Draft Post Office Network Subsidy Scheme (Amendment) Order 2024

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Post Office Network Subsidy Scheme (Amendment) Order 2024.

It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. The draft order was laid before this House on 11 December. Under section 103 of the Postal Services Act 2000 the Secretary of State for Business and Trade has the power make payments to support the provision of the post office network. The power is subject to conditions, one of which includes the cap on the total amount of funding that can be given to the Post Office in any given financial year. The current cap, set in 2011, is £500 million and we propose to increase that to £750 million. Raising the cap on funding that can be provided to the Post Office does not reflect a funding commitment. It is simply an enabling power to allow the Government to provide appropriate funding to the Post Office when needed.

The rationale for the increased cap is simple: we must avoid a situation where the Government cannot legally provide the funding that the Post Office needs for its essential activities. As all Members will be aware, there are important areas where the Government currently provide funding to the Post Office to enable it to maintain its delivery of key services across the UK.

First, there is funding for providing redress for the victims of the Horizon scandal, one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in living history. The victims must get the justice and redress they deserve. There are a number of redress schemes to which the Government are contributing funding, as well as funding associated with delivering redress schemes. It is essential that the process is not held up at any stage.

Secondly, the Government provide significant and vital funding to support the post office network. Post offices are, of course, the beating heart of our communities. Through the network of over 11,500 branches, post offices deliver essential services across the United Kingdom. There are currently over 6,000 rural branches—54% of the total network. Over 3,000 of those are described as the last shop in the village, providing vital retail, mail, parcel and banking services in one place, helping to sustain thousands of rural communities.

Such services are hugely valuable to individuals and small and medium-sized businesses in urban and rural areas across the United Kingdom. It came as no surprise to see that in the most recent Local Shop Report from the Association of Convenience Stores, post offices are identified as a type of service considered by the public to have the “most positive impact” on a local area. The Government have provided significant financial support to sustain a nationwide network—more than £2.5 billion in funding to support the network in the past decade alone. The Government remain steadfast in their support of the network and have committed to maintain the annual £50 million subsidy to safeguard services in the uncommercial parts of the network until 2025. Without that funding, many post office branches would be unsustainable.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Minister is making a powerful case for increasing the cap to make sure that Post Office Ltd continues with the very valuable service it provides for the community. He mentioned the Horizon scandal at the start of his speech. Is it the case that the cap we are debating today is for additional services for the Post Office to maintain the standards it has at the moment, or will some of that money go to victims caught up in the Horizon scandal? Is it a bit of both or will there be separate funding exclusively for the Horizon scandal? If all the money in compensation were taken up by the increased cap amount, there will not be enough money left over to maintain the standards of Post Office Ltd.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It is, in my right hon. Friend’s words, a bit of both. It is about maintaining services, including rural services. On improving the technology, of course we need to replace the current system. It is also about compensation, and the means of delivery—the administration—of the compensation. It is important to note that not all the compensation provided—we have set a maximum budget of £1 billion for compensation—is provided through these means. There are separate means, through the group litigation order process and the new compensation process for the newly overturned convictions, which we anticipate overturning by July. They can be funded through separate means, so it is not all through this particular process, but some of it certainly is.

The Government will provide targeted investment funding to the Post Office, as the retail sector faces challenging conditions. It is still feeling the effects of changing consumer behaviour arising from covid-19, and the impact of cost of living pressures on consumer confidence arising from a range of factors, including inflation and high energy and supply chain costs, in a fiercely competitive market. As such, the Post Office is experiencing pressures as the business attempts to operate in this challenging commercial environment while meeting the cost to right the wrongs of the past.

Further pressures have also arisen through work to replace the outdated Horizon IT system. While this is a Post Office-led programme, it is essential for the future of the company and the network, and the Government have already committed to providing £103 million to support the development of the replacement system and to ensure the Horizon system is maintained before the replacement is rolled out. We provided funding to meet the company’s immediate needs for the programme and we are working closely with the Post Office to understand what funding may be required beyond this. These three areas are critical to the Post Office’s future and the current cap risks Government not being able to provide the Post Office with the funding it needs for essential activities. Having taken into account the Post Office’s current forecasts and the inflationary context since the previous cap was set in 2011, the Government considers a new cap of £750 million to be reasonable, sensible and proportionate.

Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful contribution. Many things go beyond the Bill and the independent inquiry that we are currently looking at, regarding the role and experience of our constituents in the legal system, how Government and Executive agencies function, and the evidence given to Ministers and the accountability we seek from that. A great deal has to change as a result of this. I understand his point.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being generous with his time. Does he also agree that we must look not only at how lawyers have handled this but, more importantly, at those who produced the evidence in the first place to persuade prosecutions? I hope he will agree that lessons must be learned by those who blindly said, “These people are probably guilty” and built up a case around that when, as we have found, that was not the case.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thank the right hon. Member for making those powerful points, which reflect on the nature of the evidence that was given. One of his hon. Friends has already made the point about the role of technological, computer-based evidence in the legal process. To be frank, there is also the Post Office’s approach to the data as it saw it, which I assume it believed to be a way of unveiling wrongdoing, rather than questioning that data. Most of our constituents ask, “How could the number of convictions have gone from five or six a year to 50 or 60 without that being flagged in some way?” Clearly, the powers that be—at the time—thought the data was revealing wrongdoing, rather than necessarily revealing something going wrong.

We can see from the contributions we have already had that all Members participating in today’s debate and who will participate in the Bill’s future stages are mindful that what we are saying is not only important, but might be referenced in future considerations. In that vein, let me clearly state that this legislation, although far from ideal, is the only option on the table for us to resolve this horrible injustice. But let me further state that any incoming Labour Government would never use this kind of action again. There are exceptional circumstances to this case that make it unique, rather than it being a moment to set a precedent for handling any future injustices.

The Post Office Horizon scandal took place over decades, and there is at least a decade’s worth of investigations that demonstrate the falsehoods behind many of the convictions made against sub-postmasters. That bank of evidence will only grow from the independent inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams. The challenge to righting this wrong is not a lack of clear evidence, but a sheer volume of cases that is overwhelming the appropriate route to justice through the Court of Appeal. I lament that our justice system is under such strain, and it would be remiss of me not to point out that a better serviced Criminal Cases Review Commission could have avoided the extraordinary step that we must now take.

In addition, we must also recognise that a cohort of sub-postmasters with convictions are understandably reticent to take part in another process in a criminal justice system that so badly failed them the first time around. For the purposes of the historical record, an important qualification for taking this step is the scale of cross-party support that the legislation is attracting. I have raised that point with the Minister before, and I believe it to be an essential safeguard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows]

The hon. Member has every right to disagree with me, but I come back to my main point. The Scottish legislation would have to mirror what is done here so we treat victims across the piece the same way, but there would have to be certain amendments made because of Scots law. That is my point: we cannot do it in Scotland until it is done here, so that it mirrors what has been done here.

The other point I want to make is that this has nothing to do with the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly. The whole business of Horizon arose here under Post Office Ltd, which is wholly owned by the UK Government as the single shareholder. There is therefore a logic to saying that the mess was made here, so it should be cleared up here. No matter whether there ends up being a separate Bill in Scotland with this Bill relating only to England and Wales, everyone across parties agrees that this must be sorted. The Bill is not really what we would all want to do—it is unprecedented, there are risks and so on—but at the end of the day it has to be done. The Scottish Government understand and support that, but want it done here to cover everyone.

[Shailesh Vara]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who has been very generous in giving way. She says that the Scottish Government want to see what happens here. We have heard that a Bill can be passed in three days. Once the Bill goes through this place, then in a matter of days, not weeks, it can be replicated in Scotland and passed in 72 hours. Given that the matter has been going on for years and years and years, I fail to see what the big issue is with having a few days more so that a Bill can get through in Scotland.

