Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether people who have been furloughed during the covid-19 outbreak who were earning the minimum wage and who have turned 21 since being part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will receive an uplift in their furlough rate to the minimum wage rate for people over 21 years of age.

The original policy design of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme aimed to sustain individuals at 80 per cent of their pre-COVID income, up to a maximum grant of £2,500 per month, and the default reference period for the CJRS is that of the pre-COVID period. For the majority of employees and employers, this means that it is not necessary to recalculate the basis of the claim. For newer employees under the extended scheme, it has simply not been possible to extend this default option, hence the reference period is necessarily different for this group. As with all decisions under the CJRS, the Government is balancing the need to support as many employers and individuals as fully as it possibly can, with the need to get the CJRS running quickly and make it easy to use.

The?National Minimum Wage is calculated?on the basis of?hours worked and/or time spent training.?Under flexible furloughing, furloughed workers will be paid National Minimum Wage for any hours the individual spends working. For hours where the employee is furloughed under the CJRS, workers will be paid the lower of 80 per cent of their reference salary, or £2,500. The terms of the scheme do allow for employers to make a top-up payment should they deem this affordable and appropriate.

If workers are required to complete training courses during the hours they are furloughed, then they must be paid at least the appropriate 2020/21 National Minimum Wage for the time spent training, even if this is more than the 80 per cent of their monthly earnings that will be subsidised.

The Chancellor has always been clear that the Government would keep the situation under review, adapting its approach as the context evolved. In January, the Government will review the CJRS policy, taking into account economic circumstances across the UK.