§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville)My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers, Gerry Sutcliffe, has made the following Statement.
The Government have placed in the Libraries of the House the latest tables showing the estimated number of workers who have benefited directly from the national minimum wage between its introduction and the next uprating in October 2004. Members of Parliament wishing to know the number of beneficiaries in each area of the UK over this period are advised to consult this information. The information can also be found on the Department of Trade and Industry's website at www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar. The information will be updated 57WS every six months to take account of future increases to minimum wage rates and the release of new data from the Office for National Statistics.
I am also attaching below a regional breakdown of the number of people who are expected to receive a pay rise as a direct result of the forthcoming increase in minimum wage rates in October 2004.
Number of jobs that stand to benefit from the forthcoming October 2004 NM W uprating by region North East 110,000–120,000 North West 210,000–240,000 Yorkshire and Humberside 180,000–210,000 East Midlands 150,000–180.000 West Midlands 150,000–190,000 Eastern 130,000–160,000 London 80,000–100,000 South East 150,000–170,000 South West 140,000–170,000 Wales 90,000–110,000 Scotland 160,000–190,000 Northern Ireland 40,000–50,000 UK 1,600,000–1,900,000 Source:
DTI estimates based on ONS's spring 2003 central estimates of low pay, Labour Force Survey and New Earnings Survey.
Note:
These data are based on 10p pay bands from the ONS central estimates and take account of earnings and prices inflation between the period Spring 2003 and October 2004; uprating from £3.80 to £4.10 for 18–21 year olds and from £4.50 to £4.85 for those 22 and over.
The DTI and the ONS do not possess any information on the number of workers who have benefited from the national minimum wage by constituency.