Boris Johnson expected to reveal ‘national living wage’ hike
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce plans to raise wages for the country’s lowest paid earners to around £9.42 per hour.
The increase will boost the pay of minimum wage workers over the age of 23 by around 5.7 per cent, more than double the previous increase of 2.2 per cent in April 2021 which upped the national living wage to its current rate of £8.91 per hour.
Following the changes someone working a 35 hour week would take home an additional £928 per year before tax.
Johnson is primed to accept the recommendations of independent advisers who are calling for the increase and may tease the policy at the Conservative party conference The Times first reported.
Mr Johnson will say: “we are not going back to the same old broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration.
“After decades of drift and dither, this reforming government, this can-do government that got Brexit done, is getting the vaccine rollout done and is going to get social care done,” he will assure listeners.
When pressed about the matter on ITV News yesterday, Johnson was ambiguous on the issue of pay, but confirmed the government “will take guidance from the low pay commission, and we will see where we get to.”
Recommendations for the minimum wage are made by the Low Pay Commission, an independent expert advisory body which is due to submit its proposals for the coming year later this month.
In a report in April the commission estimated that its 2022 recommendation would be an increase to £9.42 an hour and reportedly this figure could climb higher.