Government questioned on the living wage

THE BISHOP of Worcester has questioned the Government on what steps they are taking to reduce the number of working people in poverty.

Bishop John Inge pointed to the Archbishop of York’s Living Wage Commission report, which found the economic recovery would have no effect on more than five million workers unless employers paid a living wage.

“It found furthermore that 6.7 million of the 13 million people in poverty in the UK are in a family where someone works - which, for the first time, is more than half the total,” he said at question time in the House of Lords.

He asked Treasury spokesman Lord Newby: “What steps the Government are taking to address this real concern?”

Lord Newby said the Government was “encouraging employers to pay the living wage where they can”.

“One of the key things about people in work on very low incomes is that a large proportion of them are working a small number of hours or a smaller number of hours than they would like,” he said.

“Economic growth will mean that more of those people are able to work longer hours, which will help deal with their household circumstances.