Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether employers named and shamed by his Department on 5 February 2016 for non-payment of the national minimum wage and found to be owing arrears to a select number of employees subsequently had their whole workforce investigated by HM Revenue and Customs to ascertain if the same practice applied to all other workers employed.

Nick Boles

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) fully investigate all worker complaints and where they identify arrears of pay, issue a Notice of Underpayment to recover arrears for the complainant. Since 2015, HMRC have also instructed the employer to "self-correct" for all other workers and report the details to HMRC. An assurance process is in place to make sure employers have fully self-corrected. If they do not, and HMRC believes other workers are likely to have been underpaid, the employer will be investigated again.

HMRC are unable to provide an exact figure for how many of the 92 employers have been investigated beyond the original complaint. The information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.