Asked by: Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Henley on 11 April 2019 (HL15230), how many agencies employing careworkers are paying the costs of such workers for their travel between clients; and what steps they take to ensure that care agencies pay staff appropriate renumeration for any time spent travelling between appointments.
Answered by Lord Duncan of Springbank
The law is clear that for care workers, and other workers, time spent travelling between assignments counts as time worked for National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage (NMW) purposes. Furthermore, the Government issued statutory guidance supporting the implementation of the Care Act which specifies; “Remuneration must be at least sufficient to comply with the NMW legislation for hourly pay or equivalent salary. This will include appropriate remuneration for any time spent travelling between appointments.”
The Government has more than doubled the NMW compliance and enforcement budget to £27.4 million for 2019/20, up from £13.2 million in 2015/16. HMRC utilise those resources to follow up on every worker complaint received and to undertake proactive investigations. Last year (2018/19), HMRC identified over £6 million in minimum wage arrears within the Human Health and Social Work sector, owed to over 27,000 workers. This includes, but is not limited to, arrears relating to travel time.
Workers can call the ACAS helpline for free, confidential advice about their rights and entitlements. If they want to make a complaint through HMRC, they can do so in complete confidence, either via ACAS or using the online complaints form on GOV.UK. HMRC will protect their anonymity throughout the investigation.
Asked by: Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to check whether agencies employing careworkers are paying the costs of such workers for their travel between clients.
Answered by Lord Henley
Time spent travelling from one client to another counts as time worked for minimum wage purposes, and the Government is clear that everyone entitled to the National Minimum and Living Wage (NMW) should receive it. Since 2015, the Government has almost doubled the budget for enforcing the NMW to £26.3 million, a record high.
Anyone who feels they are not receiving the NMW should contact the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), who provide free, impartial information and advice on all aspects of workplace relations and employment law. Where appropriate, Acas can pass on complaints to HMRC for enforcement; HMRC follow up on all complaints received from workers about possible NMW underpayment.
Asked by: Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their response to the proposal by the Mayor of London to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that a new public register of foreign ownership of properties be established, to combat their use for tax evasion, theft and terrorist activities.
Answered by Lord Henley
The dataset containing title records of properties in England and Wales registered to companies incorporated outside the UK is already available to the public. The government made HM Land Registry’s Overseas Companies Ownership Data available for free for the first time on 7 November 2017.
The Government is committed to establish the new public register of beneficial ownership of overseas entities that own property in the UK and recently issued a written ministerial statement to confirm the timetable for implementation (HLWS417).
This register will be the first of its kind in the world. We need to make sure the new requirements are workable, proportionate and that the register strikes the right balance between improving transparency and minimising burdens on legitimate commercial activity.