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PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Minimum Wage (14 July 2014)

Question Asked

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many employers were found by HM Revenue and Customs to have paid the minimum wage in each of the last six financial years.

Asked by:
Emily Thornberry (Labour)

Answer

The Government takes the enforcement of National Minimum Wage (NMW) very seriously and HMRC enforce NMW legislation on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and has done so since the introduction of NMW in April 1999.

The vast majority of employers obey the law and pay their employees at least the national minimum wage.

HMRC investigates all complaints made about employers suspected of not paying the minimum wage, in addition to carrying out targeted enforcement where it identifies a high risk of non-payment of NMW across the whole of the UK.

The number of penalties issued for non-payment of National Minimum Wage for the timescales requested is set out below:

Financial year

Penalties issued

Penalties amount

2008/09

N/A*

N/A*

2009/10

381

£111,183

2010/11

934

£520,568

2011/12

906

£766,807

2012/13

708

£776,517

2013/14

652

£815,269

*Civil penalties were introduced on 6 April 2009 for employers who are found to have underpaid their workers.

I refer the honourable member to my response of 6 May 2014, Hansard Column 110W. In 2008/09, there were 4317 complete inspections with 1746 incidences of non-compliance.

In all years, the remaining investigations did not highlight sufficient evidence to prove non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage Act.


Answered by:
Mr David Gauke (Independent)
12 September 2014

Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.