Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-18.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full-time equivalent staff were employed by HM Revenue and Customs to enforce compliance with minimum wage legislation in each of the last 10 years.
Mr David Gauke
The Government is committed to increasing compliance with minimum wage legislation and effective enforcement of it. Everyone who is entitled to the minimum wage should receive it. Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages at current minimum wage rates but also face financial penalties of up to £20,000 per underpaid worker.
The Government has increased annual funding of National Minimum Wage enforcement by over 60% since 2010, meaning a £13.2m budget in 2015/16.
This has enabled a significant expansion of resources dedicated to enforcing the minimum wage; there are currently 237 staff (224.05 full-time equivalent) in HM Revenue and Customs’ National Minimum Wage teams, up from 171 at the start of 2014/15.
Previous years’ detail is provided in the table below:
|
Year |
Funding allocated by BIS (or predecessor departments) (£m) |
Full-time equivalent staff |
|
2006/07 |
5.8 |
Not available |
|
2007/08 |
6.8 |
Not available |
|
2008/09 |
7.6 |
139.16 |
|
2009/10 |
8.3 |
140.18 |
|
2010/11 |
8.1 |
142.18 |
|
2011/12 |
8.3 |
138.88 |
|
2012/13 |
8.3 |
142.37 |
|
2013/14 |
8.3 |
157.85 |
|
2014/15 |
9.2* |
183.47 |
*Increased in-year
