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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Answer of 4 May 2016 to Question 36447 and pursuant to the Answers of 1 June 2016, corrected on 8 September, 7 October and 7 December 2016, to Questions 38139, 46899 and 56533, what the reasons are for the (a) increase in employer investigations resulting in the identification of minimum wage arrears from 964 in the whole of 2015-16 to 1,420 in the first half of 2016-17 and (b) apparent growth in the number of workers for whom arrears were recovered from 58,080 in 2015-16 to 48,154 in the first half of 2016-17.

In 2015/16 we increased the National Minimum Wage (NMW) enforcement budget allocated to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) by £7m to £20m. These additional funds have allowed the recruitment of additional NMW compliance officers, so in addition to responding to every worker complaint, HMRC has been able to conduct more proactive, risked-based investigations into sectors where workers are more at risk of being underpaid.

The increasing numbers of successful cases closed by HMRC show that our continued investment in minimum wage enforcement has had a real and positive impact on the lives of some of our most vulnerable workers.