Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall continue with what my noble friend was saying. The Government said in Committee that their intention behind imposing a penalty on underpayment of wages was to deter wilful underpayers. If this is the case, why are they not immediately providing an exemption for those solutions where the underpayment was clearly a mistake? This refusal on the part of the Government to appreciate the difficulty that even the most careful employers have in becoming fully compliant has led to such burdens being placed on small businesses.