Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the proposed increase of the national living wage announced in the Autumn Statement 2016 on the number of people unemployed.

The Government will publish an impact assessment on the increase in the National Living Wage announced at Autumn Statement in due course.

The Low Pay Commission has recently published its autumn 2016 report here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-minimum-wage-low-pay-commission-autumn-2016-report

This considers evidence on the impact of the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage to date.

In addition, the Office for Budget Responsibility produced an assessment of the National Living Wage in annex B of its July 2015 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, available here: http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/efo/economic-fiscal-outlook-july-2015/