Commitment to the living wage should be in every manifesto

There is tussle going on inside the Conservative party apparently over whether the Tories should make a manifesto commitment to pay the lowest paid government employees the ‘living wage’.

The London living wage at £7.60 is £1.80 more than the minimum wage and better reflects the real cost of living in the capital. The ‘living wage’ campaign has been led by the Citizen’s Organising Foundation and ippr is proud to have been one of the first voluntary organisations to adopt a living wage for its staff.

An impressive array of London’s biggest employers are signed up and Boris Johnson took a truly progressive step for the Conservatives when he became Mayor of London by ensuring that City Hall and all its contractors would pay the higher rate. Now it seems David Cameron’s Head of Strategy Steve Hilton has lost a battle to introduce the living wage across Whitehall as a way of showing the Conservatives care about the poorest wage earners.

But at least there are top level Tories pushing the idea. Where is Labour on this? Despite championing the minimum wage, Labour has shied away from supporting a living wage. Now, with public finances so tight, there’s concern that it would simply be too expensive to pay cleaners, catering staff and other low paid staff a decent wage.

But low wage levels in the capital are already costing the taxpayer in tax credits and other low income supplements. With more than half of children living in poverty now living in a family where at least one parent is working, the promise to “make work pay” rings well and truly hollow. Shouldn’t hard working families be guaranteed a route out of poverty? It seems extraordinary to think that there are children living in poverty whose parents are working as cleaners, caterers and other staff in Whitehall.

In a recent poll on the Labour supporting Left Foot Forward website, the living wage came out as the most popular progressive manifesto idea.

There’ll be plenty of things that the main parties will disagree on in this election, but they should be as one in pledging that any government they run will pay its own staff a London living wage and not just a minimum wage.

Lisa Harker, co-director, ippr