Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) is right that too many employers still think they can opt out of paying the minimum wage. Earlier this week, the Low Pay Commission published its 2023 report, which said that non-compliance “appears persistent” in the social care sector. I have heard a range of evidence citing problems with record keeping, exploitation of migrant workers, and workers routinely not being paid for travel time.

It is clear that the social care sector has a real issue with the minimum wage but, when browsing through the latest naming and shaming list published by the Department a couple of week ago, I found only 17 employers classed as being within the social care sector, which is less than 0.1% of the total number of employers in the sector. What will the Minister do to ensure that everyone working in the social care sector gets at least the minimum wage?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue, on which we do much. For example, we make sure that people can anonymously report the underpayment of the national living wage through either His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or ACAS. It is really important that we do that. We have labour market enforcement undertakings and orders, and we provide the tools for serious cases. As of April 2022, 40 employers were on labour market enforcement undertakings and 18 employers have been prosecuted. The message should be loud and clear to employers that if they do not comply with the law, we will take action.