[Marion Fellows]

There is absolutely no guarantee that it would just be a few days more. There are the different timings of Scottish Parliament sittings and a lot of other considerations that the right hon. Gentleman will not know about and does not normally need to know about. I will be seeking to amend the Bill—I will take advice and then attempt to do what is going to be done for Northern Ireland. I am well aware that that may seem a futile exercise to some, but this is democracy and this is what has to be done from a Scottish perspective, and I am more than happy to take that on.

I would like to close with some messages that have already come out from Members across the Chamber.As a constituency MP, I first had a meeting with sub-postmasters in 2015, two months after I was elected. I had no notion of what Horizon was, or of the damage that it was doing to my sub-postmasters. Over the last almost nine years—and more recently, since “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”—I have had to listen to grown men, and also women, trying not to cry because of what the Post Office had done to them. None of them, not one, was actually charged or prosecuted. They just went on putting their own hard-earned cash into their tills so that they could open their post offices the next morning. I have pleaded with all those people, and I plead again with people across the UK who have been affected, to come forward, but the problem is the lack of trust. Those who were prosecuted are suffering, but so are those who were not. They are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. They are traumatised by what has happened to them.

I also want to raise, very briefly, the case of those who worked for partners of the post office: people who worked for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Scotmid or CJ Lang who were sacked by their employers and could not get an equivalent job, and who were depressed and ill for years as a result. We really must take those people into consideration. I understand that a Bill cannot be a magic wand and make everything go away, but I think it imperative for the House to keep at it. I agree with my right hon. Friend—and I call him that gladly—the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that we cannot impose a time limit, because it might mean that people did not receive justice or redress.

I should be happy to speak to the Minister later and catch up with all the to-ings and fro-ings between Scotland and this place, but I still stand here saying, “This is what the Scottish Government have looked at, and this is what they want, because they think it is best for the victims in Scotland.”

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It has been a privilege to sit here listening to the amazing contributions from the Secretary of State, the shadow Secretary of State—I thank the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for his kind words—and all the other Members whom we have heard from and will hear from after my own short contribution.

As we have just been reminded by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), we have been coming here time and again for years and years, often repeating ourselves—but we have to repeat ourselves: that is the point. The shadow Secretary of State talked about that powerful ITV drama, “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”, and how it prompted a public outcry. I became a Minister in February 2020, shortly after the group litigation order case that was featured towards the end of that drama, and I am pretty sure that the email Alan Bates was typing to send to the postal affairs Minister was sent to me. He was sending quite a large invoice, which I politely declined to pay at the time.

I had pages and pages of Mr Justice Fraser’s judgment to look at and reflect on. I was in a different position from my predecessors, who maybe should or maybe should not have sat there and read the runes and seen what was going on—why there were so many people involved, and why the number of prosecutions was going up and up over 20 years. What I did have were those pages of damning judgment from Mr Justice Fraser.

I think that the public outcry that arose from the ITV programme has given power to the current postal affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who has been working tirelessly. He has read out a timetable showing the incredible amount of work that he has been doing since I left that role. I know that he is a man who understands what justice and fairness look like following his experience of financial scandals such as the miscarriage of justice at HBOS Reading. He was a constant “come to me” in that role. If anyone was going to delve into this work, it was always going to be my hon. Friend. I think that the documentary helped him to pull some of the levers that junior Ministers sometimes need to pull in order to be heard, and to enable us to swim through the treacle in other Departments in order to get things done, so more power to his elbow.

That brings me to why we are doing this in the first place. The central issue is often seen as a software failure. Even in the documentary it was a deliberate dramatic plot device to show a computer sitting in the corner of the post office, blinking away like a slightly alien life force that was draining the money away. But it was not a software failure; it was a human failure. We all know that software goes wrong—we remember the millennium bug—but the problem here was group-think and people doubling down for reputational management, which was pushing back and making sure that the postmasters believed that they were the only ones experiencing these issues. We know now, and we quickly came to know, that hundreds of people were in the same position.

