Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many workplace (a) inspections and (b) investigations were carried out by the (i) Employment Standards Agency Inspectorate, (ii) HMRC National Minimum Wage Enforcement Team, (iii) Health and Safety Executive and (iv) the Gangmaster Labour Abuse Authority for the yearly reporting period 2020-21.
Answered by Paul Scully
In the yearly reporting period 2020-21, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate closed 177 inspections and 1,800 investigations (complaint-based cases).
The HMRC National Minimum Wage Enforcement Team closed 2,740 cases.
The Health and Safety Executive carried out 14,880 inspections and 14,426 investigations (8,026 of which were workplace concerns raised by employees, members of the public or others; 6,189 were non-fatal accidents; 211 were fatalities). HSE also conducted over 182,700 spot checks to ensure workplace premises were Covid-secure.
The Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority carried out a total of 221 inspections (157 application inspections and 64 compliance inspections). The GLAA conducted 476 investigations in total, 380 of these were led by the GLAA and the remaining 96 were led by other agencies and supported by the GLAA.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many front-line enforcement officers there were in the (a) HMRC National Minimum Wage Enforcement Team, (b) Health and Safety Executive and (c) Gangmaster Labour Abuse Authority in 2020-21.
Answered by Paul Scully
In 2020-21 HMRC National Minimum Wage Enforcement Team had 420 full time equivalents at year end.
The Health and Safety Executive does not distinguish between ‘front line’ and non ‘front line’ enforcement roles. However, for the year 2020-21 HSE employed 953 warrant-holding staff in all grades and roles, including trainees, managers and specialists.
As of March 2021, the Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority had 63 frontline officers.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will publish the number of prosecutions for non-payment of the national minimum wage by region in Financial Year (a) 2019-20 and (b) 2020-21.
Answered by Paul Scully
This Government takes the enforcement of the minimum wage seriously. Paying the minimum wage is not optional, it’s the law.
Our priority has always been to ensure that workers receive the money they are owed as quickly as possible. It is for this reason, in the vast majority of cases, HMRC pursue civil enforcement. However, for the most egregious breaches of National Minimum Wage law, where employers are persistently non-compliant, or refuse to cooperate with HMRC, criminal prosecution may take place.
The Government published prosecution numbers for non-payment of the NMW by area in the 2019-20 Enforcement and Compliance report which can be found in Table 12 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/964238/nmw-e-c-report-tables-2019-2020.xlsx.
The figures for 2020-21 will be published in due course.