Employment Bill [HL]

I shall do my best to explain Clause 10. The Government are determined to ensure full, effective enforcement of the national minimum wage legislation that we have passed—and I know that the Committee would want such enforcement. At present, officers who enforce the national minimum wage have the power only to require the production of records, to inspect them and copy them at the employer’s premises. In the majority of cases, these powers are sufficient. In the event that compliance officers are unable to copy the material at the employer’s premises—for example, if photocopying equipment is not available or there is too much information to copy in the time available—employers often allow officers to take the material away to copy it. However, when an employer does not agree to the removal of national minimum wage records, officers do not have the right to remove these records to allow them to make copies. We have therefore concluded that the efficiency of national minimum wage enforcement would be increased if HMRC had the power to remove national minimum wage records from the employer’s premises for a reasonable time to allow them to take copies. Subsection (3) of Clause 10 provides for this. It is important for both employers and workers that records are handled properly when taken away from an employer’s premises. Compliance officers have to act in accordance with strict rules to safeguard records on HMRC premises, and consideration is being given to whether there is a need to strengthen these rules. The power to copy information in Section 14(1) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 currently allows officers to copy ““any material part”” of the records. Subsection (2) of Clause 10— [The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 7.11 to 7.21 pm.]