The fact that this was a human failure means that we need a human solution. We have to be humans first and politicians second. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw spoke of watching grown men trying not to cry. I am not the best at doing that myself, although I am not directly involved. I recently attended the presentation of the GG2 Asian awards round the corner from here, and to my surprise I saw Hasmukh Shingadia, Vijay Parekh, Vipin Patel and Seema Misra. Members may remember Seema’s story in particular; she was pregnant at the time when she was charged in West Byfleet. Those people were receiving awards and recognition, and it was lovely to see the outpouring of support for them in the room.

[Shailesh Vara]

Those are the people who received the awards, but does my hon. Friend agree that an award is due for every single sub-postmaster?

[Paul Scully]

For sure. We cannot do enough for these people. They have been cast out as pariahs in their communities. They have been charged, they have been put in prison, they have lost houses, families and health, because of a body that is ultimately owned by the state. We, as a collective body, have destroyed these people’s lives. There is not enough that we can do for them.

We are looking at what is in the Bill and at all the other compensation schemes as well, but we have to act. We are having to conduct this mass exoneration in the first place not just that the wheels of justice turn slowly, but because these people are so triggered, whether by PTSD or simply by total mistrust of the system, that they do not want to go through another process with someone in authority saying kind words, warm words, and then letting them down for the second time—or worse. It is actions, not words, on which we will be judged. When I stood up at that Dispatch Box, I knew that whatever I talked about, I could not expect the postmasters to trust me. I knew that they would trust me on the basis of my actions, and I know that my hon. Friend the current Minister feels the same way.

I welcome the Bill. It is important for us not to let perfection be the enemy of the good. Let us get this done, because we cannot come on to the second Bill and these people’s compensation until they have been exonerated—not pardoned, for they have done nothing wrong. Let us make sure that we accentuate that as well. That is why I am keen for us to rush this legislation through. Yes, we need to scrutinise it, but it is a short Bill, so we can do that quickly, and then we can get on to that life-changing money that I—that we—keep talking about, and try to restore some semblance of their lives to those whose lives have been destroyed.

This is Second Reading, and we will get into the specifics in Committee and on Report, but let me offer a few possible solutions. The solution that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) talked about earlier—bringing back judges—would at least add capacity to the system. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who is no longer in his place, previously said something similar when he said that we do not necessarily need this kind of law, which is, frankly, trampling quite a lot on the independence of the judiciary. That is why the Government had to move really carefully, which is one reason for some of the concerns raised by the Business and Trade Committee about the people who have not been able to go to appeal, or who will not be included because they have been refused leave to appeal or have failed in their appeal.

There is still more that we can do for victims of this scandal. They will be able to appeal at another time, but maybe there is something we can do, in the way that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst suggested in their contributions, to accelerate their cases and not just let them have to go through the same situation that they would otherwise have done. May I respectfully suggest that that may be the case for Scotland and, indeed, Northern Ireland? I am not an expert or a lawyer, and it is not for me to give advice, but it occurs to me that if the proposed amendment does not go through and the territorial extent stays as it is—that is for this place to judge in other stages of the Bill—perhaps there are other methods that we can use to make sure that postmasters in Scotland and Northern Ireland do not receive compensation more slowly.

We all want this to be done as quickly as possible. The postal affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, has talked about getting the majority of the compensation delivered by August. Clearly, that is not going to happen, because we have only just got this Bill through, so we will have to exonerate the postmasters. However, if we can get the Horizon shortfall scheme and the rest of the GLO largely done by that time, and restore these people’s lives to some sense of normality, then we can do the rest of it. We still have not finished, because we have to get Sir Wyn Williams’s report back and get the investigation done.

Some previous contributors to the debate said that it might take weeks or months to deliver the compensation, and that there might be complications. I remember speaking to the solicitors who represented the 555 people involved the GLO. I said, “If we gave you lots and lots of money and you distributed it, how long would it take?” The answer was about 18 months. It is about how we apportion the money and work it through—the same kinds of things that the advisory committee has been wrestling with—and the solicitors would have to do that internally. It is not a matter of giving people life-changing sums of money in one block and then everybody is okay; it is about making sure that we can work through the system, which will inevitably take time.

