A former Tory government minister voiced concern over his own party’s economic record and said it has presided over 15 years of wage stagnation.
Matt Warman, the Skegness and Boston MP, and former deputy chair of the One Nation group of Tory MPs, said at an event in February there were now two “catch-up generations”.
He was responding to a question from Professor Anand Menon, who asked if Mr Warman was concerned that the government had failed to deal with the issues of Covid-19 catch-up for children’s education.
Mr Warman said: “So I think you’re absolutely right that there is a huge – there is a ‘catch-up generation’ – if you like. And there are two generations that worry me, if you like from some political appeal point of view.
“One is, and I’m not that far away from this myself, one is people who came of age in the wake of a financial crash.
“And they are people where essentially wages stagnated for 15 years. And there are good reasons why things couldn’t have been done particularly differently or better. But it’s a hard political argument.”
Referencing the resignation of school catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins in 2021 over a lack of Covid-19 funding, Mr Warman said “there are a lot of things that we could have done with money. But there are lots of things that money couldn’t buy.”
Sir Kevan took on the role in February 2021 to help develop a plan for pupils to make up lost time on their education due to the pandemic. However he quit just a few months later as the £1.4bn cash injection from the government “falls far short of what is needed”.
The Skegness and Boston MP, who will be contesting his seat against Reform chairman Richard Tice, made the comments at Kings College London in an event hosted by think-tank UK in a Changing Europe in February.
The event took place on the same day at the Kingswood and Wellingborough by-election, in which the Conservatives suffered defeats in both seats.
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), real wages grew by an average of 33 per cent each decade from 1970 to 2007 but they are now back at the level they were at in 2005.
Analysis from the Trades Unions Congress said that real wages in the UK are still worth less than in 2008 across the vast majority of the UK.
