Letter from Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds to Low Pay Commission, July 2024 (HTML version)
Published 30 July 2024
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Letter to Baroness Stroud, Chair, Low Pay Commission from Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Rt Hon Jonathan Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade and President of the Board of Trade.
30 July 2024
Dear Baroness Stroud,
We are writing in relation to the updated remit to the Low Pay Commission issued by the government this week following our election earlier this month. We have attached the updated remit to this letter.
First, we would like to extend a sincere thanks to you, your Commissioner colleagues and all those in the LPC Secretariat. Everyone in the government places great value on your expertise and your commitment to recommendations based on both evidence and consensus between business, worker and independent Commissioners.
We are committed to ensuring that the minimum wage is a genuine living wage which delivers improved living standards for working people right across the United Kingdom. We are also committed to extending the National Living Wage to all adults.
The government recognises that our ambition should be backed by evidence, and that the minimum wage rate should be consistent with delivering inclusive growth for working people and businesses alike. We are therefore asking the LPC to recommend an increased NLW rate, to apply from next April, which takes into account the cost of living, effects on employment and developments in the wider economy.
The government is committed to ensuring that every adult worker benefits from this genuine living wage, and we will remove discriminatory age bands for adults. In the interim, we ask that the Low Pay Commission recommends a National Minimum Wage rate that should apply to 18 to 20-year-olds from April 2025. This should continue to narrow the gap with the National Living Wage, taking steps year by year in order to achieve a single adult rate. This ambition should be pursued while also taking into account the effects on employment of younger workers, incentives for them to remain in training or education and the wider economy.
The remit continues to include specifications on the under 18 and apprentice rates, the accommodation offset and the research and evidence base.
We hope that this updated remit is a useful platform to build on the impressive and diligent work the LPC has carried out to date.
We, and the wider ministerial team, look forward to working closely with the Low Pay Commission, as we deliver our ambitious plan to deliver a genuine living wage for workers across the country. We look forward to meeting with you soon, and to receiving the LPC’s recommendations in October.
Yours ever,
RT HON ANGELA RAYNER MP
Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
JONATHON JONATHAN REYNOLDS MP
Secretary of State for Business and Trade