§ Mr. Barry JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what his estimate is of the number of(a) males and (b) females benefiting from the minimum wage in Wales; and if he will make a statement. [107418]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Barry Jones, dated 3 February 2000:
As the Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question regarding the number of males and females who have benefited from the national minimum wage in Wales.Definitive estimates on the number of people that have benefited from the national minimum wage are not yet available. Currently available estimates for assessing the effect take data from both the New Earnings Survey and the Labour Force Survey and adjust them for known limitations in each. However, the latest adjusted estimates are based on data for the spring (March-May) 1999 Labour Force Survey and this period spans the introduction date for the national minimum wage legislation. As a result, the adjusted estimates may be giving a misleading picture of the effect of the minimum wage legislation since employees might legitimately have been earning below the minimum wage rates in March 1999.The currently available estimates were published in an ONS First Release on 14 October and show that the number of people earning below the minimum wage rates fell significantly between 1998 and 1999. A copy of this first release is available in the House of Commons Library.