National Minimum Wage Legislation

Lord Leong Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. There are a number of bodies that enforce our employment laws in the UK. Obviously, HMRC is the body that oversees the national minimum wage; my department, DBT, ensures that agency workers are well protected; and within the Home Office, we have the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. So we have three very effective regulators, which are well funded, and we continue to pursue, name and shame, and impose penalties on companies that do not respect the law.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, this year we celebrate 25 years of the national minimum wage, which was brought in by the Labour Government. It has played a vital role in protecting the UK’s lowest-paid workers. Some 524 employers were recently named and shamed for underpaying around 172,000 national minimum wage employees by nearly £16 million. Can the Minister confirm that these underpaid employees have now received all the pay that they have earned and how often sanctions beyond the standard fines are applied to repeat offenders?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

Since the introduction of the national minimum wage in 1999, the Government have ordered employers to repay over £173 million to 1.4 million workers. It is far more effective that the employers are made to pay the workers than be dragged through courts, which delays payments to workers and does not provide any respite. I am interested in the fact that this is the 25th anniversary of the national minimum wage. When this Government came to power in 2010, the number of employees on low hourly pay was 21% of the workforce; today, that is 8.9%. I also point out that, when this Government took over from Labour in 2010, benefits were the largest source of income for the poorest working-age households, but under the Conservatives it is now their wages.