Labour leader Ed Miliband wooed community activists with a pledge to reward employers who adopt the living wage at a pre-election gathering yesterday.
Mr Miliband told an audience of 2,200 members of Citizens UK gathered at London’s Methodist Central Hall that if elected on Thursday, Labour would award tax breaks to companies that pay their staff a living wage. The current living wage is £7.85 an hour, or £9.15 an hour in London.
Prime Minister David Cameron decided not to attend the gathering despite having promised in 2010 – days before he was elected – that he would be at Monday’s pre-election event. The group said they were “disappointed” by Mr Cameron’s decision not to turn up. He went out instead on the campaign trail in Bath.
Citizens UK, a community organiser body of 350 faith and civil society groups inspired by Catholic social teaching, had chosen four issues to lobby the politicians on in consultation with members: ending indefinite detention and take in more UN refugees; improving social care and conditions for carers; establish a community finance fund of affordable credit using fines levied on poorly behaving banks; and paying the living wage in Whitehall and encouraging private sector employers to do the same.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Mr Miliband won cheers and applause for reiterating their parties’ pledges to end the indefinite detention at the country’s immigration removal centres, where some 30,000 people a year are held at a cost of £160m to the taxpayer. Mr Miliband said a Labour government would end detention entirely for pregnant women and victims of human trafficking.
Representatives from Citizens UK congratulated Mr Clegg and culture minister Sajid Javid, who stood in for Mr Cameron, for enacting two changes they had lobbied for at the assembly before the 2010 election – ending child detention in the immigration system, and capping the interest rates payday lenders can charge.
Mr Clegg paid tribute to Sarah Teather, the outgoing Liberal Democrat MP for Brent Central who chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees, who he said was instrumental in securing the ending of child detention. A Catholic, she is to join the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) after the election.
Mr Javid, who had been sent with the prime minister’s authority, said he could not commit to “arbitrary” time limits on detention, paying cleaners in Whitehall a living wage within five years, or Mr Cameron attending future events organised by Citizens UK. He said that the Conservatives had asked for a comprehensive independent review of Britain’s immigration estate.
Mr Clegg said it was “absolutely right” that Britain should double its intake of UN refugees, from 750 to 1500 and said that under the Liberal Democrats all government departments would pay the living wage by next April.
Organisers invited a group of cleaners who work in the government offices in Whitehall on less than the living wage to stand up. The assembly also heard from a carer who could not look after her own family on her wage of £6.50 an hour and a victim of human trafficking who had had a psychotic breakdown and attempted suicide during her 98-day detention.
Priests, imams and rabbis mingled with adults and teenagers from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. Westminster auxiliary bishop Nicholas Hudson was present along with the Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and Bishop Peter Selby, the former bishop to HM Prisons, who is to chair a Citizens UK working group on ending indefinite detention.
Through local groups across the country, members have persuaded 50,000 people to register to vote for the first time.
Revd Karen Rooms, co-chair of Nottingham Citizens, said Citizens UK, which was founded in 1989, had grown in response to a need to re-establish trust in the political process after large-scale protests such as the miners’ strikes and the 2003 march against invading Iraq had failed to change politicians’ decisions.
Mr Javid told the assembly: “Even more important than supporting the Conservatives is please, please vote. That is how you can bring about change.”
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