National Minimum Wage

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, the naming and shaming scheme, as the House will know, came into effect on 1 October 2013. The new rules are part of the Government’s efforts to toughen enforcement of the national minimum wage and to increase compliance. By naming and shaming employers, it is hoped that bad publicity will be an additional deterrent to employers who would otherwise be tempted not to pay the national minimum wage. The Government have accepted the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation of the first real increase since 2007. We welcome its assessment, and 2014 could mark the start of a new phase of bigger real increases in the minimum wage.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that what matters is not the minimum wage but how much of your wage you take home in pay? Is not the Chancellor to be congratulated on implementing the policy of raising the tax threshold so that more of that money is kept—a policy, incidentally, first put forward by my noble friend Lord Saatchi some years ago but which, rather like pedestrian crossings in a constituency, has been hijacked by the Liberal party?