§ Mr. TimmsTo ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 10 March,Official Report, column 35, if he will make a statement on how the methodology set out in the note placed in the Library on 2 February 1990 was used to assess the employment consequences of a national minimum wage on the basis of the 1995 new earnings survey. [20763]
Mr. John M. TaylorThe methodology was used in the same way as set out, in detail, in the note placed in the Library of the House on 2 February 1990. The calculation incorporated the latest earnings data from the April 1995 NES and employment figures for the first quarter of 1995 from the "Workforce in Employment". This gave a figure of around 1 million jobs lost from the introduction of a national minimum wage set at £4 an hour, assuming half restoration of pay differentials.
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