Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 45


     
     1        correct?"  Answer, "Absolutely."  So, he is not saying, it
     2        is absolute minimum is what they are trying to raise
     3        standards in society, and nothing should fall below that.
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  None of these documents gave the kind of
     6        figures which used to appear in broad sheets 25 years ago,
     7        which gave comparisons between those at the bottom of the
     8        pay scale and shows who, in those days, were thought to be
     9        near the top.  Things have changed, because one of the jobs
    10        they took of the people being near the top, not that I am
    11        complaining for a moment about my salary, but they picked
    12        judges as those amongst the highest paid, 25 years ago, but
    13        what the theme of it was, if you compared us with a
    14        Scandinavian country, their comparison might be something
    15        like six.  We have managed to creep into something like
    16        single figures, and it was thought to be socially a good
    17        thing.  They disappeared from the face of my broad sheets
    18        in the last few years and I have a shrewd suspicion that
    19        that is because the gap has been growing rather than
    20        getting smaller any longer, but nothing in any of the
    21        documents in this case does any kind of comparison like
    22        that.
    23
    24   MR. MORRIS:   No.
    25
    26   MR. MORRIS:   Anyway, by page 36, line 45, Mr. Pearson says that
    27        he now says the figure for low paid is 9.8 million, the
    28        current estimate, in this country, so the numbers on low
    29        paid are going up.  9.8 million people.
    30
    31   MR JUSTICE BELL:  What did he compare that with?
    32
    33   MR. MORRIS:   The seven million, as he said in 1984, 1995, had
    34        now gone up to 9.8 million.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Does that include unemployed?
    37
    38   MR. MORRIS:   No.  Let me have a look.  You said in 1984 there
    39        was some seven million on low wages.  Would there be an
    40        equivalent figure for now?  9.8 million is the current
    41        estimate.  He calculates, at the bottom of the page, he
    42        says, page 36, that approximately 2.3 million out of 24
    43        million workers in Britain were protected by the wages
    44        councils, so it looks like he is calculating it on a basis
    45        of 24 million workers, 9.8 million low paid, 2.3 million of
    46        which had specific wage councils protection.  Obviously,
    47        the ones that are higher paid tend to be lesser numbers, as
    48        the higher up the page you get the less numbers people who
    49        get those higher pays, so it is not as if there is 9.8
    50        million low paid and 9.8 million high paid and some in the
    51        middle, it is a pyramid effect.  And unfortunately the ones
    52        with the lowest pay are also the most numerous.
    53
    54        He said on page 37, line 16, catering is one of those
    55        sectors which is recognised as being low paid.  One of the
    56        reasons why in 1946 the wages councils were established in
    57        the catering industry was because of low pay.  They were
    58        still needed in my opinion in August 1993 when the minimum
    59        wages were abolished.  It was significant that nearly half
    60        of the workforce covered by the wages councils were

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