When I made Sir Wyn Williams’s investigation non-statutory, it was to get speed into the system to make sure that we did not have to “lawyer up”, as it was described. I always wanted money to go to the victims, not to lawyers talking about the same things again. As I say, if we can get the compensation out, we have to get the answers. We keep on talking in this place about the Horizon scandal, the infected blood scandal and any number of scandals, and I keep hearing people say that it must never happen again. Do you know what? It usually does. Why? Because we talk and talk about it, but we do not learn the true lessons or get the answers.

[Paul Scully]

As usual, my right hon. Friend is absolutely on point. In our Department, we had a number of arm’s length organisations, which is true of other Government Departments as well. They are representatives of the Government, and we elected politicians or the Government will inevitably be held accountable; if there is no direct relationship, it is very difficult to speak from the Dispatch Box with enough authority and information to be able to take that accountability.

[Shailesh Vara]

I commend my hon. Friend for a very passionate and committed speech. The point about learning lessons is crucial. I fear, as do others in this Chamber, that in the old times we would say that the file is sitting on a shelf, collecting dust; nowadays, it would be archived and just stay there. Does my hon. Friend agree that serious attention needs to be paid to ensuring that we learn from this episode and the countless other occasions when things go wrong? There needs to be some sort of set-up to make sure that other bodies—voluntary organisations or those at arm’s length—actually take on board what has been said.

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely; that is a really good case in point. I hope my right hon. Friend will be in the next Parliament to help drive this through. I have said I am stepping down, so I will not see Sir Wyn Williams’s final report—not from these Benches, anyway. I hope the House takes it to heart and drives through the lessons learned.

I recommend a book by Matthew Syed, called “Black Box Thinking”. He compares accidents in the NHS with accidents and near accidents in the airline industry. With aircraft, even just a near miss gets learned from not only by the airline in question; it has to be passed on to every airline in the world. There is a collective sense of learning in the industry.

Post Office Legislation

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Before I respond to it, I would like to put on the record my deep disappointment at the Minister’s comments this morning on “BBC Breakfast”. He failed to categorically condemn the Tory party donor Frank Hester’s horrific and racist remarks about the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). Despite No. 10 finally, after much delay, describing the remarks as “racist and wrong”, the Minister appeared to contradict that position this morning.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a statement on Post Office legislation. May I respectfully say that what the hon. Lady is saying is irrelevant to this statement?

[Mr Speaker]

The shadow Minister will be moving on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The figure the right hon. Gentleman uses and the document he references, which I was unaware he had, are interesting. Me being me, I had not read that line, although my previous comments might indicate that I had because I mentioned that exact figure. I am not afraid to be transparent or accountable for any of the delivery of these compensation schemes.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on all that he is doing, working night and day to bring this painful issue to a conclusion for the many postmasters and their families who have suffered so much over so many years. Where people do not accept the fixed offer but wish to pursue an individual claim, may I seek his assurance that such claims will be treated expeditiously, and that resources will be made available to deal with those claims quickly and efficiently? Will he also give an assurance that claimants will have a named individual responsible for their file, rather than whoever happens to pick up the file on a specific day?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and can absolutely give him the assurance he seeks. A fixed-sum award is only one route; it is not right for everybody. Some people have higher levels of claims, and we will support them where we can. In my remarks, I announced new measures we are using to do that, including a pilot scheme where expert reports are not required. That should significantly abbreviate the timescale between being able to submit a claim and getting a response. As for expediting in this area, in the GLO scheme we set a target that in 90% of cases we would respond to a final claim within 40 days. Currently, we are on 87% against that measure, so we are delivering this more quickly. He makes an interesting point about a named claim manager or something along those lines, and, if I may, I will take that away with me.

Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Harris. This statutory instrument will help to ensure that so-called live-in domestic workers will be paid at least the national minimum wage for the time that they are working.

The live-in domestic worker exemption was created as part of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 and provides that work done by a worker residing in the employer’s family home and treated as a member of the family is not “work” for the purposes of the national minimum wage, and therefore the individual does not have to be paid the national minimum wage. The exemption was originally created mainly for au pairs so that they could gain experience of cultural exchange through living—and being part of a family—in the UK, although the legislation covers other types of domestic workers as well.

