Starmer urged to stick to manifesto following reports lifting of youth minimum wage may be delayed – UK politics live

GMB union tells Labour delaying or halting equalisation to adult rates would be unacceptableGood morning. Figures out yesterday showed that the unemployment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was 14% in the three months to December, which is the highest rate for nearly 11 years excluding Covid. The Times this morning is running a story saying that, in response to concerns about youth unemployment, ministers are “considering ditching Labour’s manifesto pledge to pay young people the same national minimum wage as older workers”.The Times says:Business groups have told ministers they are “pricing a generation of young people out of the workplace” by increasing the cost of hiring workers through rises to the national living wage, wider employment rights and a tax raid on employers’ national insurance.In response, ministers are reviewing their promise to equalise national minimum wage rates by the time of the next election. A decision could come within months when the government sets its annual remit to the Low Pay Commission, which makes recommendations for rises in the national living wage.There’s an unsourced briefing or whatever in the Times this morning, that is not government policy. Government policy is as we set out in our manifesto.We’ve had many naysayers over the years about the national minimum wage.We’d be extremely unhappy about that. This is a manifesto promise. This has been our union’s policy for a long period of time.Younger workers are not less productive. Businesses hire on the basis of need. They don’t employ more young workers than they would older workers. Continue reading...