Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many workers his Department estimates will be financially worse off as a result of the recent increase in the minimum wage.

The introduction of the National Living Wage on April 1^st marked a pay rise for low paid workers across the UK. Our objective is for it to reach over £9 by 2020. This means an employee aged 25 or over working full-time on the National Minimum Wage will earn over £4,200 a year more by 2020 in cash terms, or £3,800 after taking into account inflation. 2.9m low wage workers are expected to benefit directly, and up to 6m could see a pay rise as a result of a ripple effect up the earnings distribution.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that the NLW would have, in their words, only a “fractional” effect on unemployment. And taking into account the NLW, the OBR forecast that employment would rise by 1.1 million by 2020.