have to listen to them. The CBI/FBS has been lobbying much harder about not facing trade costs than they have to deregulate workers rights, consumer rights, product standards and so on!

One of the big ironies is that after David Cameron's big drive to reduce red tape for business, the largest increase in red tape could come over the next year under a Tory government because of the red tape associated with Brexit