Currently, the National Minimum Wage Regulations state that workers do not need to be paid the minimum wage if they live with their employer and are genuinely treated as part of the family. Such treatment is particularly expressed in the provision of living accommodation and meals, and the sharing of tasks and leisure activities. The exemption is not compatible with most jobs, and it is hard to prove whether someone is or is not being treated as a family member.

The removal of the exemption will remove the inequality facing these workers, who are more likely to be migrant workers and women. In 2016, an employment tribunal judgment considered whether the exemption indirectly discriminated against women. The tribunal found that the exemption had given rise to unjustified indirect discrimination, and thus the exemption was disapplied in this case.

After the employment tribunal judgment on live-in domestic workers was published, the Government asked the Low Pay Commission to conduct research on low-paid live-in domestic workers. In 2021, the commission published its report into the live-in domestic worker exemption and, during the gathering of that research, it concluded that the exemption should be removed.

The Low Pay Commission heard evidence of employers using the exemption to exploit domestic workers, often non-British nationals, who were required to work long hours and not being truly treated as members of the family. The commission found that the exemption has rarely been used for its intended main purpose, as, in practice, there are now few au pairs in the UK, and it provided a clear recommendation to Government that the exemption should be removed.

The Government accepted the recommendations and announced in March 2022 that the live-in worker domestic exemption would be removed. During that period, the employment tribunal decision was appealed, and the Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed in 2023 that the exemption should be disapplied. Those decisions established the removal of the exemption as a matter of case law.

Taking into account the existing case law, and under the more general legislation, live-in domestic workers have reasonable arguments that they are entitled to be paid the national minimum wage. However, that is not a matter of certainty. Therefore, with our National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations, we are putting the matter beyond doubt by amending the regulations to remove the exemption, from the date that this measure comes into force.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I welcome the measure that he is putting forward. He will appreciate that many of these people are in a vulnerable position, with a powerful employer living on the premises. Notwithstanding this legislation going through, is the Department proposing to keep a watchful eye to ensure that employers are doing what they are supposed to do and abiding by these rules, so that it is not simply a question of “business as usual”?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend makes a strong point on enforcement. Legislation without implementation is pretty much a waste of time, so he is absolutely right to identify that. I will come on in a moment to talk about what His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs does to act on complaints—even anonymous complaints. It can investigate those kinds of complaints to ensure that people are following the rules.

These amendment regulations remove uncertainty and the risk of accidental national minimum wage non-compliance within this workforce. The regulations need to be put forward to ensure that the workers and families who hire these workers are able to clearly understand the national minimum wage laws for live-in domestic workers. As the workers will be entitled to the national living wage and minimum wage, I would like to remind the Committee of the achievements of the national living and minimum wage and the new 2024 rates. On 1 April 2024, the Government will increase the national living wage for workers aged 21 and over by 9.8% to £11.44 an hour. We are pleased to confirm that that record cash increase of £1.02 per hour means that in 2024 we will hit the target for the national living wage to equal two thirds of median earnings for those aged 21 and over. That will end low hourly pay for this group.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire referred to enforcement. HMRC enforces the national minimum wage in line with the law and policy set by the Department for Business and Trade. HMRC follows up on every worker complaint it receives, even those that are anonymous. That includes complaints made to the ACAS helpline via its online complaint form and those received from other sources. The policy will ensure that all work is treated fairly, and will end the misuse of the exemption to exploit workers, particularly migrant women. The overwhelming majority of workers covered by the exemption are employed by families, not by businesses. The impact on business will therefore be negligible.

Through the national minimum wage and national living wage, the Government protect the lowest paid in our society. Protecting workers’ rights, especially those of vulnerable workers, is a priority of this Government, and we have taken action to remove this exemption. That does not remove the right to have a live-in domestic worker such as an au pair, or other domestic staff; it just means that they will have to be paid at least the national minimum wage. This is the right thing to do to help protect these vulnerable workers and make it clear that our legislation affects the case law on this issue.