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National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) Regulations 2006

I am standing in for my noble friend Lord Razzall who is unfortunately unable to be here. I shall make some brief comments. We are, as a party, committed to narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, rather than allowing it to spread. We recognise that the origin of Labour’s commitment to reintroduce the minimum wage was the failure of the wage councils under the previous Conservative Government to keep rates of pay in different sectors up with inflation. We therefore welcome in principle this effort to introduce and maintain a floor. However, we wonder whether a national minimum wage is necessarily the way forward in the long term. Living between London and Yorkshire, and doing as much of my large item shopping in Yorkshire as I can because prices are a great deal lower there than in London—and rent and property cost a great deal less in Yorkshire than London—I am conscious that a minimum wage enabling you to live moderately well in Yorkshire hardly allows you to live at all in London. In its review of the future of the national minimum wage, are the Government now contemplating moving towards a greater geographical, and perhaps sectoral, variability?