Ian Murray MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Trade and Investment, responding to comments today on the National Minimum Wage, said:

“The last Labour Government lifted over a million children out of poverty, helped thousands of families into work, built children’s centres and introduced child and working tax credit to make work pay. But under David Cameron child poverty is forecast to rise, not fall.

“Labour’s pledge to raise the National Minimum Wage to £8 in 2019 is good news for millions of people across the country. To suggest otherwise is plainly absurd. We are the party that introduced the minimum wage and Labour is the only major party with a plan to strengthen it further.

“The National Minimum Wage rose under the last Labour government, but since 2010 we’ve seen its value eroded as earnings have been hit by the cost-of-living crisis.

"Labour’s plans would see an £8 minimum wage before 2020 - rising more than twice as fast as under the Tory-led government. Our policy will set an ambitious target for the minimum wage to reach a higher percentage of median earnings than it has ever reached before. Our proposed target of 58 per cent of median earnings was voted against by the Tory-led Government this week.”

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