Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diana Johnson and Nick Boles

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

4. How many apprentices aged 16 to 18 are paid the apprentice minimum wage.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

The 2014 apprenticeship pay survey found that 76% of 16 to 18-year-old apprentices were paid at or above the minimum amount. On average, they were paid a basic hourly rate of £4.34.

[Diana Johnson]

Non-compliance with apprenticeship minimum wage is highest in the sectors that young women traditionally go into, such as hairdressing and child care. I think that with hairdressing a third do not receive the minimum wage and with child care it is a quarter. There are obviously issues there around gender inequality as well as poverty pay, so will the Minister tell us what he is going to do about them?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady is quite right to say that it is perhaps especially unacceptable that this should impact on women in particular, although it is always unacceptable for an employer not to pay the national minimum wage. That is why we have increased the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs enforcement budget from £8 million in 2013-14 to £9 million this year and to £12 million next year. In 2013, we introduced the naming and shaming of those companies found not to pay the minimum wage. We repeated that last week and have now named and shamed 92 employers. We will continue to do that and I will make sure that we look particularly at cases where young women are affected.