Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to encourage businesses to pay the voluntary living wage.

The National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates are the legal minimums that employers must pay their workers. The government welcomes employers opting to pay more than this when they can afford to do so, including the Living Wage Foundation’s voluntary rate.

The key thing we can do as a country to increase the average wages of employees, and to ensure more businesses can pay higher wages, is to increase productivity. To address this the government is investing in infrastructure, Research & Development and skills, including the £23bn National Productivity Investment Fund.