Minimum Wage

(asked on 8th January 2020) - View Source

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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to increase the incentives for firms to comply with paying the National Minimum Wage.


This question was answered on 16th January 2020

The Government is committed to ensuring employers correctly pay the National Minimum Wage (NMW). We recognise that as the minimum wage increases, so too does the risk of non-compliance. This is why we have doubled the compliance and enforcement budget to £27.4 million for 2019/20, up from £13.2 million in 2015/16. Last year was a record year for NMW enforcement, HMRC identified £24.4 million in minimum wage underpayment for over 220,000 workers.

Our enforcement approach is designed to strike a balance between promoting compliance with the NMW whilst deterring future cases of underpayment. HMRC uses a variety of methods to achieve this, working with employers and workers to raise awareness of NMW rules and, in instances of underpayment, using sanctions to deter future non-compliance.

We regularly review and adapt our approach to address particular issues around non-compliance and will continue to do so.

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