National Minimum Wage Legislation
Lord Sahota Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Sahota
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the enforcement of national minimum wage legislation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
My Lords, the Government take enforcing the minimum wage extremely seriously. We are clear that anyone entitled to be paid the minimum wage should receive it. Robust enforcement action is taken against employers who do not pay their staff correctly. Since the introduction of the national minimum wage in 1999, the Government have overseen the repayment of more than £173 million to 1.4 million workers, issued nearly £86 million in financial penalties and completed more than 87,000 investigations.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
I thank the Minister. The International Labour Organization recommends that there should be one inspector for every 10,000 workers to check that employees are being paid the minimum wage. The UK ratio is 0.4% for every 10,000 workers; that way, UK employers can expect an inspection every 500 years. That is not good enough. You only have to talk to overseas students and workers in minority communities to see how widespread the problem is. In order to stop paying the minimum wage to some employees, employers make them work 20 hours, but on the books they are paying them for only 10 hours—this is one way they get round it. We need stronger and tougher sanctions against rogue employers, so we can get on with it.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
The Government remain totally committed to the effective enforcement of employment rights and provide a lot of funding, including over £35 million this year to the existing dedicated labour market enforcement bodies. That is a 121% increase in funding since 2010, so a lot of money has gone into this area. On top of that, we provide funding of over £50 million per annum to ACAS, to support employment tribunals. We have had great success in reducing the number of companies not paying the national minimum wage.
Horizon Scandal: Psychological Support Services
Lord Sahota Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, there is help available as part of the compensation schemes for the claimants, to put their claims together and get access to lawyers and healthcare. As I said, 78% of claims have been settled. We are now dealing with the most difficult claims. In the meantime, there is a statutory inquiry going ahead, which will get to the bottom of this, and we will understand the full extent of how this sorry saga came about.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to hear the Minister say that there is no help available for mental health issues. These are the facts on the ground; I have spoken to quite a few Asian sub-postmasters, and they all said they have had some form of mental health issue—either them or their families. The reason they do not come out is because mental health has a stigma attached to it; this is why they are not talking about it. I humbly ask the Government to look into this issue, especially among Asian sub-postmasters, who do not want even to talk about it—yet they do have a problem, and quite a few of them admitted it to me.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. He has detailed knowledge of his community, who serve us all so well, and who have suffered, in some cases, some terrible racism as well. The point we have to make is a communication issue. There is absolutely no stigma to this whatever; people who have been through this trauma have undoubtedly been harmed, and we must encourage everyone in our communities, wherever they are, to come forward with a claim.
Post Office Horizon Scandal: Racism
Lord Sahota Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Sahota
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reports from sub-postmasters involved in the Post Office Horizon scandal that racism affected the way they were treated by the Post Office.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his Question. Some of the evidence that has been brought to light through Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry has been appalling and regrettable. The Government are committed to ensuring that lessons are learned and events are never repeated, but it is important that Sir Wyn is given the time and independence he needs to draw conclusions and report to Ministers on his findings.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. My heart goes out to all the sub-postmasters, whatever community they belong to, who were victims of this miscarriage of justice. I thank Balvinder Gill, who is in the Public Gallery and who has been through a horrendous experience, along with his mother. Just like Balvinder’s mother, many victims were hard-working, first-generation immigrants, who had accumulated wealth and had a good status in the community. They generally did not have a full grasp of the English language and were treated like second-class citizens by the Post Office. As the Minister will know, over 40% of sub-postmasters were from minority communities. Why was such a high percentage of Asian females prosecuted by the Post Office when, in reality, the prison population of Asian females is less than 5%?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. We are all deeply distressed by the events that have happened during this 25-year sorry saga. The noble Lord refers to one of the documents that was used by Post Office Ltd, which was released in 2023 under the Freedom of Information Act. That did have language in it using descriptors that were very much out of date and should have been updated; it was offensive language and the Post Office has now, rightly, completely changed its methodology. But, once again, Sir Wyn Williams will go into this in great detail.
Post Office Horizon Scandal: Compensation Payments
Lord Sahota Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
That is absolutely the case, and my colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, has made it very clear that we will pursue Fujitsu for its share of the compensation. It is not right that the sole payer of the compensation should be the taxpayer.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, what is the government advice to the postmasters who, due to their experience, have developed mental health problems, and received all kinds of electric shocks and so on, and are unable to work?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
The government advice is that each individual claimant must submit his or her claim, and money is available to them to take legal and medical advice. That is part of the reason why we think that, of the 477 cases, we have 58 claims—because they are more complicated—quite rightly being put together by each claimant and their advisers. When these claims are submitted, we have guaranteed that we will action 90% of them within 40 days of receipt.
Baby-changing Facilities
Lord Sahota Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, I entirely agree. In fact, my role is about regulation and reducing the amount of it. We should all agree that, by reducing regulation, business becomes easier and more productive, everybody’s salaries improve and there are increased job opportunities.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest: my wife runs a leased café in Telford. When I am not in your Lordships’ House, I help her out. I totally agree with baby-changing facilities but there should also be a public convenience because, since the severe cuts to public authority budgets in 2010, we have been short of public conveniences up and down the country. I know this for a fact because people come running into my wife’s café looking for a public convenience. There should be one funded by the local authority. I hope that the Minister agrees with me.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, I do. Most shopping centres now provide not only a full range of toilet facilities but baby-changing facilities too; that is absolutely right and proper. The planning law is operating correctly. On levelling up, £30 million has been set aside for precisely what the noble Lord wants. I am sure that we will continue to move towards a more available service.