National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Lennie Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lennie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will make some brief comments and have some questions to follow. When I reread last year’s debate on this statutory instrument, it was interesting to note that the coronavirus pandemic was not mentioned once. A year later, we are in our third lockdown and Covid-19 has exacerbated existing inequalities and injustices in the labour market, in part brought about by some employers paying below the national minimum wage, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said.

In this discussion my thanks are due to my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Clark and Lady Blower and Lord Hendy. None of them is saying that this should be rejected—of course they are not; they are all saying that it should be welcomed. The debate they want to have is about the future and how the minimum wage will rise, as my noble friend Lord Liddle outlined in his interesting sectoral approach in the absence of unions and collective bargaining. We shall see what the Government make of that.

The Low Pay Commission, whose recommendations today’s welcome increases are based on, said that the impact of recent economic upheaval has affected low pay sectors more than others. We know that too many workers are still not paid the national minimum wage. The ONS said that there are over 2 million jobs where employees aged 16 and over were paid below the minimum wage in April 2020—more than four times the number a year earlier. Workers paid less than the national minimum wage are often those who are relied upon during this pandemic. They are our key workers—our essential workers. According to a recent LSE report, just under one in three independent sector care workers was paid the minimum wage in 2019, compared to around one in 14 of all UK workers.

I have some questions. As the economy begins to open up, how will the Government make sure that employers are paying the national minimum wage? Many comments have been made about enforcement, especially for those workers who we have relied on in the past year. As the labour market changes rapidly, we need confirmation of where the national minimum wage fits within the gig economy. With reference to the recent Supreme Court ruling, does the Minister want Uber drivers, and many others in the gig economy, to be entitled to be paid the national minimum wage? Should those drivers have it backdated, having not received the national minimum wage previously?

The Low Pay Commission has said that the pandemic and upheaval in the economy have disrupted many of the usual data sources on which the national minimum wage is calculated. What additional measures have the Government taken to support the commission to overcome this lack of data from its usual sources?

Finally, as the Minister said, this statutory instrument increases the period of time for which employers are required to maintain records from three years to six. How is this being communicated to businesses, especially those that may currently be closed? Are there any additional costs to businesses associated with this change?