Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of the level of compliance of businesses with payment of the National Living Wage.

The Government is committed to cracking down on employers who fail to pay the minimum wage. We are clear that anyone entitled to be paid the minimum wage should receive it.

We set out our assessment of non-compliance with the National Living Wage (NLW) and National Minimum Wage (NMW) in BEIS’ NMW Enforcement and Compliance Report. In 2019, approximately 1.5% of all UK employee jobs were paid below the relevant minimum wage rate. Updated estimates for 2020 will be provided in our next iteration of the report, which will be published in due course.

The Government remains committed to enforcing the minimum wage. We have more than doubled the budget for the minimum wage enforcement and compliance (rising to £27.5 million for 2020/21, up from £13.2 million in 2015/16), and continue to demonstrate good progress in enforcing workers’ entitlement to the minimum wage.