Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many employers have been prosecuted for their failure to comply with regulations relating to the National Minimum Wage in each of the last five years; and what was the outcome of each such prosecution.

Everyone who is entitled to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) should receive it.

HMRC enforce the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) in line with the law and policy set out by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The majority of NMW cases are subject to civil (non-criminal) sanctions, which include penalties of up to 200% of the arrears, and public naming.

Prosecution does not guarantee payment of arrears to workers, can be lengthy, and is expensive for the taxpayer. HMRC therefore balance recovering NMW arrears for workers as quickly as possible with the robust enforcement of NMW and prosecution is generally reserved for the most serious cases that form part of a pattern of wider criminality and are referred to the Crown Prosecution Service who decide whether or not to prosecute.

HMRC have a strong enforcement record on the NMW and since 2010-11 have completed nearly 25,000 NMW investigations, identifying over £100 million in national minimum wage arrears for over 950,000 workers and levying more than £59 million in penalties.

The table below provides a breakdown of the number of employers prosecuted for breaches of National Minimum Wage legislation and the related outcome (fine imposed, costs imposed and compensation awarded) for each of the prosecutions in the last five (2015–2020) years.

¹ Fine imposed by the court on the business.

² Court costs payable by the prosecuted individual.

³ Compensation is any sum as decided in the judgment, to be paid to the individual affected by the employer’s actions to cover any financial loss or damage the successful party has suffered.