A Tory MP who was yesterday made a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) once claimed to know what it was like to live on a zero hours contact…because he was a £250-an-hour barrister.

Speaking in a Parliamentary debate in 2013, Guy Opperman said:

“It is right that we debate issues of low pay and the nature of contracts in this House. I should make a declaration, Mr Speaker, that as a former barrister I was unquestionably on a zero hours contact in that I was an employee not obliged to be given work by my employer and in that particular circumstance I had to accept though.”

Labour MP Alison McGovern challenged the out-of-touch Tory by telling him about the experience of a real zero hours worker and asked him to try to “identify with that experience, perhaps not in his own life, but in reality, in our economy now.”

To the disbelief of MPs, Opperman replied:

“As a barrister, I spent two and a half years without a contract. With respect, I therefore suggest I do have some experience of that, with no contract whatsoever.”

There are currently 905,000 people working on zero hour contracts – up by 101,000 from a year earlier and 737,000 since the Tories took power in 2010.

They must be so proud to see one of their own at the heart of government…