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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to end non-compliance with the national minimum wage and other breaches of employers’ duty of care.

The Government is committed to increasing compliance with National Minimum Wage (NMW) legislation and the effective enforcement of it. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) respond to every complaint they receive and conducts risk-based enforcement in sectors or areas where there is perceived to be a higher risk of workers not being paid the legal minimum wage.

In 2015/16 HMRC identified £10.3m or arrears owed to over 58,000 workers, and this year we have increased the NMW enforcement budget to £20m, up from £13m in 2015/16. We have also made penalties tougher, so that non-compliant employers now face a penalty equivalent to 200% of the arrears they owe, up to a maximum penalty of £20,000 per worker.

Employers are named publically under the Government’s NMW naming scheme for non-payment. To date, 687 employers have been named and shamed, owing combined arrears of more than £3.5 million.