Boris Johnson is reportedly planning to increase the minimum wage in the UK in order to move the country towards a “high wage, high skill, high productivity economy” as the gradual recovery from the coronavirus pandemic continues.
Mr Johnson gave his address to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Wednesday, delivering a speech loaded with fruity turns of phrase, knowing historical allusions and jokes at the expense of his Cabinet colleagues but light on new policy, on the same day that his government’s cuts to Universal Credit came into effect.
That decision sees an estimated 6m unemployed and low-paid workers losing out on £20 a week in benefits after an “uplift” was introduced at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak last March to support families when lockdown sparked a wave of redundancies, furlough and lost income.
Under pressure to reverse the cut from political rivals and charities, who warned of dire consequences like 500,000 people, including 200,000 children, being driven into poverty, Mr Johnson’s administration remained unmoved, insisting it is employers paying higher wages, not claimants receiving taxpayer-funded benefit rises, that will put Britain back on its feet after being blasted by the “fiscal meteorite” of the coronavirus.
His deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, repeated the message in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday morning, declaring: “As we come through the pandemic, with youth unemployment going down, employment going up, we need to transition. We don’t want to see people reliant on the welfare trap.”
Mr Raab also spoke of a need to wean Britain away from the “cheap drug of unskilled labour from abroad” in the wake of Brexit, suggesting more enticing salaries was the key to making the most of the UK’s native workforce.
Those remarks coincided with the publication of a story in The Times suggesting Mr Johnson is only weeks away from signing-off on a minimum wage rise.
The newspaper reported that the lowest earners on the National Living Wage, paid to those over the age of 23, could soon receive £9.42 an hour, an increase of just over five per cent.
Currently, the minimum wage rate is £8.91 per hour for those 23 and over, £8.36 for those aged 21-22, £6.56 for those aged 18-20, £4.62 for under 18s and £4.30 for apprentices.
The rates usually change on 1 April every year.
Any increase would be to the above, which is set by the government, as opposed to the voluntary Living Wage, which is set by the Living Wage Foundation and currently stands at £10.85 for London-based workers and £9.50 for those living anywhere else in the UK.
Pressed about the possible hike in the hourly floor rate by ITV News ahead of his conference speech, the prime minister did not rule out a minimum wage rise, saying: “We will take guidance from the Low Pay Commission, and we will see where we get to.”
That advisory body is set to submit its proposals to the government by the end of October and previously trailed that same £9.42 per hour figure in a report published earlier this year.
“We are dealing with the biggest underlying issues of our economy and society. The problems that no government has had the guts to tackle before,” Mr Johnson said during his speech, determined to articulate his “levelling up” agenda and paint a positive picture of post-Brexit Britain.
How persuaded you were rather depended on your willingness to overlook the Universal Credit cut, increased National Insurance demands, empty supermarket shelves, queues at the petrol pump and a looming cost of living crisis placing millions of people up against it as the cold winter nights draw in, almost none of which the PM deigned to mention during his latest comic turn in Manchester.
