Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many contracts procured by her Department and its arms-length bodies require that the contractor pays those of its employees undertaking the work contracted for the real living wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation in each of the last three financial years.

The Government believes that people have the right to a higher wage and not to be punished by higher taxes. As part of this, from April 2016, we introduced a new mandatory National Living Wage (NLW) for workers aged 25 and above, and this will rise to £7.50 an hour in April 2017. We insist that employers pay at least the National Minimum